“Um, he’s it,” said Andy from the pub.
The backpacker blinked.
“Well, have you got a pic?”
Everyone looked at Flora, who flushed bright red.
“Um,” she said, looking at her phone and realizing to her horror that while she appeared to have about seventy pictures of Bramble and Bracken, lots of the views over to the Rock, and two of the party with Joel in the background (she had desperately wanted to take one of him while he was sleeping but hadn’t dared for fear of being super-creepy), she didn’t have a single one of her father.
“We all know what he looks like,” said Andy, to her unending gratitude. Lorna and Saif came down the main street to join the posse.
“Come on then,” said Clark. “Let’s split up. Westers search wester, easters search easter. I’ll knock up hooses.”
Flora nodded, her heart racing, amazed that it had turned so serious so quickly. He’d only been gone a couple of hours.
Charlie came forward.
“Do you want to start searching the mountains?”
“No,” said Flora. “He won’t . . . he wouldn’t do that.”
“That might explain why Bramble wouldn’t go with him.”
Bramble was lapping noisily at a water dish Andy had put out for him. He wasn’t used to the heat.
“No, his sciatica’s too bad for that, I would say . . .”
They scanned the horizon. It was so clear, they could see all the way to the top of the fell, which was usually shrouded in cloud or low-lying mist.
“I’ll radio Jan,” said Charlie, then stalled suddenly as he realized what he’d said.
Flora looked at him.
“Please do.”
She pretended to busy herself with her phone as he took out the walkie-talkie. Evidently Jan had started pitching camp for the night. Flora felt slightly concerned that this was the only time Charlie had felt it safe to see her. She heard him mutter into the walkie-talkie, quite shortly, and it quickly became evident that there had been no sign of her father, but Jan would keep an eye out. Then Charlie paused, and glanced over at her briefly. Her heart skipped a little.
“Also, Jan,” he said. “When you get down . . . can we talk?”
Flora wandered off so as not to eavesdrop. Where had her father gone? Did he want people looking for him? Was he just fed up with the lot of them?
Although the sun was still high in the sky, it was getting on for nine o’clock. If only he’d gotten a mobile phone, but he couldn’t be persuaded, not ever. It simply didn’t cross his mind that he might need one. Everyone he wanted to speak to either lived five feet away from him or he could wander down to the village to find them. Anything more than that just wasn’t for him.
Oh God, Dad. Where the hell are you? Where have you gone? It gripped her, cold around the heart. She couldn’t. She couldn’t lose another parent. The silly old fool. But what if he’d gotten lost? Tripped and fallen down a cliff? Those paths could be hazardous, even in clear weather. And the wind was up again now. Oh God. No. She couldn’t bear it.
She thought about Joel, but for once in a different way: as someone without a family. Without parents. That was what it was about him. Not that he was arrogant or felt above everyone. But because he was so alone in a cold universe. No wonder he was such a brilliant lawyer, such a great negotiator. He had absolutely nothing to lose. Everyone had gotten him wrong.
She couldn’t imagine it. Even when she’d been far away, she realized now, as she watched the street thronged with people, passing on the word, going up and down to talk to each other, the news spreading quickly, more and more people coming out of their homes to look for her father; wherever she’d been, those skeins from her home had invisibly surrounded her, protected her, kept her safe. Showing her that she always had a way to come home, even if she’d never known it.
She blinked at the tears in her eyes.
“Dad!” she called. “Dad!”
She looked at her phone again. Nothing. Bramble moved closer to her, and she dug her fingers into his thick fur, calmed by the dog’s heavy warmth and slow heart rate.
“DAD!”
Charlie was behind her, she knew. And on all sides stretched a line of people, protecting, helping, caring.
A tear ran down her cheek.
“DAD!”
Who? thought Flora fiercely. Who would he want to talk to? Who would he want to be with?
And then, all at once, in a flash, she knew.
Chapter Forty-six
The churchyard was set behind the ruined abbey; they shared the grounds. Most people were surprised when they came to explore the weather-worn ruins to see that there were recent graves among the ancient fallen stones, but there they were.
Flora’s mother’s grave was plainly marked. Her father hadn’t seen the need to make a big fuss—he’d never made a fuss about anything in his life and he wasn’t going to start with some fancy ornate dedication to his wife, particularly since—as Flora knew, and had fallen out with him so badly about—he thought she’d gone back where she came from.
Telling Charlie she was going to quickly check something, she had rushed down the main street, Bramble bounding joyously, delighted she’d finally cracked what he meant. At the little gate that led to the churchyard, she paused. Behind her, the ancient stones of the abbey loomed up, ageless and somber, even in the bright summer sunshine. The tourists had gone back to the pub to eat scampi and remark on the never-setting sun; the place was empty.
Almost empty. Bramble frolicked on ahead, but Flora didn’t need to follow him to know where he was going.
Her mother’s headstone was set at the very farthest end of the cemetery, right up against the seawall, facing due north. She found her father sitting in a heap behind the stone, tears silently dripping off his chin—it looked like the end of a very long crying jag—and Bracken lying with his head in his lap.
“Dad,” she said quietly. At first he didn’t hear her. He was just leaning against the stone, an old man, crying.
“Dad,” she said again, and sat down.
“Och,” he said crossly when he saw her, and rubbed his hands across his face impatiently. “Och no, away with you. No, Flora, no.”
“Dad, it’s all right.”
He shook his head.
“Ach, no. Please.”
“I understand. But I didn’t know where you’d gone.”
“I’ve no been missed.”
Flora tactfully decided not to mention that about 80 percent of the village was currently searching the island’s every nook and cranny, and was going to make it to the churchyard eventually.
“Oh, Dad. I’m so sorry. Nobody wanted to upset you. Fintan . . .”
He shook his head.
“Och no, I’m no worried about the lad.”
He turned his face away, still ashamed of letting Flora see his tears.
“But the farm . . . that’s hard. That’s a hard one on a man. Generations of MacKenzies have worked that land.”