Page 74 of You Lied First

S ara peers at the screen. Margot selects one of the videos.

‘Right, here we go. First the fox, then Celine, then Guy.’

Despite having watched this video several times, she’s still transfixed to see the campsite again.

There it is in black and white and grey, and it all comes back viscerally.

She can feel the warmth of the daytime sun; the softness of the sand underfoot; and the chill that descended once the sun went down.

She remembers the cold crispness of the gin and tonic; the lurching fear when Flynn had fallen off the quad bike; the giddiness of having had too much alcohol a bit later; and the sound of the tent zip slowly ticking open, which she now knows she had neither dreamed nor imagined.

She really had heard it. And Guy really had said he just went for a wee – nothing about seeing Celine, arguing with her, et cetera et cetera …

‘It’s so clear,’ Sara says, ‘Not grainy at all.’

‘It’s a good camera. Right … hang on, we’re nearly there. After the fox …’

As if on cue, a little desert fox trots across the sand, pauses and stares at the camera, its eyes glowing like white orbs, then exits stage left.

‘Now,’ Margot says, and Sara leans in a little more, her breathing fast and shallow.

The two women watch as Celine’s tent opens and she staggers out, grabs her beer and slumps in a chair.

Then Guy suddenly appears from the bottom right, looks back at his tent, then creeps across the sand with a finger on his lips.

They watch in silence as he stands next to her while they talk, then suddenly the body language changes.

They gesticulate more, then Celine stands up, steadying herself on the back of the chair.

Guy takes a step towards her so he looms over her, but she holds her own, trying to draw herself up to her full height and jabbing her finger at him.

‘They’re fighting,’ Margot says. Sara has her hand over her mouth, her eyes huge as she stares at the screen.

‘I didn’t hear a thing,’ she says. ‘They must be whisper-shouting.’

In front of them on the screen, Guy grabs Celine’s arm but she shakes him off.

She starts to walk away but he grabs her again.

They struggle and she breaks free and walks back towards her tent, sticking her middle finger up at him.

Guy stands with his hands on his hips as if weighing something up, then he leaps after her and shoves her into her tent.

He looks quickly around the campsite, then follows her in and the tent zip comes down. The time on the screen says 02.45.

‘Oh my God,’ Sara says faintly. ‘And then what happened? Can you tell?’

‘There’s a bit where the side of the tent ripples but who knows what they’re doing in there.

Maybe they argue and he tries to silence her by strangling her.

Or maybe he fucked her and then strangled her.

Perhaps it was always his plan to do her in.

Nothing surprises me about Guy anymore. I guess we’ll never know.

But look …’ she moves on to the next video. ‘Now he comes out.’

And so Sara watches while Guy’s head pops back out. He looks around, wipes his brow with the back of his hand, then crawls out of the tent and scampers back across towards his tent.

‘Did he really not know the camera was on?’ Sara asks.

‘I set it up while he was out on the quad bike. He was busy trying to impress you all. I don’t think he noticed.’

Guy’s face looms close then disappears off camera. Margot stops the film.

‘So that’s it? That’s all you have?’ Sara says. She’s frowning intently at the screen as if staring at it hard enough will show her what happened inside the tent. ‘There’s absolutely nothing else?’

‘It’s all I need,’ Margot says. ‘It’s enough.’

‘But, after that? It just ends?’

‘Nothing happens. There’s no more movement and then that’s it. Nothing else triggers it. Then the battery ran out. But look at that! All I was hoping for was a sand cat or a jackal!’ Margot chuckles. ‘Who would have thought I’d catch my husband? Not even cheating – but killing someone!’

‘So what now?’ Sara asks. Her voice is faint. She looks as if she’s seen a ghost.

‘Look, I know it’s a lot to take in. It took me a while to process it myself and I’ve been agonising about what to do with it. I wasn’t going to tell anyone about it but then you came up with this crazy idea to hand yourself in! What were you thinking?’

Sara just shakes her head.

‘Obviously I can’t let you do that, not knowing what I do. But the question is: shall we hand over the memory card, or not?’

Sara sighs deeply, then she looks at me with a strange look on her face.

‘Margot,’ she says, and it sounds as if she’s got the weight of a thousand years on her shoulders. ‘Tell me this honestly. Do you want your husband to go to jail?’