Page 38 of You Lied First
SARA
Neither Margot nor I move when Guy tells us to act normal. It’s as if my brain’s forgotten how to function, but Guy makes a motion with his eyes that says, ‘get over to the food table, now!’ and so I force myself over and it’s like walking on the moon. My feet just don’t want to move.
Margot reaches the table before me.
‘Coffee?’ she asks as brightly as a Stepford wife. ‘It’ll be ready in a minute.’
‘Thanks.’ I’m not even sure if the word comes out. My mouth is dry; my stomach convulsing.
‘Morning!’ Flynn and Liv say as they reach the camp.
‘Good morning!’ Margot says. ‘Did you get good content?’
The teens look at each other. ‘No. We, umm, decided to live in the moment and absorb the beauty of the desert,’ Liv says with an ironic eye roll.
‘Aka our phone batteries died,’ Flynn says.
‘Oh. Never mind,’ I say, because I’m trying really hard to act normal. ‘Main thing is you had a nice time. It’s good you got up early and got some steps in. We’ll be in the car a long time today.’ I’m aware I’m talking rubbish.
Guy blocks the way to the table. ‘Kids, the food’ll be a few more minutes. Why don’t you make the most of being here and take the quad bike out again?’
‘Really?’ Flynn looks at his dad like he misheard. ‘Are you sure? You said last night “no more”.’
‘Well … how long will the food be, love?’ Guy asks. ‘Twenty minutes? More?’
Margot looks down at the food that was ready ages ago and nods. ‘At least that. The stove is really slow to heat up. Take your time. Enjoy yourselves. But be careful, okay? Flynn? Really careful.’
‘Okay! Thanks, Dad!’
Liv and Flynn hightail it off before we can change our minds, and we reconvene around the table.
‘So,’ Guy says. ‘As I was saying. We can’t call the police.’
‘What do you think?’ I ask Margot.
She blows air out through her teeth. ‘I think he’s right. It’s not going to go well for us if we call the police. It’s not really lying. It’s just not telling them everything.’
I look from one to the other, genuinely taken aback. I wouldn’t have expected this from either of them.
‘Sara, love, this isn’t the UK,’ Guy says. ‘If we call this in, we can kiss goodbye to going home. The police are not going to say “thanks for the intel”, buy us some duty free and wave us off on the plane to Blighty. They’ll take us straight to the station, and they’ll interrogate us one by one until they’re satisfied with how and why she died … And, let’s say she has a head injury… if it comes out about the quad bike …’
‘The point,’ Margot says, ‘is that she’s dead. It almostdoesn’t matter why. The police have a duty to find out what happened, and that will take time. And we will have to remain here.’
‘Probably in prison,’ Guy says.
‘How many days till the mocks start?’ Margot says and raises her eyebrows at me as she waits for that to sink in. ‘And, listen, maybe I’m being selfish here but the chances are that Flynn will be found guilty. He was driving a quad bike that Celine got thrown from. She’s now dead. Case closed. Sara, I’m his mother. I can’t let that happen. You understand that, don’t you? You’d do the same if it were Liv.’
I swallow. Bile’s rising again, though there’s nothing left to throw up. I don’t want Flynn to go to jail for this any more than they do.
‘We don’t have to tell them about the quad bike,’ I say.
‘Doesn’t matter. If we call them here, we’ll be riding a police car straight to detention today. The kids, too. I’m sorry to say, we have no choice but to leave her.’
‘Is there an option where we wake up and it’s all been a dream?’ I close my eyes and shake my head, just in case, because the idea that none of this happened is so appealing but, when I open my eyes again, I’m still there, in the desert trying to decide what to do with the dead body of my new friend.
‘What I’m saying is that one of us takes the kids, and the other two bury her, get the hell out of here and never speak of it again. That’s what I’m saying,’ Guy says.
I slump into a deckchair, my brain worn out. The problem of what to do with Celine’s body feels insurmountable – I needtime to think it over, to work out all the ways Guy’s plan could go wrong. But the kids won’t be long and we need to have made a decision by the time they get back. My head feels as if it’s going to explode.
