The Life I Left Behind
Page 33
Remember, she instructs herself, you can last longer than anyone you know.
Twenty-one … twenty-two …
Pressure rises inside her skull. Her stomach bloats.
Forty-five … forty-six …
She has gone deep now, deeper than she has before. Stephen’s voice is barely audible through the water. The temptation is to move but she knows this would be a mistake. She remains still. Her limbs are light, as if they are detaching themselves from her body.
Sixty-four … sixty-five …
There’s a thudding noise. She has no idea where it is coming from. Muffled sounds. She is too deep to make them out.
Shafts of light pierce her vision. Her body begins to move through the water, propelled forward by a current. Her hands are outstretched. The light dazzles now as she picks up speed. Her body weightless.
She is almost there, by Eve’s side.
Part Three
Eve
IT IS HAPPENING again. Everything Melody is experiencing channels through me: the paralysing fear, the fading hope, the first squeeze of his fingers around your neck. You think: it can’t, it won’t end like this. You think someone will come to save you. Because that’s what always happens. Except it doesn’t. Not always.
Initially I thought I’d been left in this limbo as a punishment. But the truth slammed into me just as the girl had promised it would.
You just know.
And I did.
This is why I haven’t left her side in days. Why I was with her in the house when Sam confronted her, and later when he locked her in. Why yesterday I watched her leave the police station and wade through a sea of commuters, the spill of her blond hair, her translucent pallor, like a ghost cut out of the lilac evening sky. She was oblivious to the moment that was passing, blind to its significance.
I wasn’t. I knew exactly where she was going – the sliding-doors moment on which her life pivoted.
I was left behind for her, and for second chances.
By the time she reaches me, she is already travelling at speed. There’s a rush in the air, a trace of heat that doesn’t belong here. A muscular current propels her onwards. But I won’t let her go. Not yet. She has a choice, and only a few beats in which to make it before life slips away altogether.
It would be easy to allow the lightness to consume your body, to surrender to the intoxicating, dizzying pull of it. To allow him to win, I say.
But then everything would be lost.
This is all we share, a single moment. Everything.
And then we say goodbye.
Melody
SHE SEES EVERYTHING through a mist, thinks for a moment that she is dead and that this is heaven. The momentary delusion is dispelled by a voice that doesn’t sound like God’s, unless God happens to be male and speaks with a familiar Geordie accent. ‘She’s opened her eyes.’ The words perforate the membrane of silence that has surrounded Melody’s world for … how long? Years? A lifetime?
‘Someone get a doctor, quickly.’ A door opens and slams, footsteps running. Voices distant, then louder, deafening. Every noise is amplified, throbs through her eardrums, echoes through her brain. She’d like to turn down the volume. She could ask, couldn’t she? But her throat is raw, swollen, like someone’s been feeding her splinters of glass.
Her eyes move towards the voice. Just a few degrees, that does it. It’s a man’s outline. His hair is combed into a small quiff. Strands of light filter into the room. The metal of his watch glints and blinds her.
‘Can you hear me, Melody? It’s Nat.’
It takes her a moment to adjust, to place herself in her surroundings. She has the sense that she has been here before, living the same event over again. The room, the tightness in her throat, the face smiling at her from the chair, they are all so familiar.
And yet it is different too. Memories surface slowly, steadily, tell her exactly why she is here. There’s no struggle to recollect, no dark shadows to obscure her view. There will be no need to rely on what others tell her. She knows.
‘They got to you in the nick of time, Melody,’ the voice says. He brushes his hand against hers. She sees the beginning of a smile creep across his face. ‘It’s going to be OK.’
It is her turn to smile.
Acknowledgements
Were it not for the generosity and brilliance of many people The Life I Left Behind might still be an idea on a scrap of paper. I owe them my gratitude and my sanity.
To Colin Sutton, former Detective Chief Inspector at the Metropolitan Police, thank you for answering my emails quickly and with humour and keeping me up to date with the weather in the East.
To Louise Shorter, who overturned many wrongful convictions at BBC Rough Justice and whose work continues at Inside Justice, thank you for guiding me through your world. In the interests of fiction I have made it appear easier than it is.
To Dr Peter Bull, sedimentologist at Oxford University, huge thanks for allowing me to reproduce your words. The soil analysis is yours, any mistakes are my own.
To Beverley Adams-Groom, Chief Palynologist at the University of Worcester, thank you for finding Hibiscus Syriacus, the perfect flower for the story.
To Tracy Alexander, thank you for sharing your knowledge.
To my friends Lynne Gothard – for legal advice – and Dr Niamh Power and Dr Cliona O’Connell for being very knowledgeable in areas where I don’t have a clue, the drinks are on me.
And to Victoria Rutter, who paid money to a good cause to have her name in the novel, then wondered what on earth she’d let herself in for. DI Rutter is not you but I think you would be friends.
I’m lucky to have the following people on my side:
My agent Nicola Barr at Greene and Heaton, who knew exactly what the story needed and saved me from my ‘Scooby Doo’ moments.
Imogen Taylor who waited and trusted and embraced the novel wholeheartedly.
The Headline team; Emma Holtz, Jo Liddiard, Ben Willis to name a few, you are brilliant.
Kelley Ragland at Minotaur whose enthusiasm makes me smile, and my wonderful publishers Blanvalet in Germany.
Once again, thanks to my family, Jacqueline McBeth, Liz and Danny McBeth, for being so proud and selling my books to all you meet. And to Margaret and John Curran for their support.
To my friends for wine, support, laughs and childcare.
To the wonderful book bloggers and readers who have contacted me on Twitter and Facebook or through my website. Your words of encouragement go a long way on a dark morning.
To Finlay, Milo and Sylvie, who are amazing little people. Yes, I have finished the book now.
And to Paul for asking the right question, and for everything else. I really did get lucky.
Thank you.
About Colette McBeth
Colette McBeth was a BBC TV News Correspondent for ten years. She lives in West London with her husband and three young children. She attended the Faber Academy Novel Writing Course in 2011. Her first novel, Precious Thing, was published in 2013.
Also by Colette McBeth
Precious Thing
The Life I Left Behind
Praise for Colette McBeth
‘An impressive debut’ --The Times
‘An excellent storyteller … Precious Thing is more than deserving of a place on the modern thriller bookshelf’ --Sunday Express
‘A cleverly crafted tale … If you’re a fan of Gone Girl, you’ll love this’ --Sunday Mirror
‘Truthfully, I would go on for hours about what I loved about this psychologically disturbing, thoroughly readable, cleverly written book’ --Fabulousmag.co.uk
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