She was thinking she would never go back. She would never hammer nails into wooden boards, with Andy working at her side in companionable silence; never make porridge and sit at her kitchen table looking out on to water and sky, or wake in her little gable room in the watches of the night and hear the roar and shush of the waves; never walk down to the cove and take off her clothes and slide her body into the vast darkness of the sea; never suffer her demons and herself in this place that she had thought she could rescue but which had nearly destroyed her. She had been wrong to imagine she could return to call this place home or could ever put the past safely behind her, when all the time it lay inside.
‘What am I thinking?’
She glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw the village dwindle into nothing; just a few lamps winking in the morning and smoke rising from a chimney. For a brief moment, she thought a small, scowling girl with a mop of dark hair was standing on the verge, holding a sticky fistful of blackberries, but it was just a trick of the light.
‘I’m thinking that this is where I start.’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As always, we owe so much to so many.
At United Agents, thanks to dear Sarah Ballard, always our first reader. (Needless to say, everyone that follows is dear as well.) Eli Keren and St John Donald are a constant support.
We’re grateful to Sam Edenborough and Nicki Kennedy and the rest of the team at Intercontinental Literary Agency for their guidance and friendship over many years.
At Simon & Schuster: Jo Dickinson read the book just before heading off to fresh woods and pastures new and then handed it over to Suzanne Baboneau. We know how lucky we are to have (or have had) both of them – for their intelligence, sensitivity and ability to spell words like ‘acknowledgements’.
Thanks to Hayley McMullan for her passion and imagination. Thanks to Jess Barratt for indomitably and cheerfully accompanying us down some very mean streets around the United Kingdom.
And thanks to Ian Chapman for benignly watching over us.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nicci French is the pseudonym for the writing partnership of journalists Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. The couple are married and live in London and Suffolk. They have written 22 books together.
www.simonandschuster.com.au/authors/Nicci-French
Also by Nicci French
Frieda Klein Novels
Blue Monday
Tuesday’s Gone
Waiting for Wednesday
Thursday’s Child
Friday on My Mind
Saturday Requiem
Sunday Morning Coming Down
Day of the Dead
Other Novels
The Memory Game
The Safe House
Killing Me Softly
Beneath the Skin
The Red Room
Land of the Living
Secret Smile
Catch Me When I Fall
Losing You
Until It’s Over
What to Do When Someone Dies
Complicit
The Lying Room
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First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2020
Copyright © Nicci French, 2020. All rights reserved.
The right of Nicci French to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4711-7927-3
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4711-7928-0
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4711-9857-1
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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