‘How did you get here?’

‘I can’t remember.’ A voice, finally. Kelly smiled at her and squeezed her hand.

The medic concluded that Daphne was strong enough to move and she was strapped to a soft-shell portable stretcher. Two mountain rescue volunteers held her securely and Kelly held on to her hand and spoke to her all the way down; partly to keep her awake and partly to cultivate the seed of trust sown on the mountainside.

Kelly smiled at her and was rewarded with a warm grin back. It was the first time that she’d witnessed the girl as anything other than a photographic or mute statistic.

Chapter 60

With Daphne safely admitted to a ward at the Penrith and Lakes Hospital, Kelly paced up and down the lobby area with a coffee, and called Johnny.

‘She’s alive.’

‘That’s brilliant, well done. I didn’t expect that at all. I thought you’d be calling to say the opposite.’

‘Me too. How are Josie and Callum?’

‘Not good.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I know.’

Kelly looked about the café area, as if it would provide a solution to her predicament. Johnny sounded as though he spoke with an edge to his voice. She worried that it had sunk in that she should have figured out the Borrowdale connection. After all, Josie, or indeed Callum, could have been the ones climbing when the rope was cut. It could have been his daughter, not just his friend, who he’d seen fall to their deaths. The realisation worried her but irritated her too. She wasn’t a machine.

‘Johnny, I didn’t see it. I didn’t expect it.’

She got a flashback of reassuring her sister the same thing when she’d failed to protect her from The Teacher. She was the detective. It was her job to spot stuff like this: make links, join dots, and prevent crime. Josie had been put in danger and it was her fault. Now, Johnny’s trust had been tested and stretched beyond its limit, and she was to blame.

‘I know.’

It wasn’t like him to be so terse. She expected petulance from her sister but not from her lover, who she trusted with her life. It was the beginning of a seed of betrayal and she didn’t like it. His faith in her was shaken and she felt the bitter taste of injustice. Never in the three short years here in Cumbria had she once doubted his loyalty and his support. But now she did and it made her feel very alone.

‘I told you it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. It was an impossible task to predict. It’s about as sure as fortune telling. I was using spaghetti, for God’s sake.’

‘It’s not about the spaghetti. Rob’s amazing app should have thrown up something.’