Michael Robotham is a former feature writer and investigative reporter, who has worked in Britain, Australia and America.
His debut thriller, The Suspect, introduced clinical psychologist Joe O’Loughlin and sold more than a million copies around the world. The nine-book series is being adapted for the screen by World Productions (makers of Line of Duty and Bodyguard), starring Aidan Turner. Michael’s standalone thriller The Secrets She Keeps has also been the basis of two BBC TV series.
He has twice won the prestigious UK Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award for best crime novel, as well as the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for When She Was Good, a Richard & Judy Book Club pick.
Michael lives in Sydney.
Also by Michael Robotham
Joe O’Loughlin series
The Suspect
The Drowning Man (aka Lost)
Shatter
Bleed for Me
The Wreckage
Say You’re Sorry
Watching You
Close Your Eyes
The Other Wife
Cyrus Haven series
Good Girl, Bad Girl
When She Was Good
Other fiction
The Night Ferry
Bombproof
Life or Death
The Secrets She Keeps
When You Are Mine
Copyright
Published by Sphere
ISBN: 978-0-7515-8159-1
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © Bookwrite Pty 2022
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Sphere
Little, Brown Book Group
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
Contents
About the Author
Also by Michael Robotham
Copyright
Chapter 1: Cyrus
Chapter 2: Evie
Chapter 3: Cyrus
Chapter 4: Evie
Chapter 5: Cyrus
Chapter 6: Evie
Chapter 7: Cyrus
Chapter 8: Cyrus
Chapter 9: Evie
Chapter 10: Cyrus
Chapter 11: Evie
Chapter 12: Cyrus
Chapter 13: Cyrus
Chapter 14: Evie
Chapter 15: Cyrus
Chapter 16: Evie
Chapter 17: Cyrus
Chapter 18: Cyrus
Chapter 19: Cyrus
Chapter 20: Evie
Chapter 21: Cyrus
Chapter 22: Evie
Chapter 23: Cyrus
Chapter 24: Evie
Chapter 25: Cyrus
Chapter 26: Evie
Chapter 27: Cyrus
Chapter 28: Evie
Chapter 29: Cyrus
Chapter 30: Evie
Chapter 31: Cyrus
Chapter 32: Evie
Chapter 33: Cyrus
Chapter 34: Evie
Chapter 35: Cyrus
Chapter 36: Evie
Chapter 37: Cyrus
Chapter 38: Evie
Chapter 39: Cyrus
Chapter 40: Evie
Chapter 41: Cyrus
Chapter 42: Evie
Chapter 43: Cyrus
Chapter 44: Evie
Chapter 45: Cyrus
Chapter 46: Cyrus
Chapter 47: Evie
Chapter 48: Cyrus
Chapter 49: Evie
Chapter 50: Cyrus
Chapter 51: Cyrus
Chapter 52: Cyrus
Chapter 53: Cyrus
Chapter 54: Evie
Chapter 55: Cyrus
Chapter 56: Evie
Chapter 57: Cyrus
Chapter 58: Evie
Chapter 59: Cyrus
Chapter 60: Cyrus
Chapter 61: Evie
Chapter 62: Cyrus
Chapter 63: Evie
Chapter 64: Cyrus
Chapter 65: Cyrus
Chapter 66: Evie
Chapter 67: Cyrus
Chapter 68: Evie
Chapter 69: Cyrus
Chapter 70: Evie
Chapter 71: Cyrus
Chapter 72: Evie
Chapter 73: Cyrus
Chapter 74: Evie
Chapter 75: Cyrus
Chapter 76: Evie
Chapter 77: Cyrus
‘Tell me what you can’t forget, and I’ll tell you who you are.’
— Julie Buntin, Marlena
1
Cyrus
If I could tell you one thing about my brother it would be this: two days after his nineteenth birthday, he killed our parents and our twin sisters because he heard voices in his head. As defining events go, nothing else comes close for Elias, or for me.
I have often tried to imagine what went through his mind on that cool autumn evening, when our neighbours began closing their curtains to the coming night and the streetlights shone with misty yellow halos. What did the voices say? What possible words could have made him do the things he did?
I have tortured myself with what-ifs and maybes. What if I hadn’t stopped to buy hot chips on my way home from football practice? What if I hadn’t propped my bike outside Ailsa Piper’s house, hoping to glimpse her in her garden, or coming home from her netball practice? What if I had pedalled faster and arrived home sooner? Could I have stopped him, or would I be dead too?
I am the boy who survived, the one who hid in the garden shed, crouching among the tools, smelling the kerosene and paint fumes and grass clippings, while sirens echoed through the streets of Nottingham.
In my nightmares, I always wake as I step into the kitchen, wearing muddy football socks. My mother is lying on the floor amid the frozen peas, which had spilled across the white tiles. Chicken stock is bubbling on the stove and her famous paella had begun to stick in the heavy-based pan.
I miss my mum the most. I feel guilty about playing favourites, but nobody is around to criticise my choices, except for Elias, and he doesn’t get to choose. Ever.
Dad died in the sitting room, crouching in front of the DVD player because one of the twins had managed to get a disc stuck in the machine. He raised one hand to protect himself and lost two fingers and a thumb, before the knife severed his spine.
Upstairs, in the bedroom, Esme and April were doing their homework or playing games. April, older by twenty minutes, and therefore bossier, was usually the first to do everything, but it was April, dressed in a unicorn onesie, who ran towards the knife, trying to protect her sister. Esme had to be dragged from under her bed and died with a rug bunched beneath her body and a ukulele in her hand.
Many of these details have the power to close my throat or wake me screaming, but as snapshots they are fading. My memories aren’t as vivid as they once were. The colours. The smells. The sounds. The fear.
For example, I can no longer remember what colour dress my mother was wearing, or which of the twins had her hair in braids that week. (Esme and April took it in turns to help their teachers differentiate between them, or maybe to confuse them further.)
And I can’t remember if Dad had opened a bottle of home brew – a six o’clock ritual in our household – when he uncapped his latest batch with a brass Winston Churchill bottle opener. With great ceremony, he would pour the ‘amber nectar’ into a pint glass, holding it up to the light to study the colour and opacity. And when he drank, he would swish that first sip around in his mouth, sucking in air like a wine connoisseur, saying things like, ‘Bit malty … a little cloudy … a tad early … half decent … buttery … quenching … perfect in another week.’