“No, honey.” Mr McKenna swallowed. “She’s . . . she’s gone, Noah.”
I stumbled back and managed to catch myself with my crutch before I took a tumble on to my backside. My breathing was irregular, and loud to my own ears.
“Where is she?” I screamed over the pain in my head. “Where the fuck is she?”
“West Norwood Cemetery,” Mrs McKenna blurted out on a choked sob. “Row twenty-three, ninth plot from the left in the lawn cemetery.”
I felt like all the blood had drained from my face.
“Liar!” I snapped. “You’re . . . you’re lying!”
Both of Elliot’s parents shook their heads, and I suddenly felt helpless as pure panic flooded me. The old man’s words echoed in my head. He’d said the brother was a firefighter who was on duty and had pulled a woman from the car that had crashed, but before he could save his sister the car had been engulfed in flames and she’d died. Who was that woman he saved?
You, a voice whispered in my head. It was you.
“This is wrong!” I screamed. “This . . . this . . . this wasn’t the accident I was in. It wasn’t.”
“It was, honey.” Mrs McKenna was trembling. “You and our Bailey . . . ye were both in that same accident. Elliot saved you, Noah. Bailey . . . she was beyond help. He made up the Australia story because he was terrified the news might kill ye.”
I felt like I was being shaken from the inside. I wanted to run, to get as far away from the flowers, the McKennas and this conversation as possible. I spotted a car driving down the road that made my heart jump.
“Taxi!” I shouted, and waved it down. “Taxi!”
The car pulled up right next to me, and I clumsily climbed inside, pulling my crutches with me. Mr McKenna was trying to keep me from closing the door as I was talking to the driver, telling him where I wanted to go.
“West Norwood Cemetery,” I demanded. “As fast as you can.”
“Noah, honey, don’t do this alone. Please, sweetheart.”
I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
“Elliot!” I heard Mrs McKenna cry as she fumbled putting her phone to her ear. “Oh, Elliot. Noah knows . . . she knows about Bailey! Please, come! Oh, Elliot. Please.”
I pulled the door shut and locked it as the car pulled away from the kerb. The driver didn’t say anything to me, but I saw him glance back repeatedly in the rear-view mirror. I didn’t realise I was breathing heavily until then. My hands were shaking, and I felt like I was going to be sick.
Row twenty-three, ninth plot from the left.
I could barely form a coherent thought. All I knew was that I had to get to the cemetery and prove to myself that this was all wrong. Bailey was okay, she was. I physically couldn’t believe she wasn’t – my body, and mind, refused to do so. My head throbbed and it was a fight to keep my eyes open, but I somehow managed it. Quicker than I expected, we came to a stop.
“West Norwood Cemetery,” the driver said with a heavy accent as my phone rang. “That’ll be six pounds and seven pence . . . Miss, are you okay?”
Without answering, I pushed a twenty-pound note blindly at the driver and all but fell out of the car. He didn’t call after me; he barely waited more than a couple of seconds before he drove off. I didn’t look at him go; I was too busy glancing around. The cemetery was huge – there were over forty thousand graves in the place. I thought of what Mrs McKenna had said – she’d mentioned the lawn cemetery, and I knew that was the modern section away from the historic sections and the catacombs.
I followed the signs, and numbly made my way to where I needed to go.
As fast as I could, I hobbled through the cemetery and ignored the pain in my leg. Mrs McKenna’s directions were forgotten in my panic and I lost count of the rows. I looked from left to right, looked for graves that had freshly upturned dirt, indicating recent burial. I saw three, and the first two I checked were for men I had never heard of. As I approached the third, I spotted a bunch of pink lilies sitting prettily in front of one of the small wooden crosses that every grave had until a tombstone was made and installed.
“No,” I said out loud.
I dug out my phone again, rejecting Elliot’s call, and tried to ring Bailey again. It went straight to her voicemail once more, and I felt myself choking on air.
“Phone me back, Bailey!” I demanded angrily. “Right when you get this message, you call me straight away. No messing around! Baby, please. Please, phone me back.”