Chapter 10 Elin

10

Elin

Parque Nacional, Portugal, October 2021

Summiting the hill, for a moment their conversation is forgotten.

They can see two of the Airstreams now, the metal surfaces catching the light, throwing it back to them. The first is clearly visible, the second offset and almost out of sight about a hundred feet away. The third she can't see at all. It must be set back further again, nestled deep between the trees.

‘Which one's ours?'

‘This one.' Isaac points at the first. ‘It's got the best view, right down the valley.'

He's right, she thinks, taking it in; huge gulps of landscape, the hillside dipping to the valley floor before steeply rising to boulder-strewn mountains on the opposite side. Each peak conceals another, concertinaing into the distance until they blur, autumn rusts bleeding into blackened pockets from the forest fires. Interspersed are lush greens, swaths of pine and oak. Beyond, the river cuts a line through it all, fading to a silvery ribbon in the distance .

Elin turns back, studying their Airstream, the small decking area in front, the fire pit. The setup is shouting cosy, but the tall tangle of trees behind says anything but. Her gaze drifts to the other Airstream, the dark voids of the windows. Her eyes roam across it, unsettled. When she'd looked at the photos online, the Airstreams didn't seem so close to one another. ‘Anyone staying in the others?'

‘Not until next weekend,' he says, examining the wood stack below the fire pit. ‘Even if anyone was, I don't think we'd see much of them. There's a path at the back, so they don't have to pass by.'

Elin nods. People wouldn't come here for a communal thing. They want seclusion and, if not total privacy, then the illusion of it.

Reaching for her phone, she takes a photo. She tips the screen towards her and examines it, satisfied. The effect she wanted: Airstream dwarfed not just by the trees, but the sheer face of the peak behind. It captures the essence of the park, the scale and drama.

‘Sending a photo?' Isaac's watching as she types.

She nods. ‘To my boss, Anna, and Steed.'

‘Steed – he's the guy you worked with on the last case?'

‘Yeah, we've got close the past few months.'

‘Since the breakup?' Isaac raises an eyebrow.

Heat creeps into her cheeks. ‘Nothing like that. He's been there when it got tough. He messaged a few days after I'd moved out of Will's flat, must have known from how I replied that I was feeling shitty. Hour or so later, he turned up with a bag of junk food. We spent the evening eating, watching crappy TV.'

‘The right kind of mate to have.'

‘He is.' Elin glances down at her phone. Steed's already replied. Enough, spammer. My current view: beer on the table, a screen showing rugby behind, snail trails of rain crawling down the window on the left.

Isaac's found the lockbox attached to the metal chassis at the rear of the Airstream, is already keying in the code. ‘Ready?'

‘Yeah. I need a drink, and to get these boots off.' Stepping into the Airstream behind him, she whistles between her teeth. ‘Okay … the boy did good.'

‘Told you.' Isaac grins.

It's bigger than she expected, zoned out to make the most of the small space: kitchen area in front, and on the right, a snug. A wooden countertop stretches the length of the wall on the left towards the bunk beds and bathroom.

Neutrals everywhere; off-white walls; a wooden floor; soft furnishings in olive, ochre, burnished yellows. Framed vistas of the park dot the walls. Waterfalls. The Roman Road. An aerial shot of one of the granite villages.

‘It's got everything.' Isaac's poking around, opening cupboards and doors. ‘Coffeemaker, fridge, little library …' He picks up the map wedged in at the front, turns it over in his hands. ‘That was the other thing I meant to tell you – another anomaly Penn picked up on. You know I mentioned that Kier was an illustrator?'

Elin nods.

‘Her day job is commissions, for wedding stationery, that kind of thing, but Penn said that she paints these maps, her way of sharing the places she's been.'

‘Landmarks?'

Isaac shakes his head. ‘More … personal than that. Places that really mattered, meant something to her. Everywhere she goes, she sends him one, but Penn never got one from here. He hasn't had one for months.'

‘Did he mention it to the police?'

‘Yeah, but it sounds like they didn't make much of it.' He looks at her. ‘But he's certain it means something, the fact she hasn't sent one. It's not like her.'

Elin mulls it over, making a mental note. Anomalies like that are important. People are generally creatures of habit. Someone deviates from that habit, there's often good reason.

‘Snack while we talk?' Isaac's fiddling with the hamper on the counter .

‘There's food already in?'

‘Yeah. I prebooked. Saves us the hassle. Loads of local stuff. Cornbread, cheese.' Holding up a bottle of wine, he reads the label. ‘Vinho Verde.' He opens the fridge. ‘We've got trout in here. Local beef. Potatoes.' Reaching back into the hamper, he smiles. ‘And the not-so-local. Popcorn. We can do some if you want, over the fire pit. Keep us going.'

Elin smiles. Popcorn was their thing, as kids. With their little brother, Sam. Popcorn and movie night every Friday.

By the time she unpacks and changes, Isaac's already started up the fire pit.

Popping sounds out into the silence like little shots being fired, the smell – honeyed, caramel – already permeating the air.

A few minutes later, the popping becomes intermittent before stopping completely. Taking the pan off the fire pit, Isaac pours the popcorn into a bowl, thrusts it towards her together with a glass of wine.

Leaning back in her chair, Elin grabs a fistful and pushes some into her mouth. The sky is fading, blues tipping to pinks, bruising shadows glancing across the peaks opposite. Lights from the village far below are flickering on, one by one.

Isaac glances at her. ‘Beautiful, isn't it?'

‘It is, but when you see it like this, en masse, I don't know …' She's never been anywhere quite like it. So wild, so completely devoid of human life. Yesterday, they'd walked for miles without seeing another soul. There's freedom in that, but also a kind of fear. ‘Not sure I could do it alone.' Shaking her head, she feels a sudden chill. ‘Any idea why Kier chose here?'

‘That's the big mystery. Penn says the decision to travel to Portugal came out of the blue. She never mentioned it before.' He frowns. ‘I can't wrap my head around it. Lovely, but—'

Elin knows what's behind that kind of rumination – a deeper feeling, something that sprang from having thought it through over and over. ‘You're invested, aren't you?'

He shrugs .

They sit in silence for a minute. ‘I get Penn's your mate,' she says finally, ‘and you want to help, but I thought you'd have had your fair share of trauma.' She runs it all through in her mind: their mother's death a few years before; their younger brother, over a decade ago; Isaac's girlfriend, Laure, earlier this year. She'd have thought that, for Isaac, someone else's load would be too much to bear.

‘Because of him,' Isaac says simply. ‘He's the first person in I don't know how long who gets it.'

‘Gets it?'

‘What it's like, to lose someone. With him' – Isaac rubs his eyes – ‘it's like finally someone speaks the same language. You must feel it sometimes, when people haven't …'

Grieved , she finishes in her head. Yes, she often wonders what she has in common with people when they bang on about stuff that seems irrelevant when you've looked death in the eye. When they stress over money and careers or what someone said about them, and all you can think is: once you've seen behind the curtain, at the end, only a few things remain, and all that stuff – superficial stuff – falls away, forgotten.

‘I remember this guy at work getting pissed because I was late getting back to him on something.' Isaac shakes his head. ‘For most people, if it isn't happening to them, they don't want to know.' He glances out. ‘Penn did. And what gets me, is that even with losing Mum and Sam, Laure, it was horrible, but there was a finality to them. With Kier, the not knowing, that limbo, it must be awful …'

Elin nods, about to reply, but instead she sucks in a sudden breath, her words interrupted by the shuffle and scrape of footsteps behind them.