I Will Make You Pay

by Driscoll, Teresa

  It is going to be all right, my darling girl.

  Jack is smiling at me now.

  I am smiling too.

  It is going to be all right.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  When I was a young reporter just starting out, I really did take a threatening call – just like Alice in this story. My caller rang me three times . . . the same day each week. First he threatened me. Then he taunted me over where I had been that day. And then finally (and bizarrely) he apologised for upsetting me. He said he had been going through a rough time and was very sorry to have taken it out on me. He promised he meant me no harm . . . and I never heard from him again.

  I remember feeling so relieved that this horrid spell was over. But the experience never left me. I was very afraid during those few weeks when I did not know what the calls were about. Or how serious they were.

  When I realised all these decades later that I wanted to examine this theme in an entirely fictional story, I promised myself that I would only do so if I could counter the negative with a celebration of courage and love. And that’s why I put Alice and her mother’s love at the heart of this story . . .

  Because fear is a terrible thing. But, as I know from my many years in journalism, courage and love are thankfully always more powerful in the end.

  Thank you again for reading I Will Make You Pay. If you have enjoyed the novel, I would enormously appreciate a review on Amazon. They really do help other people to discover my books.

  I also love to hear from readers, so feel free to get in touch. You can find my website at www.teresadriscoll.com and also say hello on Twitter @teresadriscoll or via my Facebook author page: www.facebook/TeresaDriscollAuthor.

  Warm wishes to you all,

  Teresa

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There should be a special award for the families of writers who never know which version of the author they will meet each day. The confident one. The panicked one. The one declaring that a deadline simply cannot be met.

  So above all I send my thanks and love to my gorgeous folk – Pete and James and Ed – with my eternal gratitude for your patience and support. I would like to tell you that I will be so much calmer over the next book. But we all know better!

  A special thank you next to the amazing folk at Thomas & Mercer, who champion my novels with extraordinary energy and expertise – with a special shout-out to my truly wonderful editors, Jane Snelgrove and Ian Pindar.

  My eternal gratitude as always to my lovely agent Madeleine Milburn and her team, whose support, expertise and cheerleading skills are just incredible.

  A group hug also to the warm and wonderful writing community – by which I mean those fellow authors who so generously share wisdom (along with virtual, late-night clinking of glasses when things are going awry).

  And finally – a thank you from the bottom of my heart to all my lovely readers. Your reviews and your messages really do mean the world.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © 2015 Claire Tregaskis

  For more than twenty-five years as a journalist – including fifteen years as a BBC TV news presenter – Teresa Driscoll followed stories into the shadows of life. Covering crime for so long, she watched and was deeply moved by all the ripples each case caused, and the haunting impact on the families, friends and witnesses involved. It’s those ripples that she explores in her darker fiction.

  Teresa lives in beautiful Devon with her family. She writes women’s fiction as well as thrillers and her novels have been sold for translation in twenty languages. You can find out more about her books on her website, www.teresadriscoll.com, or by following her on Twitter @TeresaDriscoll or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TeresaDriscollAuthor.