The Lie (27 page)

“Come on.” Johan jabs the key at the lock. “Come on!”

I sneak a glance at Al, who’s standing right beside me. Her pupils are huge black pools; her cheeks are pinched, with sweat beading above her eyebrows. She’s staring at the pile of logs we rolled onto Gabe to hide his body. She steps towards the log pile but I grab her wrist, just as the front gate squeaks open and Johan mutters something in Swedish under his breath.

“
Come on.
” He ushers us outside. “Go.” He pulls it shut behind us, and then gestures towards the stone steps that lead back down the mountain. “As quickly as you can.”

We step into the darkness, the only light the haze of the half moon. I glance back at Ekanta Yatra – at the faded prayer flags that adorn each of the windows. They flutter and twist in the wind, but there’s no escape; they’re pinned in place, held tight.

“Run!” Johan hisses in my ear. “Emma, run.”

We’ve been running for some time, stumbling down the steps two at a time, speeding round corners and jumping over buried roots, when I realise I can no longer hear Al behind me.

“Johan!”

He continues to run, a good hundred feet ahead of me, so I raise my voice. “Johan!”

He whips round, teeth gritted, and gestures for me to keep my voice down.

“Al.” I gesture back up the mountain. Trees and bushes loom like dark shadows either side of the steps. “She’s disappeared.”

Without saying a word Johan takes off back up the mountain, pumping his arms, and leaping up the steps two at a time. I follow. I run as fast as I can after him, but my flip-flops slow me down and the cold night air catches in my chest, making each breath tight and painful.

I see them as I round the first corner, Al standing with her back to a tree, doubled over with her hands on her knees, Johan beside her, one hand on her back.

“Asthma,” he mouths as I draw closer.

“Al.” I crouch beside her. Her forehead is dripping with sweat and she’s breathing shallowly. She screws up her face in discomfort each time she inhales. “Have you got your inhaler?”

She shakes her head and mouths the word “backpack”.

Johan’s shoulders slump and he rubs a hand over the side of his face.

There’s no way we can go back to the house for Al’s inhaler. The alternative is climbing further up the mountain to see if one of the hostels have any hikers with inhalers, but there’s little chance Al could make it. We’d have to split up. One of us would have to stay here with her while the other went for help.

I make a decision and stand up. “I’m going to see if I can find a hostel nearer the top. Someone might have an inhaler.”

Johan shakes his head. “The nearest hostel is half a day’s walk away. By the time you got there and back, even if someone did have one …” He tails off and nods towards Al. “Our best bet is to hide and continue on in the morning, or keep going but slower. We’ll have to keep to the edges of the paths, just in case anyone comes after us, but we could do it. If we can get to the Maoist checkpoint, someone there could call for an ambulance.”

“I don’t need an ambulance.” Al pushes up on her thighs and stands upright. “Let’s go.”

“No.” I touch her on the arm. “Let’s wait it out. We can find somewhere to hide.”

“And freeze to death? I pushed myself too hard, that’s all. I’ve got my breath back now. If I take it easy, I’ll be fine. And besides” – she glances at Johan, who’s rubbing his forearms with his hands – “if we wait until morning, we’re more likely to be spotted.”

“If you’re sure, then—” Johan freezes. We all hear it: voices, men’s voices, further up the mountain. Shouting, calling to each other.

“Go.” Al grabs my hand. “Go!”

The shouts grow louder, joined by the sound of heavy footsteps scrambling down the mountain behind us, pebbles and stones crunching and crashing, and branches snapping. Al and I are still hand in hand, but she’s lagging behind and I have to drag her after me. Her face is deathly pale in the moonlight, her lips blue, but every time I glance behind to check if she’s okay, she glares at me, urging me on. I know Johan could run faster than he is. Instead, he stays with us, shouting directions, pointing out broken steps and steep drops. My heart is pounding in my ears and my lungs are burning, but my legs keep moving, carrying me further away from Ekanta Yatra and closer to safety.

A woman screams and all the hairs on my neck stand up.

I’d know that scream anywhere. Daisy.

My ankle gives way as I twist round to check, and my hand, sticky with sweat, slides out of Al’s grasp and I slip off the step and tumble to my right, towards a steep drop. With nothing to break my fall, I hurtle down the mountain, spinning over and over and over, crashing through bushes and bouncing over rocks, down, down, down. Branches and bushes, a blur of green and brown, scratch my palms as I claw at the air, desperate for something, anything, to slow my descent, but I’m going too fast. I roll over and over and over and screw my eyes tightly shut. I’m going to die. I’m going to—

The air is thumped from my lungs and my body jackknifes as I hit something hard: a tree stump, I realise, turning my head slightly. I lie still for several seconds as the world continues to spin then whimper in pain. Everything hurts.

“Emma?” Johan comes crashing towards me through the undergrowth. “Are you okay?”

He skids to a halt a foot away from me and the colour drains from his face.

“Don’t move. Whatever you do, don’t move.”

I look in the direction he’s looking, but all I can see is a great, black stretch of sky.

“There’s a sheer drop off the edge of the mountain. If you’d fallen ten feet further, you’d have rolled right over the edge. Now we just—” He stiffens and glances behind him as the bushes twitch and crackle. Someone’s coming.

“Oh, thank God.” Al steps out from the undergrowth and doubles over to catch her breath. The air fills with wheezes and whistles.

“We need to get back to the path.” Johan crouches down then inches towards me on his bum, digging his heels into the dry soil to ground himself. “Take my hand.”

I hook my left arm around the tree stump to steady myself, and twist towards him, reaching out with my right hand.

“Ready?” He wraps one hand around my wrist and steadies himself with his other. “On three, I’m going to yank you towards me. I need you to dig your heels into the ground to give you leverage.”

“Okay.”

“On three. One, two, three!”

Johan pulls, I push, and my body jolts with pain as I’m hauled back up the slope. We collapse in a heap at the entrance to the undergrowth, both of us on our backs, sucking in air, wincing with pain. When I get my breath back I crawl over to Al, who’s sitting on the other side of the clearing, her head in her hands. I touch her gently on the knee but she doesn’t look up.

“We can’t hang around here,” Johan says as he forces himself up into a sitting position. “And we can’t risk carrying on down the steps, because we’re sitting ducks. We’ll have to pick our way through the undergrowth instead. It’s more dangerous because there’s no path but—”

“Dangerous?” says a voice above our heads. “Who’s dangerous?”

Isaac steps through the undergrowth towards us, a dangerous smile on his face and a nine-inch kitchen knife in his hand, the blade glinting in the moonlight. A second later, Daisy appears beside him, cheeks pink, the indigo scarf wrapped around her head now askew, her eyes bright with excitement.

“Well, well, well,” Isaac says, looking at each one of us in turn. His trainers are caked in mud and his T-shirt clings damply to his body. “Look who we have here. Are you going to come back to the house like good boys and girls, or do we have to do this the difficult way?”

“Where’s Leanne?” Al says. “Does she know you locked me in the basement?”

Daisy clutches Isaac’s arm. “You locked her in the basement?”

“I did, yes.” He looks at her steadily. “They colluded to try and kill me, and I had to separate them for my own safety, and for the safety of everyone at Ekanta Yatra.”

Daisy looks across at me and Al, and squints her eyes as though she’s trying to focus. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her as drunk. “You tried to kill Isaac?”

“It wasn’t like that, Daisy.” I take a step towards her but Isaac jabs the knife towards me, forcing me to stop.

“To answer your question, Al” – Isaac says the words slowly and deliberately but he can’t stop the slur that makes the words run into each other – “I told Leanne to stay at Ekanta Yatra, where she’s safe.”

“Don’t you want
me
to be safe?” Daisy whines, but when she tries to rest her head on his shoulder, he shrugs her off.

“And yes, Al,” Isaac continues, “Leanne knew I’d put you in the basement. She thought we could help you – God knows you need it – but you fought us every step of the way. That didn’t stop Leanne loving you and believing in you, but you crossed the line when you gave Emma the knife.”

“How about you just let us go?” Johan says.

“How about you stop telling me what I should do? You’ve always been a fucking liability, but I had no idea what a sneaky bastard you actually are.”

“You need to look in the mirror, Isaac.”

“And you need to shut the fuck up or I’ll twist this between your girlfriend’s eyes. Although,” he adds, glancing at me, “that might actually be an improvement. I always thought her eyes were a little too close together.”

Daisy snorts with laughter and moves to slip an arm around his waist. The dry soil shifts under her feet and she has to cling on to him to keep her balance. She points at Al with her free hand.

“Stop being a dick and go back to the party. You can fuck off, though, Emma.” She laughs again, her head rolling back on her neck, her eyes half-closed.

Al, standing beside me with her hands clenched at her sides, is still gasping for breath. The wheezing has stopped and instead she’s making little “uh, uh” sounds as she sucks hollowly at the air.

“We’re going back to Pokhara,” I say. “Come with us, Daisy. I know you hate me but you need to listen. Ekanta Yatra’s more dangerous than you realise. So’s Isaac. Please, you need to trust me. You need to—”

“I don’t
need
to do anything.” Her eyes fly open and she squints at me. “Trust you? Ha! You’re a
psychopath,
Emma.
”
She shouts the word so loudly it seems to ring in the air. “You said you wanted to kill me.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“Really? Because you sounded pretty bloody convincing to me.”

I catch Johan’s eye as Daisy continues to rant. He flashes a look towards Isaac. He’s off his guard; the knife is still in his hand but it’s hanging loosely by his side as he listens to what Daisy is saying. Johan looks from Isaac to Daisy, then at me. His gaze flicks back and forth between us and I know instantly what he wants me to do.

“Do you know what Isaac called you?” I say, interrupting Daisy’s rant.

“What?”

“After I slept with him, do you know what he called you?”

Isaac snorts with amusement and wipes the back of one hand over his brow.

Daisy’s mouth twists into a bitter grin. “How about you enlighten me, Emma?”

“He said you were cheap and that women like you are ten-a-penny. That’s why he let Johan sleep with you in the massage hut. He lets the other men sleep with the sluts.”

Daisy looks incredulous for a moment, and then her eyes narrow. “You fucking bitch!”

I topple sideways into Al as Daisy launches herself at me. Her nails slide down the side of my face and she yanks at my hair as we fall, a tangle of hair, limbs and clothes. We hit the ground with a jolt, then, before I can take a breath, we’re off, slipping down the slope at speed, hurtling towards the drop. I grab at rocks, tree roots and branches as the air whistles past me. There’s a blur of movement up by the clearing where Isaac and Johan were standing, raised voices, an anguished shout, and then something tumbles past us and disappears off the edge of the cliff. And then we stop.

Daisy jumps to her feet first. She scrabbles away from the cliff edge and grabs at something lying on the ground a metre away. It’s Isaac’s knife.

“Get up!” she screams. “Get up!”

I tentatively raise myself onto my hands and knees, the drop just inches to my left, and slowly stand up. Al does the same. Behind her, lying on his side near the clearing, his eyes half-closed, is Johan. Even in the gloom I can see the gaping wound in his shoulder and the dark bloody stain pooled around him.

“Daisy.” I take a tentative step forwards. “Johan’s hurt.”

“No.” She extends the knife towards me, but her hand’s shaking. “You’re not helping him.”

“Daisy. Don’t do this.”

“He killed Isaac!” Her face is pale in the moonlight, her eyes bloodshot and puffy in a pool of dark, smudged eye make-up. “You saw. You saw what just happened. He’s down there! Isaac!” She takes a step nearer the edge and peers down into the darkness. “Isaac?”

“Come with us,” Al says softly. “Come back to Pokhara. This … all this … it’s fucked with our heads. You’re not thinking straight. None of us are.”

“I am.”

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?” She takes a step back from the edge, the knife a raised barrier between her and us. “I’m being myself for the first time in my life. You don’t know me, Al, not really. Do you think I like being Party Girl Daisy? Do you have any idea how tiring it is? How boring to have to entertain people all the time? Seven years we’ve been friends, and you still insist on keeping me in the same little ‘wild, crazy Daisy’ box that you put me in at uni.”

“And I’m the one that keeps getting dumped, and Leanne’s the private one, and Emma’s the neurotic one. We’re all in boxes, Daisy. That’s what happens in friendship. It shouldn’t, but it does,” Al chips in.

“You do know that Leanne is Isaac’s half-sister?” I say.

Al gawps at me but a strange half-smile twists Daisy’s mouth. “Actually, I do. No need to look so surprised, Emma. What’s the matter – disappointed that I’m not horrified? Who cares if they’re related? I think it’s great that they’ve found each other. You think you’ve been so bloody clever, manipulating people into feeling sorry for you, but Isaac’s told me everything. He told me how you’d tried to turn him against me, how he liked me right from the start but you’d tricked him into defending you from Frank, how he’s never met anyone like me before, how much he loves me—”