Chapter 50

50

Elin hoists her backpack higher up her shoulder.

Fifteen minutes off the main track and it feels like they're going nowhere, the hodgepodge of trees and shrubs eerily similar from one yard to the next, only slivers of sky visible through the thick tree canopy.

The meandering path is narrowing, undergrowth encroaching, wild snarls of brambles edging onto the track. The woodland is growing denser—each tree jostling for space; tall sleeping giants of pine and oak, twitching with insects and animals.

"Everything seems darker down here, doesn't it?" Steed falls into step beside her. Already sweating, he pulls at his shirt, flapping it outward to try to fan himself.

"I know. It's like we're on a different island." This far in, it's richer in life—tree trunks choked with ivy, the boulders lining the track rippled with lichen and moss. Hardly any square inch of ground is free from vegetation, a thick blanket of oak leaves. Birds shift among the branches, but Elin can't see them—all she can hear is the twitch and rustle as they flit from tree to tree.

Reaching into his bag, Steed withdraws a protein bar.

"You ever stop eating?" Elin smiles. He's always munching on something, an ever-ready supply of food on his desk or in his bag.

Steed grins. "Only when I'm asleep." He thrusts his wrist in her direction. "Anyway, look, it's justified, nearly lunchtime." Tearing open the packet, he starts to shovel the bar into his mouth. No pleasure in the process; this is an athlete's fuel-focused efficiency. He mimes getting another one out.

She shakes her head. "Thanks, but I'll wait until we get back. I meant to get something, but I got caught up with the CCTV guy."

"Any luck?"

"Some kind of glitch in the system. Meant to wipe itself every twenty-four hours, but it's defaulted to every hour. It's going to take a few days to get someone out."

Steed nods. "I've been thinking," he says, mouth full. "Delaney staging the fall... surely to do that, he must have known, somehow, that Bea was here, near the pavilion, for it to work?"

"The water sports guy said she took a call when she was with him. It's possible they were in touch. We need to put in a phone data application request for the Legers..."

"Already done." Steed hesitates. "I'm wondering what else it'll pull up. The dynamics between them... It was odd, when I spoke to them after you left. Doesn't seem to be much love lost between them."

"Not exactly crying into their pillows?"

"It's not that, they were actually fairly shaken up when I told them Seth was dead. Tears, the full works; it was more the reaction to Seth's father owning the retreat. Maya and Caleb seemed pretty disparaging."

"Because they weren't told?" Elin tramps forward, having to take a large step over a snarl of brambles.

"That and I got the sense they're not particularly keen on the place. Mutterings of style over substance. Said something along the lines of it made sense Seth hadn't shouted about his father owning it, that it didn't exactly live up to all the hype online. All the charity and eco stuff."

"Pretty strange thing to say given what you'd told them about Seth."

"That's what I thought." Steed pushes at a branch in their path, only just catching it before it snaps back in Elin's face.

"They mention any conflict between Bea and Seth?"

"No."

"A fling gone wrong?"

"Possible." He pushes the last of the protein bar into his mouth. "I still can't get over the balls on him, doing something like this at his father's resort."

"But Jo said he'd been trying to step out of Ronan Delaney's shadow. I reckon the daddy complex is definitely an option."

Steed's expression is suddenly serious. "I understand it, in a way, if it is that. Parents... they can get to you like no one else. My father wasn't exactly winning any dad-of-the-year awards."

"The same." Elin kicks at the leaves on the ground with her foot.

"Shit, isn't it?" he says abruptly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "When the people that are meant to always have your back over anyone, don't."

She nods. "It is."

Steed meets her gaze and Elin smiles. It's comforting, in a weird way, to think that someone else understands a fact that's usually taboo: not all parents are good parents.

They walk on. A few minutes later, the tree cover thins—blocky chunks of blue sky now visible. "Think we're near some kind of clearing." Elin looks along the track as it meanders to the right.

She strides ahead to try to get a sense of where it leads, but a few yards on, her stomach drops as her right foot gives, finds nothing but air.