Chloe Hadjimatheou

They'd left the keys under the mat.

You know I said Bill was reluctant to speak on this podcast...

Well, if I'm honest, I don't think it was just the media attention that put him off.

I think it might also have been something to do with the fact that Bill had become so close to Rainer and Moth.

Just like millions of readers around the world, he'd opened his heart to them.

Unlike those readers, he'd also opened his life to them.

He felt profoundly hurt, but also unnerved because he'd let them in for almost five years and now he wasn't even sure he knew who they were.

A year passes and one day Bill's phone rings.

On the other end is a lady from North Wales, Maxine, who's been receiving all those letters in Rainer and Moth's old house near Potheli.

The two exchange stories and when Bill tells her that the couple suddenly upped and left, the first thing she asks is, how much do they owe you?

Bill says the utilities were left in a bit of a mess and lost revenue on the farm cost him tens of thousands of pounds.

But really, it's the emotional cost that's upset him the most.

After they left, Bill watched as Rainer Wynne continued to do the media rounds.

He watched as Moth entered the London Marathon.

On his Just Giving page, the couple wrote how he...

A film version of The Salt Path was commissioned with Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson starring as Moth and Rainer Wynne.

Their fame showed no sign of waning.

But it's almost always Rainer that's out there speaking for both of them.

Moth is hardly ever seen, a man who by most medical accounts should have been dead six to eight years ago.

Rainer and Moth have spent years, three books and a film, telling the same story, that he nearly dies and then hikes his way back to health.