In My Wake: A Breathtaking Psychological Thriller With a Killer Twist

by Ruth Harrow

  I'm terrified of what that direction may be. Could Paige still be alive after all these years?

  I suddenly realise I don't know exactly where Penny lives. I look over my shoulder at my father who is still talking, completely unaware I haven't been listening.

  'Dad?'

  'She was so keen on him to start with, so why would she change her tune all of a sudden, I asked myself!'

  'Dad, listen.'

  '… And I had a right case of the chills on your wedding day. April certainly had things to say about Will then. I just wish she had told me sooner than just before the ceremony!'

  'I – wait – what are you talking about?'

  'Your wedding day.'

  'My wedding? April wasn't even there …'

  'Yes, she was, Love. She came to the church before you arrived to walk down the aisle. It was then that she revealed to me she'd had words with you already about Will. But did you listen? Of course not!'

  Bile rises in my throat. 'What did she tell you?'

  'She wasn't clear on that. She said there was nasty business from when they were together. It was on the tip of her tongue. She didn't quite know how to say it, so I'm guessing it was bad. But I know she told you.'

  I shake my head. 'I can't believe April was at my wedding,' I say, slowly. 'I would have seen her ...'

  'She sat at the back where you were unlikely to notice her. Worked, didn't it? A shame your own sister had to do that though. But she didn't think she was welcome after the falling out you pair seemed to have – After she had warned you about Will.'

  'I didn't think she would want to be there after that … She didn't respond to her invitation ...'

  Dad stares out the window as though looking back to the wedding. 'She said she didn't want to miss the opportunity to see you in your dress.' He fixes me with a gaze. 'She said you looked beautiful, like a real Pearly Rose, whatever that meant.

  A lump forms in my throat and I turn away from Dad again to face the window. I had no idea April remembered such a thing from when we were children; the Barbie doll of mine she had created a dress for.

  I had believed she had stopped caring. I had thought she had cast our happy memories together into the wind. I'm humbled she would remember what was surely such a trivial childish dream from so long ago ...

  A thought burns in my mind and I am compelled to reach for my phone.

  I pull it out and tap in April's email address once again into the login box. My fingers hesitate before tapping in a new password idea: my birthday numbers.

  I hold my breath as the screen loads and I once again feel the sting of the familiar red error message.

  I think hard for a second and straight away I try another combination. This time, I add April's childhood nickname for me along with the numbers.

  I brace myself for the error message, but it doesn't reappear. Instead, I am taken to a new page – straight into the control panel of my sister's account.

  My heart thumps away. A horrible mix of nerves and excitement squeezes my insides and I am unsure which one makes me feel more nauseous.

  It looks like I have access to everything.

  50

  Across the kitchen, Dad has his face in his hands. It seems he is too upset to berate me further. It gives me a few moments to stare at the unfamiliar layout of the account screen in my hands.

  My first thought is that Will would do better at working this than I would. He must have used something similar on Eva's phone. I had no idea I had such an option available to me. All the times I have worried about her safety, worried that she has been later than usual on her way home from school. I could have used something like this, just for putting my mind at rest, if nothing else. I wouldn't have abused it. Will had access the entire time without telling me.

  A rogue thought bubbles to the surface of my mind. What if Will has been here before. He could have been through the contents of April's phone already …

  I cast the idea aside. Surely he would have told me?

  I bite my lip and look at the available options. I quickly click different links, hitting back as soon as it turns out to be a dead end.

  Something I click seems to lead me to backups of April's photographs. April's virtual life fills the screen in tiny thumbnails.

  Most are unfamiliar, but then I spot one of the two of us together. Then another. Scans from old photos.

  The missing images from the old album. I haven't seen them for years. Old threads in my memory are tugged as sparks of recognition flare from the time before Eva; before I was a wife; before I could even dream I would meet Will again as an adult.

  There are other pictures I recognise too – snaps downloaded from my Facebook account. One of Eva when she was a baby; another of her clutching my denim-clad knees as an excited toddler at Disneyland. I notice Will has been cropped out from where, in reality, he had stood beside me.

  Tears run down my face as I scroll through April's memories; the sum total of her life in digital entries.

  I dab the corner of my eyes on the heel of my hand and then I spot something that makes my heart hammer more powerfully than anything else.

  An option to track the phone.

  This was what Will must have used to locate Eva.

  I wipe my clammy fingers on my jeans before I tap on the option and am presented with a map.

  It seems to take a long time to load place names. The outlines of text appear, but the titles are blurry.

  I wait impatiently for them to become clear. I hadn't truly noticed how frustratingly slow my internet connection is here in the village until right now and I can see what Eva meant whenever she complained.

  I am also aware that I might well be against the clock. Surely if the phone is switched off, it is untraceable. I know it was on to send the picture message earlier. But how long ago was that? Two hours at least. It might be well and truly off again by now.

  But it isn't.

  My heart lurches unpleasantly as the map becomes clear.

  It is closely followed by a marker. I zoom in until the location's name becomes clear enough to read.

  Little Bishopsford.

  April's phone has been here all along.

  April

  I lean forward on the bar and order a tequila, shouting to be heard over the din. I drop a note on the bar and down the drink in one go. I order another.

  But I know it won't do any good. It only numbs everything temporarily.

  Then I wake up. There are perhaps a few seconds of oblivion tainted with a pounding in my head before it all comes flooding back to me.

  I don't dare block the number now – I don't dare miss what the next one will say.

  It is noisy in here. Noisy and bustling.

  A group of young men in their late teens stare in my direction. One of them says something and they all smirk. I suddenly realise I must be one of the oldest people here. Certainly the oldest woman, anyway.

  People drink and dance in the swirling lights and it is all so mindless. It should be distracting. I should feel better knowing I am surrounded by so many people, so many lives, so many stories. But I just feel empty. I can't feel anything at all.

  For a long time, I was haunted by nightmares. I couldn't close my eyes without grotesque images flooding into my mind.

  But now there is calm. Serenity washes over me.

  I feel so distant from the warm bodies around me. They move in every direction without even seeing me. Even the music is so far away.

  I suddenly realise what I have to do.

  But first, I know I have to take a trip. I need to go back to where all this started.

  It has been so long. But there are things I need to do.

  Someone I need to visit.

  51

  I pace back and forth still and stare at the map in my hands. Once or twice, the marker disappears from view and I panic, feeling as though I have missed my chance, that the phone has been switched off. Then it reappears again. I am terrified of mi
ssing this opportunity. I feel as if I have been waiting for this ever since I returned to the village on that first night. I've been aware of the sense of waiting for something to jump out and get me since we arrived.

  But now I have the danger in my sights and I'm sure my charge has no idea.

  I perch myself uncertainly on the edge of the sofa in the conservatory. I don't know for sure what to do. Dad's voice is somewhere in the background and I once again can't hear what he is saying as I think fast.

  This person knows who I am. They know what Will did; know what April and I didn't do.

  We should have reported Will in the first place. We shouldn't have stood by him, making the guilt our own, turning it into our problem. He had been the one driving. That is so obvious now.

  Why did it take so many years to figure it out?

  I wonder when April realised. At sixteen, four years my senior, she could hardly have been blamed for her inaction either. Even with her lipstick, her miniskirt and stolen cloud of Mum's best perfume, she was still just a child too.

  But now things are different. I need to stand by my husband, the father of my child. Eva needs us both. I would never be able to explain my years of silence to the police. Now I'm just as guilty as far as the law is concerned.

  I keep the map on my screen, firmly gripped in my hand and slide on my shoes in the hallway. I tell Dad I need some air. He says something back that I don't hear as I slip out the door.

  I need to be brave, as neither April nor myself were before. I need this to be put to sleep. This needs to be put behind us permanently.

  52

  Once I am down the lane and out of sight of the house, I glance at the screen again. Frustratingly, I keep losing the marker. I hope it isn't the battery of April's phone waning or a sign the phone has been or is about to be switched off.

  My heart flutters with panic at the thought. Then an idea comes to me – I will send them a message to keep them busy.

  In my fear, it is hard to think of what to write. But I find words flow quite easily when I attempt to sum up my anger at the crashed-car picture I received earlier and tap out a message.

  My feet carry me down the lane and into the centre of the village. I walk past the shops and the prime streets of the village. I have no idea where I am going. The marker is so big in comparison to the tiny patch of the village on the map that it isn't precise enough. It moves around vaguely and I turn around a few times to try and pinpoint the direction I should go in.

  It is at least ten minutes before I receive a response to my text. By the time it buzzes though, I have almost forgotten I have sent it and it startles me.

  I tap on the message and receive the familiar chill as I read April's name and the accompanying words.

  Not nice seeing a catastrophe unfolding before it happens, is it? If you think you are angry, imagine how I felt when I saw Paige get hit by your husband's car.

  My hands visibly shake as I type out a response.

  Just leave us alone.

  A few seconds pass ominously.

  Make me.

  It is then that I notice the options at the side of the screen. The Erase iPhone option seems to stand out on the screen.

  That sounds as though it might remotely delete the contents of April's phone. Could it really be that easy?

  My finger aches to tap the button, but I can't bring myself to do it.

  Yet.

  First, I want to know who has been putting me through all this.

  Dad and Will have tried to convince me it is a troublemaker from one of the bigger towns messing around. Had they heard rumours and spurred themselves into action? Or is it someone else? They know too much.

  Only Paige herself would know the full extent of the information in the texts.

  I look again at the erase option. I so want to press it, but I know that it won't be so simple to make all this go away.

  I need to confront the heart of the problem.

  I need to face Paige or Penny. According to the marker on the map, one of them must be right here in the heart of the village. Is that where Penny lives? The street name seems familiar. Perhaps Dad has mentioned it before.

  In any case, I will find out soon enough.

  The place is just a short walk from here.

  53

  As I follow the winding streets of Little Bishopsford staring at the map my head is a mess of jumbled thoughts. Could Paige really have waited in hiding somewhere all these years? Why come out now?

  I stare intently at the map on my screen. Residents of the village pass me by and I prepare a smile and a casual hello for them, but they avert their eyes, pretending they have not seen me. I guess the news of Will's arrest has traversed the entire population now. It wouldn't have taken long.

  As my feet carry me automatically past the centre of Little Bishopsford and onto the railway path, it dawns on me why the street name the marker is pinned to seemed familiar.

  It is the street Reg lived in.

  I'm not sure how accurate it is, but the marker seems to be hovering not above Reg's house, but on the detached house next door.

  I think of the curtain-twitching in the window of that building when I visited Reg's house. I think of how the police had been tipped off by a neighbour when Will had dropped by. Someone was watching us the whole time. Watching and waiting.

  Was Paige so close by this whole time? Wouldn't Reg have told me?

  I rack my brains. Who is Reg's next-door neighbour? Dad would surely know, but I don't want to alert him to my discovery. Nor do I want this person to receive a tip-off before I arrive.

  Something tugs at my memory. The gossiping women inside the local shop. They said who reported seeing Will enter Reg's house. I struggle for the name in my memory banks. Iris, wasn't it? But other than hearing it in the context of that hushed conversation, I'm sure the name means nothing.

  I have no choice – I have to go over there.

  I force my feet forwards, urging myself closer to the pin before I change my mind.

  As I turn the corner, my stomach flips over. I see the vehicle parked outside the house.

  It sits idle and unoccupied outside the house, awaiting its owner's return.

  Penny's blue fiesta.

  54

  My brain reels as I try to process the fact. I am in shock, but I tell myself I shouldn't be. It was Penny. She has been around or just about to appear when all the various happenings occurred. She would have access to all the information in the village, even if she wasn't there herself when it happened. She has become close to my father. She could have asked him anything and he would have told her – especially under the influence of alcohol. No wonder she was so keen to supply him with a drink.

  How could I not have accepted it before?

  Images flash through my mind, Penny hugging me at dinner, smiling and laughing with my father. Admitting she has trawled my Facebook account, paying too much attention to my business.

  Rage rushes over me and I pull my phone out. I forget about erasing the device for a second. I still need April's phone intact for a few more minutes.

  I wonder if Penny has the phone on her, or if she has left it in her car.

  I will soon find out.

  I tap and call April's phone. I press it to my ear and hear it ringing down the line. I pad firmly down the street and near the car. I peer inside the windows and hear and see nothing. Either it is locked inside on silent, or it is inside the house with Penny herself.

  I try the call again, but suddenly it is rejected.

  Determined, I try a third time and immediately hear the answer machine message. It has been switched off.

  My legs tremble as I force them to carry me up the garden path of the immaculately neat house. I take a deep breath and ring the doorbell.

  The high-pitched whirring of a vacuum cleaner drones on inside and I know they can't hear me. I raise my hand to try again, but then I get a better idea.

  I turn on my heel and sw
eep from the street.

  Dad needs to know what Penny has been doing. He needs to hear it first-hand. I don't want to give Penny time to come up with a story to cover herself.

  I have passed the village centre and am approaching the lane for Dad's house when I feel my phone buzz in my pocket.

  A message from April's phone. The shortest yet.

  You rang?

  I tap back a response quickly, feeling that I am running out of time. How long will my husband be held by the police this time? How long before they start looking for April's phone? Will they come for me too?

  I want to meet. We need to talk. And I want my sister's phone back.

  My heart hammers horribly as I wait for a response.

  I thought you would never ask. Come to the house. You remember where Prospect Terrace is, don't you? You walked right past on your family jaunt with your old Dad ...

  I feel as though I can hardly breathe now. Why would Penny want to meet there?

  No. Come to my father's house. I want him to hear everything.

  There is a pause of a few minutes and I start to wonder if I have blown the negotiation.

  I don't think you do, Hannah. Be at the house ASAP. You can have the phone.

  There is no way I want to be alone with Penny in that street, but she is right, I don't want Dad to know everything; especially where April is concerned; he would be heartbroken. In the mood he was in this morning, he might even pass on the information about Will to the police too.

  I tap back another message, uneasy. Nowhere near as bold as my words.

  We meet somewhere else, or you can forget it.