Masha said, ‘Hello, Yao.’
Yao knew it was over, and he knew he’d never love anyone ever again quite the way he loved this strange woman.
His voice rasped in his throat. ‘What have you done?’
chapter seventy-one
Frances
Still it went on. The burning. The crashing.
Frances’s fear peaked and then plateaued. Her heart rate slowed. A great tiredness swept over her.
She had always wondered how she would feel if her life was in mortal danger. What would she do if her plane began to plummet towards earth? If a crazed gunman put the barrel to her head? If she was ever truly tested? Now she knew: she wouldn’t believe it. She would keep thinking right until the last word that her story would never stop, because there could be no story without her. Things would keep happening to her. It was impossible to truly believe that there would be a final page.
Another crash. Carmel startled again.
‘Wait a moment,’ said Lars sharply. ‘That sound – it’s the same sound as before. It’s exactly the same.’
Frances looked at him. She didn’t understand.
Napoleon sat up straighter. He removed the towel from his face.
Jessica said, ‘There’s a pattern, isn’t there? I knew there was a pattern. Crackle, whoosh, small bang, crackle, crackle, crackle, huge scary bang.’
Frances said, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t get it.’
‘It’s on a loop,’ said Tony.
‘You mean it’s a recording?’ said Ben. ‘We’re listening to a recording?’
Frances couldn’t get her head around it. ‘There’s no fire?’ She could see the fire clearly in her head.
‘But we saw smoke, we smelled smoke,’ said Heather. ‘Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.’
‘Maybe it’s a controlled fire,’ said Zoe. ‘She wants us to think we’re in danger.’
‘So this is her way of making us look death in the face,’ said Tony.
‘I knew she wouldn’t let us die,’ said Carmel.
Lars threw the wet cloth on the floor and went to stand in front of the screen. ‘Well done, Masha,’ he shouted. ‘You’ve successfully scared us all half to death and we’ll never be the same again. Could we please go back to our rooms now?’
Nothing.
‘You can’t keep us in here forever, Masha,’ said Lars. ‘What’s that mantra you keep repeating? Nothing lasts forever.’ He smiled ruefully and pushed his damp hair back from his forehead. ‘We feel like we’ve been down here forever.’
Nothing lasts forever, thought Frances. Masha had made a point of saying that so many times. Nothing lasts forever. Nothing lasts forever.
She remembered how she’d told Masha there was no code in the doll and Masha had answered, ‘Exactly.’
Frances said now, ‘When was the last time someone tried the door?’
‘I honestly think we’ve tried every possible code combination there could be,’ said Napoleon.
‘I don’t mean the code,’ said Frances. ‘I mean the doorhandle. When was the last time someone tried the doorhandle?’
chapter seventy-two
Yao
‘Did you sleep well?’ asked Masha. She took a drag of her cigarette.
Yao ran a diagnostic eye over her: dilated pupils, sheen of sweat on her forehead, fidgeting.
‘Did you have a smoothie?’ he asked. He lifted an empty Doritos packet from Masha’s desk, shook it and watched the yellow crumbs fall. If she’d eaten Doritos, she had to be in an altered state. The Doritos were more shocking than the cigarette.
‘I did.’ Masha exhaled smoke and smiled at him. ‘The smoothie was delicious and I have been experiencing many remarkable insights.’
He’d never seen her smoke. She made smoking look beautiful. Yao had never smoked and now he wanted to try it. It looked natural and sensual, the smoke curling languidly from her fingers.
He remembered the first time he met her, ten years ago in that big office, and how she’d smelled of cigarette smoke.
Yao looked at the computer screen on her desk. A clip of a burning two-storey house. An eave crashed to the ground.
‘You sedated me,’ said Yao. He ran his tongue around his dry mouth. He felt dull-witted with shock. He couldn’t quite comprehend that she had done this.
‘Yes, I did,’ said Masha. ‘I had no choice.’
The sky outside the window began to lighten.
‘The guests?’ asked Yao. ‘Are they still down there?’
Masha shrugged moodily. ‘I don’t know. I am sick of them. I am sick of this industry.’ She took another drag of her cigarette and brightened. ‘I’ve made a decision! I’m going back to FMCG.’
‘FMCG?’ asked Yao.
‘Fast-moving consumer goods,’ said Masha.
‘Like toothpaste?’ said Yao.
‘Exactly like toothpaste. Would you like to come and work with me?’
‘What? No.’ He stared at her. She was still Masha, she still had that extraordinary body, still wore that extraordinary dress, and yet he could feel her power over him slipping away as he watched her morphing back into the corporate executive she’d once been. How was that possible? He felt as betrayed as if a lover had admitted infidelity. This wasn’t just a job for him, it was his life, his home, it was virtually his religion, and now she wanted to leave it all behind to go and sell toothpaste? Wasn’t toothpaste part of the ordinary world they had turned their backs on?
She didn’t mean it. It had to be the smoothie talking. This was not an example of a transcendental insight. With her medical history, she should not have had the smoothie, but now she had, she should be lying down, with her headphones on, and then Yao could guide her psychedelic experience away from toothpaste.
But right now he had nine guests to worry about.
He looked away from her and turned off the burning house footage on the computer. He clicked onto the security program that showed the yoga and meditation studio.
There was no-one there. Crumpled towels lay all over the floor of the deserted room.
‘They’re out,’ said Yao. ‘How did they escape?’
Masha sniffed. ‘They finally worked it out. The door has been unlocked for hours.’
chapter seventy-three
Carmel
All the men insisted on walking ahead of the women up the stairs from the yoga and meditation studio, ready to slay lions or wellness consultants offering smoothies. It was kind and gentlemanly and Carmel appreciated it, and felt glad not to be a man, but it seemed their chivalry was unnecessary. The house was silent and empty.
Carmel still couldn’t believe there was no fire. The images in her head had been so real. She had thought she wouldn’t see her children again.
‘Surely it won’t just open,’ Heather had said when they all stood at the door and Napoleon put his hand on the handle, insisting they all stay back, stay back, stay back . . .
It opened, as if it had never been locked at all, to reveal a steel rubbish bin sitting directly outside the door.
Napoleon tilted it forward and showed them the contents. There were burnt fragments of newspaper at the bottom and a pile of melted misshapen plastic water bottles on top. There were still a few glowing red embers left, but that was all that remained of the towering inferno they had all imagined.
They wandered as a group into the empty dining room and looked at the long table where they’d shared their silent meals. Grey morning light filled the room. Magpies warbled and a kookaburra laughed its liquid laugh. The dawn chorus had never sounded so lyrical. Life felt exquisitely ordinary.
‘We should find a phone,’ said Heather. ‘Call the police.’
‘We should just leave,’ said Ben. ‘Find our cars and get the hell out of here.’
Nobody did anything.
Carmel pulled out a chair and sat down, her elbows on the table. She felt the same shocked sense of ecstatic relief as she had just after giving birth. All that shouting of instructions. All that fear. All that fuss. Over and out.
‘Do you think anyone is here in the house at all?’
‘Wait. Someone is coming,’ said Lars.