Emily Barr - The Sleeper

Most of all, however, there is a ragged, gaping hole in my being where Guy ought to be. If Leon gets me to that mountain, I will throw myself off a precipice the first chance I get.

Suddenly he is brisk.

‘You hate me now, and that’s just the price I have to pay for a while. You can’t go to the police because you’re wanted for murder, so don’t even think about that. You won’t always hate me, you know. You’ll come round to my way of thinking. I haven’t touched you, have I? I don’t want you to have to force yourself to go through with anything. I want you to come to me willingly, and offer yourself.’

He genuinely appears to believe this might happen.

‘Though when we get to the mountains, perhaps a little seduction might be in order on my part. We’ll celebrate our new life. But we’ll have all the time in the world. I’ll have to keep you inside for a few years. You’ll understand that. No jumping off mountain paths or bridges. No passing notes to villagers. Nothing like that. Until I can see in your eyes that you’re ready, I’m going to carry on taking precautions.’

‘But you won’t even want me,’ I tell him. ‘Now you’ve got me. Hasn’t the whole point been that you couldn’t have me?’

I am feeling much stronger for eating this food. Even Leon wouldn’t sprinkle ground-up tranquillisers over food in a restaurant. The beer is going right to my head.

‘You need your medication,’ he observes. ‘That was sharp. You’re right: in some ways, the reality of being with you day and night is not what I’d hoped. That will change. Your skin was always perfect, and now it’s – well, I won’t be cruel. And your figure. Scrawny. And we can mould your behaviour until it’s right. I expected more grace from you, my darling, I have to say. A little more poise.’

He looks at me as if I ought to apologise. I do not, and this, I suspect, proves his point.

‘In any case,’ he continues, passing me two pills, ‘you’d better take these. If you knock them back with the beer, they should keep you beautifully calm until we’ve been into Singapore and out again. I realise that flying into Singapore is a difficult thing for you, but those days are far behind you. Rachel’s long departed this life, and everyone has moved on.’

I wish he was not the only person who knows about my drug-smuggling past. Every time he mentions it, I feel he is holding it over me. I wish he had not given me genuinely good advice at that time. I wish it were not the case that he single-handedly got me back on my feet and showed me that I had to carry on with my life in spite of everything. I hate it that I will always owe him for that.

My wig is itching unbearably. I want to take it off. I know I can’t. I take the two pills and put them in my mouth, stash them in my cheek and pretend to swallow with a slug of beer.

‘Show me.’

I open my mouth wide. Leon stands up and walks over to me. I quickly swallow the pills, which is agonising without liquid, a second before he gets to me. He puts a finger into my mouth and I let him. I do not even bite him. I must be getting ‘moulded’, as he said.

‘Good,’ he says. ‘Though I do believe you utilised the last minute. Now. We’ll give them a few minutes to start to work, and then I’m going to have to make a fairly urgent visit to the gents’. You stay with our things. I’m trusting you. This is a test.’

I nod, and take several gulps of water to soothe my throat, which feels as if those two pills gouged out a bloody trail as they descended.

‘Right.’ He looks pained. ‘Trusting you.’

‘OK.’

He makes a quick exit. The moment he is out of sight, I reach for his leather man-bag and grab his phone. I have never been alone like this before, not with his stuff, and I cannot use the precious time to run to the loo and throw up.

I can’t make a call because he would see it in his history immediately, and before anyone turned up we would be long gone.

I go into settings and switch Safari to ‘private browsing’. Then I open it up and go to my Twitter account, ready to post a message to my tens of thousands of followers. I will give details and trust that enough of them are journalists for people to take it seriously and send someone along.

However, I click on the message icon, and find a series of private messages from Iris. That makes my heart stop. I read quickly, then reply.

In Krabi too. Right now – caf é on road out of town towards airport. rooftop bar, backpack accommodation, next to coffee shop. Flying to SG tonight. Help.

Then I post a general tweet saying Help! I am alive and hostage. Lara. I panic as I write that. Leon could see it very easily. I quickly delete it.

I change Safari back to its normal settings and replace the phone in Leon’s bag. I am still on my feet when he reappears, so I stroll over to the fence and pretend to be looking at the washing. My legs are starting to tingle and I can feel my brain beginning to shut down.

I slump into my seat, my focus blurred, and I feel myself passing the point at which I can be bothered to go and throw up. It would do no good now anyway. I want to sleep. Leon is talking to me.

‘Scrabble,’ he is saying. ‘Once you have your faculties back.’

‘Mm,’ I agree, and I put my head on my table. I should never have let this happen. By the time I come back to full consciousness, I realise, I will be on the flight to Delhi. I will be lost for ever. This is the biggest mistake I could possibly have made. I should have vomited right over the fence, rather than tweeted.

I make a supreme effort, clutch my stomach and say, ‘Loo.’

‘Of course,’ says Leon. ‘I know the feeling. Go ahead. Want me to walk you there?’

My head is swimming. I try to say no, but he takes my arm and stands me up anyway, and, holding tightly to the top of my arm, he walks me to the toilet.

It is around the corner, off an echoing hallway, at the foot of a flight of stairs.

‘I’ll be back at the table,’ he says, ‘because I can see you’re not going anywhere.’

I lock the door and stand for a moment, holding the white wall.

Must focus. Cannot let this happen.

I take my wig off, kneel and throw up everything from my stomach, even though I know it is in my bloodstream now. Throwing up will not help the way I feel, but it might lessen things a little. I am not used to having so much in my stomach, and it is sad to see that curry go, its mushrooms and mangetout floating on the surface of the water. I have to flush it five times before it all goes.

I am washing my hands when a voice says, ‘Lara?’

Because I am so spaced out, it doesn’t even startle me. I look round, and eventually locate the window at the top of the wall. It is barred, with no glass. She is outside, and she must be standing on something, because the window in here is high up in the wall. She is staring in at me, with short hair. We no longer look the same.

‘Hey,’ I tell her. ‘Oh. Hello.’

‘My God, Lara. You’re here. As soon as I read your Twitter message I got in a cab and described this place, and he knew exactly where I meant. It’s the rooftop bar, apparently. Everyone knows it. I can’t believe you’re OK. Are you OK?’

‘He gives me pills. I try to throw them up. Too late with these ones.’

‘Right. Well, look. Go out of here, and through the back, and there’s an exit. I’ll see you there.’

I think about that. My head is swimming.

‘He’ll catch me. I won’t get anywhere, and he’ll catch me and it’ll be worse.’

It takes all the strength I have to say these words. Seeing Iris, knowing that she has found me, lets me be the most together I can possibly be with the drugs coursing around my system.