The Lie (29 page)

It’s 8.40 p.m. when I arrive at my cottage, breathing heavily, sweat rolling down my cheeks. There are no cars in the drive and no sign of Al, so I prop my bike up against the side wall and let myself into the cottage. The door catches on a pile of post, and I stoop to pick it up then double lock the front door. I move through the house, checking all the windows are locked and all the curtains are closed, then head for the kitchen and perch on a chair as I flick through the post. It reveals nothing – just junk mail and bills. I bin the junk mail, put the bills on the Welsh dresser and check the time on the kitchen clock. 8.50 p.m. Ten minutes until Al arrives. I sit down again and check my phone, but there are no missed calls, no texts, no Facebook notifications.

I rest my elbows on the table and clasp my hands together in front of my face, my thumbs pressed to my lips as I watch the door. Underneath the table, my foot tap, tap, taps on the tiles. I look at the clock again – 8.52 p.m. – and get up to turn the kettle on. I put a teabag in a mug then take it out and reach for a bottle of red wine from the rack instead. The corkscrew is halfway through the cork when I abandon that, too. 8.57 p.m. Three minutes to go.

I scroll through my phone until I reach DS Armstrong’s number. Al said not to ring the police, but she didn’t say why. Is it because she’s scared Daisy will press attempted murder charges? But Daisy’s not coming here. Al said she
was coming alone. Or did she? She said Daisy was alive, that I shouldn’t tell the police, and that she’ll explain everything when she gets here. She didn’t say Daisy wasn’t with her. I stand up, walk to the sink and peer through the blinds. My reflection peers back at me. It’s so dark outside I can’t even see the end of the drive.

Daisy must have sent me the messages. But why now? Why wait five years? That doesn’t make sense, even if she did manage to survive the fall. Unless Al’s lying. She lied about talking to the press, and she told me she wasn’t the one who put my anti-anxiety tablets in her bag. She said Leanne must have done it to try and turn me against her, and I’d believed her, but what if I was wrong?

I glance at the clock. 9.02 p.m.

I give it until 9.10 p.m. then I ring Al’s phone. It goes straight to voicemail.

“Hi, Al, it’s Emma. I just wanted to check that you’re not lost. Give me a ring if you are.”

I place the phone on the table then walk to the sink and peep between the blinds. My own worried face peers back.

At 9.30 p.m., I open the front door and walk to the bottom of my drive. The lane is silent apart from the rustle of wind in the leaves and the faint hooting of a wood pigeon. I stand by the wall for several minutes, shivering in my short-sleeved polo shirt, staring into the darkness, waiting for the flash of headlights in the distance, then turn and walk back to the cottage. I’m halfway up the drive when I notice the plume of grey steam, puffing up from the ground and twirling in the night sky, obliterating the stars. For a second, I’m confused: the railway tracks run south of my cottage, not north. But then it hits me. It’s not steam from an old engine gusting into the air; it’s smoke. The thick, dense, choking smoke that billows from a burning building. And it’s coming from Green Fields.

The acrid smell of burning straw, wood and plastic grows stronger as I approach the peak of the hill, my palms clammy and my thighs burning as I grip the handlebars and transfer my weight from left to right, left to right. The frenzied barking I heard halfway up the hill becomes a cacophony as I skid around the corner into Green Fields, but, despite my frantic 999 call before I left home, there are no flashing lights awaiting me, no fire engine sailing over the brow of the hill, sirens wailing. The sanctuary car park is empty, apart from a single Fiat Uno, parked at a strange angle just outside the doors to reception. Whoever is responsible for the fire has either abandoned the car, or they’re still here. Instinctively, I glance up towards Sheila’s house, but it’s shrouded in darkness. She won’t be back from her holiday for another five days.

The yelps, barks and howls from the dog compound increase, almost as though the dogs know I have arrived. I throw my bike to the ground and run towards the car parked outside reception. It isn’t until I’m thirty feet away that I realise it hasn’t been abandoned. Someone is sitting in the passenger seat, their head pressed against the window as though they fell asleep during the journey and the driver left them to slumber. I don’t want to risk waking them, so I run round the car and push at the doors to reception. They’re locked. Whoever started the fire must have found an alternative way in. I reach into my pocket for my keys and then pause. Something prickles at my spine – uncertainty, confusion, recognition – and I duck down and peer through the driver-side window at the person slumped against it. It’s a woman. A heavily set woman with strong arms, a generous gut and a double chin cushioning her jaw against the glass. Her hair is longer than the last time I saw her, swept across her forehead rather than spiked up to the sky, and she’s got a new tattoo on her right forearm.

“Al!” I yank open the passenger door and try to catch her, but she’s too heavy. She slips from her seat and through my fingers, landing on the gravel with a thump, her trainered feet still in the seat well, half in the car, half out.

“Al!” I push the hair from her face and tap her lightly on her cheek. She’s breathing and there are no marks on her body, no evidence she’s been hurt. She doesn’t smell of alcohol, either.

“Al?” I slap her harder. “Al, wake up! What happened? Where’s Daisy?” I glance towards the sanctuary as the sound of Freddy squawking and Bill and Ben squealing is carried on a gust of black smoke so thick and acrid I start to cough. “Al?”

Her eyes stay closed but the quietest of groans escapes from her parted lips.

“What was that?” I lower my head so my ear is near her mouth. “Al, say that again.”

I feel her breath in my ear and then, so quiet I can barely hear it. “Leanne.”

“Leanne? What about Leanne?”

Her lips move silently and then her head lolls to one side.

“Al? Al?” I grab her shoulders and shake her, but she’s fallen back to sleep. “Al!”

I cradle her in my arms, rocking her back and forth as the fire rages beyond the fence, a continuous, roaring bass note playing below the higher pitched barks, squawks and squeals that tear at my heart. I can’t leave Al alone, but I can’t let the animals die. I can’t. I can’t let them die.

The food sheds have becomes huge crackling bonfires spitting black smoke into the air and showering the surrounding compounds with white-hot embers and flaming straw. Smaller fires burn near each of the dogs’ pens where someone has dragged bales of straw to the end and set them alight, then pushed flaming torches through the gaps in the fence, setting light to toys and bedding. The dogs have all retreated inside, scratching at the doors, pacing back and forth and barking, or else pressed into a corner, their eyes huge and fearful.

I fumble my keys into the lock then run down the corridor, the hem of my polo shirt pressed to my mouth as I open door after door. The dogs knock at my legs as I free them, barking, yelping, jumping on each other in their desperation to reach cool, fresh air. I gather two of the smaller dogs into my arms then shoo the larger stragglers through the corridor and towards the open doorway. We spill out of the building and into the yard. I head for the cat compound, further away from the food sheds and not on fire, but the dogs are still confused and scared, circling this way and that, barking at the fire and jumping up at me, so I change my mind and run towards the field. It’s secure and there’s no danger of them running into the road. Freddy squawks at me as I run past the small animal enclosure and pecks desperately at the sides of his cage.

“I’ll come back for you,” I shout as I speed past him. It’s only fifty or so metres to the field. I can still get him, there’s still time to get him out. He screams as I disappear round the corner, and I falter. Is there? Is there enough time? The air is thick with smoke. If I’m struggling to breathe, how will he—

He screams again and I stop in my tracks. I turn to go back to him.

And all the hairs on my arms stand up as the scream continues – a terrified, piercing screech.

That wasn’t Freddy. That was human.

The heat of the fire hits me the second I turn the corner. The boars’ shed is alight, the right side and the roof engulfed by flames, and Bill and Ben are squealing and running back and forth in their pen, smashing against the fence and nudging the bolt with their snouts. The dogs reach them before I do, jumping up at the pen, barking and scratching, whining to be allowed in. If I let the boars free, Jack and Tyson will attack them, but it’s not the boars’ well-being I’m worried about. They’ll gore the dogs in a heartbeat. Most of the dogs come with me as I run up to the top field and throw the gate wide. They bound away into the long grass, delighted with their unexpected freedom.

By the time I get back to Bill and Ben, only Willow, Vinny and Stella are still with me. There’s a creaking noise as I fiddle with the bolt to the pen, then a crashing sound as part of the shed roof collapses. Then there’s another scream, a scream that goes right through me, as a small dark figure, cloaked in smoke, appears inside the door to the shed and throws themselves at it. The door holds firm. The latch at the bottom has been flipped over.

“Leanne!” I pull at the bolt to the pen, but it’s stiff and rusty and I’m shaking so much I can’t get a good grip on it. “Leanne!”

Willow and Vinny jump at my legs, and Bill and Ben squeal with fear inside the pen.

“Leanne!”

There’s another crash and the side of the shed crumples as flames leap into the air. The trapped figure screams again, and the sound goes through me. It’s a scream of anger, of terror, of despair. I wiggle the bolt back and forth, back and forth, never taking my eyes off the dark shape reaching for me from the shed.

Come on, come on, come on.

The boars bowl into me as I finally yank open the gate, and I have to cling to the fence to stay upright.

The world goes very quiet as I raise an arm to my eyes, shielding my face from the intense heat, and take a step towards the shed. The dogs stop barking, the pigs stop snorting, Leanne stops screaming, and I stop walking.

Leanne tried to run me over. She sent me threatening messages. She set fire to Green Fields. She doesn’t care if the animals die. All she cares about is hurting me. I take a step backwards and the flames on the shed leap and dance, painting it red, orange, blue, yellow, white. It’s almost beautiful, like a living wash of colour. Leanne, almost hidden in a cloud of smoke, reaches a hand towards me. Why should I save her? She turned Daisy against me. She encouraged Frank to come after me. She pushed my hand into a fire. I take another step back. If Leanne hadn’t convinced us to go to Nepal, Daisy would still be alive. But Daisy’s dead because Leanne manipulated us. She and Isaac used our greatest fears, our deepest regrets and biggest insecurities against us. They tried to break us down and then turn us against each other.

The roof of the shed creaks, Leanne screams and the world speeds up again. I can’t walk away and let her burn. If I let her die, I’m no better than her.

I crouch down and reach for a sturdy branch I saw the boars playing with what feels like a lifetime ago. There is a part of my brain that knows there’s no way I’ll be able to get close enough to unflip the latch, but there’s another part that won’t listen to reason, a part that believes that, if I can do it, if I can unflip the latch, the scales will tip. I couldn’t save Daisy, but I can save Leanne.

There is a moment, as I draw closer to the burning building, and the heat is so intense I am forced to shut my eyes, that I convince myself that I just saw her. There was a gap in the smoke, a brief moment when our eyes locked, and then she was gone again. But in that brief moment, just before I screwed my eyes tightly shut, I let myself believe that she knew. She knew I was trying to rescue her.

I twist away and take a step back, my eyes streaming with tears as I try to force them open again. There’s a crack, like a tree being felled and the shed, and Leanne, collapse to the ground.