Rift by Beverley Birch Read Free Book Online Page B

wished Ella would come back. Were these the same policemen as yesterday? They’d just told him their names but already everything criss-crossed, tangled, and he was boxed in with questions he couldn’t answer, couldn’t even hear sometimes, like cotton wool dulled everything outside his head.
    ‘You are a puzzle to us all, young man,’ the uniformed one was saying. ‘The doctor has just now told us new things. That you are only a little dehydrated. That is rather strange.’ He paused here, but getting no response from Joe, resumed, ‘Yousee, Joe – you would be more dehydrated if you were fully exposed to the heat. This suggests to us that you have had shelter, and water, at least for a time. Yet, where you were found over on the north side of the rock is very barren, no shelter there, no vegetation, no water. You see why we are puzzled?’
    Silence again, expectant and probing. Joe looked from one to the other. Their anticipation scared him. He cast round desperately for something to say. But the tall one spoke suddenly, his voice quiet and quick in contrast to the deeper, louder tones of the other man. ‘It is not to blame you, you understand. District Commissioner Meshami is just hoping that more will come to your memory, to help us.’
    ‘Of course. Inspector Murothi is right,’ said the one Joe now knew was the District Commissioner. ‘We seek help, not blame.’ The man moved to sit down next to Joe, and it was better not having the pair of them drilling into him with their eyes.
    ‘Several puzzles must be solved,’ he heard the DC say. ‘First, there is how you were wandering around, so far from your camp . . . ’ He paused, as if to allow this to sink in. ‘So, Joe, if you will think again, hard, now that you are more rested. How did you go there? What was your route? It will tell us where to look –’
    Joe hesitated. ‘I don’t know about going anywhere. We were just in the camp. We never went over the rock, we only went to the archaeology dig like everyone else, before, and that’s not that way, is it?’
    ‘No, it is not. We can show you a map . . . ’
    Joe’s mind filled with something, like a replay button pushed on.
    In the tent. Anna, Silowa, Matt. No light, dark.
    Tent. Charly’s tent. Charly wasn’t there.
    Something stark and simple penetrated, something he could clear up, that the police had got all wrong. They said Anna, Silowa, Matt and Charly were all missing.
    Urgently, he said, ‘Wait, wait – Charly just went to the archaeology camp at Burukanda, so she’ll be back!’
    DC Meshami put out a steadying hand. ‘Yes, yes, she went, we know. But she came back the next day, Joe. She was in the camp after you had gone. We know this. Did you see her again? Please, please, think.’
    He thought. He hung on as hard as he could, dragging the picture out of obscurity. Charly’s tent. Flare of moonlight through canvas. Silowa cross-legged on the floor. Anna too. Matt lying on the bed, arguing, ‘They’ll just find us here, you know they will, Anna. Joe? Joe, won’t they just do somethingelse? We’ve got to tell –’
    ‘Who? Tell who? What’s the point!’ Anna’s voice sharp with insistence. ‘Charly’s the only one who listens, and she’s not here. No, we’ll show them. Joe, Joe – we’ll do it, right? Silowa? And after we’ll get Charly to –’ and Silowa interrupting, ‘But I think Matt is right, I think this is very bad things –’ and then all stopping, hearing the stealthy brush of movement along the outside of the tent –
    The memory stalled. Something swung on the edges of his vision, swung and turned, then he had a picture of Anna kneeling, looking down, and a face – Sean’s face. It appeared suddenly below, and Anna dodged back, out of Sean’s sight, shoving Silowa back too –
    Then there was just the murk of the tent again and the swing of a black, swaying pendulum –
    He pushed hair out of his eyes. His hands were icy but sweaty, as if the