Alice looked troubled somehow, perhaps by Jess’s expression or her vigil over Freddie’s body—or how suddenly she abandoned it.

“You think she’s all right?”

George took a deep breath. “I guess so, but it must be tough, losing your boyfriend like that.” He turned to face Alice, remembering that Ethan, her ex-boyfriend, was still in the wreckage on the other side of the hill. “Sorry, I didn’t mean…”

She smiled dismissively. “Don’t, it’s not the same. Not even close. I can’t imagine what Jess is going through.”

As they’d talked, Tom had been listening, one ear trained on the night, and among all the sounds, there was one distinctive noise he hadn’t heard—the hollow thumps of Jess climbing the makeshift stairs to the plane.

He reached for his flashlight and stood casually, not wanting to alarm them. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“No worries,” said George, and turned back to Alice.

Tom was about to climb the stairs himself when he heard the unmistakable sound of someone walking through the undergrowth into the dark of the jungle. It was the same natural path on which they’d found Naomi’s shoe, and with a startling car-crash of thoughts, he understood immediately why Jess had finally left the slope.

He thought of going back to tell the other two, but she’d already gone some way and he didn’t want to lose her. So he pointed the beam of light into the absorbent darkness of the jungle and followed after her.

He was glad he hadn’t hesitated because within seconds the plane and the fire and all the others seemed far off. Just a dozen paces in and the world was reduced to the small pool of light in front of him as it danced across the bright green undergrowth, and then somewhere ahead, the more confused crashing of Jess, walking without the aid of a flashlight.

He wished he’d brought a branch or something to defend himself with, but it was too late now, and he had to hope that the unnatural glare of the flashlight would be enough to afford protection from the jaguar or whatever else was out here. And he tried not to think of how the light might also be attracting the other predators in this jungle, alerting them to something that was worth investigating.

He stopped walking, conscious that he could no longer hear Jess ahead of him. Briefly, the background noise of the jungle seemed to stop too, before flooding back over him. But there was still no sound of Jess.