The Lie (28 page)
Authors: C. L. Taylor
Tags: #Fiction, #Thrillers, #Suspense, #Contemporary Women
“It’s bullshit. All of it.”
“He loves me.”
“He doesn’t love anyone.”
“Urrgh.” Johan groans in pain and I take another step up the slope towards him. His skin is grey in the half-light, his eyes are closed, and the pool of blood around him has grown bigger. If we don’t do something, he’ll die.
“Oh, no you don’t!” Daisy steps between us and raises her hand so the knife is pointed at my chest. “No one’s helping him until we’ve found Isaac. Isaac? Can you hear me? Isaac!”
“Daisy, he’s dead. You said as much yourself. That’s a two-hundred-metre drop. Please” – I reach for her – “you need to come with us. You need to trust me.”
“Trust you!” She knocks my arm away. “After everything you’ve done? You told Isaac I killed my sister!”
“What?”
“He told me. He said you’d tried to convince him that she didn’t die by accident, that my mum was right, that I drowned her. How could you say something so cruel when you know, you
know
how fucked up I am about it? I was five years old, Emma. I only got out of the bath for a minute. If Mummy hadn’t taken my toy off me … if she … if she …” She swipes at the tears that have filled her eyes. “Fuck you, Emma. Fuck you for using that against me.”
“I didn’t. Daisy, I swear. Leanne told Isaac about Melody. She wrote him emails before we came over here, telling him all about us, telling him
everything
about us. They’ve been manipulating us since we stepped foot through the gates.”
“Have you seen these emails?” Daisy looks at Al.
“No, but—”
“See! It’s all lies. More lies, Emma! You’ve sucked Al in, but I won’t let you do that to me. It’s not Leanne and Isaac who’ve been manipulating people; it’s you. Leanne knows you don’t like her, she’s always known, and she was scared to talk to me, in case you turned on her too, but she told me everything. She told me about the conversation she overheard between you and Al when you were telling her how embarrassing I am; she told me about you pretending to be attacked by Frank; she told me about you sleeping with Isaac—”
“Because she wanted to come between us and convince you to stay at Ekanta Yatra!”
“Because she cares about me!”
“I’m not arguing with you any more, Daisy. I need to check on Johan.”
“No!” She lunges at me, the knife still clutched in her right hand, the blade aimed at my chest. As I raise my hands to protect myself, Al launches herself at me too, knocking me sideways. The air is forced from my lungs as we tumble to the ground, Daisy and Al landing on top of me. I reach out with my left arm but my hand grasps thin air. If we’d fallen a couple of inches to my left, we’d have been pitched into the ravine. I try to anchor myself with my right hand but my arm is trapped under Al’s knee.
No one moves for a couple of seconds, and then Daisy tries to get up, but Al grabs the back of her vest and reaches for the knife. As she wraps her hand around Daisy’s wrist, Daisy twists round and swipes at her, scraping her nails along the soft flesh of Al’s cheek. Al winces but doesn’t let go of her wrist. They twist and grapple above me, pulling at each other’s clothes, pinching, scratching and thumping as the knife flashes through the air.
“Stop it!” I scream as Daisy grabs a handful of Al’s hair and jerks her head back. At the sound of my voice, Daisy looks round. Her grip on Al loosens and, as I watch, Al lets go of her wrist and, using all her strength, pushes Daisy off me and over the cliff.
However hard I try, I cannot close the disconnect in my brain between what I just saw and what I feel. What I saw was my best friend of seven years plummet to her death. What I
feel
is that none of this is real. Not the icy early morning wind on my face, not the stained and torn dress fluttering around my thighs, not the burn on my hand or the whip lashes on my back.
There is a part of me, the part floundering around in the disconnect trying to make sense of it all, that believes all I need to do is take a step off the cliff and I’ll wake up in my bed back in London. My head will hurt from a wild night out clubbing, having consumed too many vodka and Cokes and not enough water, and my phone will be bleeping with half a dozen messages from Daisy, joking about the things we said and did the night before. And I’ll sip at the water beside my bed and I’ll read the messages, and then I’ll swing my legs from under the duvet and pad into my kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee. And while the kettle is boiling, I’ll sigh at the thought of my regular Sunday phone call to my mother, and the pile of laundry I can’t bring myself to tackle, and the prospect of another sweaty Monday morning tube ride to the job I hate. And as the kettle boils, I’ll fight the urge to run, to pack a bag and just go. Start again somewhere else: be myself, whoever that may be …
“Emma, stop!” Al screams, yanking me away from the edge by the back of my dress. “What the hell are you doing?”
The haze in front of my eyes clears and her face zooms sharply into view.
“Emma!” She thumps me in the chest with her closed hand.
“I wasn’t … I wasn’t going to jump … I …”
“Emma! What’s the matter with you?”
“I just … I can’t …”
We stand on the edge of the cliff for the longest time, staring into the dark drop beneath us. For the first hundred metres, spiky flowers and straggling plants cling to the mountain, but then they too are swallowed up by the inky blackness below.
“I thought she was going to stab you,” Al says, her voice no louder than a whisper. “I never meant … I can’t believe …”
“I know.” I should reach for her hand, I should put an arm around her, I should do something to comfort her, but I can’t shake the feeling that, if I did, I’d put my arm straight through her. She isn’t real; neither of us is real.
“What do we do?”
“I don’t know.”
“If we report it, I’ll go to jail. Have you got any idea what jail’s like over here?”
“It was an accident, Al.”
“No one’s going to believe that.” She looks at me. Her skin is pinched and ashen and her lips are chapped and blue, but it’s her dull, glassy eyes that worry me the most. They are as lifeless as a doll’s. “Gabe’s dead. Johan’s stabbed. Daisy and Isaac are gone. There will be an investigation. It’ll all come out. Someone at Ekanta Yatra will ask questions. And if they don’t, Leanne certainly will.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I say, but, even as the words leave my mouth, I know she’s right.
There’s no way of reporting Isaac and Daisy’s deaths without the truth coming out. Daisy didn’t deserve to die, but Al doesn’t deserve to go to jail. What’s going to happen if Leanne, or someone at Ekanta Yatra, gets in touch with the police?
“There’s no proof we did anything.” I lower my voice. “Johan killed Gabe, not us. We didn’t kill Isaac, either; and as for Daisy … there won’t be any evidence that you pushed her over the cliff.” I feel sick, even as I say it. “Al, you said it yourself. You thought Daisy was going to stab me.”
“We could try to make our way down there,” she says, but there’s no conviction in her voice, no feeling behind the sentiment. Daisy is dead but neither of us wants to be the one to say the words, because then they’re out there, they’re real, her death is real.
A wave of grief and regret so huge it takes my breath away washes over me. I should have done more. I should have forced Daisy to listen to me. But I never dreamed this would happen. I thought we’d go back to the UK, separately, and Al would try to save our friendship; she’d force us to talk about what happened at Ekanta Yatra. We wouldn’t go back to the friendship we’d once had, we could never do that, but we’d put it behind us and move on with our lives. Daisy didn’t deserve to die. She never deserved that.
I grip Al’s arm. “Johan!”
Without waiting for a reply, I climb the bank towards him, small stones flying as I scrabble on my hands and feet. Al follows me, panting and wheezing.
“Johan?” I crouch down beside his slumped body. His eyes are closed, his head resting on his outstretched arm, his fingers unfurled. A line of saliva winds its way down his chin from the corner of his parted lips. “Johan, open your eyes.”
Al gently wraps her fingers around his wrist but he doesn’t so much as twitch.
“Johan?” I say again. “Can you hear me? It’s Emma and Al. Open your eyes.”
Al shakes her head and lets go of his wrist.
“Open your eyes, Johan!” I press a hand to the side of his face and gently tap him. His skin is rough with stubble under my fingertips. “Johan, wake up.”
“Emma!” Al says.
“Johan, wake up!”
“Emma! He’s dead.”
“No.” I push her away. “No. No. He can’t be. No. Johan! Come on. Come on, wake up.”
“Emma, stop it!” She clamps a hand over my mouth and half drags, half wrestles me away from him. “You need to be quiet! There are still people looking for us. I just heard voices from the steps. We need to get out of here.”
I shake my head stiffly under the weight of her hand.
“What?” She peels her hand from my mouth, her voice little more than a whisper. “What is it?”
“We can’t leave him here. He wanted to go back to Sweden. We’ve got to find a way of getting him back down the mountain.”
“He’s too heavy.”
“Then we hide him. We drag him into the undergrowth and we hide him until we can get help.”
Al looks at Johan and then at the bushes. She’s still wheezing heavily and coughing every couple of seconds.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’ll do it. You catch your breath.”
“No.” She stands up and takes one of Johan’s arms. “I can do this.”
We are both pouring with sweat and panting as we drag Johan off the clearing and into the bushes. We work in stops and starts. One, two, three, pull! Then rest. Then one, two, three, pull as we drag him on his back, his head lolling to one side, his shoulder striping the soil with blood, into the seclusion of the undergrowth.
We work as quickly as we can, hiding his body with leaves and branches, then flop to the floor just as a man’s voice echoes around us.
“They came this way.”
I stare at Al in horror.
“Come on,” I whisper, and reach for her hand, but she shakes her head.
“Leave me here.”
“No.”
“Emma.” She pauses to breathe, her face contorting with discomfort. “You go. Get help. I’ll stay here with Johan.”
“You can’t.” Even as I say the words, I know there’s no way that Al’s going anywhere. Moving Johan’s body used every last bit of energy she had. Her lips are blue and she’s fighting to keep her eyes open.
“Don’t tell anyone.” She points towards the cliff edge. “Promise me.”
“I promise.” I touch her on the back of the hand. “But you need to hide. Don’t move until I come back and get you. I will come back for you, Al, I promise.”
The sky is striped with orange, pink and scarlet. The gloom of night has lifted and the birds are singing again, the cicadas chirping merrily in the trees and the men, leaning on the hut, their chins tipped to the sky, are smoking, puffing on their cigarettes with their eyes shut, enjoying the warmth of the sun on their faces. They start as I draw near. One of them throws his cigarette to the ground and grinds it out with the heel of his boot. Another says something in Nepalese that I don’t understand.
“Please help.” I take a step towards the Maoists. “My friends have been hurt. One of them is dead. The other needs urgent medical help. You have to help me.”
“Huh?” He turns and says something to his friend in Nepalese. His friend shakes his head.
“Two?” He looks back and me and holds two fingers in the air. “Two friends on the mountain?”
“Yes!” I take another step towards them. “Just two. Please, please help. We were attacked and robbed; they stabbed my friend. Please, please help!”
The first thing I do after I get off the phone with Al is Google the name of the hospital that DS Armstrong mentioned.
A link to the Royal Cornhill Hospital immediately appears, and I click on the “About Us” link but it doesn’t tell me much, just that it’s a hospital near the centre of Aberdeen that provides inpatient and outpatient care to people with mental health issues as well as training medical staff who work in the field.
I click through the other links but it’s mostly about visiting times, gifts you can and can’t bring into the hospital, and health records and data protection. They mention inpatients and outpatients, but there are no specific details about the types of mental health problems they deal with.
I text Al:
Leanne was in a mental health hospital in Scotland, just Googled it.
Seconds later my phone bleeps:
Maybe she got help for her anorexia? Why Scotland, though? Her mum lives in London.
I text back:
She’s originally Scottish, though, isn’t she? She was born there then her mum moved to London with her dad. Isaac stayed. He said he grew up in care homes and foster families. Maybe she went looking for him?
Neither of us knows what happened after we left Ekanta Yatra, although we know there was a fire. After I told the Maoists what had happened, they came back up Annapurna with me to look for Johan and Al. I was scared we’d run into someone from Ekanta Yatra but the mountain was silent and Al and Johan were where I’d left them. Al’s condition had seriously deteriorated. She was breathing so shallowly I was scared that she’d died, and when one of the Maoists picked her up, grunting as he shifted her weight into his arms, she just lay there, limp and floppy. They lifted her onto a donkey and she clung to its neck, her face pressed into its mane as it bumped and jerked its way down the mountain. They put Johan’s body on the other donkey and covered his body with a blanket.
No one said a word on the way back to the Maoists’ hut, and when we got there, an ambulance was waiting. There was no room for me in the back with Al, Johan and the paramedic, so I sat in the front with the driver, staring into the darkness as we drove through the streets of Pokhara to the hospital. I spent the rest of the night in the overcrowded waiting room, too shocked to sleep, too dazed to do anything other than stare straight in front of me.
The next morning, I was allowed into the ward to see Al. We were joined by a Pokhara policeman, who questioned us at length about what had happened the night before. We told him we were returning from a hike up to the top of the mountain with a friend we’d made there, when we were attacked by masked men who stole our backpacks and stabbed Johan. Al let me do most of the talking. The policeman wrote down a “description” of the men who’d attacked us, and said he’d be in touch if he had any further questions.
When I enquired whether we could return to Kathmandu and fly back to the UK, he simply shrugged his shoulders; and when Al asked what would happen to Johan’s body, we were told his family would have to make arrangements for it to be flown back to Sweden. We shared a look. With no passport and no surname, we knew the chances of Johan’s family being found were almost nil, but we had to try. That’s why, two days later, I rang my mum and asked her to wire some money to me so we could fly back to Kathmandu. There was no way Al and I were up for another six-hour bus trip, but we had no money left to pay for a flight back to the Nepalese capital. I was in no state to tell Mum what had really happened, so I made up a story about a pickpocket in a bar in Pokhara. Thankfully, she didn’t ask too many questions, so we got to buy fresh clothes and fly to Kathmandu, where we visited the Swedish and British Embassies.
We told the Swedish Embassy everything we knew about Johan and they assured us they’d do all they could to try to find his family. I’ve got no idea if they did, but I can’t bear the thought that Johan never found his way back home.
Neither Al nor I wanted to stay in Nepal longer than we had to, and we certainly had no interest now in the Chitwan jungle trek, so we brought our return flights forward a day. As they’d been booked online, it didn’t matter that our physical tickets were still with our passports and visas – locked away in Isaac’s study. The British Embassy in Kathmandu helped us sort everything out, and now we just wanted to go home.
We were standing outside the airport before our flight, sucking down cigarette and after cigarette, when we overheard a middle-aged couple talking as they got out of a taxi.
“Sorry?” Al said as they walked past us, dragging their suitcases behind them. “I just heard you say something about a fire on the Annapurna range.”
They paused to look us up and down. “Haven’t you heard? It was some kind of lodge or religious retreat, or something. Burned to the ground, and between ten and twenty people died. Nothing left but bones by the time the police got there, apparently. All of those young people with their lives ahead of them. Awful tragedy. They don’t know if it was accident or arson. Either way, it’s a terrible, terrible shame.”
They stared at us, as though waiting for a response, then, when neither of us said a word, they simply nodded and continued on into the airport.
To this day, that’s all we know. We still don’t know whether the fire was deliberate or accidental. By the time we got back to the UK, it was all over the press – “S
EX
C
ULT IN
N
EPAL
B
URNS
D
OWN
. B
RITISH
S
TUDENTS
D
EAD
.” Six of the bodies that were found were identified, including the new girl Abigail and one of her friends, but the rest of the bodies were so badly burned that the police found little more than piles of bones. According to one report I read, the remains were going to be sent off to be DNA profiled, but I never read anything more about it, so Al and I will never know whether Leanne was one of the fire’s victims, or, like several of the members, she fled and vanished. We don’t know what happened to Raj or Sally or Isis or Cera. When we got back to the UK, we tried to trace Ruth’s family, but with only a first name to go on, we drew blank after blank. Al tried to justify her decision to sell her story by saying that maybe Ruth’s family would read it and get in touch. As far as I know, they never did. Sometimes people go missing for a reason.
I navigate from the hospital’s website to Facebook and re-read the messages sent from Daisy’s account:
Help me, Emma!
It’s so cold.
You never came back for me.
I don’t want to die alone.
Could Leanne have sent those? It’s possible, but how would she have got hold of my mobile number to text me this:
Only the good die young. That’ll explain why you’re still alive, then.
Al told me there’s some kind of website you can use to get hold of someone’s details, but Leanne’s never been technologically minded. If she had been, she could probably have found Isaac by searching the web instead of going to the Salvation Army. And what about the letter? I don’t have it any more, but I read it enough times that the shape of the handwriting is indelibly imprinted behind my eyelids. I have no idea if it’s Leanne’s handwriting or not – I don’t think I’ve ever seen her writing – and now there’s no way of comparing it with any letters or postcards Al might have.
Anyone could have written the messages. The words are all spelled correctly and they’re grammatically correct, but what does that tell me other than the fact they were written by someone with an education?
I enter the mobile number that sent the anonymous text message into Google, but nothing comes up, not that I’m surprised. If anyone would be able to trace the number’s account holder, it would be CID, and they’ve found nothing so far. At least they’re still investigating; that’s the one thing that makes me feel a bit safer.
I scroll through my messages, re-reading the last couple from Will:
Am considering accidentally on purpose scratching Chloe’s Frozen CD. If I have to hear these songs one more time, I’m going to walk into the nearest bloody freezer and shut the door!
Stopped at a service station en route to Polperro. Chloe insisted we go to Burger King. She really had to twist my arm!;)
Got here safely. No wifi or mobile reception in the house. Feel like I’m in 1991. V odd. Sending this from a cafe. Hope you’re ok. x
That’ll be why he didn’t answer the phone. It’s late and Chloe will be tucked up in bed. I reach for the remote control and change channels. I should be in bed too, but it’s going to be another night spent wide awake on the sofa for me. I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again, not until the police find out who’s behind all this.
By 6 a.m. on Monday, I can’t bear the silence or the solitude a second more. Every creak of the cottage, every squawk from outside, even the DVD automatically turning itself off, makes me jump. Even in my sleep I toss and turn, never quite allowing myself to settle. It’s not that I’m afraid of Leanne, if indeed it is her who’s been sending the messages; it’s the anticipation I can’t bear. I can’t relax and I can’t settle. No matter what I do – watch TV, read a book, listen to music – my attention is focused on my phone. I tried moving it from the arm of the sofa to the kitchen, so I wouldn’t keep reaching for it, but then I found myself going into the kitchen every couple of minutes, certain that the soundtrack of whatever film I was watching had masked a plaintive bleep. I’ve found myself willing my tormentor to send me a text message or a notification; at least then I’d be able to do something. I’ve taken to pacing from room to room, desperately seeking something, anything, to distract me, but my mind has constantly returning to the living room, to the phone on the arm of the sofa. It doesn’t matter whether you’re locked in something the size of a cupboard or the size of a house: if you’re locked in, you’re a prisoner – whether or not you hold the key.
It takes me several hours to work up the courage to get back on my bike. Last week, I managed to convince myself that the hit and run was a coincidence, but now I can’t shake the feeling that something bad’s going to happen. I’ve been jumping at shadows ever since DS Armstrong rang to tell me that Leanne’s still alive, and I won’t be able to relax until he tells me that she’s been found.
I could ring Green Fields and say I’m not feeling well, but I’d be landing Anne right in it. I’m scheduled to run the volunteer training sessions for the first half of the week. Plus, Sheila’s not the only one away this week; two of the other girls are still off with flu. Who would look after the dogs? With Angharad gone, and Barry not due in until Thursday, Anne would have to assign one of the girls who normally look after the small animals to look after them. That wouldn’t be fair on the dogs – they don’t know Becky or Laura – and it wouldn’t be fair on the girls, either. I know neither of them is particularly comfortable with the more dangerous breeds. I should be there; it’s my job.
I try Will’s phone again, just before I set off, but it goes straight through to voicemail. I end the call, then ring him, then end the call again. I’m torn between telling him what DS Armstrong told me, and letting him enjoy his half-term week away with Chloe. I know he’s knackered after all his OFSTED preparation, and the last thing I want to do is have him worry for the whole week. But then I promised him that I’d call if anything happened. He insisted. I could read the subtext beyond his concerned gaze: stop keeping secrets and share them. This isn’t just about telling him about Leanne; I need to prove to him that I trust him.
“Will,” I say as the phone goes to voicemail again, “it’s Jane. It’s nothing to worry about but there’s been a development. DS Armstrong rang me on Saturday evening to tell me that one of the girls I went on holiday to Nepal with has been found. It’s Leanne, the one I thought had died in a fire. She’s been in a psychiatric unit for the last few years, and she was discharged a couple of months or so ago. It’s probably got nothing to do with what’s happened, but … well … you told me to ring you, so this is me ringing.” I laugh, but there’s a hollow sound to it. “I’m guessing you haven’t got a very good mobile signal because I tried calling you over the weekend, so I’ll speak to you whenever you get this. I hope you and Chloe are having an amazing break. I’m off to work now so … um … I’ll see you soon. Bye!”
I scroll through to my text messages and double check that I haven’t heard from Al again. I sent her a series of texts on Sunday – starting with questions about Leanne and whether or not she really thought she had been hospitalised for her anorexia, and then, when those didn’t get a response, enquiring about Al’s new girlfriend Liz and how they met – but she didn’t reply. She’d sounded pleased to hear from me on the phone, but maybe I’d confused pleased with shocked.
I unlock my bike, throw my leg over it and settle myself on the saddle. I don’t blame Al for ignoring me. Talking to me reminds her of Ekanta Yatra, and that’s something we’d both rather forget.
My day at work passes without incident, other than a case of doggy diarrhoea from one of our new intakes, and Freddy the parrot calling me “a fucking bastard” as I pass his cage. Shortly after I arrived, I checked in six Jack Russell puppies and their very tired and over-bred mum. One of our inspectors had rescued them from an unlicensed puppy farm in West Wales after a tip-off from a member of the public. They were being kept in cramped, dirty conditions and were forced to play, sleep and eat in the same small space where they also had to defecate. The vet who saw them treated them for fleas, kennel cough and ear mites, and now it’s down to us help rehabilitate them psychologically, with the help of the dog behaviourist, before we attempt to find them new homes. I hate puppy farms with a passion, and the irony is that some of the worst ones are licensed and sell the dogs on to high street pet shops, who in turn sell them on to unsuspecting members of the public.