The Lie

Daisy and I exchange a look. Normally, Leanne would be the first to put her best friend’s health before everything and charge down the mountain to get help. And then there’s the fact that she’s disagreeing with Daisy. That never happens.

“Yeah, yeah, we heard you,” I say, “but conjecture isn’t going to magically conjure up a nebuliser, is it? Are there doctors and nurses up there or not?”

Leanne shrugs. “I don’t know. Probably. There are a lot of people there from different professions, and—”

“We’re going back down.” Daisy holds up her hands. “We’re not gambling with Al’s health. Come on.” She gives Leanne a small shove. “Let’s go.”

“No!” Leanne twists sharply to one side and, for one heart-stopping second, I think she’s going to hit Daisy. “You can go back down if you want, but I’m—”

“Could everyone please stop talking about me as if I’m dead, or something!” Al steps out from beside me and holds up her hands. “I am here, you know. Seriously, I appreciate the concern, guys, but no one is going to miss out on the holiday of a lifetime just because I’m a twenty-a-day lard arse with crap lungs and a heavy load.” She pats the roll of flesh that overhangs the waistband of her black combat shorts.

Daisy shakes her head firmly. “Nice speech, but no one loves a dead hero.”

“Fuck off, Dais!” Al laughs then looks at Shankar. “How much further have we got to go? Like, how many more hours?”

He shrugs. “Thirty minutes, maybe forty?”

“All right, then.” Al reaches down for her backpack but Shankar grabs it first. There’s a stand-off as they each hold a strap and lock eyes, urging the other to back down. Normally, there’s no way Al would ever let a man do something she’s capable of doing herself.

“Miss. I carry. You breathe.” There’s a quiet tenacity to the way Shankar speaks, and although Al shakes her head, I can see her resolve waver. Her high colour has paled but she’s still breathing shallowly.

“I’ll take yours,” she says, reaching for the smaller rucksack on the guide’s back. “We can swap, but only until I’ve got my breath back. Five minutes, ten minutes tops.”

Forty-five minutes later, Shankar shrugs off Al’s backpack, flipping it onto the ground as though it’s a pillow, and points to the building down a small track to our left. “We are here.”

Rising out of the white blanket of cloud that surrounds us are three separate houses, linked by fenced walkways, their three-tiered roofs silhouetted against the landscape like Chinese temples. The window frames are painted in shades of red, ochre and turquoise, and stone steps lead up to an enormous wooden door on the front of the main house. A high wall runs around the perimeter of the grounds, a large wooden gate closing the retreat off from the world. Prayer flags flutter in the wind and the sound of laughter drifts across the breeze.

“Wow.” I unbuckle my own backpack, twist my body sideways so the pack drops to the ground, lean back and groan with pleasure and relief as I press my shoulder blades together.

Daisy skips towards Leanne, grips her arm and presses her cheek against the top of her shoulder. “Oh, my God, it’s even more gorgeous than it looked on the website.”

Leanne grins at the compliment, drops her backpack and wraps an arm around Daisy. “Told you! And you all thought I was going to bring you to some kind of shack.”

“Actually,” says Al, climbing the last few steps, “I thought we’d be sitting in a paddy field, meditating for twelve hours a day before being force-fed mungbean sandwiches.”

“The paddy fields are back down the mountain,” Leanne says, pointing. “Off you go!”

“There’s the river!” Daisy lets go of Leanne and points excitedly into the distance. I strain to see through the trees then spot something blue and shimmery. “Is that the waterfall I can hear?”

“Probably.” Leanne reaches for her backpack and hauls it back onto her shoulders. “Come on, they’re expecting us.”

Daisy squeals and hurries after her as she makes her way down the track. I wait for Al to catch up. She slips Shankar’s rucksack off her shoulders and hands it to him. He slips it on effortlessly.

“Thank you.” She holds out her right hand. “I couldn’t have made it up here without your help.”

Shankar shakes her hand while simultaneously touching his left hand against his right forearm as a sign of respect. “No problem, miss.”

“For you.” Al reaches into her pocket and pulls out a hundred rupee note. “Please.” She presses it into his hand.

He accepts the money with a smile and tucks it into the little leather wallet attached to his belt, then turns to go back down the mountain.

“You’ll come in?” I say. “The least we can do is offer you a sandwich and a cup of chai. I’m sure the owners won’t mind.”

The smile slips from his face. “No, thank you.”

“Please, you can’t walk all the way back down again without a break. It wouldn’t be right.”

His gaze flicks to the left, to the retreat at the end of the track. “No.” An emotion I can’t read flickers across his face, and then it’s gone.

“But …” The words fall away as Shankar turns on his heel and, without another word, starts back down the mountain.

“Emma, Al, come on!” the girls shout from below us.

A tall man with shoulder-length black hair, wearing cut-off camouflage trousers and a grey long-sleeved T-shirt, is standing beside them, holding the gate open.

“Hi,” the man shouts, raising a hand in greeting. “I’m Isaac.”

Chapter 10

Present Day

Sheila sent me home, no questions asked. She heard me throwing up in the ladies’ loo and immediately diagnosed me as suffering from an upset tummy. She didn’t even give me the opportunity to object.

“I saw you nibbling the corner of that sandwich and I knew something was wrong. It’s not like you not to have an appetite. Get yourself home, Jane. We don’t want to risk you passing it on to everyone else. We’re short-staffed as it is.”

I think she would have driven me home herself if I hadn’t pointed out that I had my bicycle with me. No point driving me home when I only live a five-minute cycle away and it’s all downhill.

That was two hours ago. I’ve spent the last thirty minutes sitting in front of my laptop. I thought it would be harder to find Al. I thought that, after five years, she’d be impossible to track down, but, unlike me, she hasn’t changed her name. She’s even got a Facebook profile. Alexandra Gideon. There were only three listed and two of them live in the States. Her cover image is of Brighton seafront and the profile picture’s a rainbow, and that’s it, that’s all the information I’ve got to go on, but I know it’s her. She always said she wanted to leave London and move to Brighton.

It’s been four years since we last spoke. We kept in touch for the first few months after we got back from Nepal, talking on the phone every day, trying to make sense of what had happened, but then Al sold her story to the press and everything changed. I couldn’t understand why she’d done it. I called her, over and over again, begging her to explain why she’d gone back on what we’d agreed, but she ignored my calls. I don’t know if it was the money or the attention or what, but it was the worst kind of betrayal, especially after everything we’d been through.

I hold down the delete button and the cursor zips from right to left, swallowing the message I’ve been trying to compose for the last half an hour. I start again:

Al, it’s me.

No. I created this Facebook account as Jane Hughes, and she won’t know who that is.

Al, it’s Emma. I know you probably don’t want to talk to me, but I need your help.

I delete the last sentence.

Al, it’s Emma. I think Daisy’s still alive. Please contact me. Here’s my mobile number …

I touch the button beneath the swipe pad, ready to click send, but then change my mind again. Does she already know? Whoever typed the message onto the Green Fields’ website could already have contacted Al. If I found her in minutes, they could have, too.

I reach for my mobile and click on Will’s name. The call goes straight to voicemail. His tone is professional and impersonal but the sound of his voice is comforting.

“Hi, Will, it’s Jane. Could you give me a ring when you finish school? I need to talk to you; it’s important.”

I place the phone on the desk next to the laptop. I stare at the screen, drumming my right index finger on the button under the swipe pad.

Delete or send? Delete or send? My heart tells me to trust Al. My head says not to.

I click send.

The second Will sets eyes on me, he gathers me into a tight hug.

“Sorry, darling. I thought I’d mentioned that it was parents’ evening tonight.” He pulls away, his hands on my shoulders. “You okay? You sounded worried on the phone.”

“Yeah … I …” I hand him a bottle of red wine. “I’ve had a bit of a weird day and …” The sound of two people talking drifts towards us as a couple of dog walkers stroll past the end of Will’s garden, their high-visibility jackets glowing in the light from the house. “Can we talk inside?”

“’Course, yeah.” He reaches an arm around my shoulders and ushers me into the house.

It’s warm and bright in the hallway. Dozens of black and white photos of Will and Chloe, and Will and various friends and relatives, smile down at me from one wall. On the other is a faux Banksy print of a large Star Wars AT-AT walker saying, “I’m your father” to a smaller AT-AT walker (I only know what they’re called because Will told me).

“I need to explain why I was being so obtuse last night,” I say as I head towards the living room. “The reason I was asking about lying was because—”

“Hi, Jane!” Chloe waves at me from the sofa where she’s sitting cross-legged with a loom band maker in one hand and a crochet hook in the other. She doesn’t shift her gaze from the Disney movie blaring out song tunes from the television in the corner of the room.

“Hello!” I glance questioningly at Will. He normally only has his daughter at weekends during term time.

“Ah, yes, Chloe … the other reason it took me a while to get back to you. Sara rang during my last meeting. She sliced her thumb on a food processor blade and needed me to take Chloe so she could go to A&E.” He glances at the clock above the fireplace. It’s after nine. “We agreed it would be best if Chloe stayed here for the night. God knows how long it will take her to be seen.”

Sara is Will’s ex-wife. They’re separated, but amicably so. According to Will, their relationship gradually became more like brother and sister in the years after Chloe was born, but it wasn’t until Sara admitted that she’d developed a bit of a crush on a colleague and Will felt feelings of relief rather than jealousy that they confronted the issue. Sara went on to have a relationship with her colleague, but it fizzled out almost as quickly as it began.

“Here” – he thrusts my bottle of red wine at me – “why don’t you go into the kitchen and get this opened while I take Chloe upstairs? We can have a proper chat once she’s in bed.”

“Okay.”

“I can make a bracelet for you, if you want, Jane!” Chloe says, waving the loom board at me. She’s got the same generous wide smile as her father. “What are you favourite colours? Or I could make you a rainbow one, if you like.”

“A rainbow bracelet would be wonderful.”

“I could make collars for the animals you look after, too. Or you could sell them in the sanctuary to raise money for—”

“Bed!” Will says, with a smile on his face. “You’ve seen Jane now. No more excuses, let’s get you upstairs.”

Chloe’s face falls. “But …”

“We can talk about your ideas this weekend, Chloe.” I glance at Will, who nods. “In fact, we could discuss them at Green Fields. I’ll give you the VIP guided tour.”

“No way!” Chloe throws her loom bands to one side and runs at me. She wraps her arms around my hips and buries her head in my stomach.

I rest a hand on the top of her fine, mousey hair.

“You’re very lucky, you know,” Will says. “They don’t let just anyone wander around Green Fields.”

“I’m afraid you won’t be able to meet the dogs,” I add. “They get upset when too many strangers visit.”

“That’s okay.” Chloe gazes up at me. “I only really want to see the cats and the ferrets and the mice. And the swearing parrot.”

“The what?” Will pretends to look aghast, and Chloe giggles. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Come on, teeth time.”

“Night, Jane.” Chloe gives me another squeeze then skips past her father and climbs the stairs, two at a time.

Will and I exchange smiles then he presses a hand to my cheek. “Thank you. You’ve made her very happy.”

I shrug. “It’s nothing.”

“Still …” His gaze lingers, the emotion behind his eyes weighty and intense. We had a discussion on our third date about how neither of us wanted to get into anything “heavy”, and we’re still not officially “together”, even though Will insisted I meet Chloe three weekends ago. We “bumped into” each other while they were feeding the ducks at the pond in the centre of the village, and he introduced me as “my friend Jane”. She accepted the introduction unquestioningly, but her eyes grew wide and round when I told her what I do for a living. She’s been badgering her dad to spend time with me ever since.

My chest tightens with anxiety. I shouldn’t have told Chloe about visiting the sanctuary this weekend, not when I’m about to tell Will that I’ve been lying to him since the moment we met. I got carried away by her excitement; I forgot that none of this is real.

“I should open the wine.” I touch his hand briefly then break eye contact with him and step away. “Give Chloe a goodnight kiss for me.”

He turns and heads for the stairs. Like his daughter, he takes them two at a time then disappears into the bathroom off the landing.

It’s cooler in the kitchen than the rest of the house. Will’s cooking prowess is demonstrated by the well-stacked spice rack to the right of the cooker and the shelf full of cookery books, the pages rippled and stained. The wine rack to the left of the cooker is well stocked with a variety of red, white and rosé bottles and two magnums of champagne, and there’s a plentiful supply of chocolates in the cupboard above the mug tree, too – presents from grateful parents, no doubt.

I dig around in the cutlery drawer until I find the bottle opener then yank the cork out of the bottle of red wine. I don’t wait for it to breathe. Instead, I half-fill the largest wine glass I can find in the mis-matched selection in the cupboard and down half of it. Then I refill the glass and pour another one for Will.

As footsteps reverberate on the ceiling over my head, I wander down the hallway and back into the living room. I turn off the television, tidy the spilled loom bands into their correct colour compartments then, with nothing else to do, I sit on the sofa and reach for Will’s iPad.

I swipe from left to right to unlock the screen, Will only bought his iPad a few weeks ago and he still hasn’t got round to setting a password. I sent Al the message at seven o’clock. Has she read it? If she’s as addicted to Facebook as half the girls at work, she’ll have read it the second her phone bleeped with a new message notification. She may even have replied.

The sound of Will’s laugh and Chloe’s high-pitched giggle floats down the stairs as I log into Facebook.

The messages icon at the top of the screen is still blue. No message from Al. She hasn’t even read it yet. I’m just about to log out when I notice there’s another tab open in the browser. Will’s been reading a tabloid newspaper online – one he’s ranted about several times. I click on it.

The headline alone fills a third of the page.

HUMILIATED, ABANDONED AND BETRAYED.

BRITISH WOMAN ESCAPES DEADLY CULT THAT ROBBED HER OF

TWO OF HER FRIENDS AND NEARLY STOLE HER OWN LIFE.

Alexandra (Al) Gideon, 25, from London talks exclusively to Gilly McKensie about the dream vacation that turned into a holiday from hell when she and her three friends – Daisy Hamilton, 26, Leanne Cooper, 25, and Emma Woolfe, 25 – journeyed to Nepal. Now Al puts the record straight about what really happened and the mystery behind Daisy and Leanne’s disappearance …

I stop reading. I already know what it says. It’s the article Al sold, the reason we haven’t spoken for four years.

But why has Will been reading it? There’s no way he could connect me with that story. Unless …

I reach into my back pocket, but the note’s not there. It’s still in my work trousers, lying in a crumpled heap on my bathroom floor after I took them off to have a shower after work. Did the same person who sent me the note contact Will to tell him I’m not who he thinks I am? That might explain the real reason he didn’t reply to my voicemail for a couple of hours – he wanted to check me out on the internet first.

A floorboard creaks above my head.

Unless he was the one who sent the note?

I reach for one of the school exercise books on the coffee table and flick through it. On one of the pages there’s an image of a plant, drawn in pencil, with the various parts labelled in school kids’ untidy handwriting – stem, stamen, petal, etc. Underneath, written in blue biro, are the words:

A great piece of work – well done.

The handwriting is small and neat.

The floorboard creaks again, louder this time and, panicking, I reach for my messenger bag, slip the book into it then walk into the hall.

“Sorry, Will,” I shout up the stairs. “I’ve got to go. There’s been an emergency at work.”

“Hang on, Jane,” he shouts back. “I won’t be a—”

The door clicks shut behind me before he can finish his sentence.

Chapter 11

Five Years Earlier

“Help yourself to a beanbag and make yourselves comfortable,” Isaac says as he ushers us into a cool, dark room. His voice is deep and resonant with a soft Scottish burr. He rubs a hand over his stubbly jaw. “Just dump your backpacks wherever. I’ll just grab you some chai. You must be knackered after your trek.”

“You’re not kidding.” Daisy flashes him a smile as he slips back out of the room. She groans as she wriggles out of her backpack. It slips to the floor with a thump. Al, Leanne and I do the same and then grab a beanbag each from the pile in the corner of the room and collapse onto them.

“This is the meditation room,” Leanne says reverently. “It says on the website that they meditate three times a day. The first session is at five a.m.”

Al laughs. “Well, I won’t be spending much time here, then.”

I gaze around, taking it all in. The floor is a dark polished wood, the walls roughly plastered and painted a vibrant turquoise and adorned with prayer flags and fairy lights. There’s a bookshelf at one end of the room and a wooden altar at the other, with a large gold skull taking pride of place in the centre, a metal gong to its right and several church candles arranged on golden plates to the left. Plumes of grey smoke swirl in the air from the dozens of incense holders arranged in front of the gold skull, and in plant pots and wooden holders around the room, and the air is thick with the rich, heady scent of jasmine.

“Here we go, then,” Isaac says a few minutes later, ducking his head as he passes through the doorway and wanders back into the room carrying a tray of steaming metal cups.

He takes the tray to Leanne first, crouching down to offer her a mug. She sits up straight and beams at him, then bites down on her bottom lip as though trying to suppress her smile. Al twists round and gives me an incredulous look. In the seven years we’ve known Leanne, she’s never reacted to a man like this. Her normal modus operandi when a man approaches her is wariness, swiftly followed by sarcasm and put-downs disguised as jokes. She’s only been out with two guys in the whole time I’ve known her – she went out with the leader of the Socialist Society at uni for six months before they split up, for unknown reasons, and then she dated some Dutch guy she met at yoga after we all moved to London, but they finished after three months when he moved back to the Netherlands. Al thinks he broke her heart, but Leanne never talked to any of us about how she felt, not even Al. Unlike the rest of us, who always analyse our failed relationships to death, Leanne refuses to talk about her private life. Scratch the surface and you get more surface.

Isaac straightens up and takes the tray to Daisy, who flicks back her hair and pushes back her shoulders so Isaac is greeted with a faceful of cleavage as he squats down. She makes no attempt to hide her attraction to him – why should she? If Daisy’s interested in a man, she makes it blatantly clear, and, with her long blonde hair, narrow waist and perky boobs, nine times out of ten she gets him. Unlike the rest of us, she’s never been dumped and never had her heart broken. She’ll pursue a man until she gets him, but she never lets her defences down, never lets herself fall for anyone. She’ll dump a guy or move on if there’s any danger of that happening. You don’t have to be a psychologist to work out that it’s got something to do with her mum abandoning her when she was five.

Al gives Isaac a cursory nod as he presents her with a cup of tea. He says something I can’t hear and she laughs and gives him a high five. My stomach twists as he straightens up once more and makes his way towards me. I don’t know why, but attractive men make me feel insecure and self-conscious. My mouth dries up and I struggle to make conversation.

“Hi, Emma.” Isaac squats down in front of me. His eyes are the warmest brown, framed with dark eyelashes and eyebrows. They smile at me as he hands me the last cup of chai. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” I press my lips together. “I’m fine.”

“Cool.” His gaze slips from my face to my legs. “Did you fall over on your way up the mountain?”

“Yeah, how did—”

“Your trousers are ripped.” He gently runs a finger over the tear in my dusty cotton trousers. I flinch, even though the skin on my knee is no longer tender. “Sorry, didn’t mean to hurt you.” He pulls his hand away sharply. “If it still hurts, Sally in the kitchen has got a first aid kit.”

“It’s fine, honestly.”

“Okay.” He smiles warmly and stands up. Then he crosses the room, picks up a beanbag and plonks it in front of us. “So.” He opens his hands wide. “Welcome to Ekanta Yatra. I know you’ve all had a look at the website so I’ll keep this brief, because I know you’ll all be gagging to have a shower or a sleep, or whatever.

“I founded Ekanta Yatra three years ago, along with Isis, Cera and Johan – you’ll meet them soon. We were all travelling separately and became friends when we found ourselves staying in the same guest house in Pokhara. We were all looking for somewhere that would be a retreat from the world, and we pooled what little money we had and bought this place. It was basically a shack when we bought it.”

“It looks lovely now,” Leanne says, and Isaac smiles at her.

“Cheers, we’ve worked hard. Johan’s the big hulking Swede you’ll see shuffling about. He’s in charge of the vegetable patch and the animals – anything outside, basically. Isis is a short, grey-haired woman. She’s got a background in massage and holistic therapies, so she’s your go-to woman for your facials and aromatherapy sessions. Cera’s the tall, elegant woman you’ll see drifting about. She keeps the place running efficiently and makes sure everything is clean and tidy and that the kitchen’s got all the supplies it needs. And I’m Isaac. I run the meditation sessions and the seminars and, um … I make a mean cup of chai, too.”