The Lie. C.L. Taylor

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