The Message

Emma found a letter opener in the kitchen drawer. She carefully opened the envelope and took out one sheet of paper. There was no photograph or extra document, only a handwritten letter.

Dear Emma,

I don't know if you'll believe this letter is really from me. I understand if you don't.

Do you remember our conversation in the café? You asked if I trusted the people who ran the foundation. I told you that sometimes the truth was more dangerous than a lie.

You laughed. I don't think you wanted to hurt me. You just didn't understand.

Neither did I, at first.

I know what you wrote after I disappeared. For years, I thought you had made everything worse.

You did not know why I left.

But you were asking the wrong questions.

You were looking in the wrong place.

Start with the foundation. Find out what was promised to the students and what they really received.

Please be careful.

Claire

Emma stopped reading. She remembered that conversation clearly. It had happened on 18 September 2011 in a café in Glenarraidh. She was twenty-one and had gone there as a young journalist to write about an education project. Claire had agreed to an interview about the foundation where she volunteered.

Most of the interview had been ordinary. Then Emma asked whether Claire trusted the foundation's directors. Claire looked towards the window before answering.

Sometimes the truth is more dangerous than a lie.

Emma had laughed because she did not know what to say. She thought Claire was trying to avoid the question. She never included the words in her article, but she wrote them in her notebook.

Now the same words were in a letter that seemed to come from a woman who had been missing for fifteen years.

Emma read it again. One detail stood out: Claire had written why I left. She seemed to be saying that she had chosen to go away. But that did not mean she had felt safe or free to stay.

Emma opened her laptop and found scanned copies of Claire's old letters. The writing was very similar. Even so, somebody might have copied it. The conversation in the café was a stronger clue, but Claire might have told another person about it.

Emma remembered Claire's brother, James, asking journalists to stop spreading stories about his sister. Emma had published an article suggesting that Claire had left after a personal disagreement. She had never been able to prove it.

She looked at the letter again. It did not tell her where Claire was. Instead, it pointed towards the education foundation and the help it had promised students.

Emma realised that she had spent fifteen years thinking about where Claire had gone. Perhaps she should have been asking what Claire had discovered before leaving.