Page 1 of The Trip of a Lifetime

PROLOGUE

MADRID, 1976

Martha woke suddenly with the feeling she was missing something. The air in the hotel room was thick with the morning heat already permeating everything. The doors to the balcony were open but there was no breeze, and the ceiling fan above her head was resolutely not turning. The thin cotton sheet stuck to her skin and she kicked it off.

What was the time?

Her watch was on the bedside table; an eighteenth birthday present from her parents two years previously. She sat up to reach it, belatedly remembering she was naked, but it didn’t matter, it seemed she was alone. It was seven thirty and their train was leaving in an hour.

Where was Harrison?

Martha reached for her underwear; the shorts and cotton top she’d carelessly thrown off last night when she and Harrison had stumbled into her room. She stretched like a cat once she was up and walked towards the bathroom with a lazy smile on her face, her clothes abandoned once again on the floor. He was probably in the shower and she would probably join him. There wasn’t really time but…

They had left London five weeks ago from the start line of the inaugural Trip of a Lifetime. It was a reality, travel competition unlike anything she’d seen on TV before. When Martha saw an advertisement in the back of a magazine, she decided to enter. She was twenty years old and hated her job at the fruit and veg shop. She was looking for adventure and wasn’t finding it in the cosy Cotswold village she lived in.

‘Will it be dangerous?’ her mother had asked.

‘Will there be men on this trip?’ came from her father.

‘We’re racing from London to Barcelona and the prize is one thousand pounds,’ she’d said. ‘There are various checkpoints across France and Spain we have to get to. We have very limited cash, so will have to work en route. We can’t fly and will probably have to hitchhike. I expect it will be incredibly dangerous, and of course there will be men. I bloody well hope so.’

And there was a man and he was Harrison Golding. Martha had her sights set on him from the start of the race and he was as much an end goal for her as the finish line and the £1,000 prize money. There had been instant chemistry between them and as the weeks of racing had gone by and they’d met up at checkpoints, their mutual attraction had grown to the point that the previous evening, they had fallen into her bed.

She was beginning to adore this man and could now imagine them crossing the finish line hand in hand, sharing the prize money and coming home to build some sort of exciting future together. Harrison was charming, he was tall and handsome with a sweep of dark hair. He made her feel things she’d never felt before and last night had been pretty incredible.

Martha tucked her hair behind her shoulders so it fell down her back. She placed one hand on her hip and pushed her chest forwards before nudging the bathroom door open with her foot and then leaned provocatively against the frame.

The bathroom was empty.

That feeling of having missed something came flooding back to her and then she remembered she’d suggested he go back to his bed so the film crew didn’t get footage of him leaving her room. She hadn’t expected him to take her at her word. He must have left after she’d fallen asleep. She pulled on her clothes at speed.

Martha pushed everything she possessed into her trusty rucksack that had travelled with her to Paris, Lyon and Toulouse. Then to Pamplona before zigzagging from Santiago to Valladolid and now, here in Madrid before the final leg to Barcelona. They’d have two nights in a four-star hotel after the finish of the race. It had been hard, a slog at times with a budget that didn’t allow for much food or decent accommodation. Martha had slept in places she’d never tell her mother about. But it had been exhilarating, so exciting, and the promise of seeing Harrison at each checkpoint had quite literally kept her going.

He’ll be packing too, she imagined. Then there was a tapping on her door and her shoulders relaxed. Harrison was back. He didn’t care about the film crew, he was just desperate to see her.

But it wasn’t Harrison; it was the porter who worked the old lift.

‘Hola, señorita,’ he said. ‘Noticias urgentes. Urgent news for you.’

‘Okay, go ahead,’ Martha said.

‘Señor Harrison. He tells me there is a problema with the train. No train until tomorrow.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Bus station, buying last tickets. You must go and meet him or miss the bus to Barcelona.’

‘Why didn’t he wait for me? Come and tell me himself?’

‘No time, señorita. He learned there were so few tickets left. He tells me you must go inmediatamente. Now!’

And Martha was off. She knew where the bus station was, they’d come into Madrid there the day before yesterday. She’d spent weeks running for connections and this felt like second nature to her.

The camera crew were not in the foyer as she charged through. She was a little miffed that the producer of the show hadn’t bothered to let her know personally about the train but then, it wasn’t their job to make things easy for the contestants, quite the opposite. Her cameraman should have been waiting for her, though. Maybe he’d missed the memo, gone ahead to watch her arrive at the railway station. Well, he was going to miss the shot. Martha had no idea how this would all play out when it aired on TV. Right now, it seemed a bit of a fiasco. Thank goodness for Harrison and his quick thinking.

It took Martha a good forty-five minutes to get to the bus station and she was sweaty and panting in yesterday’s clothes when she pushed open the door and began to look around for Harrison. Hopefully the others would all be at the railway station, not realising there would be no departure until tomorrow. She and Harrison would be well on their way with a huge advantage. That £1,000 was almost in her grasp; in their grasp.

But as she looked for him, her smugness began to wither and then after ten minutes of searching to no avail, it disappeared altogether.