Page 39 of You Lied First
‘Actually dig a grave and bury her?’ I say. ‘And pretend it didn’t happen? That’s what you think we should do?’
Guy nods. ‘That’s what I’m saying we need to do. Are you on board?’
‘So we’ll just bury her and leave? And that’ll be it?’
Guy closes his eyes and pinches the top of his nose, and I realise that his patience with me is running thin.
‘Yes, Sara,’ he says. ‘The chips are down for us – in the worst possible way. We’re in a country whose laws we don’t fully understand. We don’t speak the language, and we have a dead body in our camp. Any way you look at it, our situation isn’t good. But we have a chance if we act right now, and if we act together as a group, to save ourselves. To prevent who knows how much future heartache and misery.’ He pauses and looks at me, then Margot. ‘We have a chance to get away before this escalates. Have you never watchedBanged Up Abroad? Imagine this drags on for months. A year. Longer! And we’re held here, our lives in limbo, waiting for a verdict? And what if they find us guilty? Because there’s a chance they will. There’s plenty of circumstantial evidence! We were the only people here! Come on, Sara. You’re a sensible person. You can’t tell me that’s what you want. All of us – the kids included – jailed for something we didn’t do? ForgetSara Says– Guy says “get outta here!”’
I stare at Guy as he speaks. He’s framed against the redsand and the deep blue sky, our hire cars parked jauntily where we’d left them less than twenty-four hours ago. Suddenly it all looks so foreign, so wrong. I’d give anything now to be in the grey skies, the coldness and the familiarity of home; of the relative security of the UK.
‘Let me think,’ I say.
31
MARGOT
Over the top of Sara’s head, Margot catches Guy’s eye and he gives her an exasperated look. Margot shrugs and mouths, ‘give her time’. Guy taps his watch and mimics pulling his hair out. They step away from Sara and form a huddle, with their backs to her.
‘Can you try talking to her?’ Guy says quietly.
‘She needs a minute.’
‘But you’re okay with … what I said?’
Margot snorts in an approximation of a laugh. ‘“Okay” is an overstatement. But I don’t see what choice we have. I’ll do it for Flynn.’
‘Agreed. But we need her to be on board or we can’t do it. All three of us have to be one hundred per cent behind the plan if we’re going to get away with it. All for one, and one for all.’ He gives an ironic smile.
‘Why do you think she died?’ Margot says. ‘Do you think it really was the accident?’
A look Margot doesn’t like flickers across Guy’s face before he wipes his hand across his mouth. His eyes don’t meet hers.
‘What? You thinkIdid it?’ she whisper-shouts. She throwsher head up. ‘I had my reasons not to like the woman, but you think I’m capable of crawling into her tent and killing her?’
‘I never said that!’
‘But you thought it.’
Guy shakes his head. ‘I didn’t. We don’t know what happened. Maybe she had some kind of brain or spine injury we couldn’t see. A bleed on the brain. We’ll probably never find out. But the best thing we can all do going forward is to tell ourselves that it wasn’t caused by the accident or we’ll torture ourselves. Maybe she had an underlying condition. Or, as I said, it could have been alcohol poisoning – I mean, we all put a lot away last night. Or maybe it was just her time. If this had happened to her in her villa in Muscat, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. It’s just that we happened to be the only ones with her when it did happen, and now we have to deal with it.’ His voice softens as he reaches out and touches her arm. ‘It’s not our fault, Mar.’
Margot smiles weakly. That’s probably the most reassuring thing he’s said to her in years.
‘And,’ he adds, ‘if itwasthe accident, then she got on that bike through her own choice. No one asked her to get on with Flynn. She knew the risks, she knew how old he was, she saw him drinking and she chose to do it. Remember that.’
Two long minutes pass. Margot stares at the sand while she draws arcs in it with her toes, then Guy says, ‘Please go and talk to her. We’re on a ticking clock here.’
‘Fine.’ She drags a deckchair next to Sara, sits down and leans in.
‘Hey. Any thoughts?’
Sara looks up and her eyes are teary and bloodshot. ‘Somany thoughts. I’m scared that if we do this, we’ll get caught and end up in an even worse position.’
‘I hear you. But look at it this way. How would we get caught if we bury her properly? No one knows she was here with us. No one knows where we are. As far as the world’s concerned, we were literally never here.’
‘I’m just trying to run through what could go wrong.’
‘Look, if we do this, we’ll do everything we can to minimise the risks of being caught. But at the moment we only have two ways this can go.’ Margot counts off the points on her fingers. ‘One: we tell the kids and call the police. We all go in for questioning. No two ways about it. The issue is only for how long: anything from days to weeks to months of detention – or maybe a life sentence. Yes, exactly,’ she nods as Sara gasps. ‘They might even have the death penalty here. I’m not sure.’ Sara’s breath hitches and Margot continues. ‘Two: we do what Guy suggests, hide it from the kids, so they don’t have it hanging over them – also, the fewer people who know about this, the better – we bury her and disappear.’
