Page 51 of A Sky Full of Stars
‘Looks like I was wrong,’ Thea said, her voice shaking. ‘God, Charlotte. What if hehashad an accident somewhere?’ She brushed away sudden tears, and Charlotte’s heart ached for her.
‘I’m sure he’s fine,’ Charlotte replied. She turned to Thea. ‘Look, it’s almost longer for you to drive back to Lorelai’s than it is for me to walk. Let me out here. I’ll have a quick scout around and I’ll let you know if I find anything.’
‘Are you sure?’ Thea asked. ‘The weather’s still bloody awful.’
‘I’ve never minded the rain,’ Charlotte replied. ‘And Comet loves splashing about in puddles. Honestly, we’ll be fine.’
‘All right, but keep me posted,’ Thea said as Charlotte went to open the passenger door. ‘If you spot anything that might help locate Tris, though, let me know. I don’t care how late it is. I’ll drive back in the direction of Tristan’s house, and I’ll call you if I find him.’
‘OK,’ Charlotte said. They swapped phone numbers and then Charlotte gave Thea a quick hug. ‘One of us is bound to find him.’ Hurrying out of the car, she opened the boot of Thea’s ancient Volvo estate and let Comet out. ‘Come on, old chap,’ she said. ‘We’re going to form a search party.’
49
The warm, swiftly soaking summer rain began to fall harder as Charlotte and Comet strode across the flattened earth that formed the Observatory Field development site. Her work was done, and in a few days the building that housed over a hundred years of astronomical observations would be wiped out of existence. Charlotte had only been here a few weeks and the sense of history in the place, enwrapped by the decay of years of neglect, had permeated her thoughts and emotions. She couldn’t even imagine what might be happening inside Tristan’s head.
The rain was getting heavier. That, combined with the now-fallen darkness, was making it even harder to see. Struggling to get her phone out of her pocket, Charlotte pressed the torch icon and pointed it a few yards in front of her. She approached the Portakabin but a quick rattle of the handle demonstrated that it was still locked. Undeterred, she peered in through the window of the temporary structure, but all looked neat, tidy and undisturbed. There was no sign that Tristan had returned here. It hit her, as hard as the rain was pounding the hood of her jacket, just how heavy the weight he’d been carrying with him his whole life was. Their paths had intersected at a crucial time for him, and now she was being pulled into his traumatic orbit, and that of his family’s history. She had the feeling that tonight he’d reached a tipping point.
‘Tristan!’ Charlotte’s voice was lost to the driving rain as she dashed from the Portakabin across the scarred and flattened width of the levelled land in a desperate, soaking wet search.
Not a sound came back to her.
The rain lashed down on her back as she stomped across the ground which was starting to run with mud and rivulets of water in the ferocity of the summer storm. Comet bounded ahead, sniffing, zigzagging in the rain and then coming back to her to check in. His fur was soaked, but he didn’t seem to mind too much. The air was still warm, and as a threatening rumble of thunder rolled overhead, Charlotte’s heart sped up. She’d heard too many stories about people being struck by lightning at the top of hills to feel anything other than panic at being out here in the middle of a storm.
Shouting Tristan’s name again, Charlotte shook her head, feeling her sodden hair thrashing her face in rats’ tails as she did. Shehadto find him. She didn’t know why, but she had a gut feeling he was here. She was making progress towards the observatory building now. Luckily, she still had the keys to the padlock, so she dug in her coat pocket to find them. As she did, her phone began to ring. Whipping it out of her other pocket, she saw Thea’s name flashing up onscreen.
‘Thea? What is it? Has he been in touch with you?’
It was a minute before she could make out what Thea was saying. The wind and the rain were deafening, the reception was intermittent and Thea’s voice was breaking up.
‘Charlotte? C-can you hear me? I’ve just found Tristan’s car…’
Oh, shit.Charlotte’s knees went so weak she nearly fell onto the muddy earth. ‘Wh-what?’ she stammered. ‘Where is it? Is he OK? AreyouOK?’
Thea clearly wasn’t. She was struggling to speak, choking on the words. ‘It’s slipped off the side of the road. He must have misjudged a corner. The car’s at an angle in the rhyne.’ Thea’s voice broke up on the other end of the line, but Charlotte could just about catch what she was saying.
‘Is he still in the car, Thea? Can you see him?’
An agonising moment passed as Thea’s signal dropped out again. Charlotte cursed out loud, but her voice was whipped away by the rising wind. It was still horribly humid, despite the rain, but the atmosphere was crackling with pent-up energy, and as a second rumble of thunder rolled over her head, she knew she was standing in the path of the mother of all Somerset summer storms. Charlotte punched out Thea’s number, willing her phone to reconnect, but it cut straight to voicemail.
Then she noticed Comet had scampered off. Damned dog! That was the last thing she needed. His recall had been much better since they’d been living in the countryside, but he’d picked the worst possible moment to go AWOL. The rain was growing heavier, and there was a nasty mist drifting in from the hillside that Charlotte didn’t like the look of, either. The second Comet came back to her, he was bloody well going on his lead.
‘Comet!’ she yelled across the wide expanse of the building site. Where had he got to? She shone her phone’s torch in a wide arc around herself, trying to make out the dark shape of a mostly black spaniel against the midnight-black sky and land. ‘Comet! Come here, boy!’
Nothing. And she still couldn’t get hold of Thea. If Tristan was in the car, then she’d turn tail and get back down the hill. She prayed he wasn’t hurt. Should she call an ambulance?How?she reminded herself.I’ve got no bloody signal!
She walked as briskly as she could towards the observatory building. Comet had to be around here somewhere. The rest of the area was flat and provided little cover for an inquisitive dog. He had to have headed towards the building he knew so well. ‘Comet!’ she yelled again.
As she approached the observatory, she could see that the chain that housed the padlock was on the muddy ground, and the gate was skewed open. Someone had been up here tonight. Perhaps was still here. Pushing through the gate, she shouted again and was rewarded with a distant bark.
‘Comet! Come here!’ she shouted, not in the mood for games.
The bark came again, but it was clear, this time, that he wasn’t sniffing around outside. Flashing her phone torch at the door of the observatory, she saw it had been left ajar. Vowing to keep trying Thea’s number the second she had Comet back on the lead, she pushed open the door and called out again.
The electricity had finally been disconnected earlier in the week, and the only source of light Charlotte had was her rapidly diminishing phone torch. Glancing at it, she realised that the battery wasn’t going to last very long. Without the stark glare of the strip lights overhead that she’d taken for granted while she was working there, the observatory felt haunted by the ghosts of all of the people who’d passed through. Charlotte shivered, despite the humidity. She’d never minded being alone up here when she was working, but now it seemed to reek of something maudlin. It felt like being in a tomb.
‘Comet!’ she called again and was unsurprised to hear the tremor in her voice. The creaks and rattles of a building destined for demolition seemed to creep into her mind, making her pulse race and her palms sweat with every passing second. She needed to get out of here, before she started catastrophising about the injuries she could do herself on an uneven floor in the pitch black in a condemned building in the middle of a thunderstorm.
Finally, an answering bark made her jump out of her skin. Pointing her phone in the direction of the bark, she raised it slightly to follow the direction of the stairs that led to the platform that had once housed the observatory’s prized telescope. Brian O’Connor had warned her, back on her first day at work, not to go up those stairs, and she’d heeded that warning rigidly all the time she’d been working here.
