Sleep
Sleep
C.L. Taylor
All Anna wants is to be able to sleep. But crushing insomnia, terrifying night terrors and memories of that terrible night are making it impossible. If only she didn’t feel so guilty…To escape her past, Anna takes a job at a hotel on the remote Scottish island of Rum, but when seven guests join her, what started as a retreat from the world turns into a deadly nightmare.Each of the guests have a secret, but one of them is lying – about who they are and why they're on the island. There's a murderer staying in the Bay View hotel. And they've set their sights on Anna.Seven strangers. Seven secrets. One deadly lie.Someone’s going to sleep and never wake up…The million-copy bestseller is back in her darkest, twistiest book to date. Read it if you dare!
Copyright (#ulink_c27f0e73-2933-5f32-904d-5271ffac856a)
Published by Avon an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street,
London, SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019
Copyright © C.L. Taylor 2019
Cover photographs © Henry Steadman
Cover design © Henry Steadman 2019
C.L. Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008301316
Ebook Edition © March 2019 ISBN: 9780008221027
Version: 2019-02-18
Praise for C.L. Taylor: (#ulink_c1016024-3648-5d9a-9d24-870d28ba8cc4)
‘Claustrophobic and compelling’
Karin Slaughter
‘Smart, packing a punch to the heart, and dark in all the right places.’
Sarah Pinborough
‘Terrifying … this brilliant book stayed with me long after I finished the last page.’
Cass Green
‘Highly original – kept me utterly enthralled.’
Liz Nugent
‘Twisted, unbearably tense, and a shock ending.’
C.J. Tudor
‘The Missing has a delicious sense of foreboding from the first page, luring us into the heart of a family with terrible secrets and making us wait, with pounding hearts for the final, agonizing twist. Loved it.’
Fiona Barton
‘Fans of C. L. Taylor are in for a treat.’
Clare Mackintosh
‘Black Narcissus for the Facebook generation, a clever exploration of how petty jealousies and misunderstandings can unravel even the tightest of friendships. Claustrophobic, tense and thrilling, a thrill-ride of a novel that keeps you guessing.’
Elizabeth Haynes
‘A gripping and disturbing psychological thriller.’
Lucy Clarke
‘As with all her books, C. L. Taylor delivers real pace, and it’s a story that keeps calling the reader back – so much so that I read it from cover to cover in one day.’
Rachel Abbott
‘A dark and gripping read that engrossed me from start to finish.’
Mel Sherratt
‘Pacy, well-written, and anxiety-inducing.’
Lisa Hall
‘A compulsive read.’
Emma Kavanagh
‘Kept me guessing till the end.’
Sun
‘Haunting and heart-stoppingly creepy, The Lie is a gripping rollercoaster of suspense.’
Sunday Express
‘A rollercoaster with multiple twists.’
Daily Mail
‘5/5 stars – Spine-chilling!’
Woman Magazine
‘An excellent psychological thriller.’
Heat Magazine
‘Packed with twists and turns, this brilliantly tense thriller will get your blood pumping.’
Fabulous Magazine
‘Fast-paced, tense and atmospheric, a guaranteed bestseller.’
Mark Edwards
‘A real page-turner … creepy, horrifying and twisty. You have no idea which characters you can trust, and the result is intriguing, scary and extremely gripping.’
Julie Cohen
‘A compelling, addictive and wonderfully written tale. Can’t recommend it enough.’
Louise Douglas
See what bloggers are saying about C.L. Taylor …
‘My eyes were simply glued to the page, I couldn’t tear them away!’
The Bookworm’s Fantasy
‘An intriguing and stirring tale, overflowing with family drama.’
Lovereading.co.uk
‘Astoundingly written, The Missing pulls you in from the very first page and doesn’t let you go until the final full stop.’
Bibliophile Book Club
‘Imaginative, compelling and shocking – The Fear is a highly engrossing read.’
The Book Review Café
‘The Fear is a dark tale of revenge and just when you think you know where the story’s going, the author takes you by surprise!’
Portobello Book Blog
‘[The Missing] inspired such a mixture of emotions in me and made me realise how truly talented you have to be to even attempt a psychological suspense of this calibre.’
My Chestnut Reading Tree
‘Tense and gripping with a dark, ominous feeling that seeps through the very clever writing … all praise to C.L. Taylor.’
Anne Cater,Random Things Through My Letterbox
‘C.L. Taylor has done it again, with another compelling masterpiece.’
Rachel’s Random Reads
‘In a crowded landscape of so-called domestic noir thrillers, most of which rely on clever twists and big reveals, [The Missing] stands out for its subtle and thoughtful analysis of the fallout from a loss in the family.’
Crime Fiction Lover
‘When I had finished, I felt like someone had ripped my heart out and wrung it out like a dish cloth.’
By the Letter Book Reviews
‘The Fear is a gripping, fast-paced read.’
The Book Whisperer
‘The Missing has such a big, juicy storyline and is a dream read if you like books that will keep you guessing and take on plenty of twists and turns.’
Bookaholic Confessions
‘Incredibly thrilling and utterly unpredictable! A must-read!’
Aggie’s Books
‘A gripping story.’
Bibliomaniac
‘It’s the first time I have cried whilst reading. The last chapter [of The Missing] was heart-breaking and uplifting at the same time.’
The Coffee and Kindle
‘Another hit from C.L. Taylor … so cleverly written and so absorbing that I completely forgot about everything else while reading it. Unmissable.’
Alba in Book Land
Dedication (#ulink_99d7a758-d80c-51a9-afa4-93af32c7097d)
In memory of my beautiful friend, Heidi Moore.
Epigraph (#ulink_5c21d45e-9edb-5cf7-9c59-788e2d5e5a6a)
To die, to sleep –
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to – ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished.
Hamlet, Act III, Scene I,
William Shakespeare
Contents
Cover (#u2bc359d7-70c7-5c45-8681-7bb013f01b96)
Title Page (#uba8a71c1-f5d4-5d17-b97f-49dfe5a0ebf6)
Copyright (#ueadeb9f7-7334-5913-b41d-fbd0e618316f)
Praise for C.L. Taylor (#u50d66920-72f5-5578-adaf-ad8252fd1a80)
Dedication (#u9125e789-4a07-5c52-a17b-6bf4a8bb29e5)
Epigraph (#ud31e3735-9d90-5e85-af78-30885c1cc40d)
Chapter 1 (#u3c87fec2-d139-5abc-8fdd-0c8944db7633)
Part One (#ua5de5260-2b9b-5f81-860d-da9ee5233dd3)
Chapter 2: Anna (#uf9859405-346f-5951-8120-400737433ed8)
Chapter 3 (#ue15dc396-4b2b-5230-bb05-04d9f2c37f5c)
Chapter 4: Mohammed (#u375bf06b-f171-516f-b35b-6882f1a3ca6c)
Chapter 5: Anna (#u9a791584-f80e-57d9-be18-ff786e45f750)
Chapter 6: Anna (#ua444b1ff-0160-5f04-9137-cb753b88e320)
Chapter 7: Steve (#u4ec04325-17e4-55c0-9649-a7620fd81ba0)
Chapter 8: Anna (#u105ab647-c3ba-531d-a5e0-d4646de55be5)
In Memoriam (#u2637c111-ec27-5176-8254-27b5f5c4310a)
Chapter 9: Anna (#ub04006c5-efa6-59eb-8bed-189bb2b682fa)
Part Two (#u9ef03565-9d0b-598b-91ee-84f03a94c949)
Chapter 10: Anna (#uee60afad-5272-5a84-b6a4-cb8e6a1e4033)
Chapter 11: Alex (#u6b25db29-7d39-59c9-971c-4f515fff33a6)
Chapter 12: Anna (#ubd2612a3-58ac-5be1-b6de-a0206764181c)
Chapter 13: Steve (#u37ec63bd-bb51-5bd3-84e7-6c447ccfdc50)
Chapter 14: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
In Memoriam (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16: Mohammed (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18: Trevor (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
In Memoriam (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21: Steve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24: Alex (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
In Memoriam (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27: Steve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29: Dani (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30: Steve (#litres_trial_promo)
Part Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32: Mohammed (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
In Memoriam (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38: Alex (#litres_trial_promo)
In Memoriam (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41: Mohammed (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
In Memoriam (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 44 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 45: Alex (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 46: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
In Memoriam (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 47: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 48 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 49: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 50 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 51 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 52: Christine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 53: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 54: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 55: Katie (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
Reading Group Questions (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
By the same author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_46a4be5e-4e31-5dbf-843d-7aee80c28056)
If you’re reading this then I am no longer alive. Someone has been stalking me for the last three months and, if I am dead, it wasn’t an accident. Tell the police to speak to my ex-boyfriend Alex Carter about what happened in London. That’s where all this started.
The following people came to Rum for a walking tour, arriving on Saturday 2nd June. I am pretty sure one of them killed me.
– Joe Armstrong
– Christine Cuttle
– Fiona Gardiner
– Trevor Morgan
– Malcolm Ward
– Melanie Ward
– Katie Ward
Their bookings and contact details can be found on the laptop in reception and in the medical files in the right-hand drawer of the desk. I have written down everything that’s happened since they arrived (and before) on the attached pieces of paper.
I hope you’re not reading this. I hope it’s screwed up in the bottom of a bin and that I’ve managed to escape. I don’t know what else to say. Please tell my parents that I love them, and Alex that I hope he’s okay and that he shouldn’t feel bad about the way things turned out. I wish I’d never come here. I wish I had never agreed to I wish a lot of things. Mostly that I could turn back time.
Anna Willis
Acting Manager, Bay View Hotel, Isle of Rum
P.S. I am so sorry about what happened to David. Please tell his family that he was a wonderful man, full of heart and dry wit, and I was very fond of him. Please reassure them that his passing was very quick and he didn’t suffer.
Part One (#ulink_4c920a3d-8be2-5a83-b81e-06ed1a2b914f)
Chapter 2 (#ulink_f74700e9-87c3-5aa0-a50d-5dfc01daad6d)
Anna (#ulink_f74700e9-87c3-5aa0-a50d-5dfc01daad6d)
THREE MONTHS EARLIER
Sunday 25th February
The mood in the car couldn’t be more different than it was on Friday. On the way to the Brecon Beacons I couldn’t hear the radio above the chatter and laughter. The team groaned when I told them we’d be spending a weekend in February on a team-building retreat, but most of them rallied once they got in the car. Now, on the way back to London, they’re subdued – physically and mentally exhausted and, more than likely, hungover. Mohammed, sitting beside me in the passenger seat, is snoring. Peter, who amused the table with his impression of Michael Mackintosh over dinner last night, now has his head against the window and his coat pulled up over his shoulders. Beside him, Freddy Laing has his headphones jammed over his ears, his eyes shut and his arms crossed over his chest. I doubt he remembers what he said about me last night. I know he was drunk, they all were, but it doesn’t excuse the things he said when he thought I’d gone to bed.
‘I can’t believe she’s going for the marketing director job. She’s got no chance.’
Freddy’s voice drifted across the hotel lobby to the desk where I was waiting impatiently for the receptionist to replace my wiped room card. I knew immediately that he was talking about me. Helen Mackesy, director of marketing, had been poached, leaving a vacancy. And it had my name on it. Unfortunately, Phil Acres, sales promotion manager, had been making noises about going for it too.
‘She’s really out of touch with digital marketing,’ Freddy said. ‘She’s been in the job for so long she can’t even find the pulse, never mind put her finger on it.’
There was a low laugh. Mohammed, most probably. I knew it wouldn’t be Peter. He was forty, eight years older than me, and kept himself to himself. Mo and Freddy were closer in age, mid-twenties, and sat together at work. They spent more of their time chatting than working but I never told them to be quiet. They were professionals, not children. As long as they got their work done and didn’t disrupt the others I let it go.
There was a pause in the conversation, then Freddy laughed uproariously.
‘MySpace advertising. Fucking love it. Yeah, she’s probably been telling Tim that blogs are the next big thing in social media marketing. GeoCities blogs!’
More cold, cruel, mocking laughter. My stomach tightened. I’d worked to get where I was. I’d been desperate to go to university to study design after my A-levels but we couldn’t afford it. Mum had been working two jobs and I owed it to her to start helping out financially. After what felt like a million interviews, and two years working in a hotel bar, I was finally offered a job as a marketing assistant for a computer software firm. My boss, Vicky, was brilliant. She took me under her wing and taught me everything she knew. That was twelve years ago and digital marketing was still in its infancy but I loved it. I still do.
‘Miss Willis,’ the receptionist called as I marched across the lobby, the blood pounding in my ears. ‘Miss Willis, your room card.’
There was a yelp of surprise, the squeal of trainers on tiles and more laughter. By the time I reached the lounge, Freddy and Mo were gone.
Mo snorts in his sleep, snapping me back to the icy, glistening road beyond the windscreen. The drizzle that clung to our hair and faces as we got into the car a little after 8 a.m. is now icy hail. The wipers speed back and forth, squeaking each time they sweep left. The sky is inky black and all I can see is a blurry refraction of the orange-red tail-lights of the car in front. We’ve finally hit the M25. Not long now until we’re back in London. I’ll drop the boys at a tube station, then go home. But I’m not sure I want to.
Squeak. Swish. Squeak. Swish.
The wipers move in time with my pulse. I’ve had too much coffee and my heart jumps in my chest whenever I remember what Freddy said last night. After he fled the lobby I searched the ground floor of the hotel for him, fuelled by anger and indignation, then gave up and went to my room to ring Alex, my boyfriend.
He didn’t pick up on the first ring. Or the second. He isn’t a fan of phone calls at the best of times but I wanted to hear a friendly voice. I needed someone to tell me that I wasn’t a bad person or shit at my job and everything was going to be okay. I texted him instead.
I’ve had a really shit night. We don’t have to chat long. I just want to hear your voice.
A text pinged back a couple of seconds later.
Sorry, in bed. We can talk tomorrow.
The curt tone of his message sliced through what was left of my self-confidence. We’d drifted apart. I’d sensed it for a while but I was too scared to bring it up because I didn’t have the energy to fix what was broken or the head space to deal with a break-up. I poured myself into my work instead. Sometimes I’d stay late because I couldn’t bear the thought of going home and sitting on the sofa with Alex, each of us curled into the armrests, ignoring the space between us but feeling the weight of it, as though it were as large and real as another person.
Maybe I shouldn’t go for the marketing director job. Maybe I should give up work, leave Alex and move to the countryside. I could go freelance, buy a small cottage and a dog, take long walks and fill my lungs with fresh air. There are days at work when I feel I can’t breathe, and not just because of the pollution. The air’s thinner at the top of the ladder and I find myself clinging to it, terrified I might fall. Freddy would love it if I did.
Squeak. Swish. Squeak. Swish.
Get. Home. Get. Home.
The hail is falling heavily now, bouncing off the windscreen and rolling off the bonnet. Someone snorts in their sleep, making me jolt, before they fall silent again. I’ve been driving behind the car in front for a couple of miles now and we’re both keeping to a steady seventy miles an hour. It’s too dangerous to overtake and besides, there’s something comforting about following their red fog lights at a safe distance.
Squeak. Swish. Squeak. Swish.
Get. Home. Get. Home.
I hear a loud, exaggerated yawn. It’s Freddy, stretching his arms above his head and shifting in his seat. ‘Anna? Can we stop at the services? I need the loo.’
‘We’re nearly in London.’
‘Can you turn the heating down?’ he adds as I glance from the rear-view mirror to the road. ‘I’m sweating like a pig.’
‘I can’t. The heater on the windscreen’s not working and it keeps fogging up.’
‘I’m going to open a window then.’
‘Freddy, don’t!’
Anger surges through me as he twists in his seat and reaches for the button.
‘Freddy, LEAVE IT!’
It happens in the blink of an eye. One moment there is a car in front of me, red tail-lights a warm, comforting glow, the next the car is gone, there’s a blur of lights and the blare of a horn – frantic and desperate – and then I’m thrown to the left as the car tips to the side and all I can hear is crunching metal, breaking glass, screaming, and then nothing at all.
Chapter 3 (#ulink_89352ae7-30c0-5258-8497-063cc63a2bbc)
TWELVE HOURS AFTER THE ACCIDENT
There’s someone in the room. My eyes are closed but I know I’m not alone. I can feel the weight of their gaze, the pinprick crawl of my skin. What are they waiting for? For me to open my eyes? I want to ignore them and go back to sleep but I can’t ignore the churning in my belly and the tightness of my skin. They want to hurt me. Malevolence binds me to the bed like a blanket. I need to wake up. I need to get up and run.
But I can’t move. There’s a weight on my chest, pinning me to the bed.
‘Anna? Anna, can you hear me?’
A voice drifts into my consciousness, then out again.
‘Yes!’ But my voice is only in my head. I can’t move my lips. I can’t get the sound to reverberate in my throat. The only part of me I can move is my eyes.
Someone’s walking towards me, their cold blue eyes fixed on mine. There’s no rise and fall of a nose and mouth, just a smooth stretch of skin, pulled tight.
‘Don’t be scared.’
They draw closer – staccato movements, like a film on freeze-frame – move, stop, move, stop. Closer and closer. I screw my eyes tightly shut. This isn’t real. It’s a dream. I need to wake up.
‘That’s right, Anna. Close your eyes and go back to sleep. Don’t fight it. Let the pain and guilt and hurt go.’
I’m dreaming. I have to be. But it’s too vivid. I saw blue curtains hanging on a white frame around my bed, a white blanket and the mound of my feet.
No! No! Stop!
I scream, but the sound of my voice doesn’t leave my head. I can’t move. I can only blink frantically – a silent SOS – as I’m grabbed by the wrist. They’re going to hurt me and there’s nothing I can do to stop them.
‘Open your eyes, Anna. I know you can hear me. Anna, open your eyes!’
Alex?
He is beside me, his face pinched with worry, his eyes ringed with shadows, stubble circling his lips and stretching along his jawbone.
‘Anna?’
There’s a needle in the back of my hand. Alex catches it with his thumb as he rubs soft circles onto my skin. A sharp pain travels up the length of my arm.
Stop. The word doesn’t travel from my mind to my lips. Why can’t I speak? A wave of panic courses through me.
‘Rest, rest.’ Alex touches a hand to my shoulder, pressing me back into the bed.
Alex? Where am I?
There’s a blue curtain, hanging from a rail surrounding the bed, and a white blanket, pulled tight, pinning me to the sheet. At the end of the bed is the mound of my feet. Am I still in the dream? But it’s not a faceless stranger wrapping their fingers around my wrist, it’s Alex. I focus on my hand, resting limply on his, and tense the muscles in my forearm. My fingers contract and then I feel it, the softness of his skin under my fingertips. I’m not dreaming, I’m awake.
‘It’s okay,’ Alex says, mistaking the relief in my eyes for fear. He gingerly perches on the bed, avoiding my legs. ‘Don’t try to speak. You’ve been in an accident. You’re in the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. You had some internal bleeding and you’ve been operated on. They had …’ he touches his throat, ‘… they had to give you some help breathing, they said your throat might hurt for a few days, but you’re going to be okay. It’s a fucking miracle that you…’ He swallows and looks away.
Survived?
The memory returns like a juggernaut, smashing into my consciousness. I close my eyes to try and block it out but it doesn’t disappear. I was in the car. I was driving and it was hailing and the windscreen wipers were going back and forth and back and—
I snatch my hands up and over my head, cradling my face with my arms as the truck slams into the side of the car. The seat belt digs into my collarbone and chest as I am thrown forward, then I am turning and spinning and twisting and my head smashes against the steering wheel, the seat rest, the window and my arms are wheeling around, my hands reaching for something, anything to anchor myself, to brace myself for impact, but there’s nothing. Nothing. Everyone is screaming and all I can do is pray.
‘Anna, please.’
I am vaguely aware of someone pulling on my arms, gripping my elbows, trying to move them away from my face.
‘Anna, stop it. Please. Please, stop screaming.’
‘Anna? Anna, it’s Becca, your nurse.’
Someone touches my fingers, tightly twisted in my hair. I hold on tighter. I can’t let go. I won’t.
‘Is it my fault?’ Alex’s voice buzzes in and out of my consciousness. ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned the accident. Fuck. Is she going to stop? This is really … I can’t … I don’t know …’
‘It’s okay. It’s all right. She’s disorientated. One of the other nurses said she reacted violently when she came round in post-op.’ Someone pulls on my arms again. I can smell coffee. ‘Anna, sweetheart. Are you in pain? Can you open your eyes for me, please?’
‘Why is she screaming? Isn’t there something you can …’
‘Can you press the alarm button?’
‘Alarm? Why? What’s …’
‘I just need a doctor to see her. Can you just press …’
‘Is she going to be okay? She looked at me. She tried to speak. I thought—’
‘Anna. Anna, can you open your eyes? My name’s Becca Porter. I’m your nurse. You’re in hospital. Are you in any pain?’
‘Sorry, excuse me. Would you mind waiting outside the curtains for a minute. I’m Dr Nowak. Thanks, great. So, who do we have here?’
‘Anna Willis. Road traffic accident. Spleen laceration. She came round after post-op, her vitals were fine. She’s been asleep for the last hour or so. I heard screaming a few minutes ago and—’
‘Okay. Anna, I’m just going to have a look at your tummy, all right? Does it hurt when I press here?’
No. It doesn’t hurt there. It hurts here, in here, inside my head.
I know the nurses are about somewhere – I can hear the soft squeak of shoes on lino, a low cough and a murmur of voices – but I can’t see anyone. I’ve been staring around the ward for what feels like forever. Most of the other patients are asleep, reading silently or watching films on iPads. Everyone apart from the young woman opposite, who’s also awake and restless. She’s younger than me, late twenties tops, with a long, narrow face and dark hair tied up in a messy bun on the top of her head. The first time our eyes met we both smiled and gave a polite nod before letting our gaze drift away again, but we keep meeting each other’s eyes and it’s getting embarrassing. My throat’s still too sore to speak much above a whisper and I’d have to raise my voice to hold a conversation with her. I feel like I should apologise though. She was probably here last night when I screamed the place down. She must have been terrified. I imagine they all were. I didn’t even realise what had happened until the nurse, Becca, woke me up to check my blood pressure and asked how I was feeling. They’d rushed me away for a scan after they’d sedated me, worried that something had gone wrong with the operation and I was bleeding again. I can’t remember much about it, just a white ceiling, dotted with lights, speeding past as they pushed me down a corridor and then the low hum of the MRI machine. Apparently Alex stayed at the hospital until after the scan, then, reassured that I wasn’t in any danger, he did as the nurse suggested and went home for a sleep.
I thanked Becca for looking after me and I apologised for the screams I could only vaguely remember making. She kept a pleasant smile fixed to her face the whole time but when I asked where my colleagues were, her smile faltered.
‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I know the lorry driver was taken to another hospital but I don’t know about your friends. I can find out for you though.’
I didn’t see her again. The next time my blood pressure was checked it was a different nurse. Becca’s shift had ended, she said. She wouldn’t be in until tomorrow. I asked her the same question, if she knew what had happened to the others in the car. She genuinely didn’t seem to know but said she’d find out. When I saw her the next morning she said she was sorry, she hadn’t had time but the doctor would be along soon and she was sure he could answer my questions. I started to panic then. Where were Freddy, Peter and Mo? Had they been taken to a different ward? Unless they hadn’t been as badly injured as me. They might have walked away unscathed, a quick visit to hospital to be checked over and then sent straight home. But … my tender stomach tightened as I remembered what Alex had said about my recovery being a ‘miracle’.
The sound of wheels squeaking on lino makes me turn my head. A nurse has appeared in the doorway, pushing a trolley.
‘Excuse me. Nurse.’ I raise my hand and wave but she doesn’t so much as glance my way, my voice is so quiet. I watch despairingly as she turns left and walks further down the ward.
‘EXCUSE ME! NURSE!’ The woman in the bed opposite shouts so loudly that all heads turn in her direction, including the nurse’s. She waggles her hand in my direction as the nurse approaches, still pushing the trolley. ‘The woman over there was trying to get your attention.’
I smile gratefully and attempt to sit up as the nurse comes over, but I feel as though my stomach muscles have been slashed and the most I can manage is a vague craning of my neck.
‘Everything okay?’ Up close I can see that it’s Becca, the nurse who was so kind to me yesterday.
‘Please,’ I beg. ‘I’m going mad here. I need to know what’s happened to my team … the … the people who were in the car with me. I need to know they’re all right.’
Her eyes cloud as she gazes at me. A shutter’s come down; she doesn’t want me to see what she’s feeling. She glances down at the watch hanging on her uniform.
‘Your partner will be here in about half an hour. Maybe it would be best if he were—’
‘Please,’ I beg. ‘Please just tell me. It’s bad news, isn’t it? You can tell me. I can take it.’
She looks at me as though she’s not entirely sure that I can, then she sighs and takes a shallow breath.
‘One of your colleagues is in a pretty bad way,’ she says softly. ‘He’s broken his back in several places.’
I press a hand to my mouth but it doesn’t mask my gasp.
‘But he’s stable,’ Becca adds. ‘He should pull through.’
‘Who is it?’
She grimaces, like she’s already regretting talking to me. Or perhaps it’s confidential information.
‘Please. Please tell me who it is.’
‘It’s Mohammed Khan.’
‘And the others? Peter Cross? Freddy Laing?’
As she lowers her gaze, my eyes fill with tears. No. No. Please. Please don’t let them … please …
She takes my hand and squeezes it tightly. ‘I’m so sorry, Anna. We did everything we could.’
Chapter 4 (#ulink_2cfe60b8-73ea-513a-8504-1ba1a7475e07)
Mohammed (#ulink_2cfe60b8-73ea-513a-8504-1ba1a7475e07)
Mohammed’s brain feels dull and woolly, as though it’s not pain-relieving meds that are flowing through his veins and capillaries but a thick, dark fog. He likes the fog because, as well as anaesthetising the ache in his limbs, it has stupefied his brain. Whenever he tries to latch on to an emotion – anger, regret, fear – it twirls away on a cloud of smoke. As a teenager, wrestling with his hormones and the pressure of exams, Mohammed had looked longingly at his dog, Sonic, curled up on the floor by his desk, and wished he could swap places. What would it be like, he wondered, to be a dog; to find joy in base behaviours – food, play, affection – and not overload your brain thinking about the future, death, the nature of an infinite universe, global warming, war and disease. It didn’t take much to make a dog happy – running around outside, catching a ball, a scratch behind the ears. What made him happy? Hanging out with his mates, staying up late, watching films, his PlayStation. Dogs lived in the moment but he didn’t. He was studying for exams, the outcome of which would shape his future.
He feels a bit like Sonic now, lying around, not thinking, just waiting, although what he’s waiting for he isn’t entirely sure. Movement in the corner of his eye makes him turn his head. He doesn’t recognise the short, suited, middle-aged man standing in the doorway of the ward but he watches him, vaguely registering the way his eyebrows knit together in frustration, as he scans the supine bodies in their metal beds. He’s obviously a visitor, looking for his loved one. The consultants look much more assured when they enter the ward. Two new emotions appear in the fog of Mohammed’s thoughts but, instead of disappearing, they twist together, travel down to his chest and curl around his heart. Disappointment and regret.
He turns his head away from the door and closes his eyes, half listening to the slap, clack of leather soled shoes on the ward floor, so different from the soft pad of the nurses’ shoes. The sound grows louder and louder, then there’s a soft cough.
‘Mohammed?’
He opens his eyes. The short, suited, middle-aged man is standing at the end of his bed, hands in his pockets and an anxious but determined look on his face. There’s something about his prominent nose, strong jaw and deep-set eyes that looks vaguely familiar but he’s too tired to work out why.
Instead he says, ‘Yes, I’m Mohammed. Who are you?’
‘Mind if I …’ The man gestures at the chair beside the bed and, with no reason to say no, Mohammed nods for him to sit down.
‘Steve,’ the man says, pulling at the thick material of his suit trousers as he takes a seat. He’s thickset – muscle rather than fat, Mohammed thinks bitterly as he instinctively glances at the shape of his own legs beneath the tightly tucked hospital bedding. ‘Steve Laing, Freddy’s dad.’
Mohammed looks back at him, eyes widening in surprise. For a second or two he is lost in confusion. He was told that Freddy had died in the crash. Why would Steve Laing be in the hospital? Unless … he feels a flicker of hope in his heart … unless Freddy isn’t really dead. Could they have made a mistake? Could he have? Maybe he was too out of it to take in what the nurse told him. Maybe …
His hope evaporates, leaving an empty chasm in his chest. There was no mistake. He cried when he heard. He cried for a very long time. Not just for Freddy and Peter but for himself too.
‘I brought you some magazines,’ Steve Laing says, reaching into his bag and plonking a pile of film and music magazines onto Mo’s bedside table along with a bar of Galaxy, a packet of Skittles and some jelly babies, ‘and some chocolates and stuff.’
‘Thanks.’
They stare at each other, just long enough for it to become awkward, then Steve looks down at his lap and runs his palms back and forth on his knees.
‘It’s good to see you looking so …’ He shakes his head sharply and looks back up at Mo. ‘Nah, I’m sorry, mate. I could give you that sugar-coated shit about you looking well and all that but that’s not who I am. I tell it like it is and I imagine you’ve had quite enough of people tiptoeing around you and telling you to think positive and all that.’ He pauses, but not long enough for Mo to reply. ‘The truth is that what happened to you, what happened to Peter and my Freddy, was a fucking travesty. A tragedy. It never should have happened, Mo. Never should have fucking …’ He turns his head sharply as tears well in his eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ Mo says, his throat tightening. ‘About Freddy. He was a really good bloke.’
‘Too right.’ Steve Laing drags the back of his hand over his eyes and looks back at him, lips pursed.
‘I …’ The words dry up on Mohammed’s tongue. He wants to tell Freddy’s dad how he tries not to think about his son because, each time he imagines Freddy’s death and the fact that he’s gone forever, he feels completely disconnected from his body, spinning a thousand miles above the earth, untethered, fearful and out of control. He wants to tell him that but he won’t. Because that’s not the sort of thing you say, especially not to someone you only just met.
Instead he says, ‘I can’t even begin to imagine how hard this must be for you.’
Steve nods sharply and the pain in his eyes seems to lessen. They’re back on safe ground, social niceties and surface pleasantries.
‘The thing is, Mo, the reason I’m here is to ask you what happened. Not details,’ he adds quickly, sensing Mo’s mounting discomfort. ‘I don’t want you to talk me through the crash. No, mate, that would be cruel and I’m not a cruel person. You lived through that once, no need to do it again. Unless …’ He tails off.
Mo’s heart thunders in his chest. ‘Unless what?’
‘Unless you were a witness at the court case but, from speaking to your parents, I’m not sure you’ll be out of here in time.’ He pulls a face. ‘Sorry, mate. I’m not trying to be insensitive.’
‘You spoke to my parents?’
‘Yeah, your big boss … Tim something … put me in touch with them. That’s not a problem, is it?’
‘No, of course not.’
Another pause widens between the two men, then Steve clears his throat.
‘I’m trying to get a picture, Mo, of what happened that day. I know the police are doing their own investigation but this is for me, for my own peace of mind.’
‘Of course.’
‘Let’s start with Anna Willis. What’s your take on her?’
Mohammed closes his eyes, just for a split second, then opens them again. ‘What do you want to know about her?’
Steve raises his eyebrows. ‘Whatever you’ve got.’
Chapter 5 (#ulink_251f27a2-26d0-56ef-acca-342d74776ca3)
Anna (#ulink_251f27a2-26d0-56ef-acca-342d74776ca3)
THREE WEEKS AFTER THE ACCIDENT
Wednesday 14th March
In the last half an hour the churchyard has transformed from a quiet, peaceful oasis in the heart of West Sussex to a thoroughfare for grief. I must have watched seventy, maybe a hundred mourners, all dressed in black with bowed heads and downturned eyes and matching mouths, walk the gravel path from the gate to the open door of the church. My stomach rumbles angrily and I press a clenched fist to my abdomen to silence it. I forgot to eat breakfast, again.
I didn’t eat for two days after the nurse told me that two of my team were dead. How could I spoon cereal into my mouth and slurp down tea like nothing had happened? How could I laugh and chat with the nurses when Peter and Freddy were lying in the mortuary? Instead I cried. I cried and I cried and I turned my head away from everyone who came to visit me, screwing up my eyes to block out faces creased with concern that I didn’t deserve. Only when Dr Nowak told me that if I didn’t eat something they’d fit me with a feeding tube did I finally agree to try half a slice of toast.
‘Anna.’ Alex touches my shoulder. ‘I think we should go in now. It’s due to start.’
It took me fifteen minutes to get out of the flat and into the car, and now we’re parked up I don’t want to get out again. Everything about driving terrifies me now: the motion, the proximity of other cars, swerving around roundabouts. I only made it home from the hospital because I kept my eyes tightly shut the whole way while Alex played my favourite album on loop. When we finally drew up outside our flat the tips of my fingers were red and numb from gripping the seat belt so tightly. Now, I press my cheek against the passenger side window. It’s cool beneath my burning cheek but it does nothing to calm my churning, aching guts.
‘I can’t go in there, Alex. What do I … what do I say to his parents?’
‘What people normally say – I’m so sorry for your loss, et cetera, et cetera, or nothing at all. You rang them last week, Anna. You don’t have to go through all that again.’
It took me two days to work up the courage to ring Maureen and Arnold Cross. I was Peter’s boss. It was only right that I rang them. But I was also the person who drove the car that rolled off the verge of the M25 and killed him. If I’d have been concentrating properly, if I’d have checked my side mirrors instead of glaring at Freddy in the rear-view mirror, I would have seen the half-ton truck drift towards us from the middle lane. I could have taken corrective action, moved us out of its path. And Peter would still be alive. If I’d let Freddy open the window, if I hadn’t let my irritation about what he’d said the night before distract me, then the lives of three people, and everyone who loved them, wouldn’t be destroyed.
A family friend answered the Cross family’s landline. He repeated my name loudly, as though announcing it to the room. There was a pause, then a woman said softly, ‘I don’t want to talk to her.’ When an elderly man added, ‘I will,’ I felt faint with fear. Peter’s dad. I couldn’t speak for several seconds after he said hello, my throat was so tight. I’m sorry, that’s what I said, over and over. I’m so, so sorry. I can never forgive myself. There was a pause, a silence that seemed to stretch forever and I braced myself for his fury. It was what I deserved. Instead he said simply, ‘We miss him,’ and silent tears rolled down my cheeks. ‘We both do,’ he added. ‘Every time the phone rings we think it’s him, checking if Maureen’s sciatica is any better or asking me for gardening advice. Sometimes we …’ His voice quivered and he coughed, then sniffed loudly. ‘They say the lorry driver who ploughed into you fell asleep at the wheel. No alcohol or drugs. A micro-sleep, they reckon, less than thirty seconds long. Tell me Peter didn’t suffer,’ he begged. ‘Just tell me that.’
‘Anna.’ Alex nudges me gently. ‘Did you hear what I just said?’
‘No, sorry. I was—’
‘They don’t blame you for what happened, Anna. No one does.’
‘Freddy’s dad does.’
‘He was angry. His son has just died. Sorry,’ he apologises quickly as I turn sharply. ‘I know, I know.’
I couldn’t face another call straight after I’d spoken to Peter’s dad, so I waited until the next day to call Steve Laing. My hand still shook as I picked up the phone, but I didn’t feel the blind panic I’d felt the day before. I knew what was coming – pain, sadness, grief and disbelief – and I determined to be more of a comfort this time around. I’d tell him how popular Freddy had been on the team, talk about his achievements and take my time answering any questions Steve Laing might want to ask me.
Only he was nothing like Arnold Cross. When I introduced myself, he exploded down the phone at me. How dare I ring him while he was grieving? It was down to my negligence that his son was dead – mine and the company I worked for. Did I have children? Did I have any idea of the hell he was going through, his child dying before him? I tried to apologise but he shouted over me. Had I ever driven a car in such treacherous conditions before? Did I have any points on my licence? Had I ever been caught speeding or made a claim on my insurance? All I could do was stare in horror at the white patch of wall in front of me as he ranted and raged and took all his anger and grief out on me.
I didn’t ring Mo or his parents. When I was still in hospital I asked a nurse if I could use a wheelchair to go and see him, but she told me he didn’t want any visitors. When I asked again a couple of days later I was told that Mo didn’t want to see me and it would probably be for the best if I didn’t ask again.
‘The CPS aren’t pressing charges against you,’ Alex says now. ‘It’s the lorry driver they’re gunning for.’
‘But maybe Steve Laing was right. I hadn’t driven on the motorway when it was that icy before and—’
‘We’re going home.’ Alex starts the engine. ‘Coming here was a mistake.’
‘No!’ I rest my hand on the steering wheel. ‘I need to do this.’
It’s standing room only and we’re crushed up against strangers in the back of the church. Alex is pressed against my right shoulder and a tall man with a bald head keeps bumping my left. The people at the front of the church are bundled up tightly in their hats, coats and scarves despite the orange glow of Calor gas heaters dotted at the end of the pews. Tim, my boss, is sitting in a pew near the back, but it’s the woman in the row at the very front that I can’t take my eyes off. I can only see the back of her grey hair but, from the way it’s resting on the shoulder of the man beside her, it can only be Peter’s mother. A fresh wave of guilt tears through me. If it weren’t for me, none of us would be here now and Peter would be…
A shadow falls across my face and all the air is knocked from my lungs. The coffin, lifted high on the shoulders of six grim-faced men, appears in the entrance to the church. The gentle murmuring of the congregation stops suddenly, as though someone has sharply twisted the volume control to the left, and Alex tightens his grip on my hand, pulling me after him as he takes a step back to make way. I want to look at him, at my shoes, anywhere but at the shiny wooden box that moves past me, but I keep my chin tipped up and my gaze steady. I need to face the reality of the devastation I caused. I owe Peter that. But my bravery doesn’t last long. The moment the coffin turns into the aisle I collapse against Alex.
‘I need to get out,’ I whisper between sobs. ‘I need some air.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘No.’ I touch him on the arm. ‘I won’t be long. I just need to be alone for a few minutes.’
I feel the weight of his gaze as I slide past him and move through the mourners but he lets me go.
Out in the fresh March air I pull off the hat, coat and scarf that make me feel suffocated and I inhale deeply, sucking cold air into my lungs, pushing out the damp, sorrowful scent of the church. My stomach clenches violently, bile touching the back of my tongue and, for one horrifying moment, I think I’m going to be sick. I fight the sensation, breathing shallowly and staring at the cloudless grey sky until it passes, then I start to walk. I drift from gravestone to gravestone, reading the inscriptions, looking at the dates, noting the flowers – or lack of them. As a distraction it only partially works. I feel lost in a fog of sadness and regret whenever I pass someone who died young. There’s one grave that particularly upsets me. A man and a woman are listed on one stone, John and Elizabeth Oakes. He died aged fifty-nine in 1876. She died twenty years later aged seventy-six. Their children are listed below them – Albert, Emily, Charlotte, Edward, Martha and Thomas. Six children and not one of them made it past their fifth birthday. The grave is old and uncared for; moss clings to the children’s names and the angel that sits atop the stone is chipped, her face worn away with age. I scan the cold, hard ground around the grave, looking for daisies or dandelions that I can bunch together with blades of grass. A clump of bowed snowdrops at the base of a tree catches my eye.
I crouch down beside the flowers and pinch one of the stems between my index finger and thumb, then pause, mid-snap. Someone’s watching. I can feel their gaze resting on me, like a weight across my shoulder blades. I turn sharply, expecting to see a photographer behind a gravestone, or a journalist dressed in black with a faux-sad expression. The local press have been hounding me for an interview since I left hospital.
But whoever was watching me isn’t interested in a chat. I catch a glimpse of a black coat or jacket disappearing around the side of the church and then they’re gone. I abandon the clump of bright snowdrops – the idea of plucking them so they can wither and die on a gravestone suddenly feels wrong – and walk back towards the church. As I approach the leaf-strewn porch, the door opens and Alex slides out to the piped opening chords of ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’.
‘Okay?’ His eyes search my face.
‘Not really, no.’
‘Do you want to go back in?’
I glance towards the side of the church, where the figure in black disappeared. There’s no one there now. Just row after row of grey gravestones, some aged, some new and – my breath catches in my throat as I notice it for the first time – a large hole in the ground, with green, sack-like material surrounding it. Peter’s plot. Alex turns his head, following my line of sight, and his hands twitch at his side. For one second I think he’s going to reach for me. Instead he shoves his hands into his pockets and shivers.
‘It’s cold out here. Shall we go?’ He inclines his head in the direction of the car.
I take one last, long look at the plot then nod silently, but Alex is already halfway down the path.
My boyfriend is behind the wheel, hunched over his phone as I reach for the passenger door handle. It’s splattered with mud; the whole side of the car is. I’ll offer to pay for a valet when we get back to London. It’s the least I can…
It’s so small I almost didn’t notice it.
SLEEP
Written just above the front wheel arch, like someone’s wet their finger and carved the word into the mud.
‘Alex.’ He looks up from his phone as I tap on the window, surprise then irritation registering on his face. I beckon him with one hand and point towards the wheel arch with the other. ‘Something weird.’
He sighs silently and opens his door.
‘What?’ he says as he steps out.
‘Someone’s written something on the car.’
‘What!’ His irritation turns to fury in an instant.
‘It’s not damaged. It’s just weird. Look.’
He joins me and looks where I’m pointing.
‘SLEEP?’ He’s nonplussed.
‘Don’t you think it’s weird?’
‘A bit.’
‘What do you think it means?’
He shrugs. ‘That some teenager was bored? It’s more original than clean me, anyway.’
‘But it’s not funny. It’s not witty. It’s not … anything.’ I glance back towards the church – I just had the strongest sensation that we were being watched – but the churchyard is still deserted.
‘Exactly. It’s nothing to worry about.’ Alex wanders back to his side of the car and pulls on the door handle. He smiles as our eyes meet over the top of the car. ‘I won’t be losing sleep about it, anyway.’ He laughs. ‘Losing sleep. Get it?’
‘Yeah.’ I close my eyes tightly and think about ‘SLEEP’ and what it could mean, all the way home.
Chapter 6 (#ulink_b6527725-dfcd-5b69-958a-d76025e2fec3)
Anna (#ulink_b6527725-dfcd-5b69-958a-d76025e2fec3)
EIGHT WEEKS AFTER THE ACCIDENT
Thursday 26th April
I feel like a balloon on a string, floating above the pavement. Alex’s hand is wrapped tightly around mine but I can’t feel the pressure of his fingers on my skin. I can’t feel anything. Not the pavement under my feet, not the wind on my cheeks, not even my laboured breath in my throat. Tony, my stepdad, is walking ahead of us, his white hair waving this way and that as the wind lifts and shakes it. His black suit is too tight across his shoulders and every now and then he tugs at the hem. When he isn’t pulling at his clothes he’s glancing back at me, over his shoulder.
‘All right?’ he mouths.
I nod, even though it feels like he’s looking straight through me, talking to someone further down the street. I barely recognised the woman who stared back at me from the mirror this morning as she pulled on the white blouse, grey suit and black heels that had been laid out on the bed for her. I knew it was me in the mirror but it was like looking at a photograph of myself as a child. I could see the similarity in the eyes, the lips and the stance but there was a disconnection. Me, and not me, all at the same time. I barely slept last night. While Alex snored softly beside me, curled up and hugging a pillow, I lay on my back and stared at the dark ceiling. When I did fall asleep, sometime after three, it wasn’t for long. I woke suddenly at five, gasping, shrieking and clawing at the duvet. I’d had my hospital dream again, the one about the faceless person staring at me.
‘It’s going to be okay, sweetheart,’ Mum says now, trotting along beside me, her cheeks flushed red, the thin skin around her eyes creased with worry. When we got out of the car she took my right hand and Alex took my left. I felt like a child, about to be swung into the air but with fear in my belly rather than glee. At some point Mum must have let me go because now her hands are clenched into fists at her sides.
‘Anna.’ Mum’s gloved hand brushes the arm of my coat. ‘This isn’t about you, love. You’re not the one on trial. You’re a witness. Just tell the court what happened.’
Just the court: the judge, the jury, the lorry driver, the public, the press, and the family and friends of my colleagues. I need to stand up in front of all of those people and relive what happened eight weeks ago. If I didn’t feel so numb, I’d be terrified.
‘Anna!’
‘Over here!’
‘Anna!’
‘Mr Laing!’
‘Mr Khan!’
The noise overwhelms me before the bodies do. Everywhere I look there are people, necks craned, arms reaching in the air – some with microphones, others with cameras – and they’re all shouting. My stepdad wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me close.
‘Give her some space!’ He raises an arm and swipes at a camera that’s just been shoved in my face. ‘Out of the way! Just get out of the bloody way, you imbeciles.’
As Tony angles me out of the crowd I search desperately for Mum and Alex but they’re still trapped in the throng of people by the courthouse entrance.
‘Anna! Anna!’ A blonde woman in her early forties in a pink blouse and a puffy black gilet presses up against me and holds a digital Dictaphone just under my chin. ‘Are you satisfied with the verdict? A two-year sentence and two of your colleagues are dead?’
I stare at her, too shocked to speak, but she registers the turn of my head as interest and continues to question me.
‘Will you go back to work at Tornado Media? Was that your boyfriend you were with?’
‘You’re having trouble sleeping, aren’t you?’ a different voice asks.
I twist round to see who asked the question but there’s a sea of people following us down the steps – dozens of men in suits, photographers in jeans and anoraks, a dark-haired woman in a bright red jacket, an older lady with permed white hair, my mother – pink-cheeked and worried – and, on the other side of the group from her, the thin, anxious shape of my boyfriend.
The blonde to my right nudges me. ‘Anna, do you feel responsible in any way?’
‘What?’ Somehow, in the roar, Tony heard her question. Someone behind me bumps against me as my stepdad stops sharply. ‘You bloody what?’
It’s like a film, freeze-framed, the way the crowd around us suddenly falls silent and stops moving.
The blonde smiles tightly at Tony. ‘Mr Willis, is it?’
‘Mr Fielding actually, who’s asking?’
‘Anabelle Chance, Evening Standard. I was just asking your daughter if she felt in any way responsible for what happened.’
The skin on my stepdad’s neck flushes red above the white collar of his shirt. ‘Are you bloody kidding me?’ He stares around at the crowd. ‘Can she actually say that?’
‘It was just a question, Mr Fielding. Anna’ – she tries to hand me a business card – ‘if you’d ever like to chat then give me a—’
He knocks her hand away. ‘You’re treading a very fine line. Now, get out of our way, before I make you.’
Mum and Alex wrap around us like a protective shield, Alex beside me, Mum next to Tony, as we hurry away from the noise and chaos of the courtroom.
‘Have you got a tissue, love?’ Mum asks as we reach the car. ‘You’ve got mascara all down your face.’
I touch a hand to my cheeks, surprised to find that they’re wet.
‘Yes, I’ve …’ I reach a hand into my suit pocket and feel the soft squish of a packet of Kleenex. But there’s something else beside them, something hard with sharp corners, something I don’t remember putting into my pocket when I got ready this morning. It’s a postcard. The background is blue with white words forming the shape of a dagger. The words turn red as they near the point of the blade and a single drop of blood drips onto the title: The Tragedy of Macbeth.
‘What’s that?’ Mum asks as I flip the card over.
I shake my head. ‘I don’t know.’
There are two words written on the back, in large, looping letters:
For Anna
I look from Mum, to Dad and then to Alex. ‘Did one of you put this in my pocket?’
When they all shake their heads, I flip it back over and read the quote:
Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep’ – the innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care, The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, Chief nourisher in life’s feast.
I know this quote from studying Macbeth at A-level. It’s Macbeth talking to Lady Macbeth about the frightening things that have happened since he murdered King Duncan.
‘Anna?’ Alex says. ‘Are you okay? You’ve gone very pale.’
I glance back towards the courthouse and the throng of faceless people milling around.
‘Someone put this in my pocket.’
‘It wasn’t that bloody journalist, was it?’ Tony says. ‘Because I’ll get on the phone to her editor if I need to. I won’t have her harassing you like this.’
‘Let me see that.’ Alex leans over my shoulder and peers at the card. ‘Is that a quote from Shakespeare?’
‘It’s Macbeth telling Lady Macbeth about a voice he heard telling him he’ll never sleep again.’
‘Oh, that’s horrible.’ Mum runs her hands up and down her arms. ‘Who’d give you something like that?’
‘Here, give me that.’ Tony takes the card from my fingers, rips it into tiny pieces and then drops them into a drain. ‘There. Gone. Don’t give it a second thought, love.’
No one mentions it all the way home but the words rest in my brain like a weight.
Chapter 7 (#ulink_311d9ab3-11db-5950-b5f5-7dab838eacab)
Steve (#ulink_311d9ab3-11db-5950-b5f5-7dab838eacab)
Saturday 28th April
Steve Laing bows his head and crosses himself as he crouches beside his son’s grave. He’s not a Catholic but it feels like the right thing to do. It shows respect. He touches a hand to the gravestone, tracing a finger over the cold imprint of his son’s name, and his chest burns with grief and rage. He still can’t quite believe it, that his son’s body is buried deep in the ground, six feet below him. It doesn’t feel real. How can it be? Freddy was young, he was strong, he went to the gym three times a week and played squash every Saturday. He’d had chickenpox as a kid. Broken his arm when he fell off the slide. But he wasn’t one of those kids in the park with snot dribbling over his top lip. He was healthy, hardly had a day off school. The only time Steve had had to take him to A&E was when he got so pissed at a house party for a mate’s fifteenth birthday that he ran into a glass door and knocked himself out. When he came round he claimed he’d had his drink spiked. Steve could see in the twitch of his lips that he was lying but he admired his gumption. Freddy could be a gobby little shit, always trying to talk himself out of trouble. He was loud too. He filled the house with his booming voice and his clumsy-arsed ways. Steve had lost track of the number of times he’d shouted at him to ‘keep the bloody noise down’ when he crashed into the house late at night, clattering around in the dishwasher or bashing every pot and pan together as he tried to make himself a snack after a drinking session with his mates. But he was never angry with him, not really. Freddy was all he had after Juliet had died. Fucking cancer, stealing the kid’s mum away from him five days before his eleventh birthday. If cancer were a person he’d have beaten the shit out of it and smashed its face to a pulp.
The house is quiet now. So bloody quiet it makes him want to turn on every stereo and sound system in the place and scream at the top of his voice. That’s the worst thing about death, the silence it leaves behind. But not in Steve’s head, there’s no peace there. Some days he feels as though he’s going mad, all those thoughts, buzzing around like wasps. He kept them quiet for a bit – planning the funeral and preparing for the trial – but they started up again afterwards, louder and angrier than ever. It’s the powerlessness he can’t cope with. He couldn’t save Freddy. He couldn’t grab hold of the surgeon’s knife, plunge his hand into his son’s chest and massage his heart back to life. He couldn’t speed up the police investigation. He couldn’t talk to the CPS and, other than a prepared statement, he couldn’t speak to the judge or jury. His son had been taken from him and he couldn’t do a fucking thing about it. ‘Trust us,’ the police told him. ‘Let us do our job.’ But they hadn’t, had they? Not really. Not them, not the CPS and not the fucking judge.
He traces a finger over his son’s birth and death dates. Twenty-four. Just twenty-four. At the funeral the vicar had said something about an ‘everlasting sleep’ that had really riled him. Death wasn’t like sleep. It wasn’t relaxing. You didn’t dream and you couldn’t be woken up. A dark cloud of despair had descended when the last of the mourners left Freddy’s grave. For most of them it would be the only time they’d visit it. They’d miss him, of course they would, but they’d get back on with their lives, whereas Steve felt his had been indefinitely paused.
It was his mate Jim who’d thrown him a lifeline. ‘If you feel that justice hasn’t been done, mate, then maybe you need to mete it out yourself. If you know where she is I can send someone after her. She won’t even see them coming. If that’s what you want.’
Steve wasn’t sure if it was. He prided himself on being a gentleman. He’d never once lifted his hand to a woman. But it was different if a woman was a murderer, wasn’t it? He’d have had no qualms about hurting Myra Hindley or Rose West. And that’s what this woman was, wasn’t it? A murderer. She’d taken the lives of two young people and crippled another. She hadn’t looked him in the eye at the trial. Hadn’t even acknowledged he was there. But she will. She’ll know who Steve Laing is, and she’ll remember his son. He’ll make sure of that.
Chapter 8 (#ulink_72bf9af1-6bfb-5143-bd2f-5fd590b911b1)
Anna (#ulink_72bf9af1-6bfb-5143-bd2f-5fd590b911b1)
Wednesday 2nd May
Our flat is a very different place at four o’clock in the morning. Unusually for London, the air is cool and still, the bedroom wrapped in shadows, the darkness punctuated only by the glow of streetlamps slipping through the gap in the curtains. Alex is asleep, curled up on his side, hugging the duvet. He came back from work yesterday evening to find me wrapped in a blanket on the sofa, staring dully at the TV. He stood in the doorway, watching me, waiting for an acknowledgement.
‘Hi,’ I said, then let my gaze return to the TV. A single glance was enough to assess his mood: rigid posture, tight jaw, cold eyes. He was angling for a fight. Again.
‘What this?’ He picked up the empty mug from the side table.
‘A mug.’
‘And this?’ He picked up a plate.
I looked at him. ‘What are you doing?’
‘What are you doing?’
He stalked out of the living room, mug and plate in hand. I heard them crash into the sink then the sound of the fridge door opening and closing and a curt fucking hell.
‘Anna.’ He was back in the doorway again. ‘There’s no food in the house. You said you’d go to the supermarket.’
‘I did.’
‘And?’
‘Someone followed me.’
‘Not again.’ He rested his head against the white glossed wood of the door frame. ‘Anna. You need to let this go. Steve Laing is not out to get you. The person who was responsible – the lorry driver, not you – has been charged and sent to prison. The coroner’s court case has been dismissed. It’s finished. Over.’
He didn’t understand. How could he? I hadn’t got any proof that someone had been following me. I hadn’t confronted them or taken their photo. I didn’t even know what they looked like, but I’d felt them watching me. I’d been fine leaving the house. I’d made it all the way to Tesco without feeling a horrible prickling sensation from the base of my skull to midway down my spine. The sun was shining and I was in a good mood because I’d just binge-watched three episodes of Catastrophe. Steve Laing hadn’t crossed my mind once and then it happened, the absolute certainty that someone was standing behind me, watching me as I bent down to take a loaf off the shelf. When I turned around there were five other people in the aisle – a man in a suit, an older woman, a woman about my age and another woman, slightly older than me with a toddler in a buggy. The child stared me out, his blue eyes wide and anxious. His mother looked down at him, at me, and then wheeled the buggy around and disappeared back down the aisle. Irritated with myself for overreacting, I headed straight to the tills with my basket. It wasn’t until I got home that I realised I’d forgotten half the things Alex had asked me to buy.
‘Did you ring Tim today?’ He crossed his arms over his chest.
‘Yeah.’
‘And?’
‘I gave my notice.’
He raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘I’m struggling to pay the bills as it is. If this is a permanent situation then …’ He sighed heavily. ‘I really don’t think I can deal with this, Anna. I knew you’d be a bit … upset … for a while but I can’t live like this. If you’re not thrashing around in bed because you can’t sleep you’re sitting around in jogging bottoms watching reruns of Friends. Have you even had a shower today?’
In another life, the life I lived before my world was shattered, I would have bit back at Alex and told him that maybe he should be a bit more sympathetic. Instead I looked at him and said, ‘It’s not working, is it? Between us?’
‘It’s …’ He looked down at the grubby beige carpet and shook his head. ‘No, it’s not.’
I’d imagined this conversation in my head a hundred times since the accident, but actually having it was surreal. I’d expected to burst into tears or feel a jagged pain in my chest. Instead I felt detached, as though I were watching the break-up scene happen to two other people. We’d been drifting apart for a long time, way before the accident, but you’d have to be a cruel kind of bastard to leave someone when they needed you most. We didn’t dislike each other, we hadn’t had blazing rows or shagged someone else or been cruel, but we were living separate lives. We weren’t even sharing the same bed any more, not really. There might be an hour or two – between my insomnia and Alex getting up for work – when we lay on the same sheet but we rarely touched. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d kissed me goodbye or hello. And the most telling thing was, I didn’t really mind.
‘What do you want to do?’ I asked. ‘Do you want to keep the flat?’
He looked shocked. He’d come back from work expecting a fight. He might have secretly wanted this but he hadn’t expected us to have this conversation now.
‘I’m happy for you to have it,’ I said. ‘I’ll go back to Reading and live with Mum and Tony for a bit.’
He looked up and met my gaze but I couldn’t read the expression in his eyes. ‘You’ve been thinking about this for a while, haven’t you? Us splitting up?’
‘Haven’t you?’
The air between us was suddenly very still, heavy with sadness.
‘Are you moving out today?’ He glanced at the open bedroom door and the room beyond it, looking for suitcases or signs that I’d already started getting my things together.
I looked at the kitchen clock. It was after seven. ‘I don’t know. It’s probably too late.’
‘Good.’
‘Good?’
‘I’m glad you’re staying tonight. I’m not sure I could cope with you just upping and leaving. I feel a bit …’
‘Shocked?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I know what you mean.’ I paused, suddenly unsure whether I’d misread the situation. ‘You do want this, don’t you, Alex?’
‘Yeah, yeah, I do. It’s just … weird. I feel …’ He faltered. ‘I feel like I need to give you a hug or something.’
‘Okay, sure.’ I said yes only because saying no would have been harder.
I shifted the blanket and book on my lap to one side and tried to get up from the sofa as Alex crossed the room. We met in the middle, an awkward hug with him reaching down to me and me reaching up, a huge space between our bodies. It was like embracing a stranger.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said as he pulled away. ‘I feel like I’ve let you down.’
‘You haven’t let anyone down. I’m not the person I was. I don’t think you are either. We’ve both changed. No one’s to blame.’
He looked at me steadily and said nothing. He didn’t have to.
We had beans on toast for dinner, the plates resting on our laps as we sat on the sofa and pretended to watch a film. It was better than the alternative, sitting across the kitchen table from each other, shovelling food silently into our mouths as we tried to think of something to say. We went to bed at the same time and automatically reached for our books. It felt as though we were in a bizarre sketch show, the couple who’d just split up but were acting as though nothing had happened.
‘Have you made plans, beyond living with your parents, I mean?’ Alex laid down his book but kept his gaze, and his body, facing forwards. A wave of sadness passed over me. It was real. We were splitting up. We no longer fitted together like pieces of a puzzle. Time had changed us. We’d become warped and incompatible.
‘I was thinking about moving to Scotland.’
‘Scotland?’
‘Yeah. One of the islands maybe. I …’ I discarded my book, twisted onto my side and pulled the duvet up over my shoulders. Looking at Alex’s side profile, I had a flashback to the first time I’d seen him – his long nose, strong brow and slightly recessive chin.
He looked at me curiously. ‘Since when have you wanted to live in Scotland?’
‘I’ve wanted to get out of London for a while, you know that. I told you when we first met.’
‘You said you wanted to move to the Cotswolds or Norfolk, not Scotland.’
‘There was a programme the other day, on the TV. I was only half watching it but I got sucked in. The Scottish Isles … they looked so beautiful and wild and remote.’
‘And cold. And rainy. And miserable.’
I shook my head. ‘No, not miserable.’
‘You won’t know anyone.’
‘Good. I don’t like people.’
He laughed. ‘And I don’t imagine they have a thriving marketing industry.’
‘I don’t want to be in marketing any more.’
‘So what will you do? Become a fisherwoman?’
‘I thought I might work in a tea shop or a restaurant or something. Or I could clean maybe, be a cleaner.’
‘Clean?’ One of his eyebrows twitched in disbelief.
‘Why not? I don’t want to do what I did, Alex. I don’t want the pressure or the … the responsibility.’
He looked grave for a second as my words sank in.
‘This is some weird kind of grief thing, isn’t it? Making reckless decisions. I read about it online.’
‘No, it’s not. I’ve given it a lot of thought.’
‘But …’ He looked at me steadily. ‘You’re the messiest person I’ve ever met. Who the hell’s going to employ you as a cleaner?’
We both laughed then.
‘I just want you to be happy,’ Alex said as he twisted round to turn off his bedside lamp.
‘I want you to be happy too.’
He didn’t reply. Instead he pulled the duvet up over his shoulders and buried his head in his pillow, shifting and shuffling as he made himself comfortable. I studied the shape of his head and the curve of his shoulder as his breathing grew slower and deeper. Then, when I was sure he was asleep, I slipped out of bed.
I lean back in my chair and stretch my arms above my head. 5.04 a.m. I rarely fall asleep before four. I’ve tried hypnosis apps, lavender, Night Nurse and Calms but nothing works.
I’ve just spent the last couple of hours searching for jobs in the Scottish Isles. There were more than I expected, particularly in Orkney, but where I want to live, the isle I fell in love with when I watched the BBC documentary, was Rum. The thirty-one residents are outnumbered by the animal life – deer, eagles and ponies – that run wild on the rough, rugged terrain. But there’s only one job available – ‘General Help’ at the Bay View Hotel. Duties including reception work, cleaning and website updating. The salary’s pitifully small and the hours are relentless. I’d barely get time to rest, never mind think. It’s just what I want.
As Alex said, I’m hardly qualified to be a cleaner but I worked in a hotel bar for a couple of years after school and I can do the website stuff standing on my head. I peer into the laptop screen, reread my application again, checking for typos or errors, then grab the mouse and click ‘Send’.
I stifle a yawn as I close the laptop and stand up. The sun is coming up now and a sliver of bright light slips into the room where the curtains don’t meet in the middle. Below a blanket of grey cloud the sky is streaked orange and red and I can just make out the arc of a white sun peeping between the buildings opposite and—
Movement in the corner of my eye makes me turn my head. Someone just ducked down behind a car at the end of the road, on the opposite side of the street. I steady my hand on the glass and squint into the distance. There’s a piece of paper fluttering under the windscreen wiper of my car.
‘Alex?’ I whisper his name then cross the bedroom and step into the hall, pulling the door closed behind me. I turn on the hallway light, pull on my coat, slip my feet into my shoes and grab my keys. Less than two minutes later I’m down the communal stairs and opening the front door. I pause in the doorway and glance along the street. There’s no one else here, just me and a large tabby cat that stares indifferently at me from a low wall, several houses down. I put the door on the latch and dart out of the house. It only takes twelve frantic strides to get me from the front door to the car. I snatch the piece of white paper from beneath the windscreen wiper then speed back into the house. I shut the door behind me, release the latch and unfold the paper. There are three words printed in the centre.
YOU WILL SLEEP.
In Memoriam (#ulink_2cfcb88d-6440-5255-aea8-39382d82add9)
In Memoriam
Emily and Eva Gapper
Emily Gapper, devoted wife and mother. Passed away on 13.2.2015 to be with our darling daughter, Eva Gapper. Knowing that the two of you are together is my only comfort. Forever in my thoughts, my beautiful girls. Love and miss you always …
I have always prided myself on my ability to read people; to interpret their body language, intonation and micro-expressions. It’s not so much a gift as a survival technique, an arsenal in my armour that was fashioned in my childhood – a necessity when faced with a mother as emotionally stunted as mine.
Take you, for example, Anna Willis, sitting in the window, lit by the glow of your laptop, then sprinting along the pavement with your oversized cardigan wrapped around your body and belted by your arm gripping your waist. I might have been too far away this time to study your face but I’ve been nearer. I’ve been close enough to study your pale skin, wide unblinking pupils, the sweat prickling at your hairline, your repetitive throat-clearing and the way you twist your hands. Your anxiety and your pain shine like a beacon but only to your nearest and dearest, sweet Anna. And, of course, to me.
I was going to retire. I was going to leave this life behind me and take up new pursuits. But he wants you gone and I couldn’t say no. I have never been able to say no to him.
I thought I’d want to hurry your passing, Anna, to get it over and done with quickly, but this will be the last time I ever do this, my final flourish, so to speak, and I want it to be perfect. When the time is right I will help you sleep.
Chapter 9 (#ulink_14b0c8c5-5294-55aa-8261-71b88e419a10)
Anna (#ulink_14b0c8c5-5294-55aa-8261-71b88e419a10)
Alex walks into the kitchen, dressed in his suit and smelling of shampoo and aftershave. He holds out a hand. ‘Show me that note.’
I tried to wake him after I ran back up the stairs with the piece of paper I found under the windscreen wiper but he swatted me away and told me to go back to sleep. I tried again when his alarm went off at six thirty but he peered at it through bleary eyes, shook his head and said he needed the loo. I trailed him to the bathroom, note in hand, then retreated to the kitchen when I heard the shower start.
‘Someone put it on my car,’ I tell him again.
Alex takes one look at the note, flips it over to look at the blank other side then crumples it up and throws it in the bin. ‘Sounds supportive to me. Maybe someone else on the street has noticed that you stay up all hours of the night.’
‘But they’ve underlined “will”. It makes it sound threatening.’
‘Maybe it’s the journalist that’s been hassling you for an interview. Give me an interview and you’ll sleep better, that sort of thing. Was there a business card with it?’
‘No, nothing.’ I pause. ‘I think it’s Steve Laing.’
Alex frowns. He doesn’t recognise the name.
‘Freddy’s dad. Remember what he said after the trial, that justice had only partially been done? I really think it’s him, Alex. First “sleep” written in the dirt, then the postcard, now this.’ I reach into the bin and pull out the crumpled ball of paper. ‘Maybe he thinks I fell asleep at the wheel too? Or that I feel too guilty to sleep.’
Alex reaches under the kitchen table for his shoes and eases his feet into them. ‘Anna, put the note back in the bin.’
‘But it’s evidence.’
‘Of what?’
‘That someone’s …’ I tail off. What was it evidence of exactly? That someone had noticed I was still awake at 5 a.m. and had left a sympathetic note on my car? It wasn’t illegal to write in the dirt on someone’s car either. If it were, hundreds of ‘clean me’ pranksters would be in jail for defacing grubby vans.
‘Has anything else happened that you haven’t told me about?’ Alex stands up and pulls on his coat. ‘Any weird phone calls or emails?’
‘No, just, you know, the feeling that someone’s been watching me.’
My boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, clamps his top teeth over his bottom lip and gazes down at me, his brow creasing as his eyes search mine. ‘The trial was covered in the paper, wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And they mentioned our address? The street, anyway.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Probably a member of the public then. Some weirdo who’s become obsessed with the case. Or not,’ he adds as he registers my startled expression. ‘It could be something to do with Steve Laing, like you say. Either way, you need to stop worrying about it. Whoever it is isn’t going to bother you at your parents’ house.’
It’s a reassuring thought but I’m fooling myself if I think I’ll be out of the flat today. I’ve got too much stuff. There are pots and pans, dishes and cutlery in the kitchen. Books, clothes, DVDs and music in the bedroom. Ornaments, photo frames and pictures in the living room. Then there’s all the furniture that belongs to me. It’s going to take me days to get everything packed up.
‘Alex.’ I reach out to touch him on the arm but my hand falls away before I make contact. We aren’t together any more. Lingering touches are no longer appropriate.
‘Yeah?’
I want to ask him not to go to work. To stay in the flat with me and watch a film and get drunk or play a board game and listen to music. I know if I stay in the flat alone I’ll flinch at every noise, peer out of the window, pace and worry and google real-life stories about stalkers. But I can’t ask Alex not to go to work. Not least because he doesn’t have to protect or comfort me any more. I have to let him get on with his life.
‘Can I leave my furniture here?’ I ask instead. ‘Until I’m settled? And some boxes of stuff?’
He shrugs. ‘I guess, until I get a new place anyway.’
‘Thank you. I’ll arrange for a man with a van to pick them up. I’ll leave the car outside too. I’ll probably sell it. Unless you want it.’
‘You’re getting rid of your car?’
‘Yeah.’ I’m surprised at his reaction. He’s seen how difficult it is for me just to get into the passenger seat. There’s no way I can face driving again. Not for a long time. ‘I’ll get a train to Mum and Tony’s later, once I’m packed up.’
That’s assuming they’ll be okay with me staying. Ever since they’ve retired they’ve had a succession of long-lost relatives and old friends to visit. I might have to kip on the sofa.
‘Wow.’ Alex looks stunned, as though the reality of what we’re doing has finally sunk in. ‘You’re not going to be here when I get back, are you?’
‘No.’ I look up at the ceiling and blink back tears.
‘Jesus.’ He looks me up and down, his gaze resting on my lips, the top button of my pyjamas and the chipped nail varnish on my toes. ‘I guess this is goodbye then.’
I nod, suddenly unable to speak.
‘One more hug before I go?’ He doesn’t wait for me to respond. Instead he pulls me into his arms, squeezes me tightly then lets me go. The embrace barely lasts five seconds.
‘Take care of yourself, Anna,’ he says as he walks out of the kitchen and into the hallway. He opens the door to the flat and steps outside without looking back. I have never felt more alone.
Part Two (#ulink_fe4a9a7d-656d-5e75-a3a7-316ebb809ad4)
Chapter 10 (#ulink_ec8ea733-6ad3-51f8-950b-5d79e5d46950)
Anna (#ulink_ec8ea733-6ad3-51f8-950b-5d79e5d46950)
Saturday 2nd June
Day 1 of the storm
‘Anna. Anna?’
I turn and smile. Even after a week I’m still not used to the way David says my name. I feel as though I’ve been rechristened. Back in London I was Anna – An-na – emphasis on the first ‘n’ and the last ‘a’. Now I’m Ah-nah. My name sounds softer and warmer when David says it in his soft Scottish burr. For the first couple of days on the island my shoulders remained up by my ears, tight, knotted and wary. But I can feel them loosening; the tension that curled me into myself is fading away. I’m softening, just like my name.
‘Yes, David.’
‘Do you have the list of guest names?’
‘Yeah.’ I swipe a piece of paper from the printer under the desk and hand it to him.
I had my reservations about David when he interviewed me on the phone. He was direct, gruff and pompous, continuously referring to me as ‘young lady’ (even though I’m thirty-two years old) and repeatedly asked me if I was prepared to work hard and not moan. I pictured him as a tall man, broad shouldered, bearded, ex-military. When the ferry docked on Rum and I walked down the ramp and onto the quayside I passed the small, round, pink-cheeked man in a yellow waterproof jacket and bowled straight up to the bearded man in a flat cap, standing beside a large black Labrador.
‘Anna?’ I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned sharply.
‘David?’
‘Yes.’ He held out a hand. ‘How was your journey?’
He had told me on the phone that visitors weren’t allowed to bring cars to Rum, and I’d boarded the small boat with a dozen or so people who were also on foot. Half of them had bicycles. The rest wore bulging rucksacks on their backs. I was the only one dragging a suitcase behind me. I carried it up to deck three and took a seat next to the window. After a couple of minutes the ferry pulled away from Mallaig, the sea as grey as the sky. After about forty minutes we passed Eigg, to our left, rising out of the sea like the dark nose of a whale. If Eigg was a whale then Rum was a dragon’s back, curving out of the water. I thought I was prepared to see it for the first time – I’d watched and rewatched the Small Isles programme on iPlayer after David confirmed on the phone that he’d give me a three-month trial – but my breath still caught in my throat and my stomach tightened with anticipation. I left the lounge and stepped onto the deck, smiling as the wind slapped my cheeks then lifted my hair and wrapped it around my face. With the sky and the sea stretching for miles I felt as though I was being transported to another world, not a tiny community on the west coast of Scotland. I felt vital and energised, alive and free.
I didn’t tell David any of that. Instead I said, ‘Rum’s a long way from Reading. It took forever. But the ferry ride took my breath away.’
He smiled broadly, his eyes almost disappearing in the rise of his cheeks as he read the expression on my face. ‘Still gets me too, even after all these years. That everything?’ He gestured towards my suitcase and I nodded.
‘Okay.’ He picked it up. ‘This,’ he raised a hand in the direction of the dozen or so buildings surrounding us, ‘is what we call “the village”, by the way. We’re on the other side of the island – Harris.’
I climbed into his white Land Rover and for the first time in months I didn’t close my eyes after I fastened my seat belt. I still clung to the hand rest as the car climbed the hills, juddered over the stony roads and swung around tight corners but I drank in the view: the hills as grey as an elephant’s hide, the grass, the gorse, the sky stretching forever, the sea and the—
‘Ponies! Look!’
David laughed. ‘Yeah, there’s a few. Deer too.’
By the time we arrived at the Bay View Hotel, nestled into the side of a hill and separated from the rest of the island by a shallow river that we had to drive through, I felt drunk with happiness.
‘That’s the mausoleum, isn’t it?’ I said, pointing at the grey-brown sandstone building that stood incongruously in a field of green. With its pitched roof and imposing pillars, housing three granite tombs, it looked as though it had been dropped from the sky or whisked through time from ancient Greece.
‘That’s right.’ David nodded. ‘It’s Sir George Bullough’s family mausoleum. He’s buried there along with his son and wife.’
I suppressed a shiver, remembering the last time I’d been in a graveyard.
‘And who lives there?’ I pointed at a small cottage on the edge of the river; the hotel’s other neighbour.
‘Gordon Brodie. He guides the walks. He’s also the caretaker at the primary school. Part time.’ He laughed. ‘There’s only four children.’
‘Four children in the whole school?’
‘Five next year when Susi McFarlane’s little one turns four. There’s only thirty-one of us living here, remember.’
‘Can they not go to school on the mainland?’
‘The secondary school children do but there’s only three ferries a week at this time of year. Most of them can only come back every other weekend. They stay with relatives and what not.’
I stared at the darkening sky. ‘What if there’s a storm?’
‘Then there’s no ferries for a while.’ He shrugged. ‘We make do.’
Now, David scans the list of names on the printout in his hand, nostrils flaring as he runs a bitten-down fingernail down the page.
‘We’ve got seven. That’ll mean two trips in the Land Rover.’
He reaches behind the desk and slides the keys off their hook on the wall. He presses them into my hand. ‘There you go then.’
‘No.’ I dangle them from my thumb and forefinger like I’m holding a dirty nappy or a wet tea towel. ‘I can’t.’
‘What do you mean you can’t? You told me on the phone that you can drive.’
‘I can but I … I was in an accident a few months ago and I ended up in hospital. I haven’t been behind the wheel since.’
‘Well, you’ll need to soon.’ He snatches the keys back, shaking his head as he sidesteps from behind the reception desk. ‘Because I won’t always be available to fetch and carry the guests. I did warn you that you’d have to pull your weight— Oooh.’ He presses a hand to the wall, steadying himself.
‘David, are you okay?’
He waves me away. ‘Just a …’ He presses a clenched fist to his chest. ‘Just a bit of indigestion. Oh God, I thought I was going to be sick there.’
A bead of sweat rolls down his temple then gets lost in his stubble.
‘David, are you sure you’re okay? I could call someone.’ I touch a hand to the phone, prepared to ring the Small Isles medical practice on Eigg. There’s no doctor on Rum. One visits once a fortnight, on a Thursday, but today is Saturday. There’s a team of first responders though. The nearest is in Kinloch, which is a fifteen-minute drive away, on the other side of the island.
‘No, no.’ He straightens up, still rubbing at his chest. ‘I’m fine. Double-check the rooms are in order while I’m away. Oh, and check on the bread. It’ll need to come out of the oven in twenty minutes. Don’t just stand there looking vacant, girl. There are jobs to be done.’
Cold air blasts across the lobby as David opens the front door and disappears outside. Dark clouds, heavy with rain, scuttle past the window as trees whip back and forth in the wind. According to the weather forecast this morning we’re due a storm soon. That won’t go down well with the guests who came here to walk, cycle, fish and deer-stalk but we should still be able to get them to Kinloch Castle and the craft shops. And if the weather’s really bad there’s a TV in each of the bedrooms and books and magazines in the lounge. And the hotel is well stocked with booze and firewood. I jump as my mobile phone scuttles across the desk, then snatch it up. It’s a text from Alex:
I’ve been thinking about you. I hope you’re well and happy and that the fresh island air is helping you sleep.
Chapter 11 (#ulink_5b9215bc-7793-5c67-a6ba-a507bc3221a7)
Alex (#ulink_5b9215bc-7793-5c67-a6ba-a507bc3221a7)
Alex grips the bunch of flowers a little tighter as the doors to the Royal Free Hospital slide open and a cloud of warm, bleach-scented air hits him full in the face. It’s a beautiful summer day and his shirt is sticking to his back. He wants to take off his jacket, get some air to his skin, but he’s worried about the sweat patches under his arms. He glances at his watch: 2.55 p.m. He didn’t want to risk being late, so got here early and spent the last hour sitting in KFC around the corner, sipping a Coke. He’d rather have had a coffee but he was worried about bad breath.
He takes a seat in the waiting area near M&S and rummages around in his pocket for the packet of mints he bought on his way here. He pops one into his mouth then props the flowers between his knees and wipes his palms on his jeans. He knows he’s being ridiculous, sweating and worrying like a thirteen-year-old on a first date, but he can’t slow his hammering heart or shake the sick feeling in his stomach. He’s never done anything like this before, never got so worked up about someone he barely knows. But Becca likes him, she must, or she wouldn’t have replied to his Facebook messages, never mind agree to a date. His stomach clenches as his phone vibrates in his pocket. Is she cancelling? Is she, as he sits in the hospital foyer and waits for her to finish her shift, secretly sneaking out of a back entrance so she doesn’t have to see him?
He looks at the screen and heaves a sigh of relief. It’s just Anna.
Are you trying to be funny?
He frowns, confused, and rereads the message he sent her earlier. It was a nice message, wasn’t it? Asking how she was doing.
He looks around to check Becca’s not on her way over to him (it wouldn’t be done to be caught texting an ex), then taps out a reply.
No. What do you mean?
She replies immediately.
The comment about sleep.
He cringes. Oh, that. If he’s honest he’s barely given those messages a second thought since she left. He’s thought about her, obviously; you don’t spend nearly two years with someone and then forget all about them the moment they walk out of the door, but he’s enjoyed having the bed to himself and waking up without her lashing out in her sleep, or else staring at him, wide-eyed and frantic from across the room. He did feel guilty though, logging on to Facebook when he returned home to piles of boxes and a flat stripped of Anna’s things. Her side of the bed was barely cold and there he was, searching for the nurse who’d cared for her. The attraction was there from the first time they’d laid eyes on each other – an invisible spark that made him catch his breath. He was sure she’d felt it too, from the way her cheeks had coloured and she’d glanced away, at Anna’s unconscious form. He tried telling himself that he was misreading her friendliness, that looking after relatives was as much a part of her job as caring for her patients, but Becca genuinely seemed to enjoy their little chats while Anna slept and she checked her vitals. He was terrified when Anna came to and started screaming. Her eyes were glassy and empty, as though she were looking straight through him. And the noise, he’d never heard anything like it. He could have hugged Becca for the professional way she’d taken charge of the situation. He hadn’t, of course. Not only would it have been wholly inappropriate, but Anna’s return to consciousness, made him feel utterly ashamed of himself. What kind of despicable shitbag was he, perving over the nurse while his girlfriend recovered from a horrific accident? If he was being kind to himself he’d explain it away as a coping mechanism, a way of climbing out of the pit of fear he’d fallen into after her stepdad had rung him, his voice cracking as he broke the news about the accident.
But Anna hadn’t died. She’d survived the crash and the operation, and when the surgeon told them both that, other than a scar across her mid-section, there would be no lasting damage, he raised his eyes to the white ward ceiling and said thank you to a God he didn’t believe in. He knew it was his duty to look after her when they got home, he owed her that much after two years together, but he could barely drag himself out of bed in the morning after being kept up by Anna half the night, thrashing around fighting night terrors. He felt trapped and unhappy whenever he returned home. It wasn’t her fault, he knew that, but he couldn’t stop the resentment from rising, threatening to burst the banks of his patience like a river after a storm.
He hadn’t expected her to end things. He thought she’d keep plugging away at their relationship, as she always had. But no, she’d had enough too. He was so grateful she’d had the courage to speak up that he’d hugged her, so shocked that he asked her to stay one more night in case there was anything left to be said. There wasn’t, other than a strained conversation about a note she’d found on the car. As he’d walked to the tube afterwards he couldn’t help but feel relieved that Anna was no longer his responsibility. And guilty for feeling that way.
‘Alex?’ Someone touches him on the shoulder, making him jump.
He almost doesn’t recognise the woman smiling down at him, in her red mac with her long brown hair swept across her forehead and resting on her shoulders. Brown eyeliner is smudged in the corner of her eyes and her lips shine cherry red.
‘Becca?’ He stands, hastily, and presses an awkward kiss into her cheek. ‘You look lovely. I almost didn’t recognise you.’
‘Thanks a lot.’ She laughs and takes the flowers he pushes into the space between their bodies. ‘These smell lovely,’ she says as she dips her face to the bouquet of white lilies and roses. She looks up at him, her nose still buried in the blooms, and he thinks how lovely her eyes are, how smiley, the most startling cornflower blue.
His stomach tightens as she looks away from him, her blue eyes flitting over the diners who surround them, folded over magazines, coffees and mobile phones, all lost in their own little worlds.
‘What is it?’ he asks as a frown creases Becca’s smooth brow.
‘Nothing.’ She straightens and shakes her head lightly.
‘Are you sure? You looked like you were looking for someone.’
She reaches round for her hair, gathers it in her hand and swings it over her shoulder. She’s nervous, Alex thinks with a pang of surprise, as she continues to twist her hair and gaze wonderingly at him. The urge to put an arm around her shoulder and pull her close is almost more than he can bear.
‘I was just …’ She shifts her weight from one leg to the other. ‘Things are definitely over between you and Anna, aren’t they? She’s not suddenly going to jump out at us and call me a boyfriend stealer?’
He laughs, amused by her paranoia. ‘No, of course not. Like I told you by text, things were over between us long before her accident.’
‘Good.’ She slips her arm through his and taps her head against his shoulder. ‘Then I’ve got you all to myself.’
Chapter 12 (#ulink_edaee2da-57b9-5e11-8c18-e5622e607dbb)
Anna (#ulink_edaee2da-57b9-5e11-8c18-e5622e607dbb)
Alex hasn’t replied to my last text and now I’m regretting snapping at him. He was only wondering how I’m doing but the mention of sleep was like a jab in my chest. I thought, by coming here, that I’d leave what happened behind. But grief can’t be cast off like a jacket. It becomes part of you, an invisible film welded to your skin. Some days you feel it, some days you don’t, but it’s always there.
‘Come in, come in, come in.’ My boss shepherds five guests into the centre of the lobby, two men, two women and a teenage girl, their coats and bags dappled with rain. He squeezes past them to reach the reception desk and stands next to me.
‘Welcome to the Bay View Hotel, the best hotel on Rum,’ he says, his hands spread wide in greeting. Several of the guests smile. One, a thin, midde-aged woman wearing a red cagoule and a matching bobble hat, forces a laugh. The Bay View Hotel is the only hotel on Rum.
‘Anna here will check you all in,’ David continues, ‘and I’ll carry your suitcases and bags up to your rooms.’ He turns to the man standing nearest to him – tall, average build, dark hair, wearing a pale blue fleece, dark trousers and walking boots – and reaches for one of the straps of his rucksack. The man lurches backwards as though stung, knocking into the woman in red who’s standing directly behind him.
‘Sorry, sorry.’ His eyes dart wildly behind his frameless glasses as he searches for somewhere, anywhere, he can stand in the small lobby without touching another person. ‘I’ve just … I’ve just … I’ve got important stuff in here and I … I—’
‘No problem.’ David raises a hand in apology, his lips pulled tightly over his teeth in a half grin, half grimace. ‘If you don’t want me to take your bags that’s no problem at all.’
‘You can take mine.’ The woman in the red cagoule squeezes through the crowd then reverses up against David so her rucksack is almost pressed against him. ‘It’s killing my shoulders.’
The balding older man who was standing next to her raises his left hand in protest, a gold wedding ring glinting on his finger. ‘I told you I’d carry it for you, Mel, but you did insist …’
The woman ignores him and gives David the nod to help her remove her rucksack. He glances over at the husband and nods tightly.
‘Actually, ladies and gents, I’ve got to get back to the dock to collect the other guests. If you’d like me to take your bags to your room, just deposit them here and I’ll bring them up to you when I get back. Anna will show you where you need to go. When you’re settled in do come down to the lounge where there’s a complimentary tot of whisky waiting for you. When the other guests arrive I’ll explain the itinerary for the week.’
He raises his hands in the air as he sidles out of the hotel, sidestepping like a crab. I see a flash of relief on his face when he reaches the front door.
With David gone the guests turn hesitantly in my direction. First to reach the table are the couple. The woman takes charge, nudging herself in front of the man so she can spread her hands wide on the desk.
‘Melanie and Malcolm Ward. And … Katie.’ She takes off her bobble hat then glances at the small, sallow-skinned teen who looks like she’d rather be anywhere else. ‘Also Ward,’ she adds.
Unlike the girl in her oversized parka and pink Converse, Melanie and Malcolm are kitted out like serious hikers in branded waterproof jackets with walking poles, well-used walking boots and bulging rucksacks. Malcolm’s clutching a map in a plastic slip. Melanie has mousey-brown hair tied back in a ponytail and a fringe that finishes just above her remarkably thick eyebrows and red-rimmed glasses. She looks lithe and strong, as though she could leap up Rum Cuillin without drawing a breath. Her husband is older: mid to late fifties. His grey hair is receding, showing a large expanse of forehead, speckled with liver spots. His brows have thinned so much at the edges that they appear to end mid-pupil, making him look as though he’s permanently frowning.
I enter their details into the laptop, then reach round to the hooks and hand Melanie a bunch of keys. ‘There you go, you’re in rooms 7 and 8. They’re at the front of the hotel. If you walk up the stairs to the first floor, the rooms are directly opposite you as you come—’
‘At the front?’ Melanie glances at Malcolm, who sighs heavily.
‘Yes.’ I force a smile but it has no effect on the pained expression on Mrs Ward’s face.
‘So no view of the sea?’
‘No, I’m sorry. We allocate the rooms according to the list the walking tour company sends us and I’m afraid …’ I shrug. ‘W was at the end of—’
‘Seriously?’ Malcolm Ward says. ‘That’s how rooms are allocated? In this day and age? I spent my entire childhood being last for everything because my surname is at the end of the alphabet.’
I glance at Katie, who looks like she’s wishing the ground would open up and swallow her.
‘It took us the best part of two days to get here,’ Melanie says. ‘We’ve come all the way from London. Malcolm was ever so excited about having a sea view. Weren’t you, Malcolm?’
He nods. ‘Gloria at the Hikers’ Friend practically guaranteed it.’
‘But you’ll have an amazing view of the mountains.’ I glance at the closed front door, willing David to walk through. When I first arrived he told me, in no uncertain terms, that he was the face of the hotel and he would be the primary point of call for the guests. I tend to their every need, he said, then added quickly, Well, almost.
Melanie leans into the desk, her pupils small and black behind her glasses. ‘Can’t you change it?’
‘I can’t really. All the rooms have been allocated. We are a very small hotel and we can only accommodate eight—’
‘I’ll swap.’ A woman in her mid to late sixties, with white hair cut short at the sides and as curly as a sheep on the top, steps around Melanie. ‘If I’ve got a sea-view room.’
I search her face as she smiles warmly up at me.
‘That’s very kind of you.’ I return her smile. ‘What’s your name, please?’
‘Christine Cuttle.’
‘Like the fish?’ Malcolm comments.
‘Yes.’ Christine smiles tightly. She’s probably heard that a thousand times.
‘Thank you, Mrs Cuttle,’ I say. ‘I’ll just check the—’
‘Christine, please.’
‘Okay.’ I glance down at my screen. ‘You’re in luck,’ I tell Melanie. ‘Christine is down to take Room 1, which has a sea view.’
Melanie squeaks with joy and shares a look with her husband. She pauses and glances back at Katie. Her smile slips. ‘You won’t be next to us any more.’
Katie shrugs. If anything she looks slightly relieved.
‘She’s only across the corridor,’ I say. ‘It’s a small hotel, all the rooms are very close together.’
Melanie’s pinched expression slackens. ‘Do you mind, Katie? This is your break as much as ours.’
Again the young girl shrugs. ‘I don’t care about views.’
‘And you’re quite sure,’ Melanie says to Christine. ‘About swapping with us? You really don’t have to, you know.’
Oh yes you do, her face and her tightly curled hands say. You do now you’ve offered.
‘I’m more than happy,’ Christine says. ‘I could never grow tired of looking at that landscape. It’s so beautiful here.’ She returns her gaze to me. ‘You’re very lucky to live here.’
‘Yes,’ I nod. ‘I am.’
Having dispatched Christine, Melanie and Malcolm to their rooms I beckon the final guest, standing stiffly near the door, to approach reception. He avoids eye contact as he walks towards me, then draws to a halt about a foot from the desk. A loud crack of thunder breaks the silence, making both of us jump. Two seconds later lightning tears through the dark sky beyond the window, and the rain, which has been falling lightly for the last hour or so, suddenly buckets down.
I laugh. ‘Welcome to Rum!’
The guest keeps his gaze fixed on the shiny expanse of desk that separates us. He’s younger than the others, I’d guess late thirties. His dark hair is thick and curly but it’s receding either side of his widow’s peak. Though he’s of average build his face is strangely fleshy, all cheeks and chin, with a long, wide nose. His eyes blink rapidly beneath the sheen of his wireless glasses.
‘Trevor Morgan.’ He holds out a hand and I raise mine to shake it.
‘No.’ He slaps his palm against the desk. ‘The key.’
‘Oh.’ I glance at the laptop, then twist round to the key rack. ‘You’re in Room 2, at the back of the hotel. If you go—’
‘I’ll find it, thank you.’ As he takes the key from my outstretched hand his eyes meet mine. He couldn’t have looked at me for more than a second, but the uncomfortable tightening in my chest lasts long after he slips silently up the stairs.
Fifteen minutes later, the front door opens and David strides in with a man and a woman around my age, both wearing rucksacks. The man’s tall, with a long hipster beard and dark hair, shaved around the sides and long and swept back on the top. The woman’s about five foot five with blonde wavy hair, a sturdy physique and a scowl on her face. Her expression couldn’t be more different from the man’s. He positively beams at me as he crosses the lobby, his heavy boots reverberating on the polished wooden floor.
‘Joe Armstrong.’ He holds out a hand. ‘You must be Anna. David told us all about you.’
I shake his hand and return his smile. ‘Has he now?’
‘All good!’ David calls as he hangs his coat on a hook. ‘Well … mostly.’
‘Fiona Gardiner.’ The blonde woman squeezes herself between Joe and the wall.
‘Nice to meet you.’ I offer her my hand and she shakes it firmly.
‘Okay … um …’ I tap at the keyboard. The system is showing that they’ve been allocated separate rooms. ‘Mr Armstrong, it says here that you’re in Room 6, which has a view of the mountains. Ms Gardiner you’re in Room 3, with a view of the sea.’ I look back up at the guests. ‘You’re welcome to choose which of those rooms you’d like. I can cancel the second room. You won’t be charged twice, there’s obviously been some kind of mistake in the booking.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Joe Armstrong looks at me blankly. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’
Fiona gives me an equally confused look and I feel the colour rise in my cheeks. David, heading into the dining room, chuckles as he opens the door. He knows exactly what I’ve done.
‘I thought you were a couple,’ I explain. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just when you walked in together I assumed—’
‘Oh, God, no!’ Joe laughs heartily then catches the hurt look on Fiona’s face and quickly corrects himself. ‘Not that … Fiona’s lovely. I’m sure you’d make a wonderful girlfriend but …’ He runs a hand over his hair. ‘We’re not a couple. We don’t know each other. We only got chatting on the dock.’
‘It’s my fault, sorry.’ I shoot Fiona an apologetic look. ‘I’m new. I haven’t worked on reception before.’
‘Right.’ The edges of her lips rise but it’s more of a grimace than a smile. She holds out her hand. ‘If I could just have my key?’
‘Of course.’ I hand her the key to Room 3 and Joe the key to Room 6.
‘Can I take that for you?’ Joe says as Fiona adjusts her rucksack.
‘No, thank you,’ she says tightly. ‘I’m quite capable of carrying it myself.’
I turn back to the laptop as they plod their way up the stairs, Fiona leading and Joe following behind. As their footsteps reverberate on the guest corridor above my head, David pops his head out of the dining room door.
‘Sorry,’ he says with a laugh. ‘I could have corrected you but where would the fun be in that?’ His eyes flick towards the top of the staircase. ‘We’ve got a few interesting personalities this week. I think they’re going to keep us on our toes.’
Chapter 13 (#ulink_9780b270-7184-58eb-a098-eb33e5253861)
Steve (#ulink_9780b270-7184-58eb-a098-eb33e5253861)
Steve turns up the collar of his coat, mentally cursing his lack of umbrella and phone as he passes yet another South London street that doesn’t contain a pub called the White Hart. Still, no Google Maps and no GPS is infinitely preferable to the alternative, a stretch inside for murder. So far, other than the burner phone in his desk drawer and one very short phone call, there’s no evidence linking him to Jim Thompson, and he intends to keep it that way.
‘Where the fuck is – ah!’ He stops at the entrance to a small, characterless back street, hurries down it and pushes at the door of the White Hart.
He raises his eyebrows as he walks in. Yet another old boozer that’s been transformed into a gastropub with colonial-style ceiling fans, stripped floors, an oak bar and a selection of craft ales. Fucking hipsters, he thinks as he walks up to the bar and orders a pint of Heineken. They like to pretend they’re knitting their own houses, serving food on dustbin lids and turning their backs on technology but they’re capitalist bastards at heart, just like the rest of us.
He takes a sip of his pint and casually glances around, looking for Jim. It’s been a while since he last saw him but he immediately recognises the balding bloke in the thick glasses sitting on his own in the corner, a newspaper spread on the table in front of him. They were unlikely cell mates, back in the day (a long way back in the day), Steve in for fraud and Jim in for GBH, but they shared the same scathing sense of humour, a similar background and the same moral code.
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C.L. Taylor
All Anna wants is to be able to sleep. But crushing insomnia, terrifying night terrors and memories of that terrible night are making it impossible. If only she didn’t feel so guilty…To escape her past, Anna takes a job at a hotel on the remote Scottish island of Rum, but when seven guests join her, what started as a retreat from the world turns into a deadly nightmare.Each of the guests have a secret, but one of them is lying – about who they are and why they're on the island. There's a murderer staying in the Bay View hotel. And they've set their sights on Anna.Seven strangers. Seven secrets. One deadly lie.Someone’s going to sleep and never wake up…The million-copy bestseller is back in her darkest, twistiest book to date. Read it if you dare!
Copyright (#ulink_c27f0e73-2933-5f32-904d-5271ffac856a)
Published by Avon an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street,
London, SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019
Copyright © C.L. Taylor 2019
Cover photographs © Henry Steadman
Cover design © Henry Steadman 2019
C.L. Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008301316
Ebook Edition © March 2019 ISBN: 9780008221027
Version: 2019-02-18
Praise for C.L. Taylor: (#ulink_c1016024-3648-5d9a-9d24-870d28ba8cc4)
‘Claustrophobic and compelling’
Karin Slaughter
‘Smart, packing a punch to the heart, and dark in all the right places.’
Sarah Pinborough
‘Terrifying … this brilliant book stayed with me long after I finished the last page.’
Cass Green
‘Highly original – kept me utterly enthralled.’
Liz Nugent
‘Twisted, unbearably tense, and a shock ending.’
C.J. Tudor
‘The Missing has a delicious sense of foreboding from the first page, luring us into the heart of a family with terrible secrets and making us wait, with pounding hearts for the final, agonizing twist. Loved it.’
Fiona Barton
‘Fans of C. L. Taylor are in for a treat.’
Clare Mackintosh
‘Black Narcissus for the Facebook generation, a clever exploration of how petty jealousies and misunderstandings can unravel even the tightest of friendships. Claustrophobic, tense and thrilling, a thrill-ride of a novel that keeps you guessing.’
Elizabeth Haynes
‘A gripping and disturbing psychological thriller.’
Lucy Clarke
‘As with all her books, C. L. Taylor delivers real pace, and it’s a story that keeps calling the reader back – so much so that I read it from cover to cover in one day.’
Rachel Abbott
‘A dark and gripping read that engrossed me from start to finish.’
Mel Sherratt
‘Pacy, well-written, and anxiety-inducing.’
Lisa Hall
‘A compulsive read.’
Emma Kavanagh
‘Kept me guessing till the end.’
Sun
‘Haunting and heart-stoppingly creepy, The Lie is a gripping rollercoaster of suspense.’
Sunday Express
‘A rollercoaster with multiple twists.’
Daily Mail
‘5/5 stars – Spine-chilling!’
Woman Magazine
‘An excellent psychological thriller.’
Heat Magazine
‘Packed with twists and turns, this brilliantly tense thriller will get your blood pumping.’
Fabulous Magazine
‘Fast-paced, tense and atmospheric, a guaranteed bestseller.’
Mark Edwards
‘A real page-turner … creepy, horrifying and twisty. You have no idea which characters you can trust, and the result is intriguing, scary and extremely gripping.’
Julie Cohen
‘A compelling, addictive and wonderfully written tale. Can’t recommend it enough.’
Louise Douglas
See what bloggers are saying about C.L. Taylor …
‘My eyes were simply glued to the page, I couldn’t tear them away!’
The Bookworm’s Fantasy
‘An intriguing and stirring tale, overflowing with family drama.’
Lovereading.co.uk
‘Astoundingly written, The Missing pulls you in from the very first page and doesn’t let you go until the final full stop.’
Bibliophile Book Club
‘Imaginative, compelling and shocking – The Fear is a highly engrossing read.’
The Book Review Café
‘The Fear is a dark tale of revenge and just when you think you know where the story’s going, the author takes you by surprise!’
Portobello Book Blog
‘[The Missing] inspired such a mixture of emotions in me and made me realise how truly talented you have to be to even attempt a psychological suspense of this calibre.’
My Chestnut Reading Tree
‘Tense and gripping with a dark, ominous feeling that seeps through the very clever writing … all praise to C.L. Taylor.’
Anne Cater,Random Things Through My Letterbox
‘C.L. Taylor has done it again, with another compelling masterpiece.’
Rachel’s Random Reads
‘In a crowded landscape of so-called domestic noir thrillers, most of which rely on clever twists and big reveals, [The Missing] stands out for its subtle and thoughtful analysis of the fallout from a loss in the family.’
Crime Fiction Lover
‘When I had finished, I felt like someone had ripped my heart out and wrung it out like a dish cloth.’
By the Letter Book Reviews
‘The Fear is a gripping, fast-paced read.’
The Book Whisperer
‘The Missing has such a big, juicy storyline and is a dream read if you like books that will keep you guessing and take on plenty of twists and turns.’
Bookaholic Confessions
‘Incredibly thrilling and utterly unpredictable! A must-read!’
Aggie’s Books
‘A gripping story.’
Bibliomaniac
‘It’s the first time I have cried whilst reading. The last chapter [of The Missing] was heart-breaking and uplifting at the same time.’
The Coffee and Kindle
‘Another hit from C.L. Taylor … so cleverly written and so absorbing that I completely forgot about everything else while reading it. Unmissable.’
Alba in Book Land
Dedication (#ulink_99d7a758-d80c-51a9-afa4-93af32c7097d)
In memory of my beautiful friend, Heidi Moore.
Epigraph (#ulink_5c21d45e-9edb-5cf7-9c59-788e2d5e5a6a)
To die, to sleep –
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to – ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished.
Hamlet, Act III, Scene I,
William Shakespeare
Contents
Cover (#u2bc359d7-70c7-5c45-8681-7bb013f01b96)
Title Page (#uba8a71c1-f5d4-5d17-b97f-49dfe5a0ebf6)
Copyright (#ueadeb9f7-7334-5913-b41d-fbd0e618316f)
Praise for C.L. Taylor (#u50d66920-72f5-5578-adaf-ad8252fd1a80)
Dedication (#u9125e789-4a07-5c52-a17b-6bf4a8bb29e5)
Epigraph (#ud31e3735-9d90-5e85-af78-30885c1cc40d)
Chapter 1 (#u3c87fec2-d139-5abc-8fdd-0c8944db7633)
Part One (#ua5de5260-2b9b-5f81-860d-da9ee5233dd3)
Chapter 2: Anna (#uf9859405-346f-5951-8120-400737433ed8)
Chapter 3 (#ue15dc396-4b2b-5230-bb05-04d9f2c37f5c)
Chapter 4: Mohammed (#u375bf06b-f171-516f-b35b-6882f1a3ca6c)
Chapter 5: Anna (#u9a791584-f80e-57d9-be18-ff786e45f750)
Chapter 6: Anna (#ua444b1ff-0160-5f04-9137-cb753b88e320)
Chapter 7: Steve (#u4ec04325-17e4-55c0-9649-a7620fd81ba0)
Chapter 8: Anna (#u105ab647-c3ba-531d-a5e0-d4646de55be5)
In Memoriam (#u2637c111-ec27-5176-8254-27b5f5c4310a)
Chapter 9: Anna (#ub04006c5-efa6-59eb-8bed-189bb2b682fa)
Part Two (#u9ef03565-9d0b-598b-91ee-84f03a94c949)
Chapter 10: Anna (#uee60afad-5272-5a84-b6a4-cb8e6a1e4033)
Chapter 11: Alex (#u6b25db29-7d39-59c9-971c-4f515fff33a6)
Chapter 12: Anna (#ubd2612a3-58ac-5be1-b6de-a0206764181c)
Chapter 13: Steve (#u37ec63bd-bb51-5bd3-84e7-6c447ccfdc50)
Chapter 14: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
In Memoriam (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16: Mohammed (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18: Trevor (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
In Memoriam (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21: Steve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24: Alex (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
In Memoriam (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27: Steve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29: Dani (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30: Steve (#litres_trial_promo)
Part Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32: Mohammed (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
In Memoriam (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38: Alex (#litres_trial_promo)
In Memoriam (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41: Mohammed (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
In Memoriam (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 44 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 45: Alex (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 46: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
In Memoriam (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 47: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 48 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 49: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 50 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 51 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 52: Christine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 53: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 54: Anna (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 55: Katie (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
Reading Group Questions (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
By the same author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_46a4be5e-4e31-5dbf-843d-7aee80c28056)
If you’re reading this then I am no longer alive. Someone has been stalking me for the last three months and, if I am dead, it wasn’t an accident. Tell the police to speak to my ex-boyfriend Alex Carter about what happened in London. That’s where all this started.
The following people came to Rum for a walking tour, arriving on Saturday 2nd June. I am pretty sure one of them killed me.
– Joe Armstrong
– Christine Cuttle
– Fiona Gardiner
– Trevor Morgan
– Malcolm Ward
– Melanie Ward
– Katie Ward
Their bookings and contact details can be found on the laptop in reception and in the medical files in the right-hand drawer of the desk. I have written down everything that’s happened since they arrived (and before) on the attached pieces of paper.
I hope you’re not reading this. I hope it’s screwed up in the bottom of a bin and that I’ve managed to escape. I don’t know what else to say. Please tell my parents that I love them, and Alex that I hope he’s okay and that he shouldn’t feel bad about the way things turned out. I wish I’d never come here. I wish I had never agreed to I wish a lot of things. Mostly that I could turn back time.
Anna Willis
Acting Manager, Bay View Hotel, Isle of Rum
P.S. I am so sorry about what happened to David. Please tell his family that he was a wonderful man, full of heart and dry wit, and I was very fond of him. Please reassure them that his passing was very quick and he didn’t suffer.
Part One (#ulink_4c920a3d-8be2-5a83-b81e-06ed1a2b914f)
Chapter 2 (#ulink_f74700e9-87c3-5aa0-a50d-5dfc01daad6d)
Anna (#ulink_f74700e9-87c3-5aa0-a50d-5dfc01daad6d)
THREE MONTHS EARLIER
Sunday 25th February
The mood in the car couldn’t be more different than it was on Friday. On the way to the Brecon Beacons I couldn’t hear the radio above the chatter and laughter. The team groaned when I told them we’d be spending a weekend in February on a team-building retreat, but most of them rallied once they got in the car. Now, on the way back to London, they’re subdued – physically and mentally exhausted and, more than likely, hungover. Mohammed, sitting beside me in the passenger seat, is snoring. Peter, who amused the table with his impression of Michael Mackintosh over dinner last night, now has his head against the window and his coat pulled up over his shoulders. Beside him, Freddy Laing has his headphones jammed over his ears, his eyes shut and his arms crossed over his chest. I doubt he remembers what he said about me last night. I know he was drunk, they all were, but it doesn’t excuse the things he said when he thought I’d gone to bed.
‘I can’t believe she’s going for the marketing director job. She’s got no chance.’
Freddy’s voice drifted across the hotel lobby to the desk where I was waiting impatiently for the receptionist to replace my wiped room card. I knew immediately that he was talking about me. Helen Mackesy, director of marketing, had been poached, leaving a vacancy. And it had my name on it. Unfortunately, Phil Acres, sales promotion manager, had been making noises about going for it too.
‘She’s really out of touch with digital marketing,’ Freddy said. ‘She’s been in the job for so long she can’t even find the pulse, never mind put her finger on it.’
There was a low laugh. Mohammed, most probably. I knew it wouldn’t be Peter. He was forty, eight years older than me, and kept himself to himself. Mo and Freddy were closer in age, mid-twenties, and sat together at work. They spent more of their time chatting than working but I never told them to be quiet. They were professionals, not children. As long as they got their work done and didn’t disrupt the others I let it go.
There was a pause in the conversation, then Freddy laughed uproariously.
‘MySpace advertising. Fucking love it. Yeah, she’s probably been telling Tim that blogs are the next big thing in social media marketing. GeoCities blogs!’
More cold, cruel, mocking laughter. My stomach tightened. I’d worked to get where I was. I’d been desperate to go to university to study design after my A-levels but we couldn’t afford it. Mum had been working two jobs and I owed it to her to start helping out financially. After what felt like a million interviews, and two years working in a hotel bar, I was finally offered a job as a marketing assistant for a computer software firm. My boss, Vicky, was brilliant. She took me under her wing and taught me everything she knew. That was twelve years ago and digital marketing was still in its infancy but I loved it. I still do.
‘Miss Willis,’ the receptionist called as I marched across the lobby, the blood pounding in my ears. ‘Miss Willis, your room card.’
There was a yelp of surprise, the squeal of trainers on tiles and more laughter. By the time I reached the lounge, Freddy and Mo were gone.
Mo snorts in his sleep, snapping me back to the icy, glistening road beyond the windscreen. The drizzle that clung to our hair and faces as we got into the car a little after 8 a.m. is now icy hail. The wipers speed back and forth, squeaking each time they sweep left. The sky is inky black and all I can see is a blurry refraction of the orange-red tail-lights of the car in front. We’ve finally hit the M25. Not long now until we’re back in London. I’ll drop the boys at a tube station, then go home. But I’m not sure I want to.
Squeak. Swish. Squeak. Swish.
The wipers move in time with my pulse. I’ve had too much coffee and my heart jumps in my chest whenever I remember what Freddy said last night. After he fled the lobby I searched the ground floor of the hotel for him, fuelled by anger and indignation, then gave up and went to my room to ring Alex, my boyfriend.
He didn’t pick up on the first ring. Or the second. He isn’t a fan of phone calls at the best of times but I wanted to hear a friendly voice. I needed someone to tell me that I wasn’t a bad person or shit at my job and everything was going to be okay. I texted him instead.
I’ve had a really shit night. We don’t have to chat long. I just want to hear your voice.
A text pinged back a couple of seconds later.
Sorry, in bed. We can talk tomorrow.
The curt tone of his message sliced through what was left of my self-confidence. We’d drifted apart. I’d sensed it for a while but I was too scared to bring it up because I didn’t have the energy to fix what was broken or the head space to deal with a break-up. I poured myself into my work instead. Sometimes I’d stay late because I couldn’t bear the thought of going home and sitting on the sofa with Alex, each of us curled into the armrests, ignoring the space between us but feeling the weight of it, as though it were as large and real as another person.
Maybe I shouldn’t go for the marketing director job. Maybe I should give up work, leave Alex and move to the countryside. I could go freelance, buy a small cottage and a dog, take long walks and fill my lungs with fresh air. There are days at work when I feel I can’t breathe, and not just because of the pollution. The air’s thinner at the top of the ladder and I find myself clinging to it, terrified I might fall. Freddy would love it if I did.
Squeak. Swish. Squeak. Swish.
Get. Home. Get. Home.
The hail is falling heavily now, bouncing off the windscreen and rolling off the bonnet. Someone snorts in their sleep, making me jolt, before they fall silent again. I’ve been driving behind the car in front for a couple of miles now and we’re both keeping to a steady seventy miles an hour. It’s too dangerous to overtake and besides, there’s something comforting about following their red fog lights at a safe distance.
Squeak. Swish. Squeak. Swish.
Get. Home. Get. Home.
I hear a loud, exaggerated yawn. It’s Freddy, stretching his arms above his head and shifting in his seat. ‘Anna? Can we stop at the services? I need the loo.’
‘We’re nearly in London.’
‘Can you turn the heating down?’ he adds as I glance from the rear-view mirror to the road. ‘I’m sweating like a pig.’
‘I can’t. The heater on the windscreen’s not working and it keeps fogging up.’
‘I’m going to open a window then.’
‘Freddy, don’t!’
Anger surges through me as he twists in his seat and reaches for the button.
‘Freddy, LEAVE IT!’
It happens in the blink of an eye. One moment there is a car in front of me, red tail-lights a warm, comforting glow, the next the car is gone, there’s a blur of lights and the blare of a horn – frantic and desperate – and then I’m thrown to the left as the car tips to the side and all I can hear is crunching metal, breaking glass, screaming, and then nothing at all.
Chapter 3 (#ulink_89352ae7-30c0-5258-8497-063cc63a2bbc)
TWELVE HOURS AFTER THE ACCIDENT
There’s someone in the room. My eyes are closed but I know I’m not alone. I can feel the weight of their gaze, the pinprick crawl of my skin. What are they waiting for? For me to open my eyes? I want to ignore them and go back to sleep but I can’t ignore the churning in my belly and the tightness of my skin. They want to hurt me. Malevolence binds me to the bed like a blanket. I need to wake up. I need to get up and run.
But I can’t move. There’s a weight on my chest, pinning me to the bed.
‘Anna? Anna, can you hear me?’
A voice drifts into my consciousness, then out again.
‘Yes!’ But my voice is only in my head. I can’t move my lips. I can’t get the sound to reverberate in my throat. The only part of me I can move is my eyes.
Someone’s walking towards me, their cold blue eyes fixed on mine. There’s no rise and fall of a nose and mouth, just a smooth stretch of skin, pulled tight.
‘Don’t be scared.’
They draw closer – staccato movements, like a film on freeze-frame – move, stop, move, stop. Closer and closer. I screw my eyes tightly shut. This isn’t real. It’s a dream. I need to wake up.
‘That’s right, Anna. Close your eyes and go back to sleep. Don’t fight it. Let the pain and guilt and hurt go.’
I’m dreaming. I have to be. But it’s too vivid. I saw blue curtains hanging on a white frame around my bed, a white blanket and the mound of my feet.
No! No! Stop!
I scream, but the sound of my voice doesn’t leave my head. I can’t move. I can only blink frantically – a silent SOS – as I’m grabbed by the wrist. They’re going to hurt me and there’s nothing I can do to stop them.
‘Open your eyes, Anna. I know you can hear me. Anna, open your eyes!’
Alex?
He is beside me, his face pinched with worry, his eyes ringed with shadows, stubble circling his lips and stretching along his jawbone.
‘Anna?’
There’s a needle in the back of my hand. Alex catches it with his thumb as he rubs soft circles onto my skin. A sharp pain travels up the length of my arm.
Stop. The word doesn’t travel from my mind to my lips. Why can’t I speak? A wave of panic courses through me.
‘Rest, rest.’ Alex touches a hand to my shoulder, pressing me back into the bed.
Alex? Where am I?
There’s a blue curtain, hanging from a rail surrounding the bed, and a white blanket, pulled tight, pinning me to the sheet. At the end of the bed is the mound of my feet. Am I still in the dream? But it’s not a faceless stranger wrapping their fingers around my wrist, it’s Alex. I focus on my hand, resting limply on his, and tense the muscles in my forearm. My fingers contract and then I feel it, the softness of his skin under my fingertips. I’m not dreaming, I’m awake.
‘It’s okay,’ Alex says, mistaking the relief in my eyes for fear. He gingerly perches on the bed, avoiding my legs. ‘Don’t try to speak. You’ve been in an accident. You’re in the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. You had some internal bleeding and you’ve been operated on. They had …’ he touches his throat, ‘… they had to give you some help breathing, they said your throat might hurt for a few days, but you’re going to be okay. It’s a fucking miracle that you…’ He swallows and looks away.
Survived?
The memory returns like a juggernaut, smashing into my consciousness. I close my eyes to try and block it out but it doesn’t disappear. I was in the car. I was driving and it was hailing and the windscreen wipers were going back and forth and back and—
I snatch my hands up and over my head, cradling my face with my arms as the truck slams into the side of the car. The seat belt digs into my collarbone and chest as I am thrown forward, then I am turning and spinning and twisting and my head smashes against the steering wheel, the seat rest, the window and my arms are wheeling around, my hands reaching for something, anything to anchor myself, to brace myself for impact, but there’s nothing. Nothing. Everyone is screaming and all I can do is pray.
‘Anna, please.’
I am vaguely aware of someone pulling on my arms, gripping my elbows, trying to move them away from my face.
‘Anna, stop it. Please. Please, stop screaming.’
‘Anna? Anna, it’s Becca, your nurse.’
Someone touches my fingers, tightly twisted in my hair. I hold on tighter. I can’t let go. I won’t.
‘Is it my fault?’ Alex’s voice buzzes in and out of my consciousness. ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned the accident. Fuck. Is she going to stop? This is really … I can’t … I don’t know …’
‘It’s okay. It’s all right. She’s disorientated. One of the other nurses said she reacted violently when she came round in post-op.’ Someone pulls on my arms again. I can smell coffee. ‘Anna, sweetheart. Are you in pain? Can you open your eyes for me, please?’
‘Why is she screaming? Isn’t there something you can …’
‘Can you press the alarm button?’
‘Alarm? Why? What’s …’
‘I just need a doctor to see her. Can you just press …’
‘Is she going to be okay? She looked at me. She tried to speak. I thought—’
‘Anna. Anna, can you open your eyes? My name’s Becca Porter. I’m your nurse. You’re in hospital. Are you in any pain?’
‘Sorry, excuse me. Would you mind waiting outside the curtains for a minute. I’m Dr Nowak. Thanks, great. So, who do we have here?’
‘Anna Willis. Road traffic accident. Spleen laceration. She came round after post-op, her vitals were fine. She’s been asleep for the last hour or so. I heard screaming a few minutes ago and—’
‘Okay. Anna, I’m just going to have a look at your tummy, all right? Does it hurt when I press here?’
No. It doesn’t hurt there. It hurts here, in here, inside my head.
I know the nurses are about somewhere – I can hear the soft squeak of shoes on lino, a low cough and a murmur of voices – but I can’t see anyone. I’ve been staring around the ward for what feels like forever. Most of the other patients are asleep, reading silently or watching films on iPads. Everyone apart from the young woman opposite, who’s also awake and restless. She’s younger than me, late twenties tops, with a long, narrow face and dark hair tied up in a messy bun on the top of her head. The first time our eyes met we both smiled and gave a polite nod before letting our gaze drift away again, but we keep meeting each other’s eyes and it’s getting embarrassing. My throat’s still too sore to speak much above a whisper and I’d have to raise my voice to hold a conversation with her. I feel like I should apologise though. She was probably here last night when I screamed the place down. She must have been terrified. I imagine they all were. I didn’t even realise what had happened until the nurse, Becca, woke me up to check my blood pressure and asked how I was feeling. They’d rushed me away for a scan after they’d sedated me, worried that something had gone wrong with the operation and I was bleeding again. I can’t remember much about it, just a white ceiling, dotted with lights, speeding past as they pushed me down a corridor and then the low hum of the MRI machine. Apparently Alex stayed at the hospital until after the scan, then, reassured that I wasn’t in any danger, he did as the nurse suggested and went home for a sleep.
I thanked Becca for looking after me and I apologised for the screams I could only vaguely remember making. She kept a pleasant smile fixed to her face the whole time but when I asked where my colleagues were, her smile faltered.
‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I know the lorry driver was taken to another hospital but I don’t know about your friends. I can find out for you though.’
I didn’t see her again. The next time my blood pressure was checked it was a different nurse. Becca’s shift had ended, she said. She wouldn’t be in until tomorrow. I asked her the same question, if she knew what had happened to the others in the car. She genuinely didn’t seem to know but said she’d find out. When I saw her the next morning she said she was sorry, she hadn’t had time but the doctor would be along soon and she was sure he could answer my questions. I started to panic then. Where were Freddy, Peter and Mo? Had they been taken to a different ward? Unless they hadn’t been as badly injured as me. They might have walked away unscathed, a quick visit to hospital to be checked over and then sent straight home. But … my tender stomach tightened as I remembered what Alex had said about my recovery being a ‘miracle’.
The sound of wheels squeaking on lino makes me turn my head. A nurse has appeared in the doorway, pushing a trolley.
‘Excuse me. Nurse.’ I raise my hand and wave but she doesn’t so much as glance my way, my voice is so quiet. I watch despairingly as she turns left and walks further down the ward.
‘EXCUSE ME! NURSE!’ The woman in the bed opposite shouts so loudly that all heads turn in her direction, including the nurse’s. She waggles her hand in my direction as the nurse approaches, still pushing the trolley. ‘The woman over there was trying to get your attention.’
I smile gratefully and attempt to sit up as the nurse comes over, but I feel as though my stomach muscles have been slashed and the most I can manage is a vague craning of my neck.
‘Everything okay?’ Up close I can see that it’s Becca, the nurse who was so kind to me yesterday.
‘Please,’ I beg. ‘I’m going mad here. I need to know what’s happened to my team … the … the people who were in the car with me. I need to know they’re all right.’
Her eyes cloud as she gazes at me. A shutter’s come down; she doesn’t want me to see what she’s feeling. She glances down at the watch hanging on her uniform.
‘Your partner will be here in about half an hour. Maybe it would be best if he were—’
‘Please,’ I beg. ‘Please just tell me. It’s bad news, isn’t it? You can tell me. I can take it.’
She looks at me as though she’s not entirely sure that I can, then she sighs and takes a shallow breath.
‘One of your colleagues is in a pretty bad way,’ she says softly. ‘He’s broken his back in several places.’
I press a hand to my mouth but it doesn’t mask my gasp.
‘But he’s stable,’ Becca adds. ‘He should pull through.’
‘Who is it?’
She grimaces, like she’s already regretting talking to me. Or perhaps it’s confidential information.
‘Please. Please tell me who it is.’
‘It’s Mohammed Khan.’
‘And the others? Peter Cross? Freddy Laing?’
As she lowers her gaze, my eyes fill with tears. No. No. Please. Please don’t let them … please …
She takes my hand and squeezes it tightly. ‘I’m so sorry, Anna. We did everything we could.’
Chapter 4 (#ulink_2cfe60b8-73ea-513a-8504-1ba1a7475e07)
Mohammed (#ulink_2cfe60b8-73ea-513a-8504-1ba1a7475e07)
Mohammed’s brain feels dull and woolly, as though it’s not pain-relieving meds that are flowing through his veins and capillaries but a thick, dark fog. He likes the fog because, as well as anaesthetising the ache in his limbs, it has stupefied his brain. Whenever he tries to latch on to an emotion – anger, regret, fear – it twirls away on a cloud of smoke. As a teenager, wrestling with his hormones and the pressure of exams, Mohammed had looked longingly at his dog, Sonic, curled up on the floor by his desk, and wished he could swap places. What would it be like, he wondered, to be a dog; to find joy in base behaviours – food, play, affection – and not overload your brain thinking about the future, death, the nature of an infinite universe, global warming, war and disease. It didn’t take much to make a dog happy – running around outside, catching a ball, a scratch behind the ears. What made him happy? Hanging out with his mates, staying up late, watching films, his PlayStation. Dogs lived in the moment but he didn’t. He was studying for exams, the outcome of which would shape his future.
He feels a bit like Sonic now, lying around, not thinking, just waiting, although what he’s waiting for he isn’t entirely sure. Movement in the corner of his eye makes him turn his head. He doesn’t recognise the short, suited, middle-aged man standing in the doorway of the ward but he watches him, vaguely registering the way his eyebrows knit together in frustration, as he scans the supine bodies in their metal beds. He’s obviously a visitor, looking for his loved one. The consultants look much more assured when they enter the ward. Two new emotions appear in the fog of Mohammed’s thoughts but, instead of disappearing, they twist together, travel down to his chest and curl around his heart. Disappointment and regret.
He turns his head away from the door and closes his eyes, half listening to the slap, clack of leather soled shoes on the ward floor, so different from the soft pad of the nurses’ shoes. The sound grows louder and louder, then there’s a soft cough.
‘Mohammed?’
He opens his eyes. The short, suited, middle-aged man is standing at the end of his bed, hands in his pockets and an anxious but determined look on his face. There’s something about his prominent nose, strong jaw and deep-set eyes that looks vaguely familiar but he’s too tired to work out why.
Instead he says, ‘Yes, I’m Mohammed. Who are you?’
‘Mind if I …’ The man gestures at the chair beside the bed and, with no reason to say no, Mohammed nods for him to sit down.
‘Steve,’ the man says, pulling at the thick material of his suit trousers as he takes a seat. He’s thickset – muscle rather than fat, Mohammed thinks bitterly as he instinctively glances at the shape of his own legs beneath the tightly tucked hospital bedding. ‘Steve Laing, Freddy’s dad.’
Mohammed looks back at him, eyes widening in surprise. For a second or two he is lost in confusion. He was told that Freddy had died in the crash. Why would Steve Laing be in the hospital? Unless … he feels a flicker of hope in his heart … unless Freddy isn’t really dead. Could they have made a mistake? Could he have? Maybe he was too out of it to take in what the nurse told him. Maybe …
His hope evaporates, leaving an empty chasm in his chest. There was no mistake. He cried when he heard. He cried for a very long time. Not just for Freddy and Peter but for himself too.
‘I brought you some magazines,’ Steve Laing says, reaching into his bag and plonking a pile of film and music magazines onto Mo’s bedside table along with a bar of Galaxy, a packet of Skittles and some jelly babies, ‘and some chocolates and stuff.’
‘Thanks.’
They stare at each other, just long enough for it to become awkward, then Steve looks down at his lap and runs his palms back and forth on his knees.
‘It’s good to see you looking so …’ He shakes his head sharply and looks back up at Mo. ‘Nah, I’m sorry, mate. I could give you that sugar-coated shit about you looking well and all that but that’s not who I am. I tell it like it is and I imagine you’ve had quite enough of people tiptoeing around you and telling you to think positive and all that.’ He pauses, but not long enough for Mo to reply. ‘The truth is that what happened to you, what happened to Peter and my Freddy, was a fucking travesty. A tragedy. It never should have happened, Mo. Never should have fucking …’ He turns his head sharply as tears well in his eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ Mo says, his throat tightening. ‘About Freddy. He was a really good bloke.’
‘Too right.’ Steve Laing drags the back of his hand over his eyes and looks back at him, lips pursed.
‘I …’ The words dry up on Mohammed’s tongue. He wants to tell Freddy’s dad how he tries not to think about his son because, each time he imagines Freddy’s death and the fact that he’s gone forever, he feels completely disconnected from his body, spinning a thousand miles above the earth, untethered, fearful and out of control. He wants to tell him that but he won’t. Because that’s not the sort of thing you say, especially not to someone you only just met.
Instead he says, ‘I can’t even begin to imagine how hard this must be for you.’
Steve nods sharply and the pain in his eyes seems to lessen. They’re back on safe ground, social niceties and surface pleasantries.
‘The thing is, Mo, the reason I’m here is to ask you what happened. Not details,’ he adds quickly, sensing Mo’s mounting discomfort. ‘I don’t want you to talk me through the crash. No, mate, that would be cruel and I’m not a cruel person. You lived through that once, no need to do it again. Unless …’ He tails off.
Mo’s heart thunders in his chest. ‘Unless what?’
‘Unless you were a witness at the court case but, from speaking to your parents, I’m not sure you’ll be out of here in time.’ He pulls a face. ‘Sorry, mate. I’m not trying to be insensitive.’
‘You spoke to my parents?’
‘Yeah, your big boss … Tim something … put me in touch with them. That’s not a problem, is it?’
‘No, of course not.’
Another pause widens between the two men, then Steve clears his throat.
‘I’m trying to get a picture, Mo, of what happened that day. I know the police are doing their own investigation but this is for me, for my own peace of mind.’
‘Of course.’
‘Let’s start with Anna Willis. What’s your take on her?’
Mohammed closes his eyes, just for a split second, then opens them again. ‘What do you want to know about her?’
Steve raises his eyebrows. ‘Whatever you’ve got.’
Chapter 5 (#ulink_251f27a2-26d0-56ef-acca-342d74776ca3)
Anna (#ulink_251f27a2-26d0-56ef-acca-342d74776ca3)
THREE WEEKS AFTER THE ACCIDENT
Wednesday 14th March
In the last half an hour the churchyard has transformed from a quiet, peaceful oasis in the heart of West Sussex to a thoroughfare for grief. I must have watched seventy, maybe a hundred mourners, all dressed in black with bowed heads and downturned eyes and matching mouths, walk the gravel path from the gate to the open door of the church. My stomach rumbles angrily and I press a clenched fist to my abdomen to silence it. I forgot to eat breakfast, again.
I didn’t eat for two days after the nurse told me that two of my team were dead. How could I spoon cereal into my mouth and slurp down tea like nothing had happened? How could I laugh and chat with the nurses when Peter and Freddy were lying in the mortuary? Instead I cried. I cried and I cried and I turned my head away from everyone who came to visit me, screwing up my eyes to block out faces creased with concern that I didn’t deserve. Only when Dr Nowak told me that if I didn’t eat something they’d fit me with a feeding tube did I finally agree to try half a slice of toast.
‘Anna.’ Alex touches my shoulder. ‘I think we should go in now. It’s due to start.’
It took me fifteen minutes to get out of the flat and into the car, and now we’re parked up I don’t want to get out again. Everything about driving terrifies me now: the motion, the proximity of other cars, swerving around roundabouts. I only made it home from the hospital because I kept my eyes tightly shut the whole way while Alex played my favourite album on loop. When we finally drew up outside our flat the tips of my fingers were red and numb from gripping the seat belt so tightly. Now, I press my cheek against the passenger side window. It’s cool beneath my burning cheek but it does nothing to calm my churning, aching guts.
‘I can’t go in there, Alex. What do I … what do I say to his parents?’
‘What people normally say – I’m so sorry for your loss, et cetera, et cetera, or nothing at all. You rang them last week, Anna. You don’t have to go through all that again.’
It took me two days to work up the courage to ring Maureen and Arnold Cross. I was Peter’s boss. It was only right that I rang them. But I was also the person who drove the car that rolled off the verge of the M25 and killed him. If I’d have been concentrating properly, if I’d have checked my side mirrors instead of glaring at Freddy in the rear-view mirror, I would have seen the half-ton truck drift towards us from the middle lane. I could have taken corrective action, moved us out of its path. And Peter would still be alive. If I’d let Freddy open the window, if I hadn’t let my irritation about what he’d said the night before distract me, then the lives of three people, and everyone who loved them, wouldn’t be destroyed.
A family friend answered the Cross family’s landline. He repeated my name loudly, as though announcing it to the room. There was a pause, then a woman said softly, ‘I don’t want to talk to her.’ When an elderly man added, ‘I will,’ I felt faint with fear. Peter’s dad. I couldn’t speak for several seconds after he said hello, my throat was so tight. I’m sorry, that’s what I said, over and over. I’m so, so sorry. I can never forgive myself. There was a pause, a silence that seemed to stretch forever and I braced myself for his fury. It was what I deserved. Instead he said simply, ‘We miss him,’ and silent tears rolled down my cheeks. ‘We both do,’ he added. ‘Every time the phone rings we think it’s him, checking if Maureen’s sciatica is any better or asking me for gardening advice. Sometimes we …’ His voice quivered and he coughed, then sniffed loudly. ‘They say the lorry driver who ploughed into you fell asleep at the wheel. No alcohol or drugs. A micro-sleep, they reckon, less than thirty seconds long. Tell me Peter didn’t suffer,’ he begged. ‘Just tell me that.’
‘Anna.’ Alex nudges me gently. ‘Did you hear what I just said?’
‘No, sorry. I was—’
‘They don’t blame you for what happened, Anna. No one does.’
‘Freddy’s dad does.’
‘He was angry. His son has just died. Sorry,’ he apologises quickly as I turn sharply. ‘I know, I know.’
I couldn’t face another call straight after I’d spoken to Peter’s dad, so I waited until the next day to call Steve Laing. My hand still shook as I picked up the phone, but I didn’t feel the blind panic I’d felt the day before. I knew what was coming – pain, sadness, grief and disbelief – and I determined to be more of a comfort this time around. I’d tell him how popular Freddy had been on the team, talk about his achievements and take my time answering any questions Steve Laing might want to ask me.
Only he was nothing like Arnold Cross. When I introduced myself, he exploded down the phone at me. How dare I ring him while he was grieving? It was down to my negligence that his son was dead – mine and the company I worked for. Did I have children? Did I have any idea of the hell he was going through, his child dying before him? I tried to apologise but he shouted over me. Had I ever driven a car in such treacherous conditions before? Did I have any points on my licence? Had I ever been caught speeding or made a claim on my insurance? All I could do was stare in horror at the white patch of wall in front of me as he ranted and raged and took all his anger and grief out on me.
I didn’t ring Mo or his parents. When I was still in hospital I asked a nurse if I could use a wheelchair to go and see him, but she told me he didn’t want any visitors. When I asked again a couple of days later I was told that Mo didn’t want to see me and it would probably be for the best if I didn’t ask again.
‘The CPS aren’t pressing charges against you,’ Alex says now. ‘It’s the lorry driver they’re gunning for.’
‘But maybe Steve Laing was right. I hadn’t driven on the motorway when it was that icy before and—’
‘We’re going home.’ Alex starts the engine. ‘Coming here was a mistake.’
‘No!’ I rest my hand on the steering wheel. ‘I need to do this.’
It’s standing room only and we’re crushed up against strangers in the back of the church. Alex is pressed against my right shoulder and a tall man with a bald head keeps bumping my left. The people at the front of the church are bundled up tightly in their hats, coats and scarves despite the orange glow of Calor gas heaters dotted at the end of the pews. Tim, my boss, is sitting in a pew near the back, but it’s the woman in the row at the very front that I can’t take my eyes off. I can only see the back of her grey hair but, from the way it’s resting on the shoulder of the man beside her, it can only be Peter’s mother. A fresh wave of guilt tears through me. If it weren’t for me, none of us would be here now and Peter would be…
A shadow falls across my face and all the air is knocked from my lungs. The coffin, lifted high on the shoulders of six grim-faced men, appears in the entrance to the church. The gentle murmuring of the congregation stops suddenly, as though someone has sharply twisted the volume control to the left, and Alex tightens his grip on my hand, pulling me after him as he takes a step back to make way. I want to look at him, at my shoes, anywhere but at the shiny wooden box that moves past me, but I keep my chin tipped up and my gaze steady. I need to face the reality of the devastation I caused. I owe Peter that. But my bravery doesn’t last long. The moment the coffin turns into the aisle I collapse against Alex.
‘I need to get out,’ I whisper between sobs. ‘I need some air.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘No.’ I touch him on the arm. ‘I won’t be long. I just need to be alone for a few minutes.’
I feel the weight of his gaze as I slide past him and move through the mourners but he lets me go.
Out in the fresh March air I pull off the hat, coat and scarf that make me feel suffocated and I inhale deeply, sucking cold air into my lungs, pushing out the damp, sorrowful scent of the church. My stomach clenches violently, bile touching the back of my tongue and, for one horrifying moment, I think I’m going to be sick. I fight the sensation, breathing shallowly and staring at the cloudless grey sky until it passes, then I start to walk. I drift from gravestone to gravestone, reading the inscriptions, looking at the dates, noting the flowers – or lack of them. As a distraction it only partially works. I feel lost in a fog of sadness and regret whenever I pass someone who died young. There’s one grave that particularly upsets me. A man and a woman are listed on one stone, John and Elizabeth Oakes. He died aged fifty-nine in 1876. She died twenty years later aged seventy-six. Their children are listed below them – Albert, Emily, Charlotte, Edward, Martha and Thomas. Six children and not one of them made it past their fifth birthday. The grave is old and uncared for; moss clings to the children’s names and the angel that sits atop the stone is chipped, her face worn away with age. I scan the cold, hard ground around the grave, looking for daisies or dandelions that I can bunch together with blades of grass. A clump of bowed snowdrops at the base of a tree catches my eye.
I crouch down beside the flowers and pinch one of the stems between my index finger and thumb, then pause, mid-snap. Someone’s watching. I can feel their gaze resting on me, like a weight across my shoulder blades. I turn sharply, expecting to see a photographer behind a gravestone, or a journalist dressed in black with a faux-sad expression. The local press have been hounding me for an interview since I left hospital.
But whoever was watching me isn’t interested in a chat. I catch a glimpse of a black coat or jacket disappearing around the side of the church and then they’re gone. I abandon the clump of bright snowdrops – the idea of plucking them so they can wither and die on a gravestone suddenly feels wrong – and walk back towards the church. As I approach the leaf-strewn porch, the door opens and Alex slides out to the piped opening chords of ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’.
‘Okay?’ His eyes search my face.
‘Not really, no.’
‘Do you want to go back in?’
I glance towards the side of the church, where the figure in black disappeared. There’s no one there now. Just row after row of grey gravestones, some aged, some new and – my breath catches in my throat as I notice it for the first time – a large hole in the ground, with green, sack-like material surrounding it. Peter’s plot. Alex turns his head, following my line of sight, and his hands twitch at his side. For one second I think he’s going to reach for me. Instead he shoves his hands into his pockets and shivers.
‘It’s cold out here. Shall we go?’ He inclines his head in the direction of the car.
I take one last, long look at the plot then nod silently, but Alex is already halfway down the path.
My boyfriend is behind the wheel, hunched over his phone as I reach for the passenger door handle. It’s splattered with mud; the whole side of the car is. I’ll offer to pay for a valet when we get back to London. It’s the least I can…
It’s so small I almost didn’t notice it.
SLEEP
Written just above the front wheel arch, like someone’s wet their finger and carved the word into the mud.
‘Alex.’ He looks up from his phone as I tap on the window, surprise then irritation registering on his face. I beckon him with one hand and point towards the wheel arch with the other. ‘Something weird.’
He sighs silently and opens his door.
‘What?’ he says as he steps out.
‘Someone’s written something on the car.’
‘What!’ His irritation turns to fury in an instant.
‘It’s not damaged. It’s just weird. Look.’
He joins me and looks where I’m pointing.
‘SLEEP?’ He’s nonplussed.
‘Don’t you think it’s weird?’
‘A bit.’
‘What do you think it means?’
He shrugs. ‘That some teenager was bored? It’s more original than clean me, anyway.’
‘But it’s not funny. It’s not witty. It’s not … anything.’ I glance back towards the church – I just had the strongest sensation that we were being watched – but the churchyard is still deserted.
‘Exactly. It’s nothing to worry about.’ Alex wanders back to his side of the car and pulls on the door handle. He smiles as our eyes meet over the top of the car. ‘I won’t be losing sleep about it, anyway.’ He laughs. ‘Losing sleep. Get it?’
‘Yeah.’ I close my eyes tightly and think about ‘SLEEP’ and what it could mean, all the way home.
Chapter 6 (#ulink_b6527725-dfcd-5b69-958a-d76025e2fec3)
Anna (#ulink_b6527725-dfcd-5b69-958a-d76025e2fec3)
EIGHT WEEKS AFTER THE ACCIDENT
Thursday 26th April
I feel like a balloon on a string, floating above the pavement. Alex’s hand is wrapped tightly around mine but I can’t feel the pressure of his fingers on my skin. I can’t feel anything. Not the pavement under my feet, not the wind on my cheeks, not even my laboured breath in my throat. Tony, my stepdad, is walking ahead of us, his white hair waving this way and that as the wind lifts and shakes it. His black suit is too tight across his shoulders and every now and then he tugs at the hem. When he isn’t pulling at his clothes he’s glancing back at me, over his shoulder.
‘All right?’ he mouths.
I nod, even though it feels like he’s looking straight through me, talking to someone further down the street. I barely recognised the woman who stared back at me from the mirror this morning as she pulled on the white blouse, grey suit and black heels that had been laid out on the bed for her. I knew it was me in the mirror but it was like looking at a photograph of myself as a child. I could see the similarity in the eyes, the lips and the stance but there was a disconnection. Me, and not me, all at the same time. I barely slept last night. While Alex snored softly beside me, curled up and hugging a pillow, I lay on my back and stared at the dark ceiling. When I did fall asleep, sometime after three, it wasn’t for long. I woke suddenly at five, gasping, shrieking and clawing at the duvet. I’d had my hospital dream again, the one about the faceless person staring at me.
‘It’s going to be okay, sweetheart,’ Mum says now, trotting along beside me, her cheeks flushed red, the thin skin around her eyes creased with worry. When we got out of the car she took my right hand and Alex took my left. I felt like a child, about to be swung into the air but with fear in my belly rather than glee. At some point Mum must have let me go because now her hands are clenched into fists at her sides.
‘Anna.’ Mum’s gloved hand brushes the arm of my coat. ‘This isn’t about you, love. You’re not the one on trial. You’re a witness. Just tell the court what happened.’
Just the court: the judge, the jury, the lorry driver, the public, the press, and the family and friends of my colleagues. I need to stand up in front of all of those people and relive what happened eight weeks ago. If I didn’t feel so numb, I’d be terrified.
‘Anna!’
‘Over here!’
‘Anna!’
‘Mr Laing!’
‘Mr Khan!’
The noise overwhelms me before the bodies do. Everywhere I look there are people, necks craned, arms reaching in the air – some with microphones, others with cameras – and they’re all shouting. My stepdad wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me close.
‘Give her some space!’ He raises an arm and swipes at a camera that’s just been shoved in my face. ‘Out of the way! Just get out of the bloody way, you imbeciles.’
As Tony angles me out of the crowd I search desperately for Mum and Alex but they’re still trapped in the throng of people by the courthouse entrance.
‘Anna! Anna!’ A blonde woman in her early forties in a pink blouse and a puffy black gilet presses up against me and holds a digital Dictaphone just under my chin. ‘Are you satisfied with the verdict? A two-year sentence and two of your colleagues are dead?’
I stare at her, too shocked to speak, but she registers the turn of my head as interest and continues to question me.
‘Will you go back to work at Tornado Media? Was that your boyfriend you were with?’
‘You’re having trouble sleeping, aren’t you?’ a different voice asks.
I twist round to see who asked the question but there’s a sea of people following us down the steps – dozens of men in suits, photographers in jeans and anoraks, a dark-haired woman in a bright red jacket, an older lady with permed white hair, my mother – pink-cheeked and worried – and, on the other side of the group from her, the thin, anxious shape of my boyfriend.
The blonde to my right nudges me. ‘Anna, do you feel responsible in any way?’
‘What?’ Somehow, in the roar, Tony heard her question. Someone behind me bumps against me as my stepdad stops sharply. ‘You bloody what?’
It’s like a film, freeze-framed, the way the crowd around us suddenly falls silent and stops moving.
The blonde smiles tightly at Tony. ‘Mr Willis, is it?’
‘Mr Fielding actually, who’s asking?’
‘Anabelle Chance, Evening Standard. I was just asking your daughter if she felt in any way responsible for what happened.’
The skin on my stepdad’s neck flushes red above the white collar of his shirt. ‘Are you bloody kidding me?’ He stares around at the crowd. ‘Can she actually say that?’
‘It was just a question, Mr Fielding. Anna’ – she tries to hand me a business card – ‘if you’d ever like to chat then give me a—’
He knocks her hand away. ‘You’re treading a very fine line. Now, get out of our way, before I make you.’
Mum and Alex wrap around us like a protective shield, Alex beside me, Mum next to Tony, as we hurry away from the noise and chaos of the courtroom.
‘Have you got a tissue, love?’ Mum asks as we reach the car. ‘You’ve got mascara all down your face.’
I touch a hand to my cheeks, surprised to find that they’re wet.
‘Yes, I’ve …’ I reach a hand into my suit pocket and feel the soft squish of a packet of Kleenex. But there’s something else beside them, something hard with sharp corners, something I don’t remember putting into my pocket when I got ready this morning. It’s a postcard. The background is blue with white words forming the shape of a dagger. The words turn red as they near the point of the blade and a single drop of blood drips onto the title: The Tragedy of Macbeth.
‘What’s that?’ Mum asks as I flip the card over.
I shake my head. ‘I don’t know.’
There are two words written on the back, in large, looping letters:
For Anna
I look from Mum, to Dad and then to Alex. ‘Did one of you put this in my pocket?’
When they all shake their heads, I flip it back over and read the quote:
Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep’ – the innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care, The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, Chief nourisher in life’s feast.
I know this quote from studying Macbeth at A-level. It’s Macbeth talking to Lady Macbeth about the frightening things that have happened since he murdered King Duncan.
‘Anna?’ Alex says. ‘Are you okay? You’ve gone very pale.’
I glance back towards the courthouse and the throng of faceless people milling around.
‘Someone put this in my pocket.’
‘It wasn’t that bloody journalist, was it?’ Tony says. ‘Because I’ll get on the phone to her editor if I need to. I won’t have her harassing you like this.’
‘Let me see that.’ Alex leans over my shoulder and peers at the card. ‘Is that a quote from Shakespeare?’
‘It’s Macbeth telling Lady Macbeth about a voice he heard telling him he’ll never sleep again.’
‘Oh, that’s horrible.’ Mum runs her hands up and down her arms. ‘Who’d give you something like that?’
‘Here, give me that.’ Tony takes the card from my fingers, rips it into tiny pieces and then drops them into a drain. ‘There. Gone. Don’t give it a second thought, love.’
No one mentions it all the way home but the words rest in my brain like a weight.
Chapter 7 (#ulink_311d9ab3-11db-5950-b5f5-7dab838eacab)
Steve (#ulink_311d9ab3-11db-5950-b5f5-7dab838eacab)
Saturday 28th April
Steve Laing bows his head and crosses himself as he crouches beside his son’s grave. He’s not a Catholic but it feels like the right thing to do. It shows respect. He touches a hand to the gravestone, tracing a finger over the cold imprint of his son’s name, and his chest burns with grief and rage. He still can’t quite believe it, that his son’s body is buried deep in the ground, six feet below him. It doesn’t feel real. How can it be? Freddy was young, he was strong, he went to the gym three times a week and played squash every Saturday. He’d had chickenpox as a kid. Broken his arm when he fell off the slide. But he wasn’t one of those kids in the park with snot dribbling over his top lip. He was healthy, hardly had a day off school. The only time Steve had had to take him to A&E was when he got so pissed at a house party for a mate’s fifteenth birthday that he ran into a glass door and knocked himself out. When he came round he claimed he’d had his drink spiked. Steve could see in the twitch of his lips that he was lying but he admired his gumption. Freddy could be a gobby little shit, always trying to talk himself out of trouble. He was loud too. He filled the house with his booming voice and his clumsy-arsed ways. Steve had lost track of the number of times he’d shouted at him to ‘keep the bloody noise down’ when he crashed into the house late at night, clattering around in the dishwasher or bashing every pot and pan together as he tried to make himself a snack after a drinking session with his mates. But he was never angry with him, not really. Freddy was all he had after Juliet had died. Fucking cancer, stealing the kid’s mum away from him five days before his eleventh birthday. If cancer were a person he’d have beaten the shit out of it and smashed its face to a pulp.
The house is quiet now. So bloody quiet it makes him want to turn on every stereo and sound system in the place and scream at the top of his voice. That’s the worst thing about death, the silence it leaves behind. But not in Steve’s head, there’s no peace there. Some days he feels as though he’s going mad, all those thoughts, buzzing around like wasps. He kept them quiet for a bit – planning the funeral and preparing for the trial – but they started up again afterwards, louder and angrier than ever. It’s the powerlessness he can’t cope with. He couldn’t save Freddy. He couldn’t grab hold of the surgeon’s knife, plunge his hand into his son’s chest and massage his heart back to life. He couldn’t speed up the police investigation. He couldn’t talk to the CPS and, other than a prepared statement, he couldn’t speak to the judge or jury. His son had been taken from him and he couldn’t do a fucking thing about it. ‘Trust us,’ the police told him. ‘Let us do our job.’ But they hadn’t, had they? Not really. Not them, not the CPS and not the fucking judge.
He traces a finger over his son’s birth and death dates. Twenty-four. Just twenty-four. At the funeral the vicar had said something about an ‘everlasting sleep’ that had really riled him. Death wasn’t like sleep. It wasn’t relaxing. You didn’t dream and you couldn’t be woken up. A dark cloud of despair had descended when the last of the mourners left Freddy’s grave. For most of them it would be the only time they’d visit it. They’d miss him, of course they would, but they’d get back on with their lives, whereas Steve felt his had been indefinitely paused.
It was his mate Jim who’d thrown him a lifeline. ‘If you feel that justice hasn’t been done, mate, then maybe you need to mete it out yourself. If you know where she is I can send someone after her. She won’t even see them coming. If that’s what you want.’
Steve wasn’t sure if it was. He prided himself on being a gentleman. He’d never once lifted his hand to a woman. But it was different if a woman was a murderer, wasn’t it? He’d have had no qualms about hurting Myra Hindley or Rose West. And that’s what this woman was, wasn’t it? A murderer. She’d taken the lives of two young people and crippled another. She hadn’t looked him in the eye at the trial. Hadn’t even acknowledged he was there. But she will. She’ll know who Steve Laing is, and she’ll remember his son. He’ll make sure of that.
Chapter 8 (#ulink_72bf9af1-6bfb-5143-bd2f-5fd590b911b1)
Anna (#ulink_72bf9af1-6bfb-5143-bd2f-5fd590b911b1)
Wednesday 2nd May
Our flat is a very different place at four o’clock in the morning. Unusually for London, the air is cool and still, the bedroom wrapped in shadows, the darkness punctuated only by the glow of streetlamps slipping through the gap in the curtains. Alex is asleep, curled up on his side, hugging the duvet. He came back from work yesterday evening to find me wrapped in a blanket on the sofa, staring dully at the TV. He stood in the doorway, watching me, waiting for an acknowledgement.
‘Hi,’ I said, then let my gaze return to the TV. A single glance was enough to assess his mood: rigid posture, tight jaw, cold eyes. He was angling for a fight. Again.
‘What this?’ He picked up the empty mug from the side table.
‘A mug.’
‘And this?’ He picked up a plate.
I looked at him. ‘What are you doing?’
‘What are you doing?’
He stalked out of the living room, mug and plate in hand. I heard them crash into the sink then the sound of the fridge door opening and closing and a curt fucking hell.
‘Anna.’ He was back in the doorway again. ‘There’s no food in the house. You said you’d go to the supermarket.’
‘I did.’
‘And?’
‘Someone followed me.’
‘Not again.’ He rested his head against the white glossed wood of the door frame. ‘Anna. You need to let this go. Steve Laing is not out to get you. The person who was responsible – the lorry driver, not you – has been charged and sent to prison. The coroner’s court case has been dismissed. It’s finished. Over.’
He didn’t understand. How could he? I hadn’t got any proof that someone had been following me. I hadn’t confronted them or taken their photo. I didn’t even know what they looked like, but I’d felt them watching me. I’d been fine leaving the house. I’d made it all the way to Tesco without feeling a horrible prickling sensation from the base of my skull to midway down my spine. The sun was shining and I was in a good mood because I’d just binge-watched three episodes of Catastrophe. Steve Laing hadn’t crossed my mind once and then it happened, the absolute certainty that someone was standing behind me, watching me as I bent down to take a loaf off the shelf. When I turned around there were five other people in the aisle – a man in a suit, an older woman, a woman about my age and another woman, slightly older than me with a toddler in a buggy. The child stared me out, his blue eyes wide and anxious. His mother looked down at him, at me, and then wheeled the buggy around and disappeared back down the aisle. Irritated with myself for overreacting, I headed straight to the tills with my basket. It wasn’t until I got home that I realised I’d forgotten half the things Alex had asked me to buy.
‘Did you ring Tim today?’ He crossed his arms over his chest.
‘Yeah.’
‘And?’
‘I gave my notice.’
He raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘I’m struggling to pay the bills as it is. If this is a permanent situation then …’ He sighed heavily. ‘I really don’t think I can deal with this, Anna. I knew you’d be a bit … upset … for a while but I can’t live like this. If you’re not thrashing around in bed because you can’t sleep you’re sitting around in jogging bottoms watching reruns of Friends. Have you even had a shower today?’
In another life, the life I lived before my world was shattered, I would have bit back at Alex and told him that maybe he should be a bit more sympathetic. Instead I looked at him and said, ‘It’s not working, is it? Between us?’
‘It’s …’ He looked down at the grubby beige carpet and shook his head. ‘No, it’s not.’
I’d imagined this conversation in my head a hundred times since the accident, but actually having it was surreal. I’d expected to burst into tears or feel a jagged pain in my chest. Instead I felt detached, as though I were watching the break-up scene happen to two other people. We’d been drifting apart for a long time, way before the accident, but you’d have to be a cruel kind of bastard to leave someone when they needed you most. We didn’t dislike each other, we hadn’t had blazing rows or shagged someone else or been cruel, but we were living separate lives. We weren’t even sharing the same bed any more, not really. There might be an hour or two – between my insomnia and Alex getting up for work – when we lay on the same sheet but we rarely touched. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d kissed me goodbye or hello. And the most telling thing was, I didn’t really mind.
‘What do you want to do?’ I asked. ‘Do you want to keep the flat?’
He looked shocked. He’d come back from work expecting a fight. He might have secretly wanted this but he hadn’t expected us to have this conversation now.
‘I’m happy for you to have it,’ I said. ‘I’ll go back to Reading and live with Mum and Tony for a bit.’
He looked up and met my gaze but I couldn’t read the expression in his eyes. ‘You’ve been thinking about this for a while, haven’t you? Us splitting up?’
‘Haven’t you?’
The air between us was suddenly very still, heavy with sadness.
‘Are you moving out today?’ He glanced at the open bedroom door and the room beyond it, looking for suitcases or signs that I’d already started getting my things together.
I looked at the kitchen clock. It was after seven. ‘I don’t know. It’s probably too late.’
‘Good.’
‘Good?’
‘I’m glad you’re staying tonight. I’m not sure I could cope with you just upping and leaving. I feel a bit …’
‘Shocked?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I know what you mean.’ I paused, suddenly unsure whether I’d misread the situation. ‘You do want this, don’t you, Alex?’
‘Yeah, yeah, I do. It’s just … weird. I feel …’ He faltered. ‘I feel like I need to give you a hug or something.’
‘Okay, sure.’ I said yes only because saying no would have been harder.
I shifted the blanket and book on my lap to one side and tried to get up from the sofa as Alex crossed the room. We met in the middle, an awkward hug with him reaching down to me and me reaching up, a huge space between our bodies. It was like embracing a stranger.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said as he pulled away. ‘I feel like I’ve let you down.’
‘You haven’t let anyone down. I’m not the person I was. I don’t think you are either. We’ve both changed. No one’s to blame.’
He looked at me steadily and said nothing. He didn’t have to.
We had beans on toast for dinner, the plates resting on our laps as we sat on the sofa and pretended to watch a film. It was better than the alternative, sitting across the kitchen table from each other, shovelling food silently into our mouths as we tried to think of something to say. We went to bed at the same time and automatically reached for our books. It felt as though we were in a bizarre sketch show, the couple who’d just split up but were acting as though nothing had happened.
‘Have you made plans, beyond living with your parents, I mean?’ Alex laid down his book but kept his gaze, and his body, facing forwards. A wave of sadness passed over me. It was real. We were splitting up. We no longer fitted together like pieces of a puzzle. Time had changed us. We’d become warped and incompatible.
‘I was thinking about moving to Scotland.’
‘Scotland?’
‘Yeah. One of the islands maybe. I …’ I discarded my book, twisted onto my side and pulled the duvet up over my shoulders. Looking at Alex’s side profile, I had a flashback to the first time I’d seen him – his long nose, strong brow and slightly recessive chin.
He looked at me curiously. ‘Since when have you wanted to live in Scotland?’
‘I’ve wanted to get out of London for a while, you know that. I told you when we first met.’
‘You said you wanted to move to the Cotswolds or Norfolk, not Scotland.’
‘There was a programme the other day, on the TV. I was only half watching it but I got sucked in. The Scottish Isles … they looked so beautiful and wild and remote.’
‘And cold. And rainy. And miserable.’
I shook my head. ‘No, not miserable.’
‘You won’t know anyone.’
‘Good. I don’t like people.’
He laughed. ‘And I don’t imagine they have a thriving marketing industry.’
‘I don’t want to be in marketing any more.’
‘So what will you do? Become a fisherwoman?’
‘I thought I might work in a tea shop or a restaurant or something. Or I could clean maybe, be a cleaner.’
‘Clean?’ One of his eyebrows twitched in disbelief.
‘Why not? I don’t want to do what I did, Alex. I don’t want the pressure or the … the responsibility.’
He looked grave for a second as my words sank in.
‘This is some weird kind of grief thing, isn’t it? Making reckless decisions. I read about it online.’
‘No, it’s not. I’ve given it a lot of thought.’
‘But …’ He looked at me steadily. ‘You’re the messiest person I’ve ever met. Who the hell’s going to employ you as a cleaner?’
We both laughed then.
‘I just want you to be happy,’ Alex said as he twisted round to turn off his bedside lamp.
‘I want you to be happy too.’
He didn’t reply. Instead he pulled the duvet up over his shoulders and buried his head in his pillow, shifting and shuffling as he made himself comfortable. I studied the shape of his head and the curve of his shoulder as his breathing grew slower and deeper. Then, when I was sure he was asleep, I slipped out of bed.
I lean back in my chair and stretch my arms above my head. 5.04 a.m. I rarely fall asleep before four. I’ve tried hypnosis apps, lavender, Night Nurse and Calms but nothing works.
I’ve just spent the last couple of hours searching for jobs in the Scottish Isles. There were more than I expected, particularly in Orkney, but where I want to live, the isle I fell in love with when I watched the BBC documentary, was Rum. The thirty-one residents are outnumbered by the animal life – deer, eagles and ponies – that run wild on the rough, rugged terrain. But there’s only one job available – ‘General Help’ at the Bay View Hotel. Duties including reception work, cleaning and website updating. The salary’s pitifully small and the hours are relentless. I’d barely get time to rest, never mind think. It’s just what I want.
As Alex said, I’m hardly qualified to be a cleaner but I worked in a hotel bar for a couple of years after school and I can do the website stuff standing on my head. I peer into the laptop screen, reread my application again, checking for typos or errors, then grab the mouse and click ‘Send’.
I stifle a yawn as I close the laptop and stand up. The sun is coming up now and a sliver of bright light slips into the room where the curtains don’t meet in the middle. Below a blanket of grey cloud the sky is streaked orange and red and I can just make out the arc of a white sun peeping between the buildings opposite and—
Movement in the corner of my eye makes me turn my head. Someone just ducked down behind a car at the end of the road, on the opposite side of the street. I steady my hand on the glass and squint into the distance. There’s a piece of paper fluttering under the windscreen wiper of my car.
‘Alex?’ I whisper his name then cross the bedroom and step into the hall, pulling the door closed behind me. I turn on the hallway light, pull on my coat, slip my feet into my shoes and grab my keys. Less than two minutes later I’m down the communal stairs and opening the front door. I pause in the doorway and glance along the street. There’s no one else here, just me and a large tabby cat that stares indifferently at me from a low wall, several houses down. I put the door on the latch and dart out of the house. It only takes twelve frantic strides to get me from the front door to the car. I snatch the piece of white paper from beneath the windscreen wiper then speed back into the house. I shut the door behind me, release the latch and unfold the paper. There are three words printed in the centre.
YOU WILL SLEEP.
In Memoriam (#ulink_2cfcb88d-6440-5255-aea8-39382d82add9)
In Memoriam
Emily and Eva Gapper
Emily Gapper, devoted wife and mother. Passed away on 13.2.2015 to be with our darling daughter, Eva Gapper. Knowing that the two of you are together is my only comfort. Forever in my thoughts, my beautiful girls. Love and miss you always …
I have always prided myself on my ability to read people; to interpret their body language, intonation and micro-expressions. It’s not so much a gift as a survival technique, an arsenal in my armour that was fashioned in my childhood – a necessity when faced with a mother as emotionally stunted as mine.
Take you, for example, Anna Willis, sitting in the window, lit by the glow of your laptop, then sprinting along the pavement with your oversized cardigan wrapped around your body and belted by your arm gripping your waist. I might have been too far away this time to study your face but I’ve been nearer. I’ve been close enough to study your pale skin, wide unblinking pupils, the sweat prickling at your hairline, your repetitive throat-clearing and the way you twist your hands. Your anxiety and your pain shine like a beacon but only to your nearest and dearest, sweet Anna. And, of course, to me.
I was going to retire. I was going to leave this life behind me and take up new pursuits. But he wants you gone and I couldn’t say no. I have never been able to say no to him.
I thought I’d want to hurry your passing, Anna, to get it over and done with quickly, but this will be the last time I ever do this, my final flourish, so to speak, and I want it to be perfect. When the time is right I will help you sleep.
Chapter 9 (#ulink_14b0c8c5-5294-55aa-8261-71b88e419a10)
Anna (#ulink_14b0c8c5-5294-55aa-8261-71b88e419a10)
Alex walks into the kitchen, dressed in his suit and smelling of shampoo and aftershave. He holds out a hand. ‘Show me that note.’
I tried to wake him after I ran back up the stairs with the piece of paper I found under the windscreen wiper but he swatted me away and told me to go back to sleep. I tried again when his alarm went off at six thirty but he peered at it through bleary eyes, shook his head and said he needed the loo. I trailed him to the bathroom, note in hand, then retreated to the kitchen when I heard the shower start.
‘Someone put it on my car,’ I tell him again.
Alex takes one look at the note, flips it over to look at the blank other side then crumples it up and throws it in the bin. ‘Sounds supportive to me. Maybe someone else on the street has noticed that you stay up all hours of the night.’
‘But they’ve underlined “will”. It makes it sound threatening.’
‘Maybe it’s the journalist that’s been hassling you for an interview. Give me an interview and you’ll sleep better, that sort of thing. Was there a business card with it?’
‘No, nothing.’ I pause. ‘I think it’s Steve Laing.’
Alex frowns. He doesn’t recognise the name.
‘Freddy’s dad. Remember what he said after the trial, that justice had only partially been done? I really think it’s him, Alex. First “sleep” written in the dirt, then the postcard, now this.’ I reach into the bin and pull out the crumpled ball of paper. ‘Maybe he thinks I fell asleep at the wheel too? Or that I feel too guilty to sleep.’
Alex reaches under the kitchen table for his shoes and eases his feet into them. ‘Anna, put the note back in the bin.’
‘But it’s evidence.’
‘Of what?’
‘That someone’s …’ I tail off. What was it evidence of exactly? That someone had noticed I was still awake at 5 a.m. and had left a sympathetic note on my car? It wasn’t illegal to write in the dirt on someone’s car either. If it were, hundreds of ‘clean me’ pranksters would be in jail for defacing grubby vans.
‘Has anything else happened that you haven’t told me about?’ Alex stands up and pulls on his coat. ‘Any weird phone calls or emails?’
‘No, just, you know, the feeling that someone’s been watching me.’
My boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, clamps his top teeth over his bottom lip and gazes down at me, his brow creasing as his eyes search mine. ‘The trial was covered in the paper, wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And they mentioned our address? The street, anyway.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Probably a member of the public then. Some weirdo who’s become obsessed with the case. Or not,’ he adds as he registers my startled expression. ‘It could be something to do with Steve Laing, like you say. Either way, you need to stop worrying about it. Whoever it is isn’t going to bother you at your parents’ house.’
It’s a reassuring thought but I’m fooling myself if I think I’ll be out of the flat today. I’ve got too much stuff. There are pots and pans, dishes and cutlery in the kitchen. Books, clothes, DVDs and music in the bedroom. Ornaments, photo frames and pictures in the living room. Then there’s all the furniture that belongs to me. It’s going to take me days to get everything packed up.
‘Alex.’ I reach out to touch him on the arm but my hand falls away before I make contact. We aren’t together any more. Lingering touches are no longer appropriate.
‘Yeah?’
I want to ask him not to go to work. To stay in the flat with me and watch a film and get drunk or play a board game and listen to music. I know if I stay in the flat alone I’ll flinch at every noise, peer out of the window, pace and worry and google real-life stories about stalkers. But I can’t ask Alex not to go to work. Not least because he doesn’t have to protect or comfort me any more. I have to let him get on with his life.
‘Can I leave my furniture here?’ I ask instead. ‘Until I’m settled? And some boxes of stuff?’
He shrugs. ‘I guess, until I get a new place anyway.’
‘Thank you. I’ll arrange for a man with a van to pick them up. I’ll leave the car outside too. I’ll probably sell it. Unless you want it.’
‘You’re getting rid of your car?’
‘Yeah.’ I’m surprised at his reaction. He’s seen how difficult it is for me just to get into the passenger seat. There’s no way I can face driving again. Not for a long time. ‘I’ll get a train to Mum and Tony’s later, once I’m packed up.’
That’s assuming they’ll be okay with me staying. Ever since they’ve retired they’ve had a succession of long-lost relatives and old friends to visit. I might have to kip on the sofa.
‘Wow.’ Alex looks stunned, as though the reality of what we’re doing has finally sunk in. ‘You’re not going to be here when I get back, are you?’
‘No.’ I look up at the ceiling and blink back tears.
‘Jesus.’ He looks me up and down, his gaze resting on my lips, the top button of my pyjamas and the chipped nail varnish on my toes. ‘I guess this is goodbye then.’
I nod, suddenly unable to speak.
‘One more hug before I go?’ He doesn’t wait for me to respond. Instead he pulls me into his arms, squeezes me tightly then lets me go. The embrace barely lasts five seconds.
‘Take care of yourself, Anna,’ he says as he walks out of the kitchen and into the hallway. He opens the door to the flat and steps outside without looking back. I have never felt more alone.
Part Two (#ulink_fe4a9a7d-656d-5e75-a3a7-316ebb809ad4)
Chapter 10 (#ulink_ec8ea733-6ad3-51f8-950b-5d79e5d46950)
Anna (#ulink_ec8ea733-6ad3-51f8-950b-5d79e5d46950)
Saturday 2nd June
Day 1 of the storm
‘Anna. Anna?’
I turn and smile. Even after a week I’m still not used to the way David says my name. I feel as though I’ve been rechristened. Back in London I was Anna – An-na – emphasis on the first ‘n’ and the last ‘a’. Now I’m Ah-nah. My name sounds softer and warmer when David says it in his soft Scottish burr. For the first couple of days on the island my shoulders remained up by my ears, tight, knotted and wary. But I can feel them loosening; the tension that curled me into myself is fading away. I’m softening, just like my name.
‘Yes, David.’
‘Do you have the list of guest names?’
‘Yeah.’ I swipe a piece of paper from the printer under the desk and hand it to him.
I had my reservations about David when he interviewed me on the phone. He was direct, gruff and pompous, continuously referring to me as ‘young lady’ (even though I’m thirty-two years old) and repeatedly asked me if I was prepared to work hard and not moan. I pictured him as a tall man, broad shouldered, bearded, ex-military. When the ferry docked on Rum and I walked down the ramp and onto the quayside I passed the small, round, pink-cheeked man in a yellow waterproof jacket and bowled straight up to the bearded man in a flat cap, standing beside a large black Labrador.
‘Anna?’ I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned sharply.
‘David?’
‘Yes.’ He held out a hand. ‘How was your journey?’
He had told me on the phone that visitors weren’t allowed to bring cars to Rum, and I’d boarded the small boat with a dozen or so people who were also on foot. Half of them had bicycles. The rest wore bulging rucksacks on their backs. I was the only one dragging a suitcase behind me. I carried it up to deck three and took a seat next to the window. After a couple of minutes the ferry pulled away from Mallaig, the sea as grey as the sky. After about forty minutes we passed Eigg, to our left, rising out of the sea like the dark nose of a whale. If Eigg was a whale then Rum was a dragon’s back, curving out of the water. I thought I was prepared to see it for the first time – I’d watched and rewatched the Small Isles programme on iPlayer after David confirmed on the phone that he’d give me a three-month trial – but my breath still caught in my throat and my stomach tightened with anticipation. I left the lounge and stepped onto the deck, smiling as the wind slapped my cheeks then lifted my hair and wrapped it around my face. With the sky and the sea stretching for miles I felt as though I was being transported to another world, not a tiny community on the west coast of Scotland. I felt vital and energised, alive and free.
I didn’t tell David any of that. Instead I said, ‘Rum’s a long way from Reading. It took forever. But the ferry ride took my breath away.’
He smiled broadly, his eyes almost disappearing in the rise of his cheeks as he read the expression on my face. ‘Still gets me too, even after all these years. That everything?’ He gestured towards my suitcase and I nodded.
‘Okay.’ He picked it up. ‘This,’ he raised a hand in the direction of the dozen or so buildings surrounding us, ‘is what we call “the village”, by the way. We’re on the other side of the island – Harris.’
I climbed into his white Land Rover and for the first time in months I didn’t close my eyes after I fastened my seat belt. I still clung to the hand rest as the car climbed the hills, juddered over the stony roads and swung around tight corners but I drank in the view: the hills as grey as an elephant’s hide, the grass, the gorse, the sky stretching forever, the sea and the—
‘Ponies! Look!’
David laughed. ‘Yeah, there’s a few. Deer too.’
By the time we arrived at the Bay View Hotel, nestled into the side of a hill and separated from the rest of the island by a shallow river that we had to drive through, I felt drunk with happiness.
‘That’s the mausoleum, isn’t it?’ I said, pointing at the grey-brown sandstone building that stood incongruously in a field of green. With its pitched roof and imposing pillars, housing three granite tombs, it looked as though it had been dropped from the sky or whisked through time from ancient Greece.
‘That’s right.’ David nodded. ‘It’s Sir George Bullough’s family mausoleum. He’s buried there along with his son and wife.’
I suppressed a shiver, remembering the last time I’d been in a graveyard.
‘And who lives there?’ I pointed at a small cottage on the edge of the river; the hotel’s other neighbour.
‘Gordon Brodie. He guides the walks. He’s also the caretaker at the primary school. Part time.’ He laughed. ‘There’s only four children.’
‘Four children in the whole school?’
‘Five next year when Susi McFarlane’s little one turns four. There’s only thirty-one of us living here, remember.’
‘Can they not go to school on the mainland?’
‘The secondary school children do but there’s only three ferries a week at this time of year. Most of them can only come back every other weekend. They stay with relatives and what not.’
I stared at the darkening sky. ‘What if there’s a storm?’
‘Then there’s no ferries for a while.’ He shrugged. ‘We make do.’
Now, David scans the list of names on the printout in his hand, nostrils flaring as he runs a bitten-down fingernail down the page.
‘We’ve got seven. That’ll mean two trips in the Land Rover.’
He reaches behind the desk and slides the keys off their hook on the wall. He presses them into my hand. ‘There you go then.’
‘No.’ I dangle them from my thumb and forefinger like I’m holding a dirty nappy or a wet tea towel. ‘I can’t.’
‘What do you mean you can’t? You told me on the phone that you can drive.’
‘I can but I … I was in an accident a few months ago and I ended up in hospital. I haven’t been behind the wheel since.’
‘Well, you’ll need to soon.’ He snatches the keys back, shaking his head as he sidesteps from behind the reception desk. ‘Because I won’t always be available to fetch and carry the guests. I did warn you that you’d have to pull your weight— Oooh.’ He presses a hand to the wall, steadying himself.
‘David, are you okay?’
He waves me away. ‘Just a …’ He presses a clenched fist to his chest. ‘Just a bit of indigestion. Oh God, I thought I was going to be sick there.’
A bead of sweat rolls down his temple then gets lost in his stubble.
‘David, are you sure you’re okay? I could call someone.’ I touch a hand to the phone, prepared to ring the Small Isles medical practice on Eigg. There’s no doctor on Rum. One visits once a fortnight, on a Thursday, but today is Saturday. There’s a team of first responders though. The nearest is in Kinloch, which is a fifteen-minute drive away, on the other side of the island.
‘No, no.’ He straightens up, still rubbing at his chest. ‘I’m fine. Double-check the rooms are in order while I’m away. Oh, and check on the bread. It’ll need to come out of the oven in twenty minutes. Don’t just stand there looking vacant, girl. There are jobs to be done.’
Cold air blasts across the lobby as David opens the front door and disappears outside. Dark clouds, heavy with rain, scuttle past the window as trees whip back and forth in the wind. According to the weather forecast this morning we’re due a storm soon. That won’t go down well with the guests who came here to walk, cycle, fish and deer-stalk but we should still be able to get them to Kinloch Castle and the craft shops. And if the weather’s really bad there’s a TV in each of the bedrooms and books and magazines in the lounge. And the hotel is well stocked with booze and firewood. I jump as my mobile phone scuttles across the desk, then snatch it up. It’s a text from Alex:
I’ve been thinking about you. I hope you’re well and happy and that the fresh island air is helping you sleep.
Chapter 11 (#ulink_5b9215bc-7793-5c67-a6ba-a507bc3221a7)
Alex (#ulink_5b9215bc-7793-5c67-a6ba-a507bc3221a7)
Alex grips the bunch of flowers a little tighter as the doors to the Royal Free Hospital slide open and a cloud of warm, bleach-scented air hits him full in the face. It’s a beautiful summer day and his shirt is sticking to his back. He wants to take off his jacket, get some air to his skin, but he’s worried about the sweat patches under his arms. He glances at his watch: 2.55 p.m. He didn’t want to risk being late, so got here early and spent the last hour sitting in KFC around the corner, sipping a Coke. He’d rather have had a coffee but he was worried about bad breath.
He takes a seat in the waiting area near M&S and rummages around in his pocket for the packet of mints he bought on his way here. He pops one into his mouth then props the flowers between his knees and wipes his palms on his jeans. He knows he’s being ridiculous, sweating and worrying like a thirteen-year-old on a first date, but he can’t slow his hammering heart or shake the sick feeling in his stomach. He’s never done anything like this before, never got so worked up about someone he barely knows. But Becca likes him, she must, or she wouldn’t have replied to his Facebook messages, never mind agree to a date. His stomach clenches as his phone vibrates in his pocket. Is she cancelling? Is she, as he sits in the hospital foyer and waits for her to finish her shift, secretly sneaking out of a back entrance so she doesn’t have to see him?
He looks at the screen and heaves a sigh of relief. It’s just Anna.
Are you trying to be funny?
He frowns, confused, and rereads the message he sent her earlier. It was a nice message, wasn’t it? Asking how she was doing.
He looks around to check Becca’s not on her way over to him (it wouldn’t be done to be caught texting an ex), then taps out a reply.
No. What do you mean?
She replies immediately.
The comment about sleep.
He cringes. Oh, that. If he’s honest he’s barely given those messages a second thought since she left. He’s thought about her, obviously; you don’t spend nearly two years with someone and then forget all about them the moment they walk out of the door, but he’s enjoyed having the bed to himself and waking up without her lashing out in her sleep, or else staring at him, wide-eyed and frantic from across the room. He did feel guilty though, logging on to Facebook when he returned home to piles of boxes and a flat stripped of Anna’s things. Her side of the bed was barely cold and there he was, searching for the nurse who’d cared for her. The attraction was there from the first time they’d laid eyes on each other – an invisible spark that made him catch his breath. He was sure she’d felt it too, from the way her cheeks had coloured and she’d glanced away, at Anna’s unconscious form. He tried telling himself that he was misreading her friendliness, that looking after relatives was as much a part of her job as caring for her patients, but Becca genuinely seemed to enjoy their little chats while Anna slept and she checked her vitals. He was terrified when Anna came to and started screaming. Her eyes were glassy and empty, as though she were looking straight through him. And the noise, he’d never heard anything like it. He could have hugged Becca for the professional way she’d taken charge of the situation. He hadn’t, of course. Not only would it have been wholly inappropriate, but Anna’s return to consciousness, made him feel utterly ashamed of himself. What kind of despicable shitbag was he, perving over the nurse while his girlfriend recovered from a horrific accident? If he was being kind to himself he’d explain it away as a coping mechanism, a way of climbing out of the pit of fear he’d fallen into after her stepdad had rung him, his voice cracking as he broke the news about the accident.
But Anna hadn’t died. She’d survived the crash and the operation, and when the surgeon told them both that, other than a scar across her mid-section, there would be no lasting damage, he raised his eyes to the white ward ceiling and said thank you to a God he didn’t believe in. He knew it was his duty to look after her when they got home, he owed her that much after two years together, but he could barely drag himself out of bed in the morning after being kept up by Anna half the night, thrashing around fighting night terrors. He felt trapped and unhappy whenever he returned home. It wasn’t her fault, he knew that, but he couldn’t stop the resentment from rising, threatening to burst the banks of his patience like a river after a storm.
He hadn’t expected her to end things. He thought she’d keep plugging away at their relationship, as she always had. But no, she’d had enough too. He was so grateful she’d had the courage to speak up that he’d hugged her, so shocked that he asked her to stay one more night in case there was anything left to be said. There wasn’t, other than a strained conversation about a note she’d found on the car. As he’d walked to the tube afterwards he couldn’t help but feel relieved that Anna was no longer his responsibility. And guilty for feeling that way.
‘Alex?’ Someone touches him on the shoulder, making him jump.
He almost doesn’t recognise the woman smiling down at him, in her red mac with her long brown hair swept across her forehead and resting on her shoulders. Brown eyeliner is smudged in the corner of her eyes and her lips shine cherry red.
‘Becca?’ He stands, hastily, and presses an awkward kiss into her cheek. ‘You look lovely. I almost didn’t recognise you.’
‘Thanks a lot.’ She laughs and takes the flowers he pushes into the space between their bodies. ‘These smell lovely,’ she says as she dips her face to the bouquet of white lilies and roses. She looks up at him, her nose still buried in the blooms, and he thinks how lovely her eyes are, how smiley, the most startling cornflower blue.
His stomach tightens as she looks away from him, her blue eyes flitting over the diners who surround them, folded over magazines, coffees and mobile phones, all lost in their own little worlds.
‘What is it?’ he asks as a frown creases Becca’s smooth brow.
‘Nothing.’ She straightens and shakes her head lightly.
‘Are you sure? You looked like you were looking for someone.’
She reaches round for her hair, gathers it in her hand and swings it over her shoulder. She’s nervous, Alex thinks with a pang of surprise, as she continues to twist her hair and gaze wonderingly at him. The urge to put an arm around her shoulder and pull her close is almost more than he can bear.
‘I was just …’ She shifts her weight from one leg to the other. ‘Things are definitely over between you and Anna, aren’t they? She’s not suddenly going to jump out at us and call me a boyfriend stealer?’
He laughs, amused by her paranoia. ‘No, of course not. Like I told you by text, things were over between us long before her accident.’
‘Good.’ She slips her arm through his and taps her head against his shoulder. ‘Then I’ve got you all to myself.’
Chapter 12 (#ulink_edaee2da-57b9-5e11-8c18-e5622e607dbb)
Anna (#ulink_edaee2da-57b9-5e11-8c18-e5622e607dbb)
Alex hasn’t replied to my last text and now I’m regretting snapping at him. He was only wondering how I’m doing but the mention of sleep was like a jab in my chest. I thought, by coming here, that I’d leave what happened behind. But grief can’t be cast off like a jacket. It becomes part of you, an invisible film welded to your skin. Some days you feel it, some days you don’t, but it’s always there.
‘Come in, come in, come in.’ My boss shepherds five guests into the centre of the lobby, two men, two women and a teenage girl, their coats and bags dappled with rain. He squeezes past them to reach the reception desk and stands next to me.
‘Welcome to the Bay View Hotel, the best hotel on Rum,’ he says, his hands spread wide in greeting. Several of the guests smile. One, a thin, midde-aged woman wearing a red cagoule and a matching bobble hat, forces a laugh. The Bay View Hotel is the only hotel on Rum.
‘Anna here will check you all in,’ David continues, ‘and I’ll carry your suitcases and bags up to your rooms.’ He turns to the man standing nearest to him – tall, average build, dark hair, wearing a pale blue fleece, dark trousers and walking boots – and reaches for one of the straps of his rucksack. The man lurches backwards as though stung, knocking into the woman in red who’s standing directly behind him.
‘Sorry, sorry.’ His eyes dart wildly behind his frameless glasses as he searches for somewhere, anywhere, he can stand in the small lobby without touching another person. ‘I’ve just … I’ve just … I’ve got important stuff in here and I … I—’
‘No problem.’ David raises a hand in apology, his lips pulled tightly over his teeth in a half grin, half grimace. ‘If you don’t want me to take your bags that’s no problem at all.’
‘You can take mine.’ The woman in the red cagoule squeezes through the crowd then reverses up against David so her rucksack is almost pressed against him. ‘It’s killing my shoulders.’
The balding older man who was standing next to her raises his left hand in protest, a gold wedding ring glinting on his finger. ‘I told you I’d carry it for you, Mel, but you did insist …’
The woman ignores him and gives David the nod to help her remove her rucksack. He glances over at the husband and nods tightly.
‘Actually, ladies and gents, I’ve got to get back to the dock to collect the other guests. If you’d like me to take your bags to your room, just deposit them here and I’ll bring them up to you when I get back. Anna will show you where you need to go. When you’re settled in do come down to the lounge where there’s a complimentary tot of whisky waiting for you. When the other guests arrive I’ll explain the itinerary for the week.’
He raises his hands in the air as he sidles out of the hotel, sidestepping like a crab. I see a flash of relief on his face when he reaches the front door.
With David gone the guests turn hesitantly in my direction. First to reach the table are the couple. The woman takes charge, nudging herself in front of the man so she can spread her hands wide on the desk.
‘Melanie and Malcolm Ward. And … Katie.’ She takes off her bobble hat then glances at the small, sallow-skinned teen who looks like she’d rather be anywhere else. ‘Also Ward,’ she adds.
Unlike the girl in her oversized parka and pink Converse, Melanie and Malcolm are kitted out like serious hikers in branded waterproof jackets with walking poles, well-used walking boots and bulging rucksacks. Malcolm’s clutching a map in a plastic slip. Melanie has mousey-brown hair tied back in a ponytail and a fringe that finishes just above her remarkably thick eyebrows and red-rimmed glasses. She looks lithe and strong, as though she could leap up Rum Cuillin without drawing a breath. Her husband is older: mid to late fifties. His grey hair is receding, showing a large expanse of forehead, speckled with liver spots. His brows have thinned so much at the edges that they appear to end mid-pupil, making him look as though he’s permanently frowning.
I enter their details into the laptop, then reach round to the hooks and hand Melanie a bunch of keys. ‘There you go, you’re in rooms 7 and 8. They’re at the front of the hotel. If you walk up the stairs to the first floor, the rooms are directly opposite you as you come—’
‘At the front?’ Melanie glances at Malcolm, who sighs heavily.
‘Yes.’ I force a smile but it has no effect on the pained expression on Mrs Ward’s face.
‘So no view of the sea?’
‘No, I’m sorry. We allocate the rooms according to the list the walking tour company sends us and I’m afraid …’ I shrug. ‘W was at the end of—’
‘Seriously?’ Malcolm Ward says. ‘That’s how rooms are allocated? In this day and age? I spent my entire childhood being last for everything because my surname is at the end of the alphabet.’
I glance at Katie, who looks like she’s wishing the ground would open up and swallow her.
‘It took us the best part of two days to get here,’ Melanie says. ‘We’ve come all the way from London. Malcolm was ever so excited about having a sea view. Weren’t you, Malcolm?’
He nods. ‘Gloria at the Hikers’ Friend practically guaranteed it.’
‘But you’ll have an amazing view of the mountains.’ I glance at the closed front door, willing David to walk through. When I first arrived he told me, in no uncertain terms, that he was the face of the hotel and he would be the primary point of call for the guests. I tend to their every need, he said, then added quickly, Well, almost.
Melanie leans into the desk, her pupils small and black behind her glasses. ‘Can’t you change it?’
‘I can’t really. All the rooms have been allocated. We are a very small hotel and we can only accommodate eight—’
‘I’ll swap.’ A woman in her mid to late sixties, with white hair cut short at the sides and as curly as a sheep on the top, steps around Melanie. ‘If I’ve got a sea-view room.’
I search her face as she smiles warmly up at me.
‘That’s very kind of you.’ I return her smile. ‘What’s your name, please?’
‘Christine Cuttle.’
‘Like the fish?’ Malcolm comments.
‘Yes.’ Christine smiles tightly. She’s probably heard that a thousand times.
‘Thank you, Mrs Cuttle,’ I say. ‘I’ll just check the—’
‘Christine, please.’
‘Okay.’ I glance down at my screen. ‘You’re in luck,’ I tell Melanie. ‘Christine is down to take Room 1, which has a sea view.’
Melanie squeaks with joy and shares a look with her husband. She pauses and glances back at Katie. Her smile slips. ‘You won’t be next to us any more.’
Katie shrugs. If anything she looks slightly relieved.
‘She’s only across the corridor,’ I say. ‘It’s a small hotel, all the rooms are very close together.’
Melanie’s pinched expression slackens. ‘Do you mind, Katie? This is your break as much as ours.’
Again the young girl shrugs. ‘I don’t care about views.’
‘And you’re quite sure,’ Melanie says to Christine. ‘About swapping with us? You really don’t have to, you know.’
Oh yes you do, her face and her tightly curled hands say. You do now you’ve offered.
‘I’m more than happy,’ Christine says. ‘I could never grow tired of looking at that landscape. It’s so beautiful here.’ She returns her gaze to me. ‘You’re very lucky to live here.’
‘Yes,’ I nod. ‘I am.’
Having dispatched Christine, Melanie and Malcolm to their rooms I beckon the final guest, standing stiffly near the door, to approach reception. He avoids eye contact as he walks towards me, then draws to a halt about a foot from the desk. A loud crack of thunder breaks the silence, making both of us jump. Two seconds later lightning tears through the dark sky beyond the window, and the rain, which has been falling lightly for the last hour or so, suddenly buckets down.
I laugh. ‘Welcome to Rum!’
The guest keeps his gaze fixed on the shiny expanse of desk that separates us. He’s younger than the others, I’d guess late thirties. His dark hair is thick and curly but it’s receding either side of his widow’s peak. Though he’s of average build his face is strangely fleshy, all cheeks and chin, with a long, wide nose. His eyes blink rapidly beneath the sheen of his wireless glasses.
‘Trevor Morgan.’ He holds out a hand and I raise mine to shake it.
‘No.’ He slaps his palm against the desk. ‘The key.’
‘Oh.’ I glance at the laptop, then twist round to the key rack. ‘You’re in Room 2, at the back of the hotel. If you go—’
‘I’ll find it, thank you.’ As he takes the key from my outstretched hand his eyes meet mine. He couldn’t have looked at me for more than a second, but the uncomfortable tightening in my chest lasts long after he slips silently up the stairs.
Fifteen minutes later, the front door opens and David strides in with a man and a woman around my age, both wearing rucksacks. The man’s tall, with a long hipster beard and dark hair, shaved around the sides and long and swept back on the top. The woman’s about five foot five with blonde wavy hair, a sturdy physique and a scowl on her face. Her expression couldn’t be more different from the man’s. He positively beams at me as he crosses the lobby, his heavy boots reverberating on the polished wooden floor.
‘Joe Armstrong.’ He holds out a hand. ‘You must be Anna. David told us all about you.’
I shake his hand and return his smile. ‘Has he now?’
‘All good!’ David calls as he hangs his coat on a hook. ‘Well … mostly.’
‘Fiona Gardiner.’ The blonde woman squeezes herself between Joe and the wall.
‘Nice to meet you.’ I offer her my hand and she shakes it firmly.
‘Okay … um …’ I tap at the keyboard. The system is showing that they’ve been allocated separate rooms. ‘Mr Armstrong, it says here that you’re in Room 6, which has a view of the mountains. Ms Gardiner you’re in Room 3, with a view of the sea.’ I look back up at the guests. ‘You’re welcome to choose which of those rooms you’d like. I can cancel the second room. You won’t be charged twice, there’s obviously been some kind of mistake in the booking.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Joe Armstrong looks at me blankly. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’
Fiona gives me an equally confused look and I feel the colour rise in my cheeks. David, heading into the dining room, chuckles as he opens the door. He knows exactly what I’ve done.
‘I thought you were a couple,’ I explain. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just when you walked in together I assumed—’
‘Oh, God, no!’ Joe laughs heartily then catches the hurt look on Fiona’s face and quickly corrects himself. ‘Not that … Fiona’s lovely. I’m sure you’d make a wonderful girlfriend but …’ He runs a hand over his hair. ‘We’re not a couple. We don’t know each other. We only got chatting on the dock.’
‘It’s my fault, sorry.’ I shoot Fiona an apologetic look. ‘I’m new. I haven’t worked on reception before.’
‘Right.’ The edges of her lips rise but it’s more of a grimace than a smile. She holds out her hand. ‘If I could just have my key?’
‘Of course.’ I hand her the key to Room 3 and Joe the key to Room 6.
‘Can I take that for you?’ Joe says as Fiona adjusts her rucksack.
‘No, thank you,’ she says tightly. ‘I’m quite capable of carrying it myself.’
I turn back to the laptop as they plod their way up the stairs, Fiona leading and Joe following behind. As their footsteps reverberate on the guest corridor above my head, David pops his head out of the dining room door.
‘Sorry,’ he says with a laugh. ‘I could have corrected you but where would the fun be in that?’ His eyes flick towards the top of the staircase. ‘We’ve got a few interesting personalities this week. I think they’re going to keep us on our toes.’
Chapter 13 (#ulink_9780b270-7184-58eb-a098-eb33e5253861)
Steve (#ulink_9780b270-7184-58eb-a098-eb33e5253861)
Steve turns up the collar of his coat, mentally cursing his lack of umbrella and phone as he passes yet another South London street that doesn’t contain a pub called the White Hart. Still, no Google Maps and no GPS is infinitely preferable to the alternative, a stretch inside for murder. So far, other than the burner phone in his desk drawer and one very short phone call, there’s no evidence linking him to Jim Thompson, and he intends to keep it that way.
‘Where the fuck is – ah!’ He stops at the entrance to a small, characterless back street, hurries down it and pushes at the door of the White Hart.
He raises his eyebrows as he walks in. Yet another old boozer that’s been transformed into a gastropub with colonial-style ceiling fans, stripped floors, an oak bar and a selection of craft ales. Fucking hipsters, he thinks as he walks up to the bar and orders a pint of Heineken. They like to pretend they’re knitting their own houses, serving food on dustbin lids and turning their backs on technology but they’re capitalist bastards at heart, just like the rest of us.
He takes a sip of his pint and casually glances around, looking for Jim. It’s been a while since he last saw him but he immediately recognises the balding bloke in the thick glasses sitting on his own in the corner, a newspaper spread on the table in front of him. They were unlikely cell mates, back in the day (a long way back in the day), Steve in for fraud and Jim in for GBH, but they shared the same scathing sense of humour, a similar background and the same moral code.
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C.L. Taylor
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: But crushing insomnia, terrifying night terrors and memories of that terrible night are making it impossible. If only she didn’t feel so guilty…To escape her past, Anna takes a job at a hotel on the remote Scottish island of Rum, but when seven guests join her, what started as a retreat from the world turns into a deadly nightmare.Each of the guests have a secret, but one of them is lying – about who they are and why they′re on the island. There′s a murderer staying in the Bay View hotel. And they′ve set their sights on Anna.Seven strangers. Seven secrets. One deadly lie.!