‘Indeed. You would have met him just now had I not failed to introduce you. We will put it right later.’ He indicated a closed door beside the tallboy, saying, ‘In there is the office, where we run the business side of things—’
‘Do you have a website? We couldn’t find one …’
‘We made a decision not to take that route,’ he explained. ‘Our guests come to us through recommendation or word of mouth, and they are assessed and accepted on their particular need and our ability to help.’
‘So what are you actually offering?’ she asked, starting up the stairs behind him.
‘Our team consists of cognitive, neuro, social, educational, sports and art therapists, and our range of programmes is extensive. It can also be tailored to suit an individual’s needs, such as for our friend from Alabama, who you might also meet later. I’ll be happy to show you around tomorrow, snow-permitting, and explain a little more about how we have developed the farm, which continues to be viable, into a place of spiritual and physical enhancement.’
Reaching a low-ceilinged, dimly lit landing, he pushed open the first door to the right, leaned in and flicked a switch that turned on a number of lamps.
‘Here we are,’ he said, gesturing for her to go ahead. ‘I hope you’ll be comfortable in here.’
The room turned out to be more spacious than she’d expected, with a super-king bed at the heart of it, covered by a navy plaid duvet, with two nightstands each side. An old-fashioned dressing table stood against an opposite wall with a triptych mirror, and there was an enormous armoire in one corner. The carpeted floorboards creaked underfoot as she moved forward, and two of the beams were low enough for him to caution her to mind her head.
‘This is my room, where you will sleep,’ he told her.
She turned to him in shock. ‘With you?’ she blurted.
He was startled into a laugh. ‘Well, I was … It is an idea, certainly, but maybe when we know each other better?’
Feeling as ludicrous as she deserved to, Cristy rolled her eyes and quickly apologized. ‘It’s a lovely room,’ she told him. In its masculine, faintly old-fashioned way, it was. ‘But I can’t possibly turn you out of your own bed … That wasn’t an invitation,’ she explained, in case it had sounded like one. ‘What I meant was, you must sleep here, and I’d be happy to crash on a sofa, or with Connor.’ Had shereally just said that? She knew she had, because he was laughing again, and now, so was she. ‘OK, maybe notwithConnor …’
‘Here will serve very well,’ he insisted. ‘It is a comfortable bed, and fortunately it was changed today, so everything is fresh. There is a bathroom through this door’ – he went to open it – ‘and you will find clean towels in the cabinet next to the tub. Maggi or Susanna will bring you a sleepover pack, but now I must take Connor to his room and then go to help settle the animals before we gather for supper. There is plenty of hot water, so please make use of everything. I will see you downstairs in an hour.’
After he’d gone, she listened to his footsteps on the stairs, still feeling faintly embarrassed and even oddly out of her depth, without really knowing why. She wondered if he was having a similar effect on Connor, who, she was certain, would not make an idiot of himself when shown to his sleeping place. There was definitely something about Meier, though, even if she couldn’t put it into words. And she really couldn’t, apart from to say how bizarre it felt to be staying here as his guest, in hisactual bedroomno less, when earlier today she’d thought he was a pernicious cult leader whose charms she needed at all costs to resist.
Going to the window, she stood for a moment gazing out at the cold, wintry night. The snow was still coming down thick and fast, a silently hypnotic storm that made her wonder what chance they actually stood of leaving tomorrow. Then she was asking herself if it would be so bad if they were forced to stay longer?
Connor wouldn’t like it. He’d want to get home to Jodi and Aurora …
Remembering she was due to speak to Kinsley in the morning, she turned back into the room and sent a brief message explaining that she’d been snowed in and might not be able to speak tomorrow. It was a relief to postpone, but thefeeling was soon gone, overtaken by a horrible, sinking sense of loneliness. To distract herself, she began thinking about Nicole and all that Meier had said about her. She understood that Nicole couldn’t come here because it was outside the forty-mile radius, but why hadn’t he gone to her if he loved her as much as he claimed?
Did she believe what he’d told her about the depth of their connection?
Certainly, she had during the interview; she’d even wondered if anyone had ever spoken about her with so much tenderness, and had decided they probably hadn’t.
A knock on the door pulled her back to the moment. ‘Come in,’ she called, already feeling absurdly self-conscious, but it was Maggi who entered, with a sleepover pack.
‘Here you go,’ Maggi said, laying it down on the bed, ‘everything you’ll need from toothbrush and paste, face and body wash, a hairbrush, comb, a time-of-the-month pack and pyjamas. They might be too big, but better than too small is what I say.’
As Cristy thanked her, she was recalling the several looks that had passed between her and Meier earlier. Deciding to go for it, she said, ‘Did you ever know Nicole?’
Maggi seemed startled, but then she smiled. ‘I was one of the students Claude spoke about during the interview, so perhaps in one sense I knew her very well. In another, maybe not at all. What matters, though, is that she has finally confessed. It’s hard for Claude to accept that, but he will, eventually, and he will still bring her here if she’ll come, because she is all he really wants.’
Cristy had almost stopped breathing. ‘Are you saying you believe she did kill her children?’ she asked, needing to be sure she’d understood this correctly.
Maggi’s expression was sorrowful and yet resolute. ‘Yes, that’s what I’m saying. I don’t know how or why, but it is what I believe.’
For the next few hours, Cristy watched and listened, laughed and drank Chasselas wine from Claude’s brother’s vineyard, all the while feeling weirdly detached from herself, or at least from the joyous nature of the evening. There were eleven of them around the table, including her and Connor, who’d clearly struck up some male-bonding thing with Bavarian Johan. (Hopefully he’d get something out of him about the friendship/orgy group back in the day. Was he someone else who thought Nicole really was guilty?)
Claude sat between Maggi and Susanna, a robust, dark-haired Scotswoman in her mid-to-late fifties, who’d dished up generous helpings of homemade soup followed by a delicious fish pie. Marko, whose Nigerian father was a naval spokesman – clearly an in-joke given how hilarious they all found it when the introductions were made – was a softly spoken, double-chinned, art therapist with a keen interest in animal husbandry. Lukas, an Italian clinical psychologist with a family background in farming, was short and wiry and anywhere between forty and sixty. There was also Simeon, a fair-haired, blue-eyed Swiss national who’d been a student of Claude’s at Lausanne University. With Simeon were his ‘guests’ from Alabama: Milly and Ray Johnson. Fortunately, Ray had left his supremacy gear in the only pod that was open right now. He also seemed to have parked his prejudices, if his interaction with Marko was anything to go by, so maybe Simeon really did have a knack where racists were concerned.
It soon became clear that the staff around the table were both dedicated farmhands as well as professional psychologists, and apparently, they comprised only a small number of the highly specialized holistic health team that ran Bryn Helyg from March to November.
Although intrigued by the dynamics and make-up ofthe gathering, Cristy’s focus was mostly on Meier and how relaxed he seemed surrounded by his chosen few. Was that how he saw them? It was how they came across to her – not that they appeared fawning, or in any way in his thrall, but they were all clearly deeply attached to him. None more so than Maggi, who was curiously more maternal towards him now than she’d been earlier. Cristy wondered if Meier knew that she believed Nicole had killed the twins. It wasn’t something she could ask, especially not while a guest at their table. All kinds of weird triggers might be going off in her hormone collection, but she had no desire at all to shock the room into silence, much less to alienate or upset anyone.
Funny, she reflected to herself, how concerned she seemed to be about the feelings of a group who this time yesterday she was certain she wouldn’t have trusted at all. That wasn’t how she was seeing them now. On the contrary, there was something about them – Meier in particular – that was making her feel … safe? Was that the right word? Maybe she meant welcome, or simply relaxed. Whatever, there were no negative feelings at all, and although that was strange in its way it was also really good to be in a place that was managing to make the stress of her life feel so far away.
