Page 50 of A Sky Full of Stars
‘Almost?’ Charlotte queried.
Thea took out her phone again. ‘I wasn’t being completely honest with you when I said I hadn’t heard from him.’ She fiddled around with her phone until she found her voicemail. The reception was terrible, and the caller had obviously been driving when the call was made as the engine sounded loud and familiar. But overlaid against the engine noise and the sound of the rain hitting the windscreen and the car roof was another unmistakeable sound: the heartbreaking sound of someone sobbing.
‘Oh my God,’ Charlotte breathed. ‘He sounds absolutely broken.’
Thea nodded, and this time she couldn’t stop the tears falling, even as she wiped them away. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s so awful, hearing him like this.’
Charlotte put an arm around Thea, but as she did, Thea spoke again. ‘Gran didn’t just show Tristan Uncle Philip’s letter,’ she said. ‘She also told him that…’
‘That what?’
‘That the night our parents had the car crash, Uncle Philip was up at the observatory with Mum and Dad.’
Charlotte’s stomach turned over. ‘Was he in the car with them?’
Thea shook her head. ‘No. He’d walked up through the woods to the observatory. Gran remembers him turning up here late, drunk, and passing out in her spare room, in no state to drive back to his house in Bristol. The morning after, when he found out what had happened to Mum and Dad, he left here and she didn’t see him again for months.’ She gave a sniff. ‘He didn’t even come to the funeral.’
‘Why did he go up there?’
‘No one knows. Perhaps he finally snapped and had to tell Mum how he felt about her, although by that point I’ve no idea why he thought it would change anything. Maybe it was something else. Who knows?’ Thea glanced at Charlotte. ‘Maybe there’s something in the observatory archives that could shed some light on it all.’
Charlotte’s mind began to tick, and even though her immediate worry was Tristan and his whereabouts, there was a thought tapping in her brain that wouldn’t go away. ‘Thea,’ she said tentatively, ‘your great-uncle’s initials were next to the notes your mum and dad made about a discovery they were documenting a couple of months before they died.’
‘So?’
‘You said that Lorelai mentioned your great-uncle was up at the observatory the night your parents had their accident. Could it be that he was trying to help them with their discovery?’
‘Possibly,’ Thea shrugged. ‘But relations were so bad by then between him and Mum and Dad, I don’t see why he’d put himself out to help them.’ She shook her head in frustration. ‘To be honest, I couldn’t care less about that right now. I just want to find Tristan.’
Charlotte nodded. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. It’ll keep.’ Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about the whys and wherefores of a past tragedy: the focus was to try to avert another one. ‘When I get back to the university archive, I can take a look,’ she said. ‘But right now I think our main priority has to be finding Tristan.’
48
Charlotte shook her head in frustration. Why hadn’t she saved up and tried to buy a car? She felt hopeless, useless. ‘Tell me what I can do.’
‘I’ll drive from here towards Tristan’s house,’ Thea said. ‘His Audi’s pretty distinctive, and if he’s had a shunt on the way home, I’m sure I’ll spot it. If the signal comes back on his phone, it should be easy to track him via the app, as well.’ Thea looked intently at Charlotte, and Charlotte could see how much Thea was hoping for a positive outcome. ‘I’ve never heard him sound like that,’ she said quietly. ‘He’s bottled everything up, for our whole lives. If the dam’s broken now…’
Charlotte reached out and put a hand on Thea’s forearm. ‘We’ll find him,’ she said. ‘You know him better than anyone. Where could he be?’
Thea sighed and regarded Charlotte with a gaze that suggested she was weighing up whether or not to tell her something. Eventually, she spoke. ‘When Tristan was a teenager, he disappeared for three days. It was shortly after Gran had had yet another blazing row with Great-Uncle Phil over the future of the observatory. He overheard them arguing about what should happen to it late one night, and when I’d gone to bed, he walked out of the house and vanished.’
‘Oh my God,’ Charlotte breathed. ‘Where did he go?’
‘He never told us. Honestly, I don’t think he had much memory of it. We searched high and low, and there was no sign of him. Then, three days later he walked back into the kitchen, kissed Gran on the cheek and went to bed for twenty-four hours. He never told me or Gran where he’d been or what he’d done in that time. But something must have triggered in his brain to make him leave that night.’ Thea ran a slightly shaky hand over her face. ‘When someone you love does something like that, it doesn’t matter how many years later it is, you are always on your guard that the same thing might happen again.’
‘He was in his car, this time, though,’ Charlotte said. ‘And we know he wasn’t in a good state. He could have gone a lot further. What if he’s in a trauma loop and doesn’t know what he’s doing?’
Thea’s face paled as she digested that possibility. So much so that Charlotte had to reassure her. ‘But even with that voicemail, it doesn’t mean that’s the case.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ Thea replied. She shook her head. ‘I’m going to go up to the observatory as well and check it out. It’s dark, but I might be able to spot his car.’
‘Hold on,’ Charlotte said as Thea made to open the door and leave. ‘I know the observatory better than most. I’ve been working up there for weeks, after all.’
‘Are you sure?’ Thea asked. ‘It’s a lot to ask of you, and the site’s dangerous in the dark.’
‘I’m not going to get any sleep tonight, anyway,’ Charlotte replied. ‘And I’m used to working at night.’ She glanced out of the window. ‘Looks as though the rain’s not going to stop any time soon. I’d better grab a coat.’
The two of them, with Comet in tow, headed out to Thea’s car. As they drove quickly through the lanes to Observatory Field, neither said much. They didn’t want to voice their hopes or fears about what they might find. Thea sped as fast as the old car could take them on the hardcore access road to the site, but Charlotte knew she was as disappointed as she was to see no sign of Tristan’s Audi parked anywhere.
