The other person you’ll meet is Emma. Emma is Daisy’s best friend. Theirs is a friendship I’ve never really understood. They’re like chalk and cheese. Whilst Daisy is the life and soul of the party, Emma is the misery guts in the corner pointing out that people have been putting out fag butts in the pot plants.

Fucking bitch. At least I mingle at parties, unlike Leanne, who clings to Al and Daisy as though her life depends on it. I stifle my indignation and keep reading.

Emma’s a weak, needy person with no backbone, and she can’t make a decision without running it past Daisy first. But whereas Daisy has tried to put her tragic past behind her, Emma wears her “tragedy” like a badge. She takes anti-anxiety tablets for the panic attacks she’s had since she had an abortion when she was seventeen, and doesn’t everyone know it. She says the tablets keep the panic attacks in check but, weirdly, they seem to stop working whenever she needs attention. I’ve lost count of the number of times Daisy’s cancelled nights out with me and Al because Emma needs someone to sit at home with her and stroke her back while she pretends she’s having trouble catching her breath. I’d like to see what would happen if someone chucked her bloody tablets in the bin and forced her to …

The letter ends suddenly, mid-sentence. I turn it over but it’s blank on the back. The second half of the email must still be on the floor in Isaac’s room.

I sneak back out of the kitchen, cross the hall and step back into the Isaac’s study. I crouch down to pick up a sheet of paper on the floor near the bookcase.

Dear Isaac,

I can’t wait to join you at Ekanta Yatra. There’s nothing here for me any more and, other than Al and Daisy, no reason to stay. I know they’ll want to stay too once they get there. Your community sounds like the kind of family I’ve been looking for all my life. It sounds like the kind of life we’ve all craved …

I pick up another sheet of paper, then another, then another. More emails from Leanne, earlier than the last one, telling him about her life and her dreams and ambitions. Another one telling him about their mother and her alcoholism. From the dates on the emails, it looks like she was writing to Isaac for over six months, at least three emails a week. There are no replies from him. Given that there’s no internet connection here, he must have trekked down to Pokhara every week or couple of weeks, logged on to the internet at a cafe and printed out all his emails.