Page 78 of She Saw What He Did

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‘This is it.’

Scott stopped and studied his phone.

‘It’s slightly obscure. It could be further up.’

He pointed to several stones which had been placed haphazardly in front of a small hole in the rock. It was easy to find, Ellen thought. Scott moved the stones and reached inside the space behind them. Seconds later he pulled out a Tupperware box. Inside were several foreign stamps and a postcard of Barcelona. He handed Ellen a notebook.

‘You write your name and the date you find the geocache in here,’ said Scott.

Ellen glanced down at the names. The last ones were Sam and Agnetha and not Abby and Jared Miller. That had been six months ago. It didn’t make sense.

‘Where did they put the owl then?’

‘Search me,’ shrugged Scott. ‘It wasn’t here though, and it wasn’t the lighthouse one. They went there afterwards, didn’t they, after the shooting? So they weren’t looking for geocache then. The other site is on the far side of the lighthouse and they wouldn’t have seen the beach from there. So they wouldn’t have seen the shooting. The only geocache that they were likely to have come to is this one but clearly they didn’t.’

Ellen fingered the box and glanced around. It was practically impossible to see the beach from here too. You needed to go up higher to get a clear view.

‘Admittedly,’ said Scott, taking the box from Ellen and putting it back. ‘You could mistake the directions and think it’s higher up.’

‘So it’s possible the Millers climbed higher to find it?’

Scott nodded.

‘Let’s have a look,’ she said.

Scott led the way. It wasn’t an easy climb and Ellen realised just how unfit she was.

Scott waited for her to reach him.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘I’d have said here.’

Ellen could now clearly see the beach below.

‘See, you could mistake this for geocache,’ said Scott, pointing to some stones. Ellen leant down and pulled them away to reveal a small hiding place. She rummaged around inside and was surprised when her hand landed on something. She pulled out a pencil case and handed it to Scott.

‘How odd,’ he said, turning it around in his hands.

‘Are you sure this isn’t another geocache?’ asked Ellen.

‘No, I’m certain of it.’

He knelt down and felt inside.

‘No, there isn’t a notebook. This hasn’t been here long, it’s clean,’ he said, looking at the pencil case. ‘I don’t know who left it unless it was the Millers.’

‘Which means they must have taken something from here,’ said Ellen, trying to keep the excitement from her voice.

Scott’s eyes widened.

‘I reckon we’re onto something,’ he said.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Maggie Wallace lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, finally allowing the smoke to drift from her nostrils. She ought to go outside, she supposed. The signs were big enough, ‘No Smoking’. But what the hell, if you couldn’t do what you wanted in your own B&B then where could you? She wished the bloody weather would cool down. She hated it when it was muggy. She pulled her skirt up and manoeuvred the fan so the cool air blew onto her bare legs. The nagging predicament she was facing came again into her mind. She scratched her neck and pulled on her cigarette. She had to do something. It had been well over a week now and the man hadn’t come back. She glanced at the keys on the board, hoping that perhaps number six would be gone but of course it was still there. She ought to check the room. But what if the bloke had suffered a heart attack and was laying there all blue and horrid. That was the last thing she needed splashed across the local paper. She ought to have the rooms cleaned during the guests’ stay. At least she’d know if they’d pegged it. But she hated paying the cleaners more. Anyway guests came here for the privacy. It was cheap, and she didn’t ask questions. The bastard had probably run off without paying, she thought. All the same, he wouldn’t leave without his passport, would he? How was the bugger supposed to leave the country and go back to wherever he came from? Where was it? Buggered if she could remember but she had a vague idea it was Uganda, or somewhere like that. She unlocked the safe and pulled out the man’s passport.

‘Ah, Ukraine,’ she muttered.

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