Page 23 of A Game of Lies

Dario’s answer is unconvincing, and, if Ffion didn’t have a vulnerable missing person to find, she might be tempted to ask the security guard a few questions. But Jessica is on the brink of tears, so Ffion leaves it to Miles to stride across the courtyard and give Dario a piece of his mind. She shuts the back door.

‘I’ll make apaned. Tea or coffee?’ she asks Jessica.

‘I need to find my husband.’

‘And to do that, we need as much information as possible,’ Ffion says firmly. ‘So, I’ll make the tea, and you’ll tell us about Ryan.’

Her phone vibrates, and she glances at the message from Mam, who reluctantly agreed to have Dave this morning.

‘I’ll pick him up at lunchtime,’ Ffion had told her, knowing full well it would be six at the earliest.

‘If he eats my sofa again—’

‘He won’t!’

Ffion reads the message Mam’s sent her.Dave ’di bwyta’r blydi soffa eto!

Ah, well. It’s about time she replaced that sofa anyway.

‘I should have stopped him,’ Jessica says. ‘He saw the advert and saidI might apply, and I should have saidThat’s a bloody stupid idea, Ry, but I didn’t think anything of it, and next thing I knew, he was filling in the forms. I tried to put him off, but he was determined to do it.’

‘And at that stage, presumably he thought it was a survival show?’ Georgina says.

‘I think he had some stupid idea about proving he was a real man.’ Jessica dissolves into tears. ‘As if I care about that sort of shit!’

Ffion takes the tea to the table, the bags still bobbing in each mug. ‘Has Ryan ever attempted suicide?’

Jessica takes a sharp breath. ‘Not as far as I know. Not even when he was ill. He didn’t hurt himself, he just lashed out sometimes.’ She cuts herself off.

‘He was violent?’ Georgina says quietly.

‘Not with me,’ Jessica says fiercely. ‘Never with me.’

They wait.

‘He smashed up the kitchen just before he was sectioned,’ Jessica says eventually, reluctantly. ‘Another time, he punched a hole right through a wall. But he wouldn’t hurt anyone – you have to believe that. He just …’ She stares miserably at the table. ‘He doesn’t love himself like I love him.’

The door opens and Huw barrels in, heading straight for the kettle.

‘Jesus, Huw, have you never heard of knocking?’ Ffion says. She briefs him in Welsh, figuring it’s the fastest way to bring him up to date without upsetting Jessica further.

‘Mae pobl yn siarad, Ffi,’ he replies. ‘They’re asking is it Ryan we’re looking for?’

Ffion’s phone pings with another text.Ffi! Mae Dave wedi neidio dros y ffens a dianc!

‘What’s up?’ Huw says.

‘It’s Dave. He’s jumped Mam’s fence and made off. Keep an eye out for him on the mountain, would you?’ Ffion screws up her face. ‘Bloody dog.’

‘Maybe it would be better if you took him back to the rescue centre.’

He might sound concerned, but Ffion isn’t fooled. ‘Fuck off, Huw. You’re not getting that twenty quid.’ She makes him a coffee, automatically stirring in the precise half-sugar she knows he takes, while Huw introduces himself to Jessica.

‘We’re doing everything we can,’ he says in English.

‘Please find him.’ Jessica’s voice cracks. ‘I need him to know I love him not in spite of who he is, but because of it.’

Ffion thinks about Miles’s plea for a few hours’ grace before they issue a statement. She thinks about his advertising deal with Bet247, and his reluctance to allow the contestants to be ‘distracted’ by Ryan’s disappearance. Giving the volunteer search team Ryan’s name could undermine Miles’s relationships with his sponsors or impact on the show’s viewing figures – no wonder he wants to keep things confidential.

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