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Elin

Parque Nacional, Portugal, October 2021

Elin waits until they’re out of sight of the camp and then pulls out her phone, taps the name April Blake into her search, her palm clammy against the handset. Adrenalin is still coursing through her.

‘Didn’t think any of their names were genuine to begin with, but this is as good a confirmation as any.’ No guarantee that April Blake was an alias for either Leah or Bridie, but the fact that the bill was in a folder with a pile of others under the same name doesn’t fill her with confidence that either of them are who they say they are.

Isaac’s already scrolling. His phone screen is glowing bright in the darkness, the only illumination apart from the moon, bright above them.

As the results appear, Elin frowns, frustrated. A mixed bag, and one that’ll take hours to sift through. Social media handles for a variety of April Blakes.

LinkedIn profiles, Facebook pages. Instagram.

‘Take it you’ve got the same,’ Isaac mutters. ‘Looks like April Blake is a pretty common name. ’

‘We need to narrow it down.’ Elin thinks for a minute, then quickly types in April Blake again together with the words: criminal charges.

This time, an immediate hit: a condensed version of news article with the link to the full article directly below. Elin scans the truncated text:

James Debray of the Kirkwall County Sheriff’s Office identified the suspect on Friday morning as April Blake, 24, of Sandhold. She was charged with multiple counts of digital extortion. Detectives, acting on digital intelligence, interviewed Blake at her home and she, together with her partner, Raymond Kenney, admitted to committing extortion over a period of two and a half years.

Elin’s gaze slips lower to the four photographs sitting in a quadrant below the text, her pulse thudding in her ears. One is immediately recognisable.

‘You got something?’

‘Yeah.’ She passes the phone to Isaac. ‘Just found this. Looks like Leah is April Blake, not Bridie … Might explain where they’re getting the money from to live out here.’

‘Extortion.’ He whistles through his teeth. ‘Puts working from home in a whole new light.’

It certainly does , Elin thinks, replaying the conversation with Leah in the woods, her vagueness when they’d asked her what she did for work: This and that. Tech stuff mainly.

Every day seemed to bring something new to this camp, she thinks, chilled.

Another layer revealed.

*

April Blake dominates the conversation as they hike back to the Airstream. It’s slow going in the dark, giving them time to pick it apart, the conversation going back and forth as they tease out different scenarios .

‘Might be motive for wanting Kier out of the picture?’ Isaac says as they reach the Airstream. ‘If that’s how the group’s making their money and she found out somehow?’

‘It’s possible.’ As she follows him inside, Elin picks over Leah’s words at the falls : It should have been me, not her , working out how they’d fit with that theory. Guilt talking? ‘I just—’ She doesn’t get a chance to finish her sentence.

There’s a deafening bang, the sound of a door slamming. A sudden rush of cold air.

Elin jerks her head up to the rear door careering backwards and forwards on its hinge.

‘Did you go out that way earlier?’ Isaac asks uneasily. ‘Doesn’t look like it’s been shut properly.’

‘No.’ She turns in a slow circle, her pulse picking up again. ‘But someone else has. Someone’s been in here, and recently too.’ No visible sign of their presence, but a scent is still lingering in the room: sweat. Aftershave.

Whoever it was, they’ve not been gone long.

Her first thought : Steed.

Elin shudders. The idea of him in here alone, in their private space, makes her skin crawl.

‘Don’t reckon they’ve gone far. I’m going to take a look.’

Slipping past him, she pushes through the open door. It’s dark, but the sky is still cloudless, the moon bright and full, and with the light from the Airstream, it’s enough to dimly illuminate the shadowy forms of the trees around her.

No one there, no one she can see, anyway, so Elin slips between them and out onto the track leading down towards the other Airstream.

Her eyes sweep left to right before settling directly down the path.

There’s a figure in the distance: a man, running in the opposite direction, his feet thudding out into the silence.

Elin starts down the trail, but a few metres on, he darts right, heading towards the trees.

For a moment, it looks as if he’s about to disappear out of sight, but then he does something unexpected: he turns to look directly at her, his face expressionless.

Her stomach contracts.

Not Steed at all, but Ned.