Find Them Dead

56 Wednesday 15 May

Laura was going to go first. But as she stood at the top, the gorge looked a long way down and she felt scared. Beautiful and sinister, it looked like an open wound slashed through the midst of the dense forest. A brutal torrent of fast-moving river, foaming through jagged rocks before plunging over rapids. It was fed by one stream of clear water, cascading in forked rivulets down an escarpment, and by another that was muddy, like brown volcanic lava, pouring from a cave-sized hole halfway down.

A packed, rickety-looking open-cage cable car was making its way across to the far side, swaying precariously. A short distance from it, a zip wire stretched out across the gorge, sharing the landing platform on the far side with the cable car station.

The two girls had been standing for some while in the searing morning heat, in the queue for the zip wire, licking their ice-cream cones and feeling grateful for the faint breeze that rose from the gorge.

‘I’m worried about Mum,’ Laura said, suddenly. ‘She doesn’t sound right when we speak.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘You know, she doesn’t sound herself. She’s normally all excited to get my news. After Dad and Will — we’ve been really close. But there’s something in her voice recently. I have a feeling there’s something she’s not telling me.’

Cassie licked her ice cream, with a studious expression. ‘Maybe she’s just missing you. First time you’ve been away on your own — apart properly — since — you know.’

Laura nodded. ‘I hope so. But she had a mammogram just before I left — she has one regularly because my nan died of breast cancer. Maybe it wasn’t good news.’ She closed her eyes, momentarily. ‘God, I just couldn’t bear to — to lose her. I love her so much. I couldn’t cope, I just couldn’t cope.’

‘You won’t lose her, L, and you’re just being morbid. Your mum probably sounds down because she’s missing you. She’s all alone. Snap out of it!’ As if to drive home her remark, she snapped off the end of her cone with her teeth and crunched the wafer.

An instant later, they were distracted by a scream.

‘Yaaaaaaa-orrrrrrrr-hrrrrrrrrrrr-eeeeeeeeeee!’ a Japanese man cried, either in terror, or elation — or perhaps both — as he was launched, suspended in the harness, screeching all the way down and across to the platform on the far side. He would return, like everyone else, on the cable car.

‘You sure you want to do this, C?’ Laura asked. ‘Looks pretty scary.’

‘Wuss!’

‘I’m so not a wuss!’ she said, indignant. ‘I’m just not that crazy about dying.’

‘It would be quick — the piranhas would eat you the moment you hit the water!’ Cassie replied.

‘Shut up!’ Then she looked at her friend, concerned. ‘Piranhas? Do they have them in this river?’

‘They’re indigenous to South America, aren’t they?’

‘Yech!’

‘They start with the soft bits — they’d strip your face in seconds.’

Laura looked down again. ‘Really not sure I want to do this after all.’

‘Come on, don’t be a wuss — it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop!’

‘Great. And then the piranhas get to eat you.’

‘I’ll go first and then you can follow if I live,’ Cassie said, grinning, and shot a brief glance over her shoulder, before looking back down at the gorge and inching closer to her friend. ‘Don’t turn around, L,’ she hissed. ‘But Mr Creepy is watching us again. God, he’s weird.’

‘What?’

‘Seriously. He’s on the viewing platform.’

‘The same guy?’

Cassie nodded.

‘The one that was in Guayaquil?’

‘It’s him, I promise you. The one that has no neck. Our stalker.’

‘Let’s go over to him and say hi! Embarrass him!’

‘Not worth losing our place in this queue.’

Laura pulled a handkerchief out of her bag and dropped it on the ground. Kneeling to pick it up, she turned and shot a glance behind her, catching the glint of a lens in the sunlight. Standing up again, she said, ‘You’re right. It is him.’

Cassie pursed her lips. ‘Why’s he taking photographs of us, L?’

Putting on a phoney South American accent, Laura replied, ‘Because we iz ze best-looking broads on the trail!’

Cassie giggled. Then she looked serious again. ‘Maybe we should let him know we’re aware of him?’

‘Or make a real effort to give him the slip?’

‘And how do we do that, with the tour bus waiting for us, L?’

‘Plan B!’

‘Which is?’

‘Haven’t figured that one out yet!’ Then she added, ‘But why’s he following us?’

‘He’s probably on the same tour trail we’re on. It’s the regular circuit, he’s probably just some saddo — got his bedroom walls lined with pictures of girls and lies there tossing off to them.’

‘Gross!’

The queue moved forward. There were now just three people ahead of them. Laura peered down and the gorge looked even deeper and scarier. She wouldn’t admit it, but she was quite glad her friend was going first.

‘Heard from your mum today?’

Laura shook her head and glanced at her watch. ‘Three thirty p.m. in the UK, she’s probably still in court.’

‘Sounds a cool trial, shame she can’t talk about it.’

‘Yep. When did you last hear from home?’

‘Over a week ago.’

‘You’re lucky, not having such a worrier of a mum.’

‘I guess because there’s four of us — you’re all your mum has in the world.’

There was another loud scream as a kid in a bumblebee-striped T-shirt shot down the wire; they moved up another place.

‘Think she’ll find someone else one day and remarry?’ Cassie asked.

‘Yuck.’ Laura shook her head. ‘Maybe, I don’t know. I don’t like the idea.’

‘Would you rather she was alone for the rest of her life?’

‘No — I guess — I want her to be happy. But the idea of her — you know — being with a man. That’s just like — yuck.’

The couple in front of them suddenly shook their heads, wimping out, and stepped away.

‘Shit, we’re on!’ Laura said.

Two young men in green T-shirts beckoned a suddenly very reluctant Cassie forward and began clipping her into the harness.

‘Get some photos, L!’

‘On it!’ She was setting her phone camera to video. Then she stepped forward onto the viewing platform and braced herself against the guard rail. She raised the phone and started recording Cassie’s terrified face. ‘Here’s Cassie, moments before the piranhas eat her!’ she announced for the recording.

Moments later, Cassie was launched, shrieking. She hurtled down the wire and low over the gorge. But then, suddenly, to Laura’s shock, instead of continuing on to the platform on the far bank there was a loud TWANG.

Cassie stopped dead, for an instant. She plunged down into the water then bounced back up. Then down again.

All around, people were screaming.

Her insides feeling hollowed out, all Laura could do was watch in horror as her friend dropped back down into the foaming water, then rose up again, then dropped down again, staying submerged for several seconds before springing up again, dangling and bouncing like a marionette.

If the wire snapped and she was swept along the rapids, she would be over the rocky gorge in seconds.

Shaking and feeling utterly helpless, all she could think for a moment was: This could have been me.

Then she turned to the two operators who were shouting at each other. One, looking bewildered, was stabbing buttons on a control panel. ‘Do something!’ she screamed at them then looked back at her friend, who was now dangling, legs flailing, in obvious terror, perilously close to the raging water.

A door opened behind the operators, revealing a large cog. A bulky man in overalls and covered in grease came through holding a crank and yelling at the two younger men. He gave the crank to one of them, opened a metal cabinet cover and began throwing switches inside it. Laura looked back, fearfully, at her friend.

Suddenly the wire tightened. Cassie rose a few feet, then a few more, away from the water. Laura looked back and saw all three men were turning the crank, which had been inserted into part of the apparatus close to the open door.

Steadily, slowly, inch by inch, they wound Cassie up in the air. The wire was tight now and she’d at least stopped bouncing. Staring at it, Laura was thinking, Oh God, please don’t break. Don’t snap. Don’t. Please don’t.

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, seemingly inches at a time, Cassie was cranked back towards them. Laura suddenly realized she was still filming. She shoved her phone in her pocket, anxiously holding her breath.

Please don’t break.

The three men were shouting at each other again. Arguing about something. But, mercifully, sweating heavily, they were still working the handle. Cassie was coming closer.

Closer.

Now she was just a few feet from the launch platform.

‘You’re going to be OK, C!’ Laura yelled.

To her astonishment, her friend was laughing.

‘Nearly there!’ Laura called out.

And a minute later, to Laura’s desperate relief, Cassie was back over the platform and out of danger.

Laura ran towards her as the two younger men were freeing Cassie from the harness and apologizing profusely to her. All the time, she was giggling and laughing.

Laura looked down at her friend, who was now lying on the ground, alternating between crying and laughing.

‘You OK, C?’

But her friend was unaware of her presence. She was in the throes of a total fit of hysterics.