Page 36 of You Lied First

W e follow the tracks left by Guy, and I see that I’d been right earlier: it’s really not that far to the sand track. As Margot bumps the car onto it, I swivel in my seat, looking back towards the trees where we’d camped.

The trees by which Celine lies buried.

‘Can’t see anything unusual from the road,’ I say.

Margot’s face is grim. ‘Good.’ She nods to the right, ‘Looks like these guys are coming this way, though.’

‘Sod’s law, isn’t it? You go to the desert to get away from people and meet a thousand.’

We watch in silence as a convoy of Jeeps approaches like a swarm of locusts, growing larger in size and noise until they reach us, barrelling past us on the sand on either side of the track.

‘Don’t smile,’ Margot says as we enter the dust cloud kicked up by the convoy. ‘Don’t draw attention to us in any way. White Toyotas are practically invisible. We could be anyone. There’s nothing memorable about us at all.’

I’m still holding Celine’s phone and I look down, pretending to fiddle with it.

My breathing starts to slow as we put more distance between us and the camp site.

Our speed is limited by the tyres we deflated to drive on the sand, and we make slower progress than I’d like until we get a chance to refill them properly. Margot’s staring straight ahead.

‘Thank you for agreeing to do this,’ she says. ‘It might not feel like it right now, but it was the right thing to do.’

I stay silent.

‘The accident wasn’t Flynn’s fault,’ Margot continues. ‘He doesn’t deserve to go to jail. He didn’t even ask her to get on the quad with him!’ She swipes a hand across her face.

What I need right now is time alone to process all that’s happened; time to make peace with the decision I made out there in the dunes, not a heart-to-heart. There’s not much left inside me to comfort Margot. I search for the right thing to say.

‘We don’t even know if the accident was the cause of Celine’s death. As Guy said, it could have been anything.’

‘Right?’ Margot whips her head to face me. ‘So why condemn Flynn?’

‘Well – exactly.’

‘I mean, it was deep, soft sand on the dune. You saw it. There was nothing she could have hit her head on. It’s like falling into marshmallow.’

‘It does seem unlikely that a fall like that would cause a life-threatening injury,’ I say carefully. ‘But you never know. You’ve got to admit it looks odd. Fall off a quad bike and die that same night. What are the chances?’

‘How about: drink your body weight in booze and die that same night?’ Margot says. ‘Or: go into the desert with an underlying health condition and die randomly in the night?’

‘I guess …’ I say, but I’m thinking that Celine likely drank her body weight in booze most weekends. She had good tolerance. ‘So, is that what you think happened? She had a health condition?’

Margot blows air through her lips. ‘Who knows? Could have been anything. Maybe even a snake bite. Or a scorpion.’

‘Yeah. I didn’t think of that. Did you wake up in the night at all? Did you hear anything?’

Margot frowns. ‘Like what?’

‘Well, anything. Voices? A commotion? I don’t know. Anything that would give us a clue.’

‘Not that I remember. You?’

I shake my head. ‘No. Nothing. I was flat out. Literally. So weird, isn’t it?’

‘Yep.’

We drive in silence as I think back over the events of the night and the horror of finding Celine dead.

‘You don’t think one of us had something to do with it, do you?’ I ask.

‘God, no. Not at all.’

‘Good. Because the last thing we need to do is start blaming each other. Like Guy said, we need to stick together.’

‘And we will,’ Margot says. Her hand seeks mine and squeezes it. I squeeze back. It feels like we’re Thelma and Louise.

We see a shop with an archaic-looking petrol pump out the front and, thankfully, an air pump too. While Margot’s snaking the hose around the car to top up the tyres, I jump out t o buy some much-needed water and, when I’m back in the car, my phone pings. It’s a message from Guy.

I presume Margot’s driving. Reached the villa. Didn’t go to hospital. Flynn’s fine. Everything okay your end?

Yes. On our way, I type.

Just rebooked our flights for tonight with a short layover in Dubai airport and the early flight to Birmingham. There’s still availability as of now. I’m sending you the details. Please change yours.

I frown as I look at the messages. Won’t running away make us look more suspicious?

But, if Guy’s changed the Forrests’ flights, what’s the alternative?

To stay alone with Liv, waiting for a knock on the door from the police?

It dawns on me again that we’re actually committing a crime by burying a body and fleeing the scene of a death.

Bonnie and Clyde with their friend and kids.

I open my browser and get on the website.

Thank heavens I booked with the airline rather than through a travel agent.

My phone pings again, three more times.

It’ll cost a bit extra but I’m happy to pay you back.

I think we all need to leave together.

And I can’t leave you behind.

I send a thumbs-up to Guy and, as Margot pulls out of the petrol station, I update her on the plan as I search for availability.

‘He’s right,’ she says. ‘Whatever it costs, you need to be on those flights with us.’

‘Done,’ I say, a few minutes later. ‘I hope the airline doesn’t question why we all changed our flights so suddenly.’

‘People do it all the time,’ Margot says. ‘It’s no biggie.’

‘I hope not. So that’s it. We take off from here at four-forty in the morning, change at Dubai and take off again at seven-fifty. We’ll be home in our beds by tomorrow night.’

‘Let’s hope we don’t get stopped at immigration,’ Margot says.

‘There’s no reason why we should be,’ I say, but when I look across, her face is grim.