CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The moon and stars danced on the swaying waters of Scariswater. The festival had packed up and left, so, apart from the celestial bodies, they were alone on the bluff.
‘Any minute now.’
‘But this isn’t right. There’s weeks before they’re due.’ Poppy held the astronomy book right up to her face, squinting to read the tiny print by moonlight. ‘It says here that the Perseid meteor shower reaches its peak on the thirteenth.’
‘Exactly. It reaches its peak. Not everything is about the big climax, Poppy. And how about showing a little respect to your elders and betters? Let alone the dead.’
Poppy turned to Beth. ‘But you’re not dead, are you? You’re standing right there.’
Beth took a swig of Jack Daniel’s and shuddered. ‘There’s no denying that the afterlife bears an uncanny resemblance to the before life.’
Poppy turned back to her book and began trying to read it again. ‘It says—’
‘—Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ Beth grabbed the book and chucked it over the bluff.
‘Hey! Now I won’t know where to look!’
‘Sure you will. You just need to trust your gut.’
‘My gut gets me into trouble.’ Poppy sighed and stared out into the starry sky.
Something caught her eye – faint movement. A sudden breeze set the fir trees whispering like an excited audience awaiting the beginning of the show.
‘This is it!’ Poppy said. She stared at the vast purple night.
‘Twinkle twinkle, little star. How I wonder where you are...’ Beth whispered.
‘I’m here, my darling.’
Poppy glanced to her right.
A more beautiful version of herself stepped closer. ‘Maya?’
She felt the other girl’s hand slide up her back.
‘I’m right here,’ Maya whispered. ‘I’ve always been here.’
Before Poppy knew what was happening, she was falling over the edge of the bluff and tumbling down...down...down...
Poppy jolted awake, the sound of splashing water echoing in her ears. She tried scrambling to her feet before realising that she was in a tent and standing really wasn’t an option. She felt for her torch and flicked it on. The light banished the pictures from her dream, but she could still hear water splashing. No, it was OK. It was just rain beating against the nylon tent.
Her face was cold with sweat and tears and she couldn’t breathe. She put her hand to her throat. There was something missing. The apache’s tear – it was gone.
She grabbed the torch and shone it at her sleeping bag until she found it nestled in a crease. Shakily, she retied the leather lace around her neck and held the black stone to her throat.
Eventually, the images from the dream floated away to the edges of her mind. Poppy rubbed the smooth stone between her fingers, and found herself feeling strangely glad she had it.
She sighed and shook her head. What was she doing? It was a dream, her subconscious playing games with her! Next she’d be sleeping in a circle of salt like Kane.
Kane.
The guy could have murdered two girls, and he was out there. Poppy groaned and flopped back onto the ground mat as her mind began churning through every detail of everything he’d said, trying to think of something she might have missed, something that would give him away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Sound exploded in his ear.
‘What the...?’ Michael felt around until he found his mobile lying next to him on the pillow. He’d left it there in case Poppy called.
He grabbed the phone and bolted upright. ‘Yeah?’
‘Is that Michael Quinn?’ a voice asked. Deep, local. And definitely not Poppy.
He swallowed the bitter taste at the back of his throat. ‘Yeah, who’s that?’
‘This is Detective Constable Johnson, Cumbria police. You’re a registered participant at the John Barleycorn Festival, is that right?’
Michael shoved his knuckles into his eye. ‘No... I mean, yeah. Yeah, I am.’
‘We’re asking all participants to gather in the main marquee at eight a.m.’
‘What? Why?’
‘It’ll be explained when you get here.’
‘But it’s my girlfriend’s birthday today. I’m supposed to be helping with her party.’
‘Then I suggest you get here as soon as you can, so you can be interviewed and get back to your party preparations.’
The line fell dead.
Jesus. Poppy had been right: that girl Beth had been murdered.
Michael ran a hand through his hair and squeezed his eyes shut against the pain in his forehead. Going back to the festival meant seeing her. He knew it was wrong to have buggered off like that yesterday, but she had kind of dumped it on him. What did she expect him to do?
She was in love with him. He flopped back onto the pillow and stared at the ceiling. Poppy was in love
with him
.
He pulled the duvet over his head and slipped down into the warm cocoon. A memory formed in his head. He was running up a sand dune under a blue sky. The breeze coming off the estuary was almost tropical and did nothing to alleviate the heat beating down out of the clear blue sky. Poppy was ahead, her bare feet kicking up sand as she ran between the clumps of shore grasses. The rays of the sun caught in her hair and for a moment she looked as though she was trailing red and gold flames behind her, like she was some sort of magical fire creature. Michael doubled his efforts, but she was fast and it was only when she slipped and tumbled down a particularly steep dune that he caught up with her. She tried to get away from him, but he grabbed her wrists and wrestled her to the sand.
He kneeled over her as she lay on her back, laughing so hard that she couldn’t speak.
‘You stole my ice cream!’ he said, unable to keep the grin from his face.
She wriggled, trying to get away. One of the straps of her vest top slipped off her shoulder, revealing an unexpectedly lacy bra. ‘I think it’s back there if you still want it,’ she giggled.
But he didn’t care about the ice cream; in that moment there was only one thing that he wanted – her.
He wanted to trail his fingers down her long pale neck, to feel the curves that had softened her body into something new and exciting. And God, he wanted to kiss her. She must have seen it in his eyes that he wanted to kiss her.
He hadn’t, though. He’d waited because she was his best friend and he didn’t want to screw things up. Then the accident happened and just when he’d been about to say something she’d pulled away so completely that he’d thought it was her way of telling him it was never going to happen. So he’d dated other people, tried to ignore the ache in his chest any time they were close. And now he had a girlfriend who he liked. He even thought that he might be starting to love her. He’d accepted that Poppy was never going to be anything more than his friend. He’d moved on...hadn’t he?
And now this.
Michael glanced at his watch and groaned. Seven-ten. He felt dizzy at the thought of seeing her. What did that mean? Had he just kidded himself that he was over her?
There must be eight hundred people registered at the festival. Maybe he could sneak in at the back without seeing her. But he knew that wasn’t going to happen. Life was crueller than that.
After having to prove who he was to three different policemen, Michael found a place to park on the opposite side of the camp to where Poppy’s tent was. It was true, he was being a wimp, but he just couldn’t face her until he’d thought of something to say that wouldn’t come out like a pathetic rant.
With his head down, he traipsed across the boggy field, glad he hadn’t spent the night in a leaky tent. Hundreds of sleepy campers were stumbling their way towards the main marquee, like ants finding their way home after an attack by a stampeding anteater. The market stalls were empty. Metal poles were hanging down at odd angles, and the tarpaulins were billowed with puddles of water. The storm must have been pretty bad round here. No wonder everyone looked comatose.
The marquee hadn’t escaped the ravages of the weather either. The whole of the front panel of canvas had come down, so that he could see the gathering crowd inside.
‘Michael! Michael – here!’ he heard someone call.
He turned to see Meg waving from behind a group of people. She dodged around them and ran to catch up with him. She hugged him and through her brown curls he spotted Poppy trailing behind with Jonathan. She folded her arms and kept her eyes fixed on the ground.
Michael swallowed back the sick feeling and pulled away from Meg. ‘Congratulations on your hand-thing,’ he said.
‘It’s a shame you missed it!’
‘Sorry about that. I had to go.’
‘So they called you back too?’ Jonathan said, clapping a hand on his back. ‘Wonder what’s going on.’
‘I can only think they’ve figured out Poppy was right – about Beth,’ Michael replied.
Poppy didn’t look up. She just tilted her head forward so that her hair hid her eyes.
He caught Meg glancing between them. ‘Riiiight,’ she said. ‘Maybe we should get inside.’
A desk had been set up on the makeshift stage and there were at least thirty uniformed police standing around the marquee’s edge. Michael didn’t think he’d ever seen so many in one place before – there wasn’t much call for riot control in Windermere, although things could get a bit heated on a Saturday night when the Kings Arms emptied out.
The air smelled of heated damp earth and wet sheep – probably all those woolly jumpers this crowd liked to wear. Poppy kept her distance, staying on the other side of Jonathan. She hadn’t even bloody acknowledged him. This was excruciating!
The thump of a microphone being tapped echoed over the mumbled chatter of the crowd.
‘This thing working?’ a gruff voice asked.
‘Yes!’ the crowd called back.
A big guy in a brown suit lumbered onto the stage. ‘Good mornin’ everyone. I’m Detective Chief Inspector Hadley. Thanks for your cooperation. I’m sorry to report that we are now calling the death of the young lass found in the lake
suspicious
. We’ll be asking each of you to make a statement as to your whereabouts on Thursday night, and asking you whether you heard or saw anything that might shed light on this tragedy. Officers are stationed at the entrance of the marquee and they’ll be giving you a time at which you are asked to come back here and give your statement. We’ve got a lot of folk to get through, so please be on time. We’re asking you not to leave the site until you’ve given your statement. I’m sure that all of you are just as anxious as we are to get answers for the lass’s parents.’
The detective handed the mike to one of the uniformed officers and climbed down off the stage.
So Poppy had been right. He leaned forward so he could catch a glimpse of her. She was still staring at the muddy, trampled grass, obviously determined not to look at him.
‘Right, well, we’d better go and get our appointments sorted out,’ Meg said.
Michael nodded and followed them to the already hideously long queue.
‘Do you want to come back for some breakfast?’ Meg asked him, when they’d each been issued a reference number and an appointment card.
Poppy’s gaze was fixed on the card she’d been given. She turned it over and over in her fingers like she was trying to hypnotise herself. He touched her elbow and she jerked away from him.
‘What?’ she asked, accusingly.
Michael took a deep breath. ‘Can we talk?’
‘Let’s go and get breakfast started!’ Meg said breezily. She dragged a protesting Jonathan in the direction of the tipi, leaving Michael and Poppy in a lonely bubble, within the milling crowds.
‘I don’t think there’s anything to talk about,’ Poppy muttered.
Nothing to talk about.
Was she kidding?
‘So that little bombshell you landed on me yesterday, that’s the end of our friendship, is it?’
She shrugged.
He couldn’t believe her. ‘Look, I’m sorry I left yesterday. But you caught me off guard.’
‘I’m sorry it horrified you.’
‘It didn’t horrify me. I just—’ Frustration threatened to choke the words before he could get them out. ‘God, you keep pushing me away and then you’re telling me you’re in love with me. What was I supposed to do?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
Michael ran a hand through his hair. God, this was confusing. He loved her, he knew that, he’d always known that, but he was in love with Julia too, wasn’t he?
‘Don’t be. I don’t want you to be sorry. I really don’t want you to be sorry.’
He’d just reached out to take her hand when he spotted Dealer Boy heading in their direction. He snatched his hand back.
Tariq stopped almost on top of her. ‘Hey, can we talk?’ he asked, quietly.
Michael took a deep breath. Seriously? She told him that she was in love with him yesterday and she was still seeing this guy?
‘Not now,’ Poppy said.
Tariq wasn’t taking no for an answer. ‘Please, Poppy.’
She shook her head, frowning with impatience. ‘Look, I’m sorry about last night. I’ll find you later, all right?’
Tariq nodded, glared at Michael and stormed away.
Last night? Michael’s whole body tensed. ‘What happened last night?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Michael was looking at her like she’d cheated on him. Then he bit his lip and glanced away. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like... I just meant, are you OK?’
She nodded. How could she begin to explain? ‘It was nothing – I—’
‘—Poppy!’
She turned to see Mum a few feet away.
Mum’s head cocked to one side. ‘The police want to see you.’
Poppy turned the appointment card over in her fingers and looked at the time written on it. ‘But my appointment’s not until ten-fifteen.’
‘They’re at the tipi. They want to see you now.’
‘You’d better go.’ Michael touched her elbow so quickly she thought she might have imagined it. ‘I’ve got my appointment anyway. I’ll find you when I’m done.’
‘Right.’
She watched him walk away, more confused than ever.
Mum slipped her arm around Poppy. ‘Everything OK?’
‘You remember DS Grant, Poppy,’ Mum pulled her down onto one of the big red fluffy cushions. Poppy knew she’d done nothing wrong – apart from a bit of breaking and entering – but she couldn’t help feeling guilty at the sight of the policeman.
‘Yeah, I remember him,’ she said. ‘What’s going on?’
His podgy face remained neutral. In fact he looked a bit like a jeans-wearing Buddha, sat cross-legged on one of Mum’s cushions. ‘Coroner thinks someone might have hit Beth over the head before helping her into the lake. And there are some other things.’
‘What other things?’
‘I’m not at liberty to tell you. But I hear you’ve been pursuing your own investigation.’
‘What’s he talking about?’ Mum asked.
Poppy picked at a nail. ‘I might have asked a few questions. Someone had to. You lot were busy with other more important cases, remember?’
Mum buried her face in her hands. ‘Poppy! You could have got yourself into trouble.’
‘I didn’t. I was careful!’
‘Anyway, is there anything you found out that we should know?’ DS Grant asked.
‘Oh, so you’re finally willing to listen to me now?’
‘Willing and eager.’ DS Grant blew out his cheeks, making him look a little bit like the pet hamster she’d had when she was in junior school. ‘The coroner thinks there might be something ritualistic about the killing. Now you didn’t hear that from me and so help me, if I hear it from anyone else I’ll know it came from you and I’ll have you for interfering with a police investigation. Are we clear?’
She nodded. ‘What do you mean, ritualistic?’
‘I can’t go into details. But what you said the other day about the scarf, turns out the coroner agrees. There’s something called the threefold death that Pagans used when they killed ritual sacrifices. The coroner thinks the murderer used it to...’ He cleared his throat. ‘Also, there was a drug in her system that could have been recreational, but could have been used to sedate her. Can you tell us anything?’
Shit! Drugs? Was that why Tariq had been so keen for her to stop asking questions about Beth? Because he’d sold her something?
‘Poppy? Can you tell us anything at all?’
She ran a hand through her hair. ‘Beth was here looking for Maya Flynn. She was in love with her, right? But Maya was going out with Kane, the Tarot card reader. So I went to see him, but he swears he hasn’t seen Maya since the festival last year. And then Michael found Maya listed on a missing persons website and I remembered what Beth said that night on the bluff. I look a bit like Maya, right? And when she saw me she said that she thought she was seeing Maya’s ghost. And—’ Poppy swallowed. This was where she was going out on a limb. ‘—It hit me that she was being literal. She thought that she wasn’t going to find Maya because Maya’s dead!’
‘
Whoa!
’ DS Grant said, holding up a hand. ‘What are you telling me?’
‘It’s not one murder.’ She stared at the detective, willing him to believe her. ‘It’s two. No one’s seen Maya Flynn since last year. Not alive, anyway. Kane said that she was going after her father’s money. And her father was someone here. Y’see, she was conceived at this festival. At first I thought it was...’
She was about to say ‘Bob’ when she saw that Mum was staring at her open-mouthed.
‘Who?’ the detective prompted.
‘Err – just one of the old guys who comes to the festival, but then I realised that it wasn’t him. It had to be someone else, and then everything went wrong...and I mucked things up...’
‘What went wrong?’ DS Grant asked.
She turned to Mum, desperate now to tell her. ‘I think I’ve ruined things with Michael, Mum. I said – I told him I—’ A tear trickled down her cheek.
‘What? Who’s Michael?’ the policeman asked.
Mum waved him away and squeezed Poppy’s hand. ‘We’ll talk about it later, OK?’
She nodded, sniffed back the tears and took a deep breath.
‘Michael is Poppy’s best friend from home, Sergeant,’ Mum said, before he could ask again. ‘It’s got nothing to do with your case.’
‘Right. OK. So, Poppy, am I getting this right? You think that Beth came here looking for Maya, but actually found out that she was murdered by someone, and that person realised that she knew, and murdered her too?’
‘Yeah. I think so.’
‘And this Kane guy...?’
Poppy hesitated. Was she sure? She had no real proof. But she’d been keeping so many secrets for so long that she just wanted to get it all out of her. It was up to the police to figure out if she was right or not. ‘I can’t prove it, but how could he know for sure if he didn’t do it?’
‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this?’
‘I did try! Remember?’
The detective nodded and avoided her gaze. ‘Right then, I’m going to send for the boss and then I want you to go through all of that again,
slowly
. And then I need you to promise me that you won’t ask anyone any more questions.’
As soon as the detective left, Mum turned to her.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
But before Poppy could answer, the flap opened, letting in a flash of light, and Michael popped his head in. ‘How did it go?’
Mum smiled sadly. ‘Should I leave you two to talk?’
Poppy could do no more than shrug.
Mum got to her feet and waved him in. ‘Come in, Michael, before the police get back.’
‘They’re coming back?’
‘Don’t act like you weren’t listening out there,’ Poppy said.
Michael smiled. ‘I would have, but I had to go and be interviewed.’ He slumped down onto the ground mat and waited for Mum to leave.
Poppy wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees.
‘I’m sorry I left like that yesterday,’ Michael said.
‘No, I’m sorry.’
‘Are you?’ The shaft of light from the tipi’s oculus cut across his face, making his eyes appear unnaturally blue. They stared steadily back at her, refusing to look away.
‘I’m sorry it upset you.’ He’d never know how sorry. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve wrecked things.’
‘Why did you wait until I was seeing someone? You must have known that—’
‘—Must have known what? That it was a monumentally bad idea? Yeah, I’ve got that now.’ Poppy focused her eyes on a clump of grass someone had trodden in. She wasn’t going to cry. She
refused
to cry.
‘
No!
You must have known that
I liked you
. That I waited...
Years,
and you never showed any interest in being anything more than friends. You were always going on about the guy from the newsagents, or the guy from the garage. Meanwhile I couldn’t get past first base with a girl because they all assumed I was going out with you!’
What? She must have misheard... Her head snapped up. Michael stared back at her. His face was tight, as if every muscle was stretched to breaking point but his gaze was soft, like he was willing her to believe him.
‘But – Julia?’
‘Julia only went out with me because I got drunk and moaned to her about you treating me like your annoying younger brother!’
‘But you’re older than me.’
‘I know! A year and two fucking months older!’ Michael’s face broke into a smile. ‘Do you really think that you could wind me up like this if I didn’t care about you?’
Poppy shook her head. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. All this time he’d wanted her too?
A bleeping noise sent Michael searching his pockets for his phone. He looked at the screen and frowned.
‘Who is it?’ she asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.
Michael raised his gaze to meet hers. ‘I’m supposed to be helping set up the party.’
‘Right.’ She bit her lip and nodded. ‘Julia.’
‘What do you expect me to do? Tell her I can’t go to her eighteenth because I’m here having a heart-to-heart with you?’
‘Of course not.’
‘You think I should dump her on her birthday? When this could be a three-minute wonder?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You. You spend a year making me feel like you don’t want me near you, and then you say you love me. How do I know that this is what you really feel? Are you even sure yourself? I mean, God, Poppy, you dumped this on me and then spent the night with that guy.’
‘I didn’t spend the night with him!’
‘OK. But you do know what he is, what he does?’
‘How do you know...?’
He swallowed and kneaded his hands. ‘I saw him the other day – looked like he was meeting his supplier.’
‘And you didn’t think to tell me?’
‘I didn’t want you to think I was trying to break you up. And then you landed your bombshell and it didn’t really seem like the right time.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘Look, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can do this right now.’ He got to his feet and pushed open the flap of the tipi.
‘Are you leaving again?’
‘I just need some space. And so do you. I’ll give you a ring next week some time.’
Next week? She’d never gone a week without talking to him since they started secondary school. What was she supposed to do? It was the summer holidays. And he had her dog!
‘What about Dawkins?’
‘I’ll get Mum to drop him round.’ With that he slipped through the flap and was gone.