Chapter Three

       The body was not Dayna’s. A breath of relief swept over the village when Sergeant Andrews announced it the following day. Of course, I already knew that. The body had decayed completely to a skeleton, there was no way Dayna would have had enough time to become such a shell of her previous self. If she was even dead, of course. The searches continued, but to no avail.

I lay in bed the night after the discovery, tossing and turning until mum came into my room in the early hours.

       She perched herself on the end of my bed and sighed. “Are you alright my love?”

       I pulled the duvet closer to me, trying to cover my tear stroked face. “Fine.”

       “I was going to bring you something to help you calm down and I noticed your prescription is empty.”

Really? Had I finished my prescription already? It seemed odd to me, but the past few days had been such a blur it was possible I had just forgotten.

       I rolled my eyes in frustration. “My best friend is missing and I discovered a dead body. Can you blame me if I’m feeling a little anxious?”

       “That’s ok honey, I understand. But you need to watch. I don’t want a repeat of…”
       “If you’re insinuating I’m going to try and top myself you can relax.”

I felt her body go rigid. It wasn’t something we ever talked about openly; my suicide attempt. It pissed me off whenever she brought it up. I was grieving my father at the time, and in a moment of overwhelming pain, I had overdosed. It was not going to happen again, I wish I could drill that into her skull.

       She finally broke the silence. “You know I’m here if you need to talk. I’ll have Jamie get you another prescription. Do try and get some sleep.”

I waited until she had left and my door firmly clicked shut before sliding out of bed. Perhaps it was because I knew sleep was out of the question, or a moment of rebellion against my mother’s wishes. I sat at my desk table and flipped open my laptop. I signed into my social media account to see who was online, desperate to see Dayna’s icon light up. Of course, it didn’t. She was offline. Last active over two days ago. I checked the last message I sent to her, a begging message for her to be a guest on the podcast that she had reluctantly agreed to. It didn’t exactly fit her glamorous, socialite image, despite the fact it had been her that had introduced me to True Crime documentaries years prior.

 I clicked on her profile and scrolled through the outpouring of messages from well-wishers on her page. Most of them were generic comments from her “fans”, with the odd face I recognised from Kirkleithen thrown in. There were no clues here. I didn’t know what I had expected really; a message from her telling me where she was hiding? Or perhaps a post with some cryptic code that only I could decipher? I sighed, before closing the laptop shut and heading back to bed. I tossed and turned all night, until the early morning sun shone in through a gap in my curtains and a flock of gulls screeched on the roof. Giving up on sleep, I got up and headed down to the kitchen.

Mum was already up and preparing breakfast and Granda was just coming in the front door. He had been on his daily walk down to the harbour shop to collect a newspaper. Normally, he would enter whistling an old tune but today, he wore a frown across his forehead.

        Mum turned and shot him a smile. “You alright dad?”

He did not respond. Instead, he walked over to the table and slammed the newspaper on to it, before disappearing out the backdoor to the garden.

        I arched an eyebrow. “What was that about?”

       Mum scanned the newspaper, her face drawing pale. “Oh Christ.”

I snatched the paper up and took in the headline. “Body found in search for missing Instagram Model is missing Margaret Mullins.”

       I gasped. “That’s that girl that went missing sixty years ago isn’t it? The one I did a podcast about! Granda’s old friend.”

       Mum shut her eyes and nodded. “Granda’s old girlfriend.”

       “The one the whole town thought he had something to do with…”

       “That’s enough Blair. No more morbid talk in this house – please! For people to even think that is just ludicrous!”

        Jamie appeared in the kitchen door. “What’s going on?”

       “They were able to identify that body through some of its jewellery. Official DNA testing hasn’t been done yet but they’re pretty certain it’s Margaret Mullins.”

       “Wow,” said Jamie, “I always thought that was a bit of an urban myth. Hearing the tale growing up, I just assumed she had moved to the city. I know that isn’t what most of the village assumed though…”

       I shot him a cold look. “I’ll take Granda’s breakfast out and make sure he’s ok.”

Mum nodded, shoving a tray into my hands. I made my way out into the garden, the old myth of Margaret Mullins floating through my head. She had disappeared one night at the age of seventeen, on her way to meet Granda, never to be seen again. It had become somewhat of a local ghost story, with children convinced if you went to the beach on a full moon, Margaret’s reflection would appear to you in the water. I remember the rage on Granda’s face when I told him me and Dayna had tried it out for a laugh one night after researching her for my podcast. That was when I’d discovered he had been Margaret’s boyfriend. That was also the beginning of mums chastising me for my “disrespectful obsession” with death.

I made my way over to Granda’s shed, where he was forever tinkering with tools and old mechanical parts and pushed the door open with my foot. I was met with the smell of turpentine and cigarettes. Granda stood leaning against the wall, puffing away.

       I placed the tray down on his workbench and pointed to the cigarette in his hand. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell mum.”

He smiled, but his eyes were heavy with sadness.

       I sat myself down on a stool and looked up at him. “In all seriousness, are you ok?”

       He shrugged. “I always knew she was dead. It wouldn’t make sense for her to just take off without telling me. We did everything together. It’s just surreal… seeing it in writing.”

       I nodded. “I understand. I’ve awoken every morning since Dayna disappeared expecting a message from her. For those first few seconds I forget and then when reality kicks in I… it just doesn’t feel real.”

       Granda grunted. “At least you don’t have the whole village pinning you as a murderer.”

       “Don’t worry Granda, that was a long time ago. I’m sure those rumours are long forgotten.”

       “You forgotten where we live sweetheart? The people round here love a good chinwag. They nearly drove me out of town all those years ago… it was your gran that convinced me to stay.”

       “I guess you’re right. Well, I’m sorry about your friend.”

       “I’m not,” he said, stubbing his cigarette into an ashtray I had made him back in school. “I mean, I’m sorry somebody hurt her, but if she hadn’t disappeared who knows. I might never have gotten close to your gran and you wouldn’t be standing here.”

       I smiled for the first time in days. “You’d better eat that Granda, or you’ll have mum on your case.”

       “Christ, if she thinks I’m malnourished she’ll have that fecking pharmacist shoving vitamins and shakes down my throat.”

       “I know what I’d like to shove down his throat.”

He let out a hearty laugh that was soon interrupted by a sharp knock on the shed door. I swallowed, beads of sweat forming on the back of my neck. If it were mum or Jamie, they would just walk straight in.

       “Who is it?” Granda barked.

       “It’s the police,” replied a familiar voice, “We’re looking for Blair.”

I opened the door to find Sergeant Andrews and Sean’s brother, Officer Clark, stood with solemn faces.

       I felt myself beginning to tremble with anxiety. “Is everything alright?”

       “We need you to come down to the station,” said Andrew’s, “It’s about Dayna.”