All That Is Lost Between Us (15 page)

Covert attention, however, is another story. She feels eyes on her wherever she goes, and her ears keep straining, certain she can make out whispers. Although perhaps she is just imagining it – there are so many trees around the school that the place is surrounded by rustling murmurs.

When she has finished her lunch, she makes her way up to the sports centre at the very top of the school grounds, watching the sky darkening all the time. She finds a quiet corner in the change rooms and keeps her back to the others as they begin to trickle in. People talk softly, but no one comes across to her. She's relieved, but sad all the same – it seems she has successfully cut herself off.

When she's ready she heads outside. She hears a voice hiss, ‘Georgia,' and realises it's Danny. This is one of the few lessons in which he's not cosseted by his pack of friends, but she ignores him and goes to stand at the far end of the line. The teacher, Mrs Sawyer, leads them through a series of warm-ups and then beckons Georgia towards the front, knowing she's one of the fastest. They are to run a circuit through the woodland behind the school, a route Georgia has taken many times, and one that will form part of tomorrow's race. Georgia has won various cross-country medals for the school team over the past few years, and there aren't many in the group who can match her time. She's competing against herself.

Each student will start thirty seconds apart. As Mrs Sawyer presses her stopwatch, Georgia feels the first light drops of rain on her face. She runs out into a surprisingly bitter breeze, which seems to have sprung up from nowhere. She makes an effort to set a good pace in the first five minutes, knowing that will warm her up, and once she is out on the woodland track she slows to a steadier speed, letting her breathing calm. Every fifty metres is a red flag telling the students how far they have run, and she begins to count them as she goes by.

In her peripheral vision she sees a flash of light. She wheels around, searching beyond the tree line to try to see what caused it. On either side of her, the thick foliage of the wood is still and impenetrable. She stops, hands on her hips, breathing hard, blinking to try to clear the raindrops from her vision.
It was nothing
, she tells herself, as she begins to run again.
A trick of light.
But now she remembers those lights heading for her in the dark, and in this moment it is as though those angry globes had been pointed at her and her alone. Why hadn't the car slowed? Did someone want to hurt them? To hurt Sophia? To hurt her? Was there someone out there who is angry enough to wish her harm?

She fears she knows the answer to that.

And, as she thinks about it, suddenly everything is wrong. She becomes convinced she is being watched. Her breathing is so loud in her ears that she struggles to hear anything else, but without warning her focused concentration gives way to a frantic effort to go faster and faster in order to get back to school. She speeds up, her breath growing ragged while the rain comes faster and faster, until her hair is soaked and water begins to drip off the end of her nose. She catches drops in her mouth that taste sweet, and only when they turn salty does she realise she is crying. Any remaining rhythm to her running is lost, but she doesn't stop. She strains for the next flag and the next, and counts another five as a stitch begins in her side, its sharp pain a dagger beneath her ribs. She doesn't see a loose tree root along the path and her foot hooks under it. She is sent sprawling, her hands taking the brunt of her weight as she lands on all fours. Her elbow immediately begins to throb. She crawls to the edge of the path, her tears increasing, and tries to summon the energy to get to her feet, but she can't. Exhaustion buckles her knees and she rolls onto her back, feeling the mud damp against her neck, gazing up at the tree branches which seem to lean in and leer down at her.

It is Lilian Chang who finds her, another strong cross-country runner who has been on teams with Georgia in school competitions. They are not in the same group of friends, but Lily is kind. Immediately, she stops and kneels next to her. ‘Oh, Georgia,' she says. ‘What can I do? Do you want me to help you get back?'

Georgia shakes her head. ‘You go on, I'll get up in a minute.' When Lily hesitates she adds, ‘I promise.' She lifts a hand to her face to wipe her eyes and tries to smile, only afterwards realising how muddy her fingers are.

‘Okay, then, I'll get Mrs Sawyer,' Lily says, and jogs away before Georgia can object, turning back again and again, as Georgia gives her a feeble wave. She sits there sniffing, trying to encourage herself back up but still not feeling any strength in her legs. More footsteps pound along the path and slow at the sight of her. When Georgia sees who it is she turns away, but then his arm is around her and Danny's voice is next to her ear. ‘Come on, Georgia. It's all right.'

He doesn't try to pull her up, he just sits in the dirt next to her, and holds her as he did the night before. This makes her cry again, bringing back memories of her best friend on the road with her shattered leg, her face slack. Georgia had been terrified, convinced that Sophia was dead until Danny had checked her pulse.

She closes her eyes, and tries to pretend that it is Leo here, holding her like this. She imagines his lips against her forehead, his arms pulling her towards him, grounding her, urging her back to herself, encouraging her mind to settle. But the image feels too manipulated – she can't even pretend there is a future for them. Now he is only a ghost, and if she reaches for him she will find her hands catching at the air. Meanwhile, here is Danny, doing his best, oblivious to his role as the understudy in this scene.

They sit, letting the rain soak them, with Georgia unaware of the other runners coming by and Danny waving them on, until Lily returns, jogging ahead of Mrs Sawyer. Together, Danny and the teacher hoist Georgia between them and help her walk the last few hundred metres towards the school. No one speaks, and Georgia only glances back when they have made it into the clearing. She squints at the dark shapes between the trees, trying to see if anyone is lurking, but there are so many places to hide that it's impossible to tell.

C
allum is having trouble slowing to Maddie's listless pace as they head for the car park. There is no rush, and yet he is beginning to think they should hurry through this day. Everywhere he turns he feels threatened, as though a disaster he can't discern is closing in on them.

‘Get Maddie away from here,' Liam had whispered to Callum before he headed back into Sophia's room. ‘I'll phone you later.'

‘What are you thinking?'

‘That we need to find out who that woman is as fast as possible, and take a look at her car.'

Callum is trying to fill in the gaps left by the grainy photograph, racking his brains for anywhere he might have seen the woman before. It isn't Danielle – how could it be, and why would it be? – and yet his unease at this strange development has brought her words back to mind.

This isn't over yet.

He cannot go on like this, he needs to clear the air. As they walk, he whips out his phone and texts her.
Can we talk? Please?

At the car, he opens the passenger door for Maddie, then goes around to his side. Maddie starts to speak as soon as he climbs in.

‘Dad thinks that woman is the one who hit Sophia, doesn't he?'

‘I'm not sure.' Callum reaches for his belt. ‘There could be an innocent explanation – but I'm struggling to make sense of it. If it was an accident and she drove away, she might be regretting it. I suppose she might want to know if Sophia is all right.'

‘This is giving me the creeps.'

Callum starts the ignition and then turns to her. Fear casts a pale shadow over her expression. ‘You didn't recognise her at all?'

Maddie shakes her head, but he senses there's something more she wants to say. He waits, leaving her the opening, but she doesn't fill it. They stare at one another, until Callum decides he must have misread her, and gives in. ‘It's okay, Maddie. Whoever she was, she's gone now – and even if she did try to come back, the hospital security are on high alert. She won't get past the front entrance.'

Maddie looks away, but not before Callum has seen her bite her lip. ‘Your mum and dad will protect Sophia,' he reassures her. ‘You come and rest up with us for a while.'

She doesn't reply, but as soon as they begin to move she takes out her phone. Callum is used to this – Georgia does the exact same thing – but nevertheless he finds it irritating. Mind you, it means he doesn't have to struggle for conversation. He loves his daughter and his nieces, but tete-a-tetes with teenage girls are not easy. He knows he's guilty of avoiding difficult topics with Georgia – not that she's even had a serious boyfriend yet, as far as he's aware. It might be better if he's kept in the dark on that score: when he thinks of any bloke putting their sweaty palms on his beautiful daughter, he feels unsteady.

Danielle is someone's child too.
Worse, he has met her father through mutual friends – John Rawlins, congenial, with a moustache thick enough to need combing. The kind of man who would blank you rather than fight you if he discovered your lechery with his daughter.

Amid the stress of the day, the events of the previous night keep replaying in bursts of horror. How could he have done such a thing? He has not only betrayed Anya – what about his children, his niece here, his brother? None of them will look at him the same way if they discover what he's done. Which is understandable, given that he's having trouble meeting his own eyes in the mirror.

Whenever he retraces the steps that pulled him into this predicament with Danielle, he always ends up thinking about Mike McCallister. It had been about a month after Hugh's accident when the man turned up at the rescue unit for the first time. When Callum saw him, he had come forward with a smile to shake his hand. ‘Mike, how are you? How's Hugh?' But to his surprise, Mike had ignored his outstretched palm. ‘I need to talk to you,' he had said urgently.

‘Okay,' Callum replied uncertainly, caught off-guard. ‘Come into the office.'

As soon as they were inside, Mike had laid out a map of the area as though Callum had never seen such a thing, even though the walls surrounding them were filled with detailed ordnance survey prints. On McCallister's map uneven rings had been scrawled around the area Hugh had fallen. ‘I think someone could have got to Hugh this way,' Mike had said to Callum. ‘I'm surprised you didn't know that route down.' He had looked Mike straight in the eye. ‘I thought you were an expert on the area. If we'd reached him sooner, with the right first aid his injuries might not have been so long-lasting.'

He had waited impassively for a response, his glasses perched on his nose as though he were merely asking for an explanation of the geography of the area and not – if Callum was reading this correctly – implying that there was negligence on Callum's part resulting in the ongoing trauma of a young boy.

‘I'm so sorry, Mike,' he had said, collecting up the map himself, and guiding Mike to the door. ‘We did everything we could at the time.'

‘That's the thing,' Mike had replied, as Callum showed him out, ‘in hindsight I'm not sure you did.'

Callum had tried to dismiss him as a guilt-stricken father. He had heard that Hugh was still not walking, and faced months of rehabilitation. Of course Mike was upset. However, Callum couldn't help but get the maps out himself and take another look. There
was
a possible way down to the place Hugh had fallen, and Callum had found himself walking up there the following week and taking that route. It took fifteen minutes to locate the spot after a steep scramble. Could he have tried to reach Hugh himself? Should he have left the others to haul Mike off the ledge? Callum had been distracted by Mike's predicament – had that stopped him thinking clearly about the boy?

He told no one at first. Until Mike McCallister turned up again a few days later, with another chart, demanding to know why the edge of the crag held no warning markers, as there were on other Lakeland paths. Callum had a quicker answer this time, and directed him towards the Lakes Authority, but once Mike left he had sat in his office, staring at the walls, going over everything again, angry with himself for feeling needled.

That night, Danielle had come in from the kit room.

‘Was that Mike McCallister?'

Callum couldn't stop studying the maps on the wall. He was still thinking through the rescue, and the implications of a second visit from Mike McCallister. He had a feeling it wouldn't be the last.

‘Yes. Yes, it was.'

‘So, what did he want?' she had asked, propping herself against the desk.

‘He's replaying the rescue. He wants to know that we did everything we could. It's understandable.' He didn't want to tell her that he had been worried enough to re-walk the route. That Mike's comments about another way down had left him rattled.

‘Don't let him get to you. You did everything you could at the time. You always do.' Her hand came to rest on top of his, giving it a gentle squeeze.

He had looked up, found her eyes, and there had been a protracted pause where they stayed that way, hands connected, before she moved and jumped off the desk.

‘Tell me what he said,' she asked, inspecting the map of Bowfell.

‘He thinks I could have reached Hugh, maybe had a chance to do first aid so he didn't move around with his injuries – although even then I'm not sure we would have made much difference.' Callum outlined the route on the map with his finger. ‘He might be right. It takes fifteen minutes. The chopper took thirty.'

‘The chopper took thirty from the first radio call,' Danielle said. ‘You know exactly where Hugh was now, but you didn't then. Mike was distressed and needed rescuing himself. Would you take your eyes off one casualty to climb down to find the other? You had a responsibility to both of them. You didn't know Hugh's condition. You did the right thing.'