Dangerous to Know (20 page)

Herod had left because of Andrea. There was nothing wrong with him. “But Mum and Dad must have called the Centre a hundred times in the last two weeks. It’s been searched by the police, for Christ’s sake. Why the hell didn’t Simon tell them you were taking his cousin’s bloody yurt to Glastonbury?” I demanded.

“I told you – Si’s on a retreat. In Thailand. He doesn’t even know I’m here. His cousin lives in the Peak District – I had to go up there first to pick up the yurt. He hasn’t been down to the Centre in months. Nobody there knows where I am.” Herod groaned, shaking his head. “Dad came back. Are you serious?”

Then Herod looked up, right at me. “Jack, are you all right?”

In my mind, I saw Bethany walking away from me through the café, past the crowds waiting for coffee and chai. She was gone. She was gone.

“It’s just this girl,” I said.

Herod watched me for a moment, saying nothing. At last, he spoke. “Maybe one day she’ll come back.”

But I couldn’t think like that. Slow torture. Always wondering.

She was never coming back.

“What are you going to do?” I asked, and Herod said, “I’m going to find a phone.”

And then he asked me, “Are you coming?”

So I went with him, walking side by side through a city of tents, the odd café still trading, selling flapjacks and tea; a guy in silver trousers offered us hash truffles from a tray hanging around his neck, but instead we bought beers from a woman pushing a cool box in a wheelbarrow. They were still cold. Herod paid for mine and we walked on, drinking cold beer in the early morning light, just me and Herod.

I stop the van in the traders’ field and check my phone. The reception as usual is crap down here but Sam’s texted saying he’ll meet me on site. He’s been down since Monday; it’s Wednesday now and finally the book cover from hell is off to the printer. Done. I’m free and it’s just as well. This is our last chance to get the van anywhere near the café and it’s loaded with sacks of dried chickpeas, industrial quantities of apple juice and some shifty cash-and-carry cider for the staff; if Sam runs out of anything else we’ll be wheelbarrowing it from the traders’ car park, like it or not. The site manager’s not as strict as Glastonbury but it’s not worth the hassle.

Christ, it’s hot. The place is like a dust bowl already, a rash of tents spread out across the sweeping front lawn of a stately home. I drive slowly with the hazards on. A guy staggers across the roadway wearing what appear to be brown leather hot pants and nothing else except a weird feathery thing around his ankle. It’s eight in the morning; I was first in the cash and carry after leaving London at six. At least there was no traffic but it’s not as if I’m going to get any more sleep for the next three days. It’s not that kind of festival, even if you’re working.

“Nice one, Jack.” Sam staggers from his tent just behind the kitchen; he must have heard the van. It’s knackered. You can hear the bearings squealing in the next county but the old girl’s got a few miles left in her yet. Owen sold the Sprinter to me for a hundred quid after Tasha and Aoife put their foot down last September. “Dad,” Aoife said. “You’ve got to stop driving that thing. It’s just embarrassing. Get a proper car.” Her mother agreed. Owen got the better of both of them by selling the Sprinter as ordered, and buying an old red Post Office van off one of Herod’s mates instead. Em creeps out of the tent after Sam, rubbing her eyes.

“Argh,” Em says, taking Sam’s hand. “You should have been here last night. It’s not even meant to have started yet.” She smiles, pushing back her hair. “Insanity. Pure insanity.” They’re good together, Em and Sam. Yvonne’s freaking out over the wedding, even though it’s not till the end of September. I’m meant to be reading something in the church; I just hope it’s nothing too slushy. Sam getting married. I can’t believe it. It seems so ridiculous, somehow.

“Come on, let’s get some tea on,” Sam says. “We can leave the stuff in the van, use it as an extra dry store.”

Anyway, the café’s pretty quiet. Just a few people sitting around drinking chai and smoking. Its always like that, this time of the morning at a dance music festival. No one’s going to want a full-on breakfast till the early afternoon at least.

“I’ll get us a brew.” Sam slopes off behind the counter to the kitchen, starts messing around with the urn. A brew. He stayed in Manchester after uni and he’s talking like a northerner now, or maybe that’s just because he’s around Em so much.

“So, was it an OK drive?” Em says, then frowns slightly. “Do you know that girl? She’s staring at you.”

“What girl?”

Em looks away in a failed attempt at subtlety. “Dark hair, that table over near the blackboard.” She grins. “She’s definitely got her eye on you, Jack.”

I turn, look at the blackboard first: a chalked-up list of prices. Tea and coffee £1. Chai £1.50. Veggie breakfast £6. Home-made cakes £3. I can’t read the rest because there’s a girl sitting with a group of mates in front of the board. Em’s right. She’s looking right at me.

She looks different, but not different. Her hair is shorter, for one thing, hanging loose around her shoulders, pinned back behind one ear with a silk flower. And she’s wearing a totally ridiculous white dress that looks like something off a Greek statue, with wellies.

Years. It’s been years. The last time I saw her was at that party just before everyone left for uni, and she was going out with an arty guy from the sixth-form college with bad hair and pretentious jeans.

She’s here now, though. We look at each other. My mouth’s gone totally dry. Suddenly, I don’t feel tired any more. I get up, head spinning. Not enough sleep and too much driving.

“Beth?” says one of her mates. “Are you OK?”

Without even thinking about it, I’m checking out her friends. A mix of girls and blokes. Do any of them lay claim to her?
Don’t be so ridiculous
, I think.
Don’t be such an idiot.
But anyway, I’m walking towards her, and she’s standing up now, too, in her dusty white dress with a silk flower behind one ear.

“Hello, Jack,” Bethany says, smiling.

And not for the first time I think how funny it is the way when I see someone from school we hug and kiss each other on the cheek, and how unimaginable that would have been back then. I mean, you just didn’t. So we do it anyway, the polite hug and kiss on the cheek. But instead of the usual pulling away, the usual questions –
So, how are you doing?
Have you seen so and so
, and all that crap – we don’t let go. We hold on to each other, and the whole tent is staring, but I don’t care because she’s here.

Bethany, at last.

Thanks to Denise Johnstone-Burt, Ellen Holgate, Nic Knight and the rest of the Walker team, and also to Catherine Clarke and Will Llewellyn. I’m very grateful to Annette Boxall, a Wyld Mare always, for giving me some helpful advice about police procedure, Jamie Cornwallis for explaining how to make a rose and Rosie Wellesley for the medical tips.

Thanks also to Steph Hinde for getting me that job in family camping and to Jules Jenkins and Bubsie Yates for employing me as their fry-up chef.

Katy Moran lives in Shropshire with her husband and two sons. She has written three historical adventure novels, but this is the first book she has set within her own lifetime. She has worked the graveyard shift at many festivals, and can dig a trench through a flooded kitchen whilst icing a cake, reconnect a broken electricity supply, make six cups of tea and fend off customers who want to climb across the bar and help – all at half past four in the morning.

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