by Alex Lake
And now all that remained was the sentencing.
‘Alfie Daniels,’ the judge said. ‘This court has heard that, having first deceived her, you murdered a vibrant young woman for no reason other than your own convenience and pleasure. More than that, you did so while treating your wife with a callousness and lack of respect that is frankly nothing short of breathtaking. You have shown no signs of remorse or regret, and, taken with your selfishness and disregard for the welfare of others, this marks you as a significant danger to society. As such I sentence you to life imprisonment, with a minimum of fifteen years.’
The gavel came down. In the dock, Alfie stared at the judge. He gave no sign of any emotion as two guards took an arm each and led him to a door at the back of the courtroom.
As they opened it, he turned and looked up at Claire.
She held his gaze, unblinking, until the guards pulled him through the door, and then he was gone.
She looked at the door – wooden, plain, functional – for a moment, and then watched as the courtroom emptied. She shifted in her seat, aware that she needed the toilet.
She’d been holding it until after the verdict, because there was something she needed to do.
She reached into her bag and took a long, thin cylinder. She’d found the pregnancy test that morning, left over from when she and Alfie had been – supposedly – trying for a baby.
She wasn’t trying now – it was too early in their relationship for that conversation with Declan, the man she’d met two months ago – but they’d been a bit careless a few weeks back, and now she was late.
It felt different than before. She felt tired, in a way she’d never felt before.
And she’d decided this was the perfect time to find out, when Alfie was gone, and gone for a long time.
She put the test back in her bag and stood up. She walked down the stairs to the main entrance. The toilets were off to the left. She looked at the woman on the sign, the universal figure that denoted a female toilet.
It was so familiar, but when she came out, it would be different. Everything would.
She pushed the door open, and went inside, her heart racing. She wondered how Declan would take it, wondered whether he’d be happy or worried or terrified. Whether he’d run a mile.
She smiled. It didn’t matter.
Everything was about to be new again.
Acknowledgements
The more books I write, the more I realise how much I rely on the guidance, advice and wisdom of other people, whether as a sounding board for ideas, editorial input, or just general support and encouragement when – as they always are at some point – those are the things that are needed most.
Warmest thanks, therefore, to Becky Ritchie – unfailingly positive and supportive and an early, critical eye – Sarah Hodgson – patient, generous and insightful, which must be three of the most important qualities in an editor – and Tahnthawan Coffin, for, well, more or less everything.
A shout out to Marcus Deck for – once again – medical advice. This time he was on holiday somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere when he replied to an email asking for details of vasectomy scars. Thank you, Marcus.
And an extra-special thank you to O, F and A for their invaluable input into the cover design. It wouldn’t be the same without you (although sorry the cobwebs and spiders didn’t make it this time).
Read on for a sneak preview of Alex Lake’s new novel
SEVEN DAYS
Coming soon
Seven Days To Go: Saturday
Suddenly it was so close.
Max’s birthday – his third birthday, the one that counted – was right below the date she had just crossed out.
Which meant it was a week until 23 June.
Seven days away. That was all. Seven more days until it happened. She had been trying to ignore it, but seeing it there, underneath today’s date, made that impossible.
It was a wonder she had the calendar at all. She had started keeping it on the fifth day after she had been locked in this basement. If she hadn’t done it back then there was no doubt she would soon have lost track of time; as it was, she knew exactly how much time had passed, how many years – twelve, soon to be thirteen – since she had seen her parents and brother and older cousin Anne, who she had been on the way to meet when she made the mistake of speaking to the man in the car that slowed to a stop next to her.
When she had started the calendar she’d had no idea that more than a decade later she would still be using it – she had expected to be free well before this much time had gone by, although even after five days she was starting to understand this might be something that lasted much longer than she could have ever expected. She was glad she had, though, glad she had asked for some paper and a pencil – the pencil was a short, yellow one from Ikea, she recalled – and sketched out a calendar in tiny figures. It was her only link to the outside world. On the birthdays and anniversaries of her friends and relatives, she could imagine them having parties and opening presents, and in doing so, she felt, in a way, that she was with them.
It also meant she knew the birthday of her son, Max. Of all three of her sons, as it happened. Max – she’d named him after the boy in Where the Wild Things Are, because that boy was able to escape his room through a magic door and travel to the island where the Wild Things lived, and freedom was what she wanted more than anything for Max, even though she knew he never would – had been born on 23 June 2015, and ever since she’d had one dread eye on the day three years from then when he would turn three.
When Jack, her first son, turned three, the door to the basement had opened and he – the man whose name she still did not know and who she thought of only as the man – had come in. Unsmiling, as usual, but with a nervousness which was new.
He pointed at her son. At his son.
Give him to me, he said.
Why? she replied.
Just give him to me.
No.
I want to show him the world. I’ll bring him back later.
She refused again.
It’s his birthday. I’ll get him ice cream. Take him to a park. Think of what you’re denying him.
So she agreed.
It was the last time she saw her firstborn. The next time the man came he was alone.
She asked for Jack hundreds – thousands, maybe – of times, but he always shook his head. He refused to say where her boy was. Once, he said, Don’t worry, he’s safe, but she didn’t believe it. If a three-year-old boy had suddenly appeared in his life, people would have asked where he came from, who his mother was. There was no way he wanted those questions, so she thought she knew what he had done to Jack.
He was – and she fought against the conclusion – dead. Buried in some forest grave, never to be found.
The thought made her ill. She lost weight – a lot of weight, tens of pounds – but it didn’t stop the man coming to the basement and gesturing to the bed in the corner with that funny little nod of his then waiting for her to lie down and undress before he lay on top of her and did what he did while she closed her eyes and waited for it to be over and for him to be back upstairs in his house where she didn’t have to look at him.
And, of course, the thing she had feared most came to pass again. Another child. She tried to stop it. Tried to starve the baby to death inside her, but all that happened was she grew thinner and thinner herself until the man noticed and figured out what was going on and forced her to eat. Why, she didn’t know. Why he wanted the baby to be born was a mystery to her, but then most of what he did was a mystery to her. How could you understand a man who locked a fifteen-year-old girl in a basement for years, then stole her son? Why even try?
And then the new baby was born. A boy again. Leo. Pink and beautiful and red-haired. He was different to Jack. Smaller. More watchful. Quicker. By the time he was two he could talk, whole sentences. At two and a half he could read.
At three he was gone. On his birthday, the man came. He pointed at Leo.
Give him to me, he said.
No, she replied. Not this time.
Yes, he said, in his heavy, slow voice. Yes.
This time she fought, but it was no use. She held Leo to her chest, but the man hit her and forced her on to her back and held his forearm against her throat until he had Leo and she was unconscious. The last thing she saw before she passed out was her beautiful boy wriggling from his arms and running away.
But there was only one place to go, and he went there.
Through the open door and up the stairs. Where the man planned to take him anyway.
The next time she saw him she didn’t bother asking where Leo was. There was no point.
And then, as though the universe was punishing her, the cycle repeated itself. The door opening. The nod at the bed. The disgusting act.
Then the missed period and the cramps and the feeling of being bloated and uncomfortable and then, nine months later, another baby.
Another boy.
Max, after the boy in Where the Wild Things Are.
Max, the curly-haired, always smiling, bright-eyed button of joy who she loved with an intensity that surpassed anything she had ever felt before, even with Jack and Leo, if only because since the day he had arrived she had known she had only three years with him, three short years into which she had to cram a lifetime of love.
Max, who would turn three in a week.
She looked at him, sleeping on the mattress they shared, spread-eagled on his back, mouth slightly open, and she shook her head.
It couldn’t happen again. It couldn’t.
But it would. She was powerless. The man would come and open the door and take Max from her, whatever she did. And even if she stopped him somehow, he would put sleeping pills in her food or come another day with a club and knock her unconscious and take Max then.
She couldn’t fight him every day of Max’s life.
And so she had seven days left. Seven days with her son.
Seven days until he was ripped from her arms.
Or seven days to figure out how to save him.
Enjoyed The Last Lie? Try three more psychological thrillers by Alex Lake …
Imitation is the most terrifying form of flattery …
Click here to order a copy of Copycat
There’s a serial killer on the loose. And the victims all look like you …
Click here to order a copy of Killing Kate
The real nightmare starts when her daughter is returned …
Click here to order a copy of After Anna
About the Author
Alex Lake is a British novelist who was born in the North West of England. After Anna, the author’s first novel written under this pseudonym, was a No.1 bestselling ebook sensation and a top-ten Sunday Times bestseller. The author now lives in the North East of the US.
@AlexLakeAuthor
Also by Alex Lake
After Anna
Killing Kate
Copycat
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