The officers take her to the counter at the front of the station and they talk about something I don’t catch. The solicitor leaves and then they bring her over to the area where I’ve been waiting. She yawns but smiles wearily through it. Her hair is limp but there’s a curly bit at the front from where she must have been twiddling it.
‘Morning,’ she whispers, linking her arm into mine. I don’t resist.
The officer asks if she understands when she has to return to answer bail and, after Charley says she does, she is officially free to go.
Our car is still at the Willis family house – evidence, apparently – though I’m not exactly sure for what. We’re in Langton, the place closest to where Charley lived as a child. There are no buses at this time on a Sunday, no obvious way to get back except for a taxi perhaps.
‘Do you want a walk?’ Charley asks.
I’d rather sleep but we have a lot to discuss.
‘Yes,’ I reply.
Charley squeezes my hand and interlocks her fingers with mine. I let her but don’t press back. ‘You waited,’ she says.
‘You’re my wife.’
She squishes my fingers again as we head onto the pavement and set off in the vague direction of… I’m not even sure. It’s much too far to walk home, but the sun is on its way up. The sky is a smoky wash of red and orange and it’s already warm.
‘Are you in trouble?’ I ask.
‘Maybe. My solicitor says there are plenty of mitigating circumstances.’
I wait and then it comes.
‘…For going missing,’ she adds. ‘They’re looking at wasting police time, but they can find out that Liam was in financial trouble. They know he took his daughters to the house, that he had problems.’ She pauses. ‘And it’s my word against someone who can’t claim any differently.’
I would tell her that it’s our word. I’ve told the police pretty much what I would imagine she has. Given the police will take some sort of statement from Helen, plus there will be toxicity tests on her and the twins to find out whatever it was Liam doped them with, that will be a pretty powerful picture painted against him.
‘Jasmine and Skye are at the hospital,’ Charley says. ‘An officer said they were going to pick up Helen and take her there – but that was hours ago. I should call her. The officer said he’d spoken to a paramedic who thought they were going to be fine.’
She doesn’t mention Liam.
‘Did you tell the police about Martha?’ I ask.
There’s a long pause, only the sound of our footsteps interrupting the morning quiet.
‘Didn’t seem much point,’ Charley says eventually. ‘Not now. What are they going to do? No one can prove anything. I’ll tell Mason. He’s been through enough.’
‘What about your parents?’
Charley is silent. She points over towards an elaborate building that has a spire on top. ‘That’s the town hall,’ she says. ‘There’s a plaque for Mum and Dad out front. There’s another in the park behind, too. People lay flowers every year.’
We continue walking and I can’t believe how loud the birds are. From nowhere, it’s like they’ve all got up early to do their absolute best to annoy the town. C’mon, fellas, it’s a Sunday.
‘That wasn’t me with my parents,’ she says after a long break. ‘I mean, it was. But not me as I am now. I was thirteen. That was Charlotte. I’m not like that any longer. Martha saved me.’
I think about that blink at the Willis house. The push or the stumble. I told the officers I didn’t see what happened, that I was distracted by the spinning red and blue lights. If they’d seen properly, they wouldn’t be asking. Besides, she saved a baby, didn’t she?
‘I’m sorry,’ Charley says quietly. ‘I’m sorry for leaving. I’m sorry for lying. I’m sorry for not telling you about everything else with my parents.’ A pause and then: ‘I think the Willis curse is real.’
I don’t reply. I’m not sure I can.
‘I don’t mean a curse like a horror-movie thing, I mean I think my family is broken. Mum and Dad never wanted me. Liam was right – I was a prop to them. I did something awful. Martha helped cover it up. Liam did something terrible to her – and now look at him. Everyone’s gone. It’s only me left – but look at what I did to you. Look what I let Liam talk me into. Look at what he was going to do to his own daughters. We are cursed, or perhaps it’s just me…?’
She leaves it there and I know she probably wants me to refute it. To say that she’s not a jinx at all. Then I wonder what Jan Astley might think of it all.
I wonder if I still believe what I thought before. When you meet a person, if that is a new starting point, if you can forgive everything that went before, then you surely can’t have a second starting point. How many lines can a person draw?
Thirteen-year-old Charlotte Willis was a different person than the Charley Willis I know and so, perhaps, the past is the past. She didn’t tell me about her parents and she had a reason for that.
The problem is that blink. The push or the accidental fall. Left eye. Right eye. A killer. A saviour.
We’re not holding hands any longer. I’m not sure if it was me who let go, or her.
I need to sleep; we need to go to the hospital. At some point we’ll be back at the police station. Pamela will probably call. Charley’s a liar, a rescuer, or both together.
Her brother’s descent into madness, the kidnapping of his daughters and subsequent death is even bigger than what happened last week, which has left us back at the beginning. Liam got so much wrong, but he was right about this: tragedy sells. Misery sells – and, my word, if there are two things that the Willis family does well, it’s tragedy and misery.
They say you can’t choose your family, but I chose mine a week ago.
The problem is that I have no idea what I picked.
If you were hooked by THE WIFE’S SECRET, you'll love THE GIRL WHO CAME BACK, a totally absorbing psychological thriller with an ending you won't see coming.
The Girl Who Came Back
Thirteen years ago Olivia Adams went missing. Now she’s back… or is she?
* * *
When six-year-old Olivia Adams disappeared from her back garden, the small community of Stoneridge was thrown into turmoil. How could a child vanish in the middle of a cosy English village?
* * *
Thirteen years on and Olivia is back. Her mother is convinced it’s her but not everyone is sure. If this is the missing girl, then where has she been - and what happened to her on that sunny afternoon?
* * *
If she's an imposter, then who would be bold enough to try to fool a child’s own mother – and why?
* * *
Then there are those who would rather Olivia stayed missing. The past is the past and some secrets must remain buried.
* * *
An absorbing and gripping psychological thriller that will have you holding your breath until the final page.
* * *
Order now!
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Also by Kerry Wilkinson
Standalone novels
Ten Birthdays
Two Sisters
The Girl Who Came Back
Last Night
* * *
The Jessica Daniel series
The Killer Inside
Vigilante
The Woman in Black
Think of the Children
Playing with Fire
The Missing Dead
Behind Closed Doors
Crossing the Line
Scarred for Life
For Richer, For Poorer
Nothing But Trouble
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Short Stories
January
February
April
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The Andrew Hunter series
Something Wicked
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Silver Blackthorn
Reckoning
Renegade
Resurgence
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Other
Down Among the Dead Men
No Place Like Home
Watched
A Letter from Kerry
I’ve written a fair few books over the past years. Within them all are different characters and scenarios. Good people and bad. Ones that came easily, others that didn’t. In among the hundreds of creations who’ve been scattered among those pages, nobody has had the effect on me that Martha Willis did.
After I finished writing this book, Martha was stuck in my head like nobody I’ve ever written about before. I ended up writing another novel entirely – Two Sisters – because I couldn’t get past the relationship between Martha and Charley here. (I realise Two Sisters came out before this – but I wrote it afterwards.)
In literary terms, what happened to Martha here is probably the worst thing I’ve ever done to a character. I still can’t quite believe it. I knew her fate before I started writing and the closer I got to her end, the more it felt like I couldn’t quite write the words. She didn’t deserve what happened to her.
This is the end of Charley and Seth’s story. There is no sequel, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking about poor Charley from time to time. She’s the best and the worst of me. The light and the darkness. The thing I like most about this job and the thing I could live without.
I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed building Charley’s world. If you did, please do leave a review on your platform of choice. It’ll mean a lot.
Cheers,
Kerry Wilkinson, May 2018
Last Night
An absolutely gripping psychological thriller with a brilliant twist
Order here!
* * *
It’s the early hours of the morning and Rose Denton wakes up behind the steering wheel of her car. She’s off the road, through a hedge and in a field.
* * *
There’s blood on the windscreen and bonnet – but it’s not hers and there’s no sign of anything or anyone she might have hit. The last thing she remembers is being in a hotel on a business trip but now she’s miles away.
* * *
Back home and her daughter’s boyfriend is missing. The last thing he did was argue with Rose over money. He left no note, no text, no clue as to his whereabouts.
* * *
The police have questions – and so does Rose’s family. But those are little compared to the ones she has for herself.
* * *
What happened last night? And, perhaps more importantly, does she really want to know the answer?
* * *
A totally addictive psychological thriller which will keep you turning the pages until the final dramatic twist.
* * *
Order here!
Two Sisters
A gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist
They told us he had been missing for nearly two days, that he probably drowned. They told us a lie.
* * *
Megan was ten years old when her older brother, Zac, went missing among the cliffs, caves and beaches that surround the small seaside town of Whitecliff.
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A decade later and a car crash has claimed the lives of her parents.
* * *
Megan and her younger sister Chloe return to Whitecliff one summer for the first time since their brother’s disappearance. Megan says it’s to get her parents’ affairs in order. There are boxes to pack, junk to clear, a rundown cottage to sell. But that’s not the real reason.
* * *
Megan has come to confront her family’s past after receiving a postcard on the day of her parents’ funeral. It had a photograph of Whitecliff on the front and a single letter on the back.
* * *
‘Z’ is all it read.
* * *
Z for Zac.
* * *
A totally gripping psychological thriller that will have fans of Louise Jensen, Sue Fortin and The Silent Child absolutely hooked.
* * *
Get it here!
Published by Bookouture
An imprint of StoryFire Ltd.
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
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www.bookouture.com
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Copyright © Kerry Wilkinson 2018
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Kerry Wilkinson has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work.
* * *
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
* * *
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events other than those clearly in the public domain are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-78681-706-8
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