Prologue
‘Wake up!’ A woman’s voice, fraught with anxiety, floats on the edge of her consciousness. Ignoring the excruciating pressure in her chest, she continues to search. Desperately. Blindly. She can’t find him. She has to.
‘You need to wake up!’ She feels a hand on her forearm, shaking her, trying to drag her back.
No! she screams silently. I can’t! He’s here. I can feel him. I need to find him.
‘You have to get up!’ the woman hisses. ‘You have to …’
A strange whooshing, gurgling sound drowns out the agitated voice. The pressure increases, causing her blood to pump frantically. Her head begins to throb. Her heart thrashes – thud, thud, thud – a dull drumbeat in her chest.
‘Can you hear me? I know you can hear me. Wake up, will you?’
No, please … I can’t leave him. I won’t leave him. She blinks wildly around, but the grit and the dirt someone is shovelling into the water burns her eyes. She can’t see. Nothing but deep, dark, impenetrable red. Panic engulfs her. And then he’s there, an arm’s stretch in front of her. He’s moving away, floating, swirling; dancing like a fragile anemone. She tries to follow, but her lungs, bursting within her, scream at her to draw air. She can’t reach him. She tries to hold on to the essence of him, but he’s drifting further away, fading into the distance like a soft white djinn.
And then he’s gone. And the voice is right next to her, insistent, a demented buzzing bee in her head. ‘For God’s sake, wake up! The police are here.’
She chokes out a strangled sob, snapping her eyes open as the quilt is stripped from her body.
‘You need to get dressed.’ The woman she thought she knew, but doesn’t know at all, scans her eyes urgently, her own tear-filled and anguished, yet holding a warning. ‘They want to talk to you.’
She watches her leave, tries to hold onto the fragments of her dream, which hover tauntingly on the periphery of her memory. Scrambling from her bed, she searches for her dressing gown, but it’s not there. Not anywhere. Glancing quickly around, her heart thrashing, she grabs a sweatshirt from the bedroom chair, tugs it on and reaches to pull her hair from the back of it. It’s damp, hanging in rat’s tails, as it does if she showers and goes to bed without drying it. But she didn’t do that. Did she? Her mind is fuzzy, a headache forming, pinpricks of sharp white light scorching her eyes. She can’t remember. Why can’t she remember?
With trembling hands, she reaches for her jeans and pulls them on, then pushes her feet into her slippers. Muted voices drift up from the lounge as she slowly descends the stairs: a male voice, a woman’s voice; wretched with grief. Her legs leaden, her chest pounding, she places the flat of her hand to the partially open door and pushes it open.
A female police officer stands. ‘Hello.’ She offers her a smile as she takes a faltering step inside. ‘We’re told you took a sleeping tablet last night.’ Her eyes are kind, curious, assessing. ‘Are you okay to talk to us?’
She nods, tries to smile back, but her facial muscles are as frozen as she feels inside. Goosebumps rise over her skin as reality sinks in.
She wasn’t dreaming.
One
Sarah
Sarah could feel Joe’s eyes on her as, stunned, she reread the text she’d just received from her ex. ‘Problem?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said evasively. ‘Not really.’ Trying to digest the words, she glanced over to where her little boy was throwing his soft football across the pub garden and galloping gleefully after it. ‘Careful, Ollie,’ she called. ‘Don’t go too far from the table, sweetheart.’
‘I’ll get him.’ Placing his pint down, Joe was on his feet as Ollie charged on. At three years old, coming up to four, he was definitely a handful. ‘Come on, mate.’ Scooping him up, Joe headed for the ball and kicked it back towards Sarah. ‘Let’s go and have another drink and then we’ll practise some goal kicks. What do you say?’
Despite the worrying text, Sarah laughed as Ollie answered with a giggling ‘Yes.’ This was her and Joe’s first date since they’d gone out together years ago at school, and she didn’t want to spoil it, which going on about her failed relationship certainly would. They were just having a casual drink together, each of them preferring not to read anything too serious into it. They’d broken up at just eighteen, and both had relationships go wrong in between. Now they were treading carefully; Sarah more than Joe possibly, since she had Ollie to consider. They’d both changed since they’d first dated, inevitably, but it was reassuring that Joe seemed fundamentally the same, considerate and caring. He’d spent a good hour with Ollie, playing with Duplo, before they’d left this evening, while – not sure how one did dating any more – Sarah had taken her time making herself presentable enough to be seen out in public. He’d wanted Ollie to feel at ease with him, he’d said, reminding her why she’d once loved him, and causing her a pang of regret at having lost him.
Seating Ollie on the bench table and collecting up his beaker, Joe passed it to him and picked up his own drink. ‘Cheers,’ he said, clinking with him and taking a glug.
‘Cheers,’ Ollie said manfully, and did likewise.
Sarah smiled and took a sip of her wine. Joe really was good with him. She couldn’t believe he didn’t have children of his own. His wife hadn’t wanted them apparently, which had become a problem between them. Joe had been glad of it in the end, he’d said. It had made things less complicated when he’d discovered his wife had been stuck on her ex. When he’d talked about it, he had smiled in the c’est la vie way he did whenever he wanted people to believe something didn’t bother him. He’d clearly been devastated at finding his wife was cheating on him, though. Sarah had seen the pain in his eyes.
‘I think you’ve won him over.’ She glanced again at Ollie, who was now emulating Joe’s every move, planting his beaker back on the table and twirling it around as Joe did with his glass.
‘I’m obviously irresistible,’ Joe said with a wink. ‘So, is everything okay?’ He nodded towards her phone.
‘Yes,’ Sarah said quickly, though she didn’t feel very okay. She felt bewildered. Do you mind if I bring Ollie to meet Laura? her ex had asked.
Since she’d never even met the woman, Sarah had had no idea how to respond. She’d had to steel herself to text him back. It’s serious then?
Steve had taken a minute, then, Yes, he’d replied. We’re thinking of living together. Laura has her own place, so it makes sense for me to move in there.
Sarah felt as if she’d been hit by a thunderbolt. He’d only been going out with this Laura for a few months. He hadn’t even found himself a place to live yet; he was still crashing at his mother’s, for goodness’ sake. Had it really taken him such a short time to move on? She felt cheated on – ridiculously, since she and Steve weren’t together any more. She also felt inadequate, as if the failure of their relationship had been all down to her, which was definitely ridiculous. They simply hadn’t been compatible. Steve was so laid-back sometimes he was horizontal, which had been part of the problem between them. It had taken her a while to realise that his lack of involvement might have something to do with the fact that he hadn’t been ready to make the crucial decision to commit, despite the fact that they had a child together.