Her Last Lie

by Amanda Brittany

  ‘We have to contact him, Jack,’ she said, pulling out her phone, but she had no signal.

  ‘No. You contact him, Roxanne. There’s no way I want to talk to the slimy shit.’ He got up and straightened his shoulders. ‘I don’t even know why I’m here, if I’m honest,’ he said, waving the photo in the air. ‘This!’ His voice had grown in volume, and smacked of anger. ‘This isn’t who I thought Isla was.’

  Roxanne took the picture from him and put it in her pocket. ‘None of us did, Jack,’ she said.

  The sudden silence that fell between them was painful.

  ‘We must find her,’ she said, eventually, pulling Isla’s teddy bear from the bedside cabinet and hugging it to her chest. ‘She had this at uni. Never goes anywhere without it.’

  ‘Until now.’ Jack covered his face with his hands.

  She put the battered bear back on the bedside cabinet, kissed her fingertips, and pressed them against it, before looking around the room once more. ‘There’s no gin bottle,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Isla said on her blog she was drinking gin last night, didn’t she? So where’s the empty bottle?’

  He shrugged. ‘Alma said the cleaner’s been in. She would have emptied the bin.’ He was on his feet again, pacing. ‘I didn’t even know she liked bloody gin. Or that she was writing a blog. I didn’t know her at all.’ A tear rolled down his face, and Roxanne pulled him into a hug, and patted his back as if she was comforting a child.

  ‘But, we still have to find her,’ she said, releasing him and gripping his upper arms, snagging him into a stare. ‘We need to know what’s happened, even if it’s the worst possible news.’

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, pulling away and rubbing the back of his hand across his face. He turned and opened Isla’s case. ‘We need to find her.’

  He tugged out a couple of jumpers, and her laptop.

  ‘Do you think she wrote her final blog post on that?’ Roxanne asked. ‘Her email to her mum?’

  Jack shook his head. ‘No, this is just for writing. Isla hated the Internet distracting her when she was working. She must have used the guest computer in reception.’ He threw the jumper and laptop back in the case, a look of defeat on his face. ‘Roxanne, what are we doing here? We’re not Sherlock and Doctor Watson. What the hell do we think we’ll find?’ He pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, and pulled one free.

  ‘You can’t smoke in here, Jack,’ she said.

  ‘No, no, God, I’m really not thinking straight.’ He shoved the cigarette back into the pack.

  ‘Try to keep calm, please. We need to be strong, for Isla.’

  ‘How, Roxanne?’ He shook his head. ‘I would have done anything for her, and she cheated on me.’ He lowered himself back onto the edge of the bed. ‘I thought we were good, you know. I thought she loved me.’

  ‘She did, Jack.’

  ‘No!’ He shook his head again. ‘No, you don’t do this to someone you love. And now she’s gone, and I’ve lost her in the worst possible way.’ He paused. ‘I just don’t know what to do.’

  Roxanne’s eyes stung. Jack was one of the best, always making everyone laugh – brilliant to be around. How could you do this, Isla? This is beyond cruel. Why had Isla led him on, when she was crazily in love with someone else? She sat down beside him and took hold of his hand. ‘Oh, Jack,’ she said, ‘this is about what Carl Jeffery did to her. The damage he did.’

  He looked up, silent now, his face damp, eyes intense green. ‘I need to go back to the UK,’ he whispered. ‘This is killing me. I don’t know what I was thinking saying I’d come.’ He tugged his hand away, got up, and left the room.

  Roxanne hurried after him. ‘Jack, please,’ she called, racing down the corridor. ‘I can’t do this alone.’

  ‘I can’t do this at all, Roxanne. I’m sorry,’ he said, not looking back.

  ‘Please, Jack.’

  He put the key in his door, and turned to face her. He was shaking. ‘I thought I could, but I can’t,’ he said, stepping into his room. ‘I’m sorry.’ He closed the door with a gentle snap.

  Roxanne rested her forehead on the wood, biting down hard on her bottom lip to stop her tears.

  Ten minutes later he’d gone.

  Roxanne was alone.

  Chapter 36

  Back in her room, Roxanne flopped onto her bed, folded the pillow and shoved it under her head, her mind spinning. Where the hell was she supposed to begin?

  Why hadn’t Isla turned to someone? Surely after all their years of friendship, she should have known Roxanne would have been there for her. Why hadn’t Isla said something? Given someone a clue to her state of mind. Or had she, and Roxanne had missed it?

  There were ways back from the edge. Choices. Someone would have helped her – listened. Even if Isla didn’t want to mention Andy to Roxanne or Jack, there were suicide helplines – The Samaritans – a doctor. Why hadn’t she cried for help? Why, Isla?

  Edgy, Roxanne pulled herself to a sitting position and leant against the wall. Twirling a curl of her hair around her finger, she bit down on her sadness, refusing to let it drop deeper, determined not to let her friend down. She had to do something – anything. Surely the fact there had been no news was hope enough that Isla could still be alive.

  Propelled by that hope, she leapt from the bed and headed to reception. She would question the guests. Ask if anyone had seen Isla.

  The dogs were sprawled on the floor in reception, and a blond lad of about fourteen, wearing a thick-knit sweater and a woolly hat, was tapping away at the computer.

  A young couple had followed Roxanne through the side door, and the woman smiled. ‘Beautiful here, isn’t it?’ she said, with an American accent.

  ‘Yes, yes it is,’ Roxanne said. And keen to begin her questioning, she pulled out her phone and found a picture of her and Isla – a photo of them attempting to ice-skate last Christmas, holding each other up, cheeks pink with the cold. They’d been useless on the ice, but the day had been fun. They’d had doughnuts and Prosecco for lunch, pizza and Prosecco for dinner, and they’d laughed until they hurt.

  She showed the couple the picture. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen my friend.’

  They leant in as one, to glance at the photo. ‘Yes, I saw her a couple of times,’ the woman said. ‘Once on the minibus after we’d been on a husky ride, and another time here in reception.’

  Roxanne pulled the photograph of Isla with Andy from her pocket. ‘Did you see her with this man?’

  They shook their heads, glancing at each other. ‘Sorry,’ the woman said.

  ‘Well thanks anyway,’ Roxanne said, doubting how useful she was being.

  As the couple walked away, she dropped down on the sofa next a man in his sixties reading a newspaper. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen this woman?’ she began again, as someone wearing a bright blue snow jacket with a mountain scene on the back, got up and disappeared into the night.

  ‘I think I may have seen her in the restaurant,’ the man said, studying the picture. ‘But young blonde women all look the same, don’t they?’ He paused. ‘Are you a policewoman? Has she been murdered?’

  Roxanne shifted away from him, the thought turning her stomach. ‘No, no, of course not.’

  ‘Well, who is she then?’

  Roxanne rose without responding, noticing the teenage boy was no longer at the computer. She turned, spotting him through the window, where he scooped up a handful of snow and lobbed it at the glass, before racing away, and disappearing into the darkness.

  Roxanne headed for the screen, and rested her fingers on the keyboard. After a few moments’ thought, she signed into Facebook, and got up Isla’s profile. Her last update was the one she’d put on just before leaving England.

  At Stansted Airport waiting for my flight. Camp Arctic, Abisko, here I come – WHOOP!

  Roxanne had commented, telling her to have a great time, but she hadn’t replied, or even liked her words. She’d
had several likes, but she couldn’t see any comments from anyone called Andy.

  She clicked on Isla’s friend list. There was only one Andy. Andy Fisher. His profile picture was a maple leaf, and his cover photo a picture of Niagara Falls. Could this be him? The man who Isla fell in love with? There was nothing else to see. No updates to view. And although he’d changed his profile picture a few times over the last couple of years, they were all generic photos of places and animals. His friends list wasn’t visible either. And there was no way of sending him a private message. She couldn’t contact him. The most she could do was attempt to add him as a friend. Although she didn’t hold out much hope that he would accept. He wouldn’t know who she was, so why would he?

  She would tell Sally about him, and hope the police could get hold of him.

  She sat for some moments, struggling to believe Isla would lose her sanity so quickly over a broken relationship. But maybe it was possible. After all, Andy had seemed to be the only person who could stop Isla’s fear of Carl Jeffery. Roxanne dragged her fingers through her hair. Or had something snapped in Isla’s mind? If she could find out what, maybe it would help her find her.

  A memory drifted in of a schizophrenic man she’d once worked with, who tragically threw himself under a train. She keyed in ‘schizophrenia’ and ‘symptoms’ and millions of websites flashed up. She clicked on a few. It usually begins in early adulthood. Hallucinations. Schizophrenics have a higher than normal chance of committing suicide. Roxanne pushed her hair flat with the palms of her hands, as she stared at the screen. Was Isla suffering with schizophrenia?

  She was about to key in Dissociative Identity Disorder, but her fingers froze on the keyboard. What the hell was she doing? How was this helping? She wasn’t a psychologist, and even if she was, how would any of this find Isla? She stifled a desperate cry, tears blurring her vision.

  Her pulse throbbed in her temples, as she closed down the row of website tabs she’d opened, at speed – ashamed she’d even gone there. A pain settled deep in her chest. Be alive, Isla. I’ll be there for you, always. Just be alive. She rubbed her eyes, her head solid – heavy with confusion. She’d been so close with Isla over the years, but now she wondered if she’d known her friend at all. She clenched her fist against her forehead, her mind flashing back to university. Isla happy and carefree – a little shy at first, perhaps, but she’d grabbed life and run with it. She’d been kind too. In fact, the only person she’d ever hurt was Trevor Cooper, and she’d felt awful about that.

  Roxanne impulsively keyed ‘Trevor Cooper’ into the search engine. Rolling her eyes at her own stupidity when thousands of websites appeared. She tried ‘Trevor Cooper Chemistry’, knowing he’d studied the subject, but Cooper was a far too common name. She signed into Facebook, and ploughed through hundreds of pictures of strangers, unable to find anyone who even vaguely resembled the Trevor Cooper she remembered.

  Suddenly she felt uneasy, as though she was being watched. She swung round, but nobody in the reception area seemed to be paying her any attention. She turned back to the screen, and on impulse searched Facebook for Sara Pembroke. She scrolled through several profiles before she came to one that seemed to bounce off the screen. Her stomach flipped. There was no doubting she’d found the correct Sara Pembroke. Her profile picture was the one of her and Isla, taken in Cambridge.

  Roxanne took a deep breath, battling down a surge of – what was that? Envy? She was being silly. Sara had every right to have a picture of her and Isla as her profile picture. Maybe Isla had become friendlier with Sara than Roxanne had realised. She may even know something about Andy.

  She wasted no time in sending her a friend request, a spark of hope rising. The most important thing was finding Isla, not her petty jealousies.

  She flung her head back. Oh God, was she clutching at nothing?

  Again on impulse she keyed in Darleen Jeffery, and quickly found her Twitter account. She had over five thousand followers, a photograph of her book as her cover photo, and her profile was a picture of two children Roxanne assumed were her and Carl.

  ‘Good God,’ she whispered, as she read tweet after tweet around the time of the appeal. Darleen had been so outspoken, calling Isla a liar. But the last tweet was on 1 October. It was as though the appeal being rejected had finally silenced her.

  ‘Hi!’

  Roxanne turned to see the lad from earlier by her side, his chubby, freckled cheeks pink with the cold.

  ‘I heard you say you’re looking for someone,’ he said in broken English.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Roxanne said, grabbing her phone, and bringing up the picture of Isla. ‘Have you seen her?’

  He stared at the screen for some moments, before saying, ‘Yes, last night, they were coming through the back door, when I was returning to my room.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘She was with a man.’

  Roxanne’s pulse throbbed in her neck. ‘Do you remember what he looked like?’

  ‘He had red hair. They were kissing.’ His cheeks reddened further.

  Roxanne took the photo from her pocket. ‘Is this him?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, that’s him.’

  ‘Did you see her after that?’ Roxanne asked, trying to control her emotions.

  ‘No. Just the one time,’ he said, and he turned and took off through the side door.

  Roxanne’s hopes quickly petered away. What did that prove, other than what she knew already?

  She turned back to the computer, and stared at the screen, her mind drifting to all the strange things that had happened to Isla before she came to Sweden. It started with the reunion. Why had Trevor Cooper bottled at the last minute? I hope you’ve made the right decision, he’d written on Isla’s engagement update.

  But then none of this was helpful, or even relevant. Her mind was jumping like a grasshopper without a leaf to land on. Jack was right. He wasn’t Sherlock, and she certainly wasn’t Doctor Watson. But then what else had she got to grab on to?

  Later, in her room, she drifted into a fitful, nightmare-fuelled sleep. Through solid darkness, Isla was running towards her, screaming, slipping and sliding on icy ground. ‘Help! She’s going to kill me.’

  ‘I’m here, Isla,’ Roxanne called back, holding out her arms, but she was wedged knee-deep in snow. It clung to her legs like cement. She stretched forward and Isla grabbed her, exhausted, her face streaming with tears.

  ‘Thank you,’ Isla said, falling into Roxanne’s arms like a rag doll.

  Microseconds later, a knife was plunged deep into Isla’s back.

  ‘Noooooooooo,’ Roxanne cried, as her friend fell to the floor, just as she had that day in the car park at Millie’s party, her blood spreading in the whiteness like red wine into a carpet. Roxanne dropped to her knees and cradled her friend in her arms.

  ‘I had to get rid of her.’ The voice was some distance away. Roxanne looked up to see another Isla, eyes ice-cold, face bleached white. ‘She wasn’t really me.’

  Roxanne’s eyes shot open. Gasping for breath, she scrambled to a sitting position and cradled her knees. Her body was hot and sweaty, despite the cold, her sheets twisted beneath her.

  The curtains at her window were half-open, revealing the night sky. It was snowing again, and she longed for home, or just a familiar face to appear behind the glass – although, at times, home could be a lonely place too.

  She sat for some moments, taking deep breaths, stilling herself and trying for calm. Finally, she got out of bed and pulled on her snowsuit, gloves, hat and boots. She had never understood Isla’s craving for space and air, always loving loud places and crowds, but she thought she understood now. The desire to dive outside into the quietness of the cold night, and not look back, and the need to piece together her thoughts where nobody could hear them, was overwhelming.

  She made her way through reception, moving silently past the sleeping dogs, but the entrance was locked. It was gone ten o’clock. She turned back, and returne
d to the long corridor. She passed the rooms, and left through the back door, where the boy had said he’d seen Isla with Andy.

  It had stopped snowing, but the freezing air made her cheeks tingle. She wrapped her scarf around her face, and walked away from the lodge, heading under a bridge and out into open countryside, her mind turning everything over.

  Perhaps she should have stayed in the UK. It had been an impulsive, stupid decision to come, when emotions were running high. The kind she always made. But then she wanted to be there. She needed to be there.

  She walked for a long time, using her phone torch to guide her way. Eventually her nose and fingertips became numb, and her toes, despite a layering of socks and her fur-lined boots, felt as though they might snap off. And now, the many footprints in the snow around Camp Arctic had dwindled to one set of prints stretching into the distance like chocolate buttons on royal icing. There were animal prints too – a moose or perhaps a bear.

  She took a deep breath, and let it out, mist forming in front of her lips. She was about to turn back, when a sudden noise in the trees caught her attention. She sprang around and pointed her torch towards the sound.

  ‘Hello!’ She flicked the light across the leafless, snow-heavy trees. ‘Is anybody there?’

  There was another rustle.

  She spun around to see that the route she’d travelled was a tunnel of darkness. She’d definitely come too far. Had walked for almost an hour, trying to clear her head.

  A snake of green whipped across the black sky. The Northern Lights.

  Her heart raced, and she felt angry with herself. She didn’t do afraid. And yet here she was gripped by fear.

  She began to head back, shoulders hunched to her ears as she stepped in her own footprints. In her haste, she stumbled, falling face down in the snow. She lifted her head to look back over her shoulder, her cheeks freezing, and shone her torch into the darkness. What if it’s a bear? Suddenly a hare darted from the trees where she’d focused her light a few moments ago. It bounded across the path, its back legs leaping as if on springs, and into the bushes on the other side.