Free The Long Fall by Julia Crouch Page B

and therefore Martha’s Wish blog day. Writing her weekly missive would help her anchor her loose ends.
    On her way up the wide stone steps to her turret office, she hesitated at the girls’ level, her fingers itching as they had since she had first seen Tilly’s stuff in Martha’s room. But she held herself back from venturing down the corridor, because, had she done so, she might not have been able to resist pulling it all out and dumping it on Tilly’s bed, and that would look like she was going mad. So she turned away, continuing up, up, past the floor where she and Mark had their view and their glass atrium and their sauna and her yoga mezzanine and their twin walk-in dressing rooms. On the landing outside their bedroom door was the piece of wall where she had marked two sets of ascending heights – red for Tilly and blue for Martha. When she’d had the hallways and main living areas repainted three years ago, she made the decorators leave this strip of wall. She always touched the highest blue mark – which only reached her hip – as she passed.
    And so the stairs continued to spiral more narrowly upstairs to her eyrie office, which, like a lighthouse, had the best view from the entire house. Standing sentinel on the window sills were fifty or so cacti, which she had collected over the years since Mark had bought her one to celebrate her first pregnancy – because, he said, she had turned prickly. Cut flowers made her sad as they died, but her cacti would keep going for decades – some might even outlive her. Mark’s gift had started a family tradition that saw the girls ‘buying’ new additions for her every birthday and Christmas. Tilly still continued to do so.
    Kate had no idea if she even liked cacti, but she would never have the heart to get rid of them. Besides, she thought, as she gave each one its weekly drop of water, they would give her something to look after when Tilly was gone. And, like her own personal guards, they made her feel safer as she sat at her desk with the whole of London laid out in front of her.
    She switched on her computer. Her plan was to write about progress on the new school the charity had just opened in Mali. She hadn’t actually gone there, because, the fact of flying aside, the political situation was far too dangerous – the Foreign Office were advising against all travel to the whole country. But the charity employed local field-workers who reported back with photographs, film, and work by the students. It was then up to Kate to collate everything and put her report together in first person plural.
    While she made no specific assertions, this, combined with her picture at the top of the blog – which was called Kate Reports – implied that she was much more frequently out visiting the schools and pupils than the one time she had actually done so.
    It was essential, Sophie PR insisted, that Kate was seen to be actively engaged on the ground. And, so long as it got results, Kate thought, why the hell not? And she enjoyed the work. She really did. In a way, she had finally realised her childhood ambition of becoming a writer, blending facts into a kind of fiction far more purposeful than the novels that had been her original ambition.
    While she was waiting for her email to roll in, she Googled ‘Face of Kindness’ and clicked on the images tab. She shook her head in wonderment as she scrolled down the wall of pictures. Apart from two shots of Mother Teresa and one of a kitten patting a yellow fluffy duckling’s head, every single result was her, Mariam and Bintu. The source websites ranged from blogs in Australia, Japan and the US to CNN and other worldwide mainstream media.
    Sophie was a genius. The image had truly captured the zeitgeist.
    When she was sixteen, Kate had believed she was going to amount to something one day. She always thought she had somewhat blown that dream, but perhaps, finally, it was coming true. Having spent her adult life trying to keep