An Empty Seat

By early afternoon, the coach story had become less solid.

Denise called Mum, who called me between customers. The driver remembered the bag, but not Rowan. The passenger count couldn't settle it. People had moved seats; some had bought tickets in advance, some on boarding. The police were checking what records and cameras existed, but there was no confirmed sighting of Rowan travelling on the coach.

“He might have left the bag by mistake,” Mum said.

“Or someone else put it there.”

“Bea.”

“I know. Don't make up answers.”

“I was going to say don't put that in the group chat.”

“I won't.”

She asked whether Sam was home. I told her he was washing up.

“Well,” she said. “There's a development.”

After the call, I went into the kitchen. Sam was holding a saucepan under the tap, scrubbing a patch that had been burned on since before either of us was old enough to cook.

“They haven't confirmed Rowan was on the coach,” I said.

He stopped scrubbing.

“Right.”

“Just so you know.”

“Thanks.”

There was no obvious place for the information to go after that. We could not search harder by knowing less.

My phone buzzed again. Finn wanted to know whether I was at home. He had found a cable with my initials on the tape and could drop it round. I said I would meet him outside; I didn't want Sam feeling observed by anybody else.

Finn arrived on foot, carrying the cable looped neatly in one hand. He'd changed into a grey T-shirt. Without the navy jumper, he looked younger, though he had been eighteen for two months and had announced this by buying a scratch card that won nothing.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

He handed me the cable.

“Found it behind the desk. Thought you'd want it before someone adopted it.”

“Thanks.”

We stood beside the low wall at the front of our house. Mum had planted lavender there because a magazine said it thrived on neglect. So far the magazine had been correct.

“I heard about the coach,” Finn said.

“So did I.”

“It's still something, though. The bag getting there.”

“It's something to explain.”

He nodded and looked down the street.

A delivery van was blocking two driveways. The driver had left the hazard lights on, which apparently transformed an inconvenience into an official arrangement. Finn watched him carry a box to the wrong door, consult his phone and carry it back.

“Are you all right with everything at home?” he asked.

“Define everything.”

“I saw the messages.”

“Then you know as much as most people making comments.”

“I wasn't making comments.”

“No. Sorry.”

He rubbed the back of his neck.

“Mum said Sam's spoken to the police.”

“Your mum knows a lot.”

“She knows Judith. Judith reported the camera.”

“I know.”

“I'm not trying to be in your business, Bee.”

He sounded hurt. That was familiar too. Finn was so often helpful that refusing help could feel like accusing him of something.

“I told the police something wrong,” I said.

His eyes came back to mine.

“What?”

“About where Sam was. I've corrected it.”

“Wrong how?”

“I don't want to go through it with you.”

For a moment he looked almost angry. Then his expression settled.

“Okay.”

“I just thought you should know.”

“Okay,” he said again. “Thank you for telling me.”

A boy on a scooter rattled past, one wheel striking every crack in the pavement. We watched him until he turned the corner.

“Have you returned all the equipment?” I asked.

“Most of it. The hire place is closed today, but Dad took the big crate over yesterday morning. They put it in the back.”

“What about the cards?”

“Which cards?”

“The camera cards. In the small black wallet.”

He frowned.

“I thought you kept those.”

“No. I put the wallet in the equipment case after I made my viewing copy. The one with the blue latch. I texted you.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

I took out my phone and found the message from shortly after midnight on Saturday.

Cards in blue-latch case. Please don't let the hire shop wipe them. Need original sound Monday.

Underneath it was Finn's reply.

Got it. Go to bed, Bee.

He looked at the screen.

“Oh. Right. Sorry. That whole night feels like a week ago.”

“It does.”

“I'll check with Dad.”

“The police need the originals.”

“I know. Of course.”

He took out his own phone and began typing. I could see only the back of the case, scratched at the corners.

“Done,” he said. “I'll ask Judith too. Things got moved around.”

I sent the exchange to the contact number I'd been given, adding that Finn was checking where the case had ended up. It felt uncomfortable to pass on an ordinary conversation with a friend. It felt more uncomfortable to imagine explaining later why I hadn't.

Finn watched me put the phone away.

“Everyone's going to think everything means something now,” he said.

“Some things do.”

“I know. I just mean—remember when Rowan stopped answering for a whole weekend because he'd broken his phone and refused to admit he hadn't backed up his drawings?”

“That was different.”

“We didn't know it was different at the time.”

“We knew he'd gone home.”

Finn looked down at the lavender.

“Right. Yeah.”

I softened despite myself. He was trying to find a memory in which Rowan had vanished and returned. I had been doing the same thing since Saturday morning, though none of mine stood up to inspection either.

“I keep thinking he'll be annoyed with us,” I said.

“He will be.”

“You don't know that.”

“No.”

Finn's voice was very quiet.

The front door opened behind us. Sam came out carrying a bag of rubbish. He stopped when he saw Finn.

“All right?” Finn said.

“Not especially.”

“Yeah. Stupid question.”

Sam put the bag in the bin and shut the lid more carefully than necessary.

“I heard you borrowed a work jacket on Friday,” I said to Finn.

Sam looked at me.

Finn nodded. “For carrying stuff out of the store. I said.”

“Was it yours?” I asked Sam.

“I don't know. Mine was on the hook by the kitchen when I went outside.”

“The one with the torn reflective strip?”

“Probably.”

Finn spread his hands a little. “I really don't know. It was on a hook. Val told me to put something over my jumper.”

“That's all right,” I said.

But the conversation had changed. Three people could no longer talk about a borrowed jacket without each becoming aware of what another person might make of it.

Sam went back inside.

Finn watched the door close.

“He thinks I'm asking questions about him.”

“Everyone is.”

“I'm not everyone.”

“I know.”

He nodded, though he didn't look convinced.

“I should get back. Mum's sorting food for Denise.”

“Okay.”

He took two steps, then turned.

“You know Rowan was upset about more than one thing, don't you?”

I held the cable more tightly.

“What do you mean?”

“Just that it wasn't all about your film. I don't want you thinking you made him want to leave.”

“I didn't say I thought that.”

“I know you.”

For a second I was grateful. Then I was angry at how accurately he had found a fear I hadn't said aloud.

“What else was he upset about?” I asked.

“Money. The centre. People getting things they didn't deserve. You know how he got.”

“Did he talk about the Harcourt bursary?”

Finn's face became still.

“Not to me. Why?”

“There was an H on a note.”

“An H?”

“It might not mean that.”

“Right.” He gave a small, tired laugh. “Let's not convict the alphabet.”

I nearly laughed too. It was a good line, and he knew how to deliver one when I was becoming too serious.

“See you,” he said.

I watched him walk away, the back of his T-shirt darkening slightly in the warmth between his shoulders.

Inside, Sam stood by the sink again. He had stopped washing up.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Sam.”

“He said he didn't talk to Rowan about Harcourt?”

“That's what he said.”

Sam wiped his hands on the tea towel.

“I heard them outside the kitchen on Friday. Before the speeches. Rowan said something about Monday. Finn told him to keep his voice down.”

I felt my attention narrow.

“What exactly did Rowan say?”

“I don't know exactly. I wasn't listening on purpose.”

“Did he say Harcourt?”

“I think so. Or the course. Something like that.”

“That isn't the same thing.”

“I know. I'm telling you because you asked.”

I looked at the cable in my hands, the neat circles Finn had made of it.

“Did you tell the police?”

“Not that bit. They were asking about me.”

“You should write it down. What you actually remember. Then tell them.”

Sam looked at me for a long moment.

“Look at us,” he said. “Learning.”

I didn't smile.

A message arrived from Alice Bell. We had barely exchanged more than birthday greetings in the last year.

Mum says you might have Rowan's little black notebook from the film. Do you?

I did. He'd lent it to me for a close-up shot, pages turning beneath his hand. It was in the bottom drawer of my desk, under a folder of release forms that suddenly seemed like a particularly bad joke.

Yes, I wrote. I'm sorry. I should have given it back.

Can you bring it?

I said I would.

Then I went upstairs and opened the drawer.

The notebook was smaller than I remembered. Its elastic band had stretched. On the cover, Rowan had drawn a pigeon peering over a wall, only the eyes and the top of its head visible.

I held it without opening it.

For once, not looking inside seemed like the only thing I could do correctly.