‘Yeah. I know. Anyhow, I’m using my skills to dig deep into this lot.’ He points to the leaflet I have on the table in front of me. ‘I’m building quite a dossier.’
I study his face. I haven’t really noticed it before, but he’s an old head on young shoulders.
‘Tell me about your business,’ he says.
‘I mainly devise workout programmes for clients. Give personal training sessions. Nutrition advice. That kind of thing.’
‘Sounds fun. So, a bit like these dudes.’ He taps the leaflet again. ‘You help people get their lives back on track.’
‘That’s one way of putting it. I’m also a qualified Pilates teacher. Three evenings a week, I run online group sessions. Fifty to sixty people regularly attend, sometimes as many as one hundred.’
‘Daisy told me how much you charge these clients. One hundred pounds an hour for someone to put you through hell.’
‘I know. Can you imagine having the kind of money where you can pay a person that amount to keep you fit?’
‘Good on you. You’re obviously good at what you do.’
‘I like to think I am.’ I’m dedicated to all my clients and spend hours devising their training and nutrition plans. ‘I sometimes feel I’m taking money under false pretences, but I do work bloody hard.’
‘Talking of false pretences. How much did the ticket to this convention cost!’ One final tap of the leaflet. ‘That’s not including all the merch, and the private sessions. Let me tell you, these dudes are doing pretty flipping well. It’s a money-making machine.’
16
SCARLETT
The event started two hours ago, so it’s well underway by the time we arrive. A large, white tent fills the centre of the urban park, surrounded by pop-up canopies in a U-shape: massages and treatments, merchandise, healing gong sessions, learning to breathe with purpose, an older woman offering tarot card readings. Wind chimes jangle at a holistic therapy booth, and next door, smoothie makers whirr and whizz with green and purple liquids. People – mainly boho-dressed, free-spirited women – are sitting in groups on the grass or wandering around the different stalls.
I nod to a throng of people gathered around a woman performing some kind of ritual on a makeshift dance floor. ‘I find it hard to believe that Daisy enjoyed this kind of thing,’ I say. ‘It’s so not how she used to spend her time.’ If we were at a sporting event, I could understand it. But not this.
‘People change. Or get influenced.’
Or get influenced. His words echo in my head like an alarm bell.
As we reach the entrance to the main tent, a queue is forming. A large pull-up banner advertises the day’s speakers. Next up is a session onUnlocking Your Full Potential. Through a gap in the side of the tent, I can see inside where bums are beginning to fill the five hundred or so seats. Workers, wearing black jeans or shorts and T-shirts with MOM emblazoned over the front in turquoise, dart about the stage setting it up for the next speaker. I study the girls in the front row who are already seated, the desperate hope of their young faces.
A voice resounds over a loudspeaker. ‘Our next session on stage with Perri Winters will start in twenty minutes. If you’re not booked into this one, please could we kindly ask you to vacate the area to make room to admit the attendees.’
George leads me away.
‘So where do we start?’ I say. ‘Because the words needle and haystack come to mind.’
George laughs. It’s only a small laugh, but it’s only one of the few he’s given since Daisy’s death. ‘You can say that again.’
‘How about a drink?’
‘Sure.’ We head for a smoothie bar, where I buy us avocado spinach cream dreams – a well-advertised, apparently highly rated, dense, silky concoction that tastes far better than it looks. I sip the drink through a straw, scouring the crowd, wondering why and what Daisy was doing at one of these gatherings that day. And where she went afterwards. Halfway through the drink, I feel nauseous. I dump the remainder in a bin.
‘Shall we get going with what we came here to do?’ I say, determined not to walk away from here today without at least a snippet of what really happened to my sister.
The air hums with a layered energy. Voices rise and fall in a low murmur of conversation as we stroll around the pop-up canopies, showing the photo around the stallholders initially, starting with a woman selling crystals, handmade dreamcatchers and reusable shopping bags. ‘I wonder if you can help me.’ I show her Daisy’s picture on my phone, shifting my weight from foot to foot. ‘I’m asking people if they’ve seen this woman. It’s my sister Daisy. She’s missing. She disappeared after coming to the Leeds convention in late June. We’re trying to piece together what happened that day. If she was here with anyone. If she went off with anyone.’
The woman studies the photo. She shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve never seen her. Can’t the police help you?’
I give a tight-lipped smile. ‘They’re trying their best.’
And on and on it goes. ‘You were right about the needle and haystack,’ George says, after we’ve circled the stalls and spoken to most of the stallholders and are back to where we started. ‘Perhaps this was a waste of time.’
‘Look.’ I point to the booth nearest to the main tent. ‘See that stall selling merchandise? It’s got thoseMOMbaseball caps. Daisy must’ve bought it from one of these festivals. Have you asked at that stall?’
