But Sunny was talking over her.
“Was that what was on that piece of paper Kellan was so angry about?”
Ryan gave her a sidelong glower that she interpreted perfectly – and ignored.
“Oh my God, what did it say?”
“Like I know. He got to it first.”
“And the others?” This time the panic came from Lucas. Serve him right.
“I’ve got them here…” But as he reached for his back pocket, Sunny, squashed as she was between him and Lucas, objected with a squeak and a “You have really pointy elbows!” while Sophie held her hand out, demanding he hand hers over—
A short sharp parp of the horn silenced the chaos.
“Stop this,” Win spoke into the silence that followed. “Why don’t we go somewhere quiet, all of us together, and sort all this out.”
“What’s there to sort?” Ryan muttered, feeling a little disappointed when Win sighed, like she’d known he’d be the one to object.
“When Sophie found me this morning there was a note from Freya.” Win looked over at Sophie, like she expected her to say something. When she didn’t, Win carried on. “She said there was treasure at the end of the trail – I presume she means the letters, but…”
“But what?” From Sunny.
“I don’t know.” Win might give the impression of having an answer for everything, but she sounded no more sure than any of the rest when she said, “What if the letters all interconnect or something? One last puzzle we need to solve together?”
SOPHIE
“Up here.” Sophie pointed to a narrow road just before they hit the bridge into town. The road led up a long slope, past houses built with money as old as the bricks, sash windows framed in white-painted wood and ivy.
One of them was her gran’s house. Something Sophie would have pointed out if it had just been her and Win. She’d meant what she’d said in the garden. Some people were a drain to be around, but Win’s company was the closest thing to replenishing that Sophie ever got. Except they weren’t alone, and with a row of people on the back seat, Sophie stayed quiet, thinking back to the week when she’d had to walk up here after school to feed the cats and water plants while her gran had been in hospital.
Freya came with her every time.
“Sophie?”
“Mm?”
The car was at a turning and Win was looking at her for directions.
“Oh. Follow the road round the…” Whatever word she was looking for had gone missing.
“The green?”
Sophie nodded, ignoring the concern in Win’s frown. She could do this. She was sure. All they were doing was reading the letters, giving Freya an opportunity to have her final reveal, then she could go home.
The car bobbled along the road, wonky little cottages on one side, the green on the other, shadowed in twilight. No one said anything until Win pulled into a small car park at the end of a row of houses. Beyond that, beneath an indigo sky, stood a sandstone church, glowing in floodlight.
“We’re here,” Sophie said.
After they’d finished at Gran’s, she and Freya would grab a bag of strawberry sherbets from the tiny little shop on the green and come up here. On the far side of the church, beyond the graveyard, a row of memorial benches looked down over the valley.
Do you think the ghosts come and sit here to take in the view?
Can ghosts sit? Wouldn’t they go straight through the bench?
They can stand, can’t they?
So you’re saying they stand on the bench?
Shut up.
Freya hadn’t understood why Sophie had been miffed to find Freya had brought Kellan here because it was “romantic”. She didn’t get that some things were meant to be special.
LUCAS
Last time Lucas came here the light felt cold and the trees were stripped down to their bones.
Tonight it was Lucas who felt naked, the best parts of him snatched away from the surface, revealing all the things he’d rather no one saw. Having lived so long with someone who knew how to expose his flaws, Lucas was aware of his limits. But he’d thought – believed – that he’d grown since coming here, so that if things got rough, he’d step back and think.
And if he had, maybe he’d have remembered that for all he was a mate, Kellan had a vicious streak.
November – 32 days before Freya left
“What is this place?”
“It’s a church, you prat.” Kellan strode on through the graveyard, aiming a lazy kick at a pot of plastic flowers someone had set by one of the headstones. As Lucas passed, he nudged the pot upright with his toe, sending a silent apology to David Travers, who lived on in the hearts of those who knew him.
Kellan hadn’t been the easiest company that week. In lessons he’d been silent and sullen and if his classmates caught his attention, it held more chill than warmth. When he had announced an alternative activity for tonight, none of the lads had voiced objections, but that didn’t mean Lucas didn’t have any. The location wasn’t the issue; the bundle of golf clubs propped over Kellan’s shoulder very much was.
Lucas tugged the edges of his track top as tight around his body as it would go and followed his mates beyond the shadow of the church, until all four of them were looking down the hill to where the town nestled in the crook of the river’s elbow.
“You can be caddy.” Kellan shoved the clubs at Jonno and watched him struggle not to drop them. Then he jumped up, quick as a cat, onto the low stone wall and settled a golf ball at his feet, holding a hand out for a club. “Hand me the fairway wood.”
Jonno looked at the clubs the same way Lucas had eyed all the different kitchen utensils the first day of his training at Rabscuttle. “I – er…”
“Fucksake.” Kellan wrenched the one he wanted from Jonno’s grasp, the shaft catching him squarely on the mouth. No one said anything, aware of the bite that Kellan’s mood brought to the crisp winter air, and Jonno waited until Kellan’s back was turned before running his tongue over his lip.
“Fore!” Kellan called, as he sent the ball arcing into the sky to plummet into the middle of the river. If he’d wanted to, Lucas knew Kellan could have sent it across the water and through someone’s window. Town looked a lot closer from up here than the church did from below.
“Fancy a go?” Kellan jumped down from the wall and prodded Fry in the stomach with the end of his club.
“Kellan, pal…” There was none of his usual bravado as Fry eyed his best mate, then the golf clubs. “Last time I played golf it was on top of the cliff at Whitby and it took me ten swipes to get my ball past a bloody windmill.”
“And?” Kellan said, eyes as cold as the sky.
“Don’t expect me to actually hit it,” Fry mumbled, giving in and grabbing the first club he laid hands on.
True to his promise, Fry’s technique was less Tiger Woods and more tiger chasing its tail as he whirled round with every swing, the iron whistling over the top of his ball several times before he scuffed it straight into the grass.
“Warned you.” Fry accompanied his complete lack of concern with a wry smile that Kellan didn’t return.