C.L. Taylor - The Lie

“Hi, Jane!” Chloe waves at me from the sofa where she’s sitting cross-legged with a loom band maker in one hand and a crochet hook in the other. She doesn’t shift her gaze from the Disney movie blaring out song tunes from the television in the corner of the room.

“Hello!” I glance questioningly at Will. He normally only has his daughter at weekends during term time.

“Ah, yes, Chloe … the other reason it took me a while to get back to you. Sara rang during my last meeting. She sliced her thumb on a food processor blade and needed me to take Chloe so she could go to A&E.” He glances at the clock above the fireplace. It’s after nine. “We agreed it would be best if Chloe stayed here for the night. God knows how long it will take her to be seen.”

Sara is Will’s ex-wife. They’re separated, but amicably so. According to Will, their relationship gradually became more like brother and sister in the years after Chloe was born, but it wasn’t until Sara admitted that she’d developed a bit of a crush on a colleague and Will felt feelings of relief rather than jealousy that they confronted the issue. Sara went on to have a relationship with her colleague, but it fizzled out almost as quickly as it began.

“Here” – he thrusts my bottle of red wine at me – “why don’t you go into the kitchen and get this opened while I take Chloe upstairs? We can have a proper chat once she’s in bed.”

“Okay.”

“I can make a bracelet for you, if you want, Jane!” Chloe says, waving the loom board at me. She’s got the same generous wide smile as her father. “What are you favourite colours? Or I could make you a rainbow one, if you like.”

“A rainbow bracelet would be wonderful.”

“I could make collars for the animals you look after, too. Or you could sell them in the sanctuary to raise money for—”

“Bed!” Will says, with a smile on his face. “You’ve seen Jane now. No more excuses, let’s get you upstairs.”

Chloe’s face falls. “But …”

“We can talk about your ideas this weekend, Chloe.” I glance at Will, who nods. “In fact, we could discuss them at Green Fields. I’ll give you the VIP guided tour.”

“No way!” Chloe throws her loom bands to one side and runs at me. She wraps her arms around my hips and buries her head in my stomach.

I rest a hand on the top of her fine, mousey hair.

“You’re very lucky, you know,” Will says. “They don’t let just anyone wander around Green Fields.”

“I’m afraid you won’t be able to meet the dogs,” I add. “They get upset when too many strangers visit.”

“That’s okay.” Chloe gazes up at me. “I only really want to see the cats and the ferrets and the mice. And the swearing parrot.”

“The what?” Will pretends to look aghast, and Chloe giggles. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Come on, teeth time.”

“Night, Jane.” Chloe gives me another squeeze then skips past her father and climbs the stairs, two at a time.

Will and I exchange smiles 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: