Page 45 of A Game of Lies

‘I’mdisgusted!’ Ryan shouts it, and Angharad checks her phone. Has Elen read the message? Is she calling Dr Alwen? On the screen, theExposurecandidates are grouped around the fire pit in camp; Roxy Wilde is talking to camera.

‘Tonight, the public have decided that a contestant will face the confession pod! And that contestant will be …’ She leaves a pause. ‘Lucas!’

Ryan is no longer watching the programme. He’s on his feet, pacing, pacing. On the screen, the Reverend Lucas is in a narrow, poorly lit chamber. He sits on a high-backed chair, his hands clasped loosely in his lap. His eyes are closed.

‘Are you ready?’ The presenter’s disembodied voice comes through a speaker in the tiny room, and Lucas nods. ‘Then your three minutes begin … now!’

‘It’s over, it’s all over,’ Ryan cries.

‘Shh,’ Angharad soothes. ‘Let’s turn it off and—’

‘Don’t touch it!’

Angharad stays very still. Her hands, she realises, are mirroring Lucas’s. She does not understand – perhaps because she did not watch the first few episodes of this awful show – why Lucas is sitting in this narrow space. The ‘confession pod’, they called it, and it does have the look of a church confessional. Angharad scans the walls of the chamber, looking for a grille or a window, wondering if there is someone sitting on the other side, waiting to hear Lucas’s confession.

There is still no reply from Elen Morgan.

Ryan looks sharply at Angharad’s hand. ‘What have you got?’

‘Just my phone.’

A metal circle on the wall behind Lucas opens and there’s a movement like water, falling to the ground. Only it isn’t water but snakes.

‘Oh, this is too much!’ Angharad can hardly watch. ‘How dare they?’

‘It’s torture,’ Ryan says, although he isn’t watching the programme. He’s looking at her hand, closed around her phone. ‘Are you messaging someone?’

‘Those poor innocent creatures.’ Tears prick Angharad’s eyes. ‘Snakes are highly sensitive – they shouldn’t be subjected to this abuse.’ An anaconda coils lazily around Lucas’s neck, flickers a sharp black tongue in his ear.

Ryan stares at Angharad. ‘You’re telling everyone my secret, aren’t you?’

‘No, of course not!’

‘One minute to go!’ Roxy says. Lucas’s lips move in silent prayer as a serpent makes its way up his trouser leg.

‘You said I could trust you!’

‘You can.’ Angharad stands, and the sudden movement is too much for Ryan. He rushes for the door, but the room is small and he knocks over the kitchen chair, smashing the laptop to the floor.

‘Wait!’ Angharad reaches for him but he knocks her away and he doesn’t mean it – she knows he doesn’t mean it – but she falls, smashing her head against the stone-slabbed floor.

The laptop lies upended beside her.

Angharad sees another flicker of tongue, a slither, a coil.

Then it goes black.

SIXTEEN

SATURDAY | FFION

Ffion’s ringtone crashes into a dream in which Dave is competing in an agility class at Crufts. He’s just run through an extendable tunnel and now he’s soaring over jumps, taking them in his stride before reaching the finish line and ringing the bell.

Riiiiing. Riiiing.

Ffion answers the phone, her voice thick with sleep. ‘Mam, it’s four o’clock in the morning.Ti’n okay? What’s happened?’

‘It’s not me,cariad. It’s Angharad.’

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