Chapter 52 Elin

52

Elin

Parque Nacional, Portugal, October 2021

The implication is disturbing: if Ned had invested that amount of effort to delete the footage, it puts Kier's disappearance in a whole new light. It also looks increasingly plausible that the person Luísa's colleague saw following Kier in town was Ned.

Slowly exhaling, Elin mulls over their encounter with Leah in the wood.

Could it be possible that Ned and Kier's relationship was what Leah had wanted to talk to them about before she got scared off?

If so, it gave Ned good reason to try to stop that conversation in its tracks.

Her gaze shifts back to the screen. The timing of this footage is also important.

In these clips, Kier's van wasn't yet parked up at the camp, but Ned's presence in the video makes it clear that Kier had got to know Ned before she moved her van into camp.

Unless there's another explanation , the thought nudging something loose in her mind, something Isaac had told her about Kier being fiercely private, never joining other groups when she was travelling.

Could she and Ned have been friends or something more beforehand?

Knowing her reticence to become part of a group, it would be the most obvious answer as to why she felt comfortable joining this one. While Penn had told Isaac that he didn't believe Kier knew anyone at camp, there's no way he'd have a perspective on everyone she'd met, especially while travelling.

Given more time and resources, there were routes Elin could take to find a possible link between Kier and Ned, but the easiest by far is social media.

Grabbing her laptop, Elin navigates to Kier's sole account: a work account for her illustration business. She'd taken a cursory glance when she was doing some research on Kier before but hadn't found much.

It had been inactive for several years, around the time she left the UK for Portugal, and it seemed purely business focused – videos of her working process, her illustrations in situ in ballrooms and bars. Marquees and elegantly manicured lawns.

It's possible she missed something, Elin thinks, scrolling again. Now she knows what she's looking for with Ned, it might be an easier task.

Methodically, she works her way through the posts, but it quickly becomes clear that there's no Ned and no one else from the camp in any of the photographs. No reference to them in any of the text below the images either.

The captions are purely professional, impersonal.

Illustrations to celebrate the wedding of Luke and Haleh.

A privilege to work with such a wonderful couple.

Next to nothing about Kier in them. None of the ‘meet the maker' posts, videos of her talking to camera, but then, as she scrolls lower, she realises that this isn't strictly true.

Glimpses of Kier in some – a profile among a group, a face in the background, at a distance. One post in particular draws her eye: a little more text below the image than the norm, the content itself more personal.

Thanks to Susie and Leon for an amazing day. A privilege to be a part of this special moment. One highlight among many has to be twins meeting twins … (scroll!)

Elin clicks past shots of the happy couple until she finds the image in question – a crowd on a lawn in front of a marquee. Big smiles. Cloudless sky. Confetti littering the grass.

This time, Kier is immediately obvious – in profile, stood opposite a pair of identical twins facing the camera in matching navy suits. Beside Kier is a man, presumably Penn, if her caption is anything to go by.

Twin, meet twins.

Elin looks, looks again, so close to the screen now that she can feel it's warmth.

Her heart lurches against her chest wall. Maybe she's mistaken? It's a profile, after all.

Kier's disappearance, it has nothing to do with her. Nothing to do with anyone close to her. Penn is Isaac's friend.

She steps away, as if the proximity to the screen might have been the trigger.

A weird hallucination. A projection.

But when she looks at the screen again, the image is resolute.

It's him. Her colleague. Confidant. Friend. He's there, in the photograph.

Steed is Penn. Isaac's friend. Kier's twin.

Impossible.