The Holiday

by T. M. Logan

  Not bad for a nerd, Mummy, he’d said through his tears.

  No, I’d said through mine, not bad at all.

  Beside me, Daniel studies the order of service, his little hand tight in mine. The bandages are gone now. I squeeze it gently and he squeezes back, once, twice. Our secret code.

  Chris, the new partner Izzy had been so excited about, sits next to him.

  Or Christine, to use her full name.

  Of course I had assumed in France that her new love was a man, but Izzy had never actually said that. I knew now why she had been cagey, not revealing too many details too soon – she had wanted to tell us at her own pace, in her own way. She had been so looking forward to starting that next chapter in her life, so excited to make the most of her second chance.

  But that story will never be told. Not now.

  The priest stood up.

  ‘Dearly beloved, we meet here today to honour and pay tribute to the life of Isobel Margaret O’Rourke. Or, as most of you knew her, Izzy. Loving daughter, devoted sister, doting auntie, a true and loyal friend.’

  My throat tightened and I waited for the tears to start again. But this time my eyes stayed dry.

  A true and loyal friend.

  82

  An email arrived the day after the funeral, from an unrecognised address.

  The subject line said simply: Reminder.

  There was no text, just a link to the video. I knew what it was and who had sent it as soon as I saw the link, but I clicked on it anyway. Watched the video again, even though I knew it line for line, word for word. Every second seared into my brain.

  ‘You want him to have an accident?’

  Lucy’s voice in response.

  ‘Yeah. Yeah I do.’

  It was still secret, still password-protected and private, only four of us now who even knew it existed. Me, Sean, Jennifer and – of course – Jake.

  I read the subject line again.

  Reminder.

  A reminder of my promise, my oath to Jennifer to keep our secret. I had given her my word. And Jennifer knew she could trust me because of who I was, because she knew what I was like: straight as a die. Make a deal and stick to it.

  But we had all seen what secrets did to people, even to the very best of friends. Even to a friendship that had endured for half a lifetime. The secret that now bound Jennifer and me together had also torn us apart. I had been thinking about that a lot, since returning from France, about secrets, and lies, and taking responsibility for what we’ve done. About the ghosts that follow us, the damage we leave behind.

  About justice.

  I thought about that now as I sat in my car, on a suburban street in Ealing.

  In one way I was grateful to her for sending me the reminder email, because it helped to make the situation perfectly clear, in case I had been in any doubt: safety for Lucy meant justice denied for Izzy, for Alex Bayley. It meant this one careless comment would be hanging over my daughter forever, with the power to wreck her brilliant future, even though she was not the one who had got behind the wheel of the car.

  It meant lying – for the rest of our lives.

  Unless I took the initiative.

  Jennifer had made her choice. She had been willing to sacrifice anything – even my son’s life – to protect her own children. She had shown me the way.

  Now it was my turn to make a choice.

  A true and loyal friend.

  Two people were dead, their lives snuffed out. And if we allowed their deaths to go unpunished, we were all as good as lost. Their loved ones deserved to know why: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

  Most of it, anyway.

  Izzy’s family deserved justice. Alex Bayley’s family too.

  And as I now knew, sometimes justice needed a helping hand.

  *

  Checking up and down the street one last time, I got out of my car into the morning drizzle. Heart beating wildly in my chest, I opened my umbrella and held it low over my head as I walked up the short drive to the house, through the side gate to the garden and the back door. I carried a clipboard and a shoulder bag, with a lanyard around my neck, in a trouser suit with a white blouse plus clear-lens glasses. To the casual observer I was just another anonymous charity fundraiser knocking on doors and generally making a nuisance of myself. Worse still, a local councillor looking for votes or a Jehovah’s Witness giving away copies of The Watchtower. All to be avoided, if possible.

  The house backed onto a railway line and was not overlooked by the neighbours on either side. From my pocket, I pulled on a pair of disposable latex gloves and plastic covers for my shoes.

  No traces. No fingerprints.

  From my other pocket I produced the back door key that I’d had for years. With one last quick look back to the street, I eased the door open and let myself in. The cats – Pickle and Maisy – were onto me straightaway, trotting into the kitchen and rubbing around my shins. To them I was just the person who fed them when Alistair and Jennifer were away. My arrival meant food.

  ‘Not today, ladies,’ I said, shutting the back door behind me. ‘Sorry.’

  I went through the house quickly, double-checking all the rooms. I’d watched them all leave this morning but wanted to be sure. The boys were at school and Alistair was at work, none of them due back for hours. I hated myself for what I was about to do, hated the creepiness of skulking around my friends’ empty house. But I had to do it, to protect Lucy. To protect my family.

  There were two things that needed to be done.

  First, the car.

  From the hallway, I went through the connecting door into the garage. In the days after Jake’s hit-and-run, as they corresponded secretly on Messenger, Sean had counselled Jennifer against taking the car in for immediate repairs because he thought it would look too suspicious. Better to wait a few weeks until the lad’s out of hospital and everything’s calmed down a bit. I was grateful, now, for his caution. Jennifer’s blue Volvo was here in the garage, still with minor damage to the front offside wing and the bonnet – dents and scratches in the bodywork where the car had hit Alex Bayley. It looked as if someone had tried to wash it down, but no matter: it was virtually impossible to get rid of every small trace of blood. I took my tools from my bag and chipped away some small flecks of paint from one of the damaged areas, sealing them inside a plastic evidence bag.

  Next, I went up to Jake’s bedroom.

  Sean had explained it to me. Every file – every document, every video, every email – leaves a unique footprint, a trail. If you have the right tools, and you know what to look for, you can map out the whole lifecycle of a particular file, its whole family tree, including how many copies have been made and where they’ve been sent or saved. He had followed the same process after hacking into Alex Bayley’s accounts to track down and delete copies of the naked video of our daughter.

  But the video of her inciting a crime was far more important.

  I knew Jennifer would have kept copies of that video to an absolute minimum. It was too dangerous to have multiple copies of an incriminating film in circulation as Alex Bayley lay seriously injured in a hospital bed. And I was right, for once: Sean’s investigations discovered only two additional copies, in addition to the one uploaded to VideoVault: the original MP4 file, shot on a mobile device, and one other copy stored locally. No emailed copies. Too risky.

  Mobile phones were strictly forbidden at school on pain of week-long confiscation. A full week of social death, in Lucy’s words, and it seemed to be an effective deterrent: Jake’s phone was where I hoped it would be, plugged in to charge in his bedroom. I unplugged it and took out the device that Sean had given me – no bigger than a memory stick, with a cable attached. Plugged it into Jake’s phone and watched as the screen unlocked and went first black, then white, a short message appearing.

  Are you sure you want to restore to default factory settings? Yes/no

  I hit yes – and the phone’s screen went bl
ack again as it deleted every file, every app, every picture, every video, restoring the mobile to its original newborn state. I plugged the charger back in and left it where I had found it.

  Two copies left.

  I went into the small study, booted up the PC and inserted the device into a USB slot.

  Launch BlueScreen for PC? y/n

  I hit yes.

  The screen went black, flashed with lines of code several times, then beeped once, twice. The screen went blue. I pressed all the keys. Turned it off and rebooted it. Blue screen again. No cursor, no mouse, no screensaver, no nothing.

  Blue screen of death, as Sean called it.

  One copy left.

  A few years ago, in a flap because she’d let her car insurance lapse while they were abroad, Jennifer had asked me to log into her account from this very same PC and renew her cover before they made the journey back from Gatwick. She kept all her passwords on a couple of sheets of handwritten A4 clipped into a black plastic binder.

  I opened the second desk drawer and dug beneath a stack of bank statements, found the black plastic binder. Same place. Same old Jennifer. The username and password for her VideoVault account was the newest addition at the bottom of the list. I took out a cheap pay-as-you-go phone and sent a text to an identical handset – both of which would soon be on their way to a landfill site.

  Ten miles away, in central London, my husband went to work at his keyboard. A text pinged on my throwaway phone two minutes later.

  It’s done x

  I took out my regular mobile phone, went to the email with the subject line Reminder, and clicked on the link to the video for the second time this morning.

  Error

  File not found

  I went back to the email and clicked on it again, just to double-check it was gone.

  Error

  File not found

  No copies left.

  Finally I checked the bedroom and the garage again, making sure to leave everything exactly as it was, before making my way back to the kitchen. The cats sat on the worktop, staring at me, still expecting to be fed. I put down a little bit of dry food in their bowls and sent a quick reply to my husband on the pay-as-you-go phone.

  Same here x

  Outside the back door, I took off the plastic overshoes and latex gloves and put them back into my jacket pocket. Umbrella up, clipboard under my arm, I shut the side gate behind me and walked back to my car. The rain was heavier now, a steady downpour signalling the end of summer and the beginning of a cold, dark autumn.

  Turning the keys in the ignition, I drove away.

  I knew what she would do when the video evidence of Lucy’s involvement in the crime was erased. Jennifer would take the fall for all of it, take all of the blame on herself for the deaths of both Izzy and Alex. Because admitting one would mean admitting the other – and to keep her son out of it, she would have to keep Lucy out of it, too. She would provide a human shield for her son.

  But it would be justice for Izzy, at least.

  I hoped that would be enough.

  83

  DS Foster

  Detective Sergeant Hayley Foster pulled up and parked, squinting into the low September sunshine.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘What number are we on now?’

  Her colleague, a brand-new DC she was babysitting through his first week out of uniform, ran his finger down the page of a file in his lap. The sheet showed a list of names and addresses, most with large ticks added in messy blue biro.

  ‘This is the thirteenth,’ he said. ‘Only three more to go after this one.’

  ‘You know, Rob, thirteen is my lucky number.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No.’ She sighed heavily, unclipping her seatbelt. ‘Come on, let’s get it done.’

  She got out of the car, taking the list from the young DC as they crossed the street and walked up the short drive to the house. It was their second day of driving around, knocking on doors, ticking names off a list. She was starting to suspect that their search area was not large enough. If these addresses were all duds, they’d have to expand to take in the whole of west and north London, and so on, and so on. The Bayley hit-and-run had been kicked up the priority list since the boy’s death, with more media attention and more pressure from the powers that be to get a result. Luckily, a closer re-examination of the victim’s bicycle by forensics earlier this week had revealed microscopic fragments of dark blue paint, embedded in the frame. Further analysis had matched the paint to a Volvo V40.

  The paint fragments had been missed on first examination.

  There were a total of sixteen matching cars registered in Ealing, Acton and Wembley, in the immediate vicinity of the incident and the starting place for renewed police enquiries.

  DS Foster consulted the list in her hand and rang the doorbell.

  A bearded man opened the door, late forties, unkempt and red-eyed.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Alistair Marsh?’

  ‘Yes?’

  She held up her police ID in its wallet.

  ‘My name’s DS Foster and this,’ she indicated her colleague, ‘is DC McKevitt. Would you mind if we came in for a few minutes?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We’re carrying out an investigation into a hit-and-run. A teenage boy was knocked off his bike and killed not far from here. You may have read about it, seen it on the news?’

  ‘Indeed.’ He stood up a little straighter. ‘What’s that got to do with me?’

  ‘Are you the owner of a blue Volvo V40?’ She read out the registration.

  Alistair crossed his arms.

  ‘No.’

  DS Foster checked her list again.

  ‘It’s registered at this—’

  ‘It’s my wife’s car.’

  ‘Jennifer Marsh?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Is the vehicle here?’

  ‘In the garage.’

  ‘We’re going to need to look at it.’

  For a moment she thought he was going to argue, but then he just gave a quick nod. ‘I see.’

  ‘Is your wife here? We’d like to talk to her as well.’

  ‘She’s . . . no, she’s not here. Not at the moment.’

  ‘Can you tell us when she’s due back?’

  Alistair shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he said, his voice lowering. ‘Jennifer’s . . . in France. It could be some time before she’s back.’

  ‘A holiday?’

  ‘It was a holiday, at least to begin with. But it’s turned into a rather extended stay.’

  ‘Really? Why’s that, sir?’

  Alistair looked from one detective to the other, his shoulders sagging.

  ‘I think you’d better come in, officers.’

  He ushered the two detectives inside and shut the door softly behind them.

  Acknowledgements

  I remember when THE HOLIDAY started coming together. It was on my birthday, a long lunch with my wife talking about story and characters, plotlines and locations, when all the different elements that had been going around in my head for a while started to fall into place. So, to Sally – thanks, as always. A big shout-out also to her long-time friends Charlotte, Jenni and Rachel: the fact that you four have been going away for long weekends together for years is a total coincidence (honest).

  Thanks as ever to my excellent agent, Camilla Bolton, whose experience, guidance and enthusiasm were crucial in the creation of this novel. And to her colleagues at Darley Anderson – Sheila, Mary, Kristina, Rosanna, Roya – you are the best.

  My brilliant editors at Zaffre, Sophie Orme and Margaret Stead, helped to make this story better in every way. Thanks also to Jennie Rothwell, Francesca Russell and Felice McKeown, for all their hard work behind the scenes on this and my previous novels.

  Massive thanks to you, for picking up this book in the first place. To everyone who has recommended it to a friend or had kind words to say about this or my previous two boo
ks – I really do appreciate it.

  Likewise, to all the bloggers who have given time and space to my stories, the wonderful library staff who have asked me to come and talk to readers, the festival organisers who have invited me to speak at their events – sincere thanks. I’m very grateful to Dan Donson of Waterstones Nottingham, for providing a wonderful venue for my book launches and giving me the opportunity to meet one of my very favourite writers, Michael Connelly.

  Thanks to Dr Gill Sare, for advice on medical matters. I’m also indebted to Paul Boyer, French winemaker extraordinaire, who was very generous with his time talking about all things Languedoc (his organic wines also come highly recommended). Thank you to my fellow author Diane Jeffrey, for help with the French text, and for putting me in touch with Michael Moran who answered my questions on French policing. Anyone who has been to Autignac or the surrounding area will know I’ve taken a few liberties with the local geography, for story purposes, but it remains an absolutely delightful little village in a beautiful part of southern France.

  To my children, Sophie and Tom – thanks for being two of my first readers, and for picking up things that no one else has seen. To my Mum and Dad, for their continuing support, and to Jenny and Bernard, John and Sue for promoting my books at home and abroad (you really should be on commission).

  This book is dedicated to my big brothers, Ralph and Ollie, with whom I shared a lot of holidays when we were growing up – luckily, they were never like Jake and Ethan (although they did bury me in a hole in the garden once). Thanks for your kind words of encouragement, your ideas and your interest in my writing over the years. The beers are on me.

  About the Author

  T.M. Logan is a former science reporter for the Daily Mail and subsequently worked in higher education communications. He was born in Berkshire to an English father and German mother. His debut novel Lies was a number-one bestseller and has sold over 300,000 copies. He now lives in Nottinghamshire with his wife and two children.

  Also by T.M. Logan