Page 16 of A Game of Lies

‘I gave him a lip salve.’ Aliyah sounds close to tears. ‘I brought one in as my luxury item? I thought it might cheer him up, but he just put it in his pocket – didn’t even hardly say thank you.’ She pushes her bottom lip out. ‘It was strawberry, too – my favourite.’

Pam raises a hand, as though she’s in class.

‘Yes?’ Ffion says.

‘I spoke to him after supper. He was very upset.’

‘What about?’

‘What do you think? I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m an upstanding member of the community and I’m sure Ryan is too. Being accused of concealing something, it’s … well, it’s slander. Isn’t it?’ She looks around. ‘Even if we get out of here unscathed, people will assume there’s no smoke without fire. We could lose our friends, our jobs.’

‘Absolutely.’ The Reverend Lucas nods fervently.

‘Did Ryan give any indication he was planning to leave?’ Georgina asks.

Everyone shakes their head.

‘He was scared of the interviews,’ Aliyah says. ‘You know: what the newspapers would say about him.’

‘What they’d make up, you mean,’ Pam says darkly.

An engine revs, and Ffion is just thinking how odd it is to hear a car on the mountain when a quad bike roars into camp with Owen at the helm.

‘Everyone in the chill-out tent,’ Owen says. ‘Now!’

A few of the contestants – Jason, Pam, Ceri – demur, but the others turn meekly towards the largest bell tent and follow Roxy inside.

‘Truth or lie,’ Owen says.

‘I beg your pardon.’ Georgina raises an eyebrow.

‘Today’s activity.’ Owen looks at the three remaining contestants. ‘Chop chop. I want to set up some shots now, while Roxy’s getting ready.’

‘Do you have any more questions, officers?’ Pam turns pointedly to Ffion.

‘Not right now.’

‘You’ll let us know when you find him, won’t you?’ Ceri says, as they walk towards the bell tent.

‘Of course,’ Ffion says, but the contestants have already been herded inside.

‘We need to let Cheshire know they’ve got a MisPer.’ Georgina is looking at a map on her phone.

Ffion had thought she and Leo might run into each other. There would be some multi-agency meeting or another cross-border job, she’d thought.

But there hadn’t been.

Until now.

‘They might ask us to keep it – I don’t know what their resourcing’s like, over this way – but we need to notify them, at least.’ Georgina takes out her radio. ‘I’ll get control to call their duty inspector.’

‘I’ll do it.’ Ffion speaks quickly, before she can change her mind. ‘I’ve got a contact there – it’ll be quicker.’ She looks at her phone, but there’s no signal. ‘I’ll be back in a bit,’ she tells Georgina. ‘Have a look at Ryan’s belongings. See what he left behind.’

She scrolls through her contacts as she walks through the camp and back towards the farmhouse. Her heart’s beating wildly and she doesn’t want to call, but she does want to, because now she can speak to Leo without losing face. And if he mentions the text she can say she never received it, because of course she’d have answered if she’d received it …Of course I’d have answered! I’d have said sure, let’s go for dinner. So, you know, if you want to, we could …

A single bar of signal appears at the top of Ffion’s screen, followed by another. Her pulse races as she presses the call button.

They can pick up where they left off.

---