Cora smiled sadly, like this wasn’t the first time the question had come up. ‘A lot of the time, I wasn’t as good a sister as I could’ve been,’ she said. ‘It took me a while to realise that. And longer before I knew I had to make up for it. Searching for Simone now is pretty much the only thing I can do for her.’
I peered through the trees. We could still hear Dallin but couldn’t see him. ‘Should we wait for Dallin?’ I asked.
‘He’ll catch up,’ Cora said. ‘C’mon. We don’t want to lose time.’
Dallin did indeed catch up. But he remained sullen and uncommunicative. I couldn’t help notice his trainers and the cuffs of his jeans were covered with mud.
There was an odd mood to the search party as the morning wore on. We couldn’t forget why we were there. But the very fact gave us a purpose.
‘It’s weird,’ Cora admitted. ‘I’ve been planning this for so long. We’ve been planning this.’ She glanced back at Dallin, who was still bringing up the rear. There was a look on her face that I hoped I’d misinterpreted. ‘It’s hard to believe we’re finally here. This feels like … I don’t want to jinx it. But you feel it, right? This feels like something. Like this could be the real thing.’
I didn’t know what to tell her. ‘You’ve been searching for about three years, right?’
‘I ought to say I’ve been looking since Simone disappeared, but that’s not really true. I’ve always been asking questions. Three years ago I started properly searching.’
‘Why then?’
‘My mother got ill. Pneumonia. For a while we thought – we thought we were going to lose her.’ Cora brushed her fingers against a tree as she passed, letting her touch rest a moment on the bark. ‘She was delirious for a bit, in hospital. She kept thinking I was Simone. It made me realise … none of us ever got closure. When Simone vanished, she ripped a big hole in our family. I hadn’t properly understood what it’d done to us. So that’s why I started looking.’
I raised my eyes briefly to the tangled tree branches above us. ‘And it led you here.’
‘Eventually. There’s been a hell of a lot of false starts.’ Cora pushed aside a springy branch that attempted to bop her face. ‘There were a few times when it felt like we were getting close. Last year I was convinced I’d traced her to a remote part of Scotland. I trekked all the way up there and spent a very long weekend in the weirdest bed and breakfast ever. Ask me about it after a couple of drinks sometime.’
‘How do you find those leads?’
‘Oh, y’know. Everywhere. Newspapers, websites, gossip, urban legends. I know where to look, and I’ve got friends online who’ll notify me if something new pops up. Like they did with your story about the curraghs.’ She favoured me with a smile. ‘It appeared on the forum about six months ago. I’m a regular on that board so I noticed it pretty quickly. As soon as I did, I thought, this could be it.’
I paused to catch my breath. The steady pace helped me avoid getting winded. Even so, my calf muscles ached from the unaccustomed exercise. Cora kept walking.
‘So, did you have to get time off work to come here?’ I asked as I started moving again.
‘Sort of,’ Cora said. She’d unfolded the map from her pocket and held it flat in front of her with the compass laid on top as she walked. ‘I work for a charity. They know my situation and they give me a lot of leeway.’
‘That’s good of them.’ I wondered whether she looked forward to a time when she could return to work without this search weighing on her mind. I thought about my own job.
‘They employ a lot of people who – who’re like me,’ Cora said. ‘Not my exact circumstances, obviously, but similar difficulties. Believe me, a lot of them are far higher maintenance than I am.’
‘What about Dallin?’ He was far enough behind me that I didn’t think he’d overhear. ‘Did he have trouble getting time off from work?’
‘Not as far as I know. He hasn’t mentioned anything.’
‘You guys must be good friends. Not everyone would drop everything to help a person out. Especially if it involved travelling across the country and wading around a marsh.’ I was fishing for information. I couldn’t help it.
Cora smiled. ‘We only met for the first time a few weeks ago. There was no way I would’ve asked him to do this. I was already booked on the ferry and ready to go. Then he announced he was coming with me. He said I could use his help when we got here, to find my way around and know who to talk to, stuff like that. Plus I think he wanted to see you.’
I stopped myself from making a nasty comment. There’d been more than enough opportunities for Dallin to come home. ‘What about your family?’ I asked instead. ‘Didn’t any of them want to come with you?’
‘I haven’t told them I’m here.’
‘You haven’t?’
Cora kept walking. It was difficult to be sure what she was thinking, since her eyes were alternating between watching the ground and checking her map and compass. ‘Simone kinda broke our family when she left,’ she said. ‘There were a whole bunch of arguments and fallings out, and half of us still aren’t talking to the other half.’ She brushed another tree trunk with her fingertips. ‘You know what families are like. Anyway, the upshot is, I don’t have a lot of people I can fall back on in times of need. The last time I told my parents I was going on one of these expeditions, it caused a huge argument. Mum thinks I’m wasting my time. Dad thinks I’m deliberately dredging up the past to cause fights. So, I’ve stopped telling them where I’m going.’
‘I would’ve thought they’d be keen to find out what happened to Simone.’
Another faint smile. ‘I would’ve thought so too.’
I wondered about Dallin. Possibly he was here because he’d genuinely wanted to help Cora. Helping out a friend, I could understand that. Helping a friend he’d only met a short while ago, on what was probably a wild goose chase that would take him away from home for a whole week? That didn’t sound like something Dallin would do on a whim.
They’re definitely more than just friends, I thought.
‘What about you?’ Cora asked, changing the subject. ‘What’re your family like?’
‘I don’t have very many people. My dad died when I was twenty.’ I skipped over what exactly had happened to him. I also skipped over Beth. I couldn’t face raising either subject right then. ‘So it’s just my dear brother Dallin, and our mum.’
Cora looked surprised. ‘His mum lives over here?’
‘In Ramsey. She’s got one of those new-build flats. It’s quite nice, but I know she misses her garden. She used to own the farmhouse where I live. Still does, technically.’
Cora’s brows knitted together. ‘Dallin didn’t say anything about her. He made it sound like you were the only family he’s got.’
I glanced over my shoulder, to where Dallin was plodding along some distance behind us, with his sullen gaze firmly on the ground. ‘Why would he say that?’ I wondered aloud.
‘We’ve only known each other a short while,’ Cora suggested. ‘He’s under no obligation to overshare with me.’
‘Hmm.’ I didn’t particularly want to speculate. It upset me that Dallin hadn’t mentioned Mum. Had they fallen out? On the rare occasions when Dallin’s name came up, Mum always sounded wistful, as she said how she wished he would get in contact