Emily Barr - The Sleeper

I nod that I am.

‘Where have you always wanted to live?’

‘Um.’ I want to say the right thing, but I have no idea what the answer is. I’ve wanted to live in different places at different times. ‘Er. London?’

‘Oh, Lara.’ He smiles, and I can see his approval of the fact that I have said something ridiculous, because it means his drugs are working. ‘No, no. Don’t worry. I can see you’re finding it hard to focus. But don’t you remember how we used to talk about Nepal? You used to tell me that one day you would buy a house in the mountains, in the Himalayas, and you would just leave everything behind and live there. No Sam Finch, no silly dalliances with married men, nothing. You would breathe fresh mountain air, and walk every day, maybe have a few goats and chickens, or whatever people do up there.’

I nod again.

‘I’ve bought it, sweetheart. We have a house, three hours’ drive from Kathmandu. It’s far away from the treks the tourists do. There’s no other house near it. It cost me a fucking pittance! So we’re going to live there, you and me, for ever. Your dream come true; my dream come true.’

I try to imagine it. It could never work. People will come along and they will find me.

‘But,’ I say carefully, because I can feel the drugs doing their work, shutting down the horror so I experience the most enormous surge of terror, followed almost instantly by calm. ‘Your business. It’s in London. And Sally. People will look for you.’

‘That’s the thing, my dear. They won’t.’ He pauses for a mouthful of noodles. ‘I’ve left Sally. That has been on the cards for a long time. She’s looked after financially. As far as she’s concerned, I’m cut up by the split and I’ve gone away somewhere hot to get over it. She probably thinks I’m holed up with a bevy of Asian girls. That’s fine by me. Annie knows not to ask anything, as long as I’m on the line and on top of the work side of things. No one else gives a shit. I can just say I’m living abroad for a while and that’s that. I’m a free agent.’

‘Oh.’

I cannot compute everything he has just said, but I know it was bad. I put my spoon down.

‘Just finish that up for me, sweetheart. Come on, quickly, and then you can lie down.’

I pick up the spoon and do as he says. He makes me drink the water and the other drink, which is an alcoholic cocktail that, I am sure, is laced with all kinds of things. I want to leave it but I am not allowed.

Then I rise, shakily, to my feet. He smiles his approval.

‘Good girl,’ he says.

‘Go to the loo,’ I manage to say.

‘Of course. Will you be all right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Quick as you can. We can’t have you keeling over.’

He is still eating his lunch, sipping his beer. I lock the bathroom door and fuzzily remember. The chemicals have not quite taken effect properly yet. I was exaggerating. Quickly, while I still can, I turn the tap and the extractor fan on for cover, kneel in front of the loo and stick my fingers into the back of my throat.

I used to do this a bit when I was a teenager. I am sure that most teenage girls do it. It turns out that once you’ve got the technique, making yourself sick is like riding a bike. I find the right spot and push my fingers back, and my lunch reappears. It takes four vomits before there is nothing left to come up.

I flush the loo three times to get rid of the scum on the surface, and brush my teeth. Then, when I am sure I look all right, I compose myself into someone about to keel over, and stagger to the sofa.

‘Everything all right?’ Leon asks from across the open-plan living area.

‘Mmm?’ I reply, collapsing into my usual position.

‘Nothing. Don’t worry.’

I close my eyes. This is more like it.

chapter thirty-three

Iris

‘Excuse me.’

The woman was on the phone, behind her wide desk that was cluttered with a spread-out map, two old-fashioned accounts books, a pair of binoculars and many pieces of paperwork. She smiled at me and put her hand over the receiver.

‘Just one moment,’ she said.

I looked at the board behind her, with its keys on hooks. My hut was number 36. There was a key up there, even though I had lost mine en route. I smiled and pointed and nipped behind the desk, behind the woman, and unhooked it. She did nothing to stop me.

The sun was hot in my eyes, shining off the stone path. I was desperate for food, but more desperate to get back to my things, to check whether that psychopath had thrown everything I owned into the sea and burned down my hut, just to cover his bases. He could have booby-trapped the bedroom, or paid a gang of mercenaries to dispatch me from nearby rooftops if I went close.

If he had left me to die like that, I did not want to think about what he was doing to Lara. I could not piece it all together, not yet, because I had no idea what had actually happened on the train. I did know, however, that she had been hiding from him, and I had found her for him. I knew that if I had not vomited into the sea, attracting all the local fish, the fishing boat would not have discovered the submerged hut, and the fishermen would not have cut me free and brought me to land.

My hut was intact. He did not seem to have bothered with it. I grabbed my money and ran back to the woman, who was now off the phone.

‘I need to make a call,’ I said. ‘It’s really urgent. Please?’

‘International?’ She was not really listening. She was taking pieces of paper, guest registration forms, out of a filing cabinet.

‘Yes please.’

‘You can use this phone. Then pay me after.’

‘Thank you!’

‘Dial 1 and then country code.’

I realised I did not know Alex’s number. I cast around wildly for anyone else I could call. I had not seen Alex since I ran away from his kiss, a million years ago, on a planet away from here. I had last contacted him from Bangkok. He could have no idea of what had happened.

I could not call my parents. There was so much else to go through before I could begin to explain to them where I was, and why. The only people who knew anything about this were Alex and Leon.

In the end, I alighted on Sam Finch’s landline number, which had been stuck on their fridge that day when Lara had failed to appear from the train. Calling him was the only thing I could think of to do. I recalled reading it out to people on the phone when we were trying to find her. It was, I thought, 551299.

He answered after six rings.

‘Hello?’

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

‘Sam,’ I said. ‘It’s Iris.’

‘Iris. Hi. Are you OK?’

‘I didn’t wake you up, did I?’

‘It’s five in the morning. I’m always awake. Are you still in London?’

I hesitated. ‘Kind of. I won’t be back in Cornwall for a while. Look, Sam. I need something really urgent from you. Do you have DC Zielowski’s mobile number?’

He grumbled and fumbled for a while and then found it.

‘Why do you want him? He’s not even part of the investigation, not really. He was just doing the legwork. None of them are interested in me any more anyway. Back to kittens up trees for our boys.’

‘It’s urgent. I’ll call you back when I can and tell you everything, OK?’

I hung up and called Alex, without checking with the woman that I could make another call. She was talking to some people who had just arrived. I was looking very carefully at everyone who passed by: for the moment, I was visible to anyone, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Alex answered his phone with a sleep-befuddled ‘Iris?’ and I was so relieved I nearly lost control.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘Don’t say anything until I’ve told you all of this. We have to get moving and there’s something you have to do for me.’