Nine Perfect Strangers

Lars was saying, ‘Morally obligated. Legally obligated. We’ve got a duty of care. They’ll kill someone eventually if we don’t.’

‘I don’t know if I’d want them to do actual jail time,’ said Frances. ‘I think their intentions were good.’

‘Right now, I’m deprived of my liberty, Frances,’ said Lars. ‘I’m not too worried if someone does a little jail time for this.’

‘Oh God.’ Yao moaned into his knuckles. ‘It’s a disaster. They’re not even . . . trying!’

‘It’s not a disaster,’ said Masha. ‘They’ll work it out. It’s just taking a little longer than we expected.’

‘They don’t seem any different after the therapy,’ said Yao. ‘They just seem so . . . angry.’

Delilah suppressed a sigh. It’s called a hangover, you fools.

She said, ‘Would anyone like a green tea?’

‘Thank you, Delilah, that’s very thoughtful,’ said Masha gratefully, and she touched Delilah on the arm and smiled that soul-warming smile.

Even before, when Masha didn’t look anything like a goddess, when she was just a frumpy high-level executive who was really good at her job, she had charisma. You wanted to please her. Delilah had worked harder for Masha than she’d ever worked for anyone, but now it was time to close this chapter in her life.

Clearly the police were going to be involved. Delilah had been the one to access the drugs on the dark web, a process she had enjoyed and a new skill to add to her CV along with PowerPoint. She thought her actions probably wouldn’t be enough for her to go to jail, but they might be, and she felt like she wouldn’t enjoy jail.

Part of her had known all along it was going to come to this. There was a kind of inevitability to it, from the moment Masha had first handed her the book about psychedelic therapy and said, ‘This is going to revolutionise the way we do business.’ Delilah remembered thinking, This won’t end well. But she’d been feeling bored for a while. Experimenting with drugs was interesting and she’d kind of wanted to see the train wreck.

They micro-dosed guests’ smoothies for over a year without ill-effects. People had no idea. They believed it was the organic food and meditation that caused them to feel so great. They rebooked because they wanted to feel that great again.

Then Masha decided she wanted to do more than micro-dosing. She wanted to do something ‘revolutionary’. She wanted to ‘push the envelope’. She said they would be changing the course of history. Yao had argued. He didn’t want to change the course of history. He just wanted to ‘help people’. Masha said this would be helping people in a way that would truly change their lives forever.

The clincher had been when he’d tried the psychedelic therapy himself with Masha as his guide. Delilah hadn’t been there – it was her weekend off – but when she saw Yao next he had an even crazier, more obsessive blaze in his eyes than before, and he was quoting from the research as if it was the research that had changed his mind, when it was just the power of hallucinogenic drugs and the power of Masha.

Obviously Delilah tried the psychedelic therapy too. Her experience had been awesome, but she wasn’t stupid enough to think any of those feelings or so-called ‘revelations’ were real. They were just drugs. She’d done magic mushrooms before. It was like mistaking lust for love, or thinking that the sentimental feelings you got when you heard a certain song were genuine. Get real. Those feelings were manufactured.

When Yao had gone on and on about what he’d supposedly learned from his psychedelic therapy she kind of wanted to slap him. It was just another example of how that sweet, stupid boy was addicted to Masha. He was a lost cause. Nothing was ever going to change there.

Delilah didn’t go to the kitchen to make green tea. She went straight to her room and collected her ID. Everything else about this particular life – the white uniforms, the sandalwood scent, her yoga mat – she left behind.

Ever since she’d joined the workforce, she’d known this about herself: she was, at heart, a PA. The smoother of the way. Like a butler or a lady-in-waiting. Someone seen and not heard. She wasn’t the captain of this ship and she sure as hell wasn’t going down with it.

Within five minutes she was behind the wheel of Ben’s Lamborghini, driving towards the nearby regional airport, where she would take the next available flight, wherever it was going.

The car drove like a dream.

chapter fifty-two

Jessica

‘How far along are you?’ asked Heather from her position in the corner of the room. She sat up and rubbed her knuckles so hard into the sockets of her eyes that Jessica winced. You needed to be careful with the delicate skin around your eyes.

‘Um, let’s see. Two days,’ answered Jessica. She put a hand to her stomach.

‘Two days?’ said Carmel. ‘Do you mean your period is two days late?’

‘No, I’m not late yet,’ said Jessica.

‘So you haven’t done a test?’

‘No,’ said Jessica. Jeez. What was with the Spanish Inquisition? ‘How could I?’

This was so weird, all of them standing around in this small room like they were at an office party, but they were talking about her periods.