Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Lewis' car was a small silver hatchback that rattled alarmingly at low speeds and refused to accelerate. From the car manual Baz found in the glovebox, it went from zero to sixty mph in a respectable 15.8 seconds, in the unlikely event it was indeed capable of reaching 60mph at all.
Sadie sat in the back seat as they trundled down the motorway, tracking their progress on her phone. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was getting in over her head. It was bad enough that she'd somehow convinced Baz there was a lead at the end of this, the promise of answers to the questions they'd been asking for years. But now Lewis was involved, too.
I just need to find out what the deal is with Etta and those flowers. Then, she'd tell Baz and Lewis she was mistaken and there was nothing out there. They'd be mad at her, for sure, but at least that would be the end of it.
She glanced down at her phone and realised they were near the radio tower. She gestured at the window. "It should be just behind this field."
After some protest — The hard shoulder is supposed to be for emergencies only — Lewis indicated and pulled onto the side of the road, and the three of them piled out.
Sadie re-oriented the map and pointed them into the woodland just beyond the main road. "It shouldn't be too far from here."
But she hadn't counted on the thick, prickly undergrowth, or the fact that it was an uphill climb all the way. They scrambled through dense shrubbery, scraping their hands on thorned bushes, spindly branches poking and pricking in all the wrong places. Sadie could just about make out the top of the radio tower through the gaps in the trees, but it felt like it wasn't getting any closer.
Finally, they made it onto something resembling a path — a flattened-down grass track curving steeply upwards through a canopy of trees. Below them, Sadie could see the sun glinting off the lakes in the nature reserve below, puddles of light between lush green wetlands. They struggled on, until after what seemed like an age, the path levelled off, and they reached the top of the hill. A high chain-link fence separated them from the sparse grassland ahead, and just beyond Sadie could see the pylon and the abandoned building in the picture.
Baz looked up at the fence, then at Sadie, the same unspoken challenge flitting between their eyes. At the same time, they both hooked their fingers though the fence loops and scrambled up. Sadie got a leg over the top and dropped down onto the other side, just a second ahead of Baz.
"Eat it," Sadie said triumphantly. "That's one-seventy-four to one-fifty-one."
"One-seventy-three," Baz huffed. "We agreed the meatballs didn't count."
She was about to reply, but realised Lewis was still standing on the other side. "Hey, Lewis," she called. "What's keeping you?"
Lewis glanced uncertainly at the towering chain-link. "Isn't this trespassing?"
