One by One by Simon Kernick Page A

away.’
    He didn’t say anything.
    â€˜Come on,’ I said, shouting now. ‘Let’s go and have a look.’ I don’t think there was any way I’d have gone back out there but I was genuinely furious at being treated this way, after everything I’d been through.
    â€˜OK, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just it’s difficult to believe that Charlie’s dead too. I think I’d convinced myself that he was behind all this. You know, he had the opportunity to kill Louise. Somehow it’s easier to think of him being the killer.’
    â€˜It must be the man I saw at the window last night,’ said Marla.
    I nodded. ‘It’s got to be Pat. Charlie was dressed when I found him so he obviously went outside voluntarily. Maybe he went to meet Pat.’
    â€˜That’s all well and good,’ said Crispin, ‘but Charlie said that Pat had left the island. So why would he go out to meet him if he didn’t know he was there?’
    I shrugged, trying to come up with a viable theory. ‘Maybe he went for a walk and ran into Pat. Pat threatened him with the crossbow, took him into the woods and shot him.’
    â€˜But what’s Pat’s motive?’
    â€˜I don’t know. The note we found makes clear the motive’s revenge, and that must mean revenge for what happened to Rachel. Maybe Pat found out about what happened and decided to act.’
    â€˜It’s a bit unlikely, isn’t it?’ said Crispin. Which, to be fair, it was.
    Marla shook her head dismissively. ‘I can’t see Charlie just going out for a morning stroll when he knew Louise had been murdered and didn’t think it was one of us who’d killed her. He’d have been too scared.’ She frowned. ‘There’s something else too. When I went to the toilet last night during dinner, I was sure the window was shut, and I’ve checked again and it definitely locks automatically if it shuts, so I don’t see how the killer could have got in.’
    â€˜Why didn’t you say anything before?’ I asked.
    â€˜Because I was still in shock, and at the time I wasn’t entirely sure, but now I’ve had time to think about it, and I am.’
    Crispin sighed. ‘Which brings us back to the fact that it could be one of us who killed her. Except we know it can’t have been because we all saw the man in black back in the woods.’
    The room fell silent as everyone tried to work out what was going on. If no one had broken in last night then one of us must have killed Louise. Charlie had been the obvious suspect but now he was dead, so there had to be another killer.
    Luke eventually broke the silence. ‘It doesn’t really matter, does it? What matters is that we get the hell off this island.’
    â€˜That’s a lot easier said than done,’ grunted Marla.
    â€˜I don’t care. I’m going, even if I have to swim for it.’ But I noticed Luke was making no move to go.
    â€˜Come on, Luke,’ said Crispin. ‘You’ve seen the sea out there. It’ll be impossible to swim it, and the water will be freezing. Even if you don’t drown you’ll die of hypothermia.’
    â€˜Well, I’m not fucking staying here!’ He shouted the words and hit the wall so hard, the crockery on the dresser rattled. I remembered that he could be aggressive sometimes. Something of a hard guy, or at least he thought he was. He’d talked about going after Danny Corridge when Corridge had beaten up Charlie, but he’d never managed to put his words into actions, and looking at him now, he reminded me of a frightened and frustrated little boy.
    â€˜We could set alight to the house,’ I said. ‘Then climb up on the rocks. They’re bound to see the fire from the mainland.’
    â€˜That’s a real last resort,’ said Crispin. ‘It’s very risky and we could end up being