Chapter 57

57

Can't get through to Johnson," Elin says. "It's going straight to voice mail."

"He'll call back," Steed murmurs. "In the meantime, I got a list of everyone still here. The woman on reception has your kind of ruthless efficiency." He smiles, but it quickly lapses when she fails to return it. "That face, I don't like it. What's happened?"

Elin stops a few feet from the reception desk. "Before I called Johnson, I spoke to the force incident manager. Looks like we're on our own. MCIT is fully committed with a recent murder in Barnstaple and we've got several major incidents in Exeter."

He raises an eyebrow. "Several?"

"Yeah... a multiple fatal RTC and a fire in a shopping and residential development. People trapped. Sounds like all uniformed and community support officers are committed. Regional officers too. They're going to be delayed."

Steed runs a hand through his hair. He looks flustered, unusual for him. "So what are we meant to do now?"

"Lock down the retreat. Get everyone together. I need to find Farrah. I've called her, but she's going to voice mail too." She glances down at her phone. "I'll try again." But her momentum falters as she absorbs the message on the screen.

It takes a moment for her to understand what it is.

A message from Will.

There's been another tweet. Have sent screenshot.

With a shaky hand, Elin steels herself, clicks on the image below. Her stomach drops.

It hits her all at once. Disbelief. Fear. Disgust.

Raw emotion washing over her like breakers.

It's her again, but unlike the last photograph, this hasn't been scraped off a public site. It shows her at the beach in her wetsuit with her friend Astrid.

They're both laughing at the camera, but the happy day has been spoiled. In the worst kind of way.

No. No.

They've gone for her eyes again; individual lines violently crisscrossing one another in a digital scrawl.

"What is it?" Steed asks, looking concerned.

"A tweet."

He frowns. "About what's happening?"

Shaking her head, she explains about the one Will had shown her before. "This one, it's worse, somehow. The photo they've used... it was taken by my friend. Someone's gone trawling through her social media to find it." This feels almost as bad as what they'd done to the image itself. It's as if someone's taken her memory of that day and viciously trampled on it. A violation.

"Bloody trolls." Steed shakes his head. "I know it's no consolation, but another female officer I knew had a similar thing happen a few years ago. Not the photos, but someone kept posting this weird stuff to her house. She reported it, seemed to shut them up." He hesitates. "Probably not personal."

Elin minimizes the image, her skin crawling. "You're right. If it happens again, I will, but for now it'll have to wait. We need to find Farrah, set the wheels in motion for locking this place down." She's desperately trying to project a confidence she doesn't feel, but as she walks to reception, her mind keeps stumbling on the photograph—her happiness erased in one violent scrawl.

—

The member of staff on duty at reception looks up and greets them with a practiced smile. While Steed returns it, Elin doesn't, her eyes locked on the textile artwork on the wall behind her.

This time, as she looks, the small motifs of Reaper's Rock woven through the fabric no longer recede as they did on first sight—now they're all she can see. Tiny mirror images not only of the rocks but the stones in the cave.

"Is everything okay?" The receptionist looks at her, forehead creased in concern.

"Yes." It's an effort to tear her gaze away. "I was wondering if you knew where Farrah is?"

The woman gestures to the corner of the room. "She's over there."

Elin follows her gaze to see Farrah sitting on one of the sofas with a man. Heads bowed, they're talking intently. "Thank you," she murmurs.

As they make their way across the room, the sandwich Elin had hastily eaten a few moments ago feels like lead in her stomach, acid crawling up the back of her throat.

Swallowing it away, she stops beside Farrah, lightly touches her arm. "Sorry to interrupt, we—"

But before she's able to finish, Farrah cuts her off with a brittle smile, eyes widening slightly, in warning. "Let me introduce you both to Ronan Delaney."