The Sleeper Lies

by Andrea Mara

  Praise for andrea mara

  “Andrea Mara’s tight plotting and convincing characterisation

  make her books both compelling and intriguing”

  – Liz Nugent, author of Our Little Cruelties

  “Andrea Mara writes twisty mysteries that keep me turning pages”

  – Jo Spain, author of Six Wicked Reasons

  Praise for one click

  “Mara is a master of the red herring and there are lots of plot twists to keep the reader guessing until the terrifying end … Once again, Mara has produced a gripping story of suspense that will have you on the edge of your seat to the last” The Independent

  “This is a cracking read”

  – Liz Nugent, author of Unravelling Oliver and Skin Deep

  “One Click is the best psych thriller I’ve read in quite a while.

  Great end, but more importantly, the journey was wonderful too”

  – Sinéad Crowley, author of One Bad Turn

  “[Mara’s] latest offering will doubtless embellish her reputation

  as a grip-lit author of note” – Sunday Independent

  “Flew through One Click, fantastic read, hours of pleasure”

  – Jo Spain, author of The Confession

  “A well-plotted novel, with a lot of red herrings and false leads. I was convinced many times that I had guessed the denouement, but the author outsmarted me . . . the dramatic revelation shocked me to the core, yet made perfect sense of all that had gone before” – Sue Leonard, The Examiner

  “The perfect poolside read with twists and turns that kept me guessing right to the end” – Carmel Harrington, author of The Woman at 72 Derry Lane

  “One Click pulls you in and won’t let go – be prepared to read it in one sitting. It’s a page-turner that will hook you from page one, and will make you stop and think before you make one click online again”

  – Patricia Gibney, author of No Safe Place

  “One Click is menacing from the start, surprising to the end. Makes you think – hard – about what we share and reveal, and who might be watching” – Emily Hourican, author of White Villa

  “A cracking read!” – Stella O’Malley, author of Bully-Proof Kids

  “Gripping – it will keep you guessing until the last page”

  – Sarah Breen, co-author of Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling

  Praise for the other side of the wall

  “A masterful debut, which combines the ordinary themes of working mothers and modern suburbia, with all the foreboding malevolence of a Jeffery Deaver novel . . . a gripping read that is hard to put down

  and would make a great movie”– The Independent

  “I read this in one sitting and thoroughly enjoyed it

  – the right side of chillingly good” – Woman’s Way

  “A twisting tale of evil lurking behind a suburban hall door”

  – Sinéad Crowley, author of One Bad Turn.

  “This is a prime example of a superior grip lit book. From the first eerie chapter to the very last page it is quite literally unputdownable with an abundance of ‘oh!’ moments throughout. The characters are well developed and the subplots all deal with everyday-life issues that everyone I know will relate to. Honestly, a very, very superior debut”

  – Margaret Scott, author of The Fallout.

  “Finished it in three sittings … Grips and twists to the very end. A very clever and accomplished book” – Emily Hourican, author of White Villa.

  “Domestic Noir with believable characters and a clever, corkscrew plot”

  – Sue Leonard in the Irish Examiner – ‘Beginner’s Pluck’ column.

  “The plot and the writing are excellent . . . [in] Mara’s well-paced thriller”

  – Sophie White, writing in ‘The Domestic’ column in the

  Sunday Independent (LIFE magazine)

  ANDREA MARA

  Poolbeg

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Published 2020 by Crimson

  an imprint of Poolbeg Press Ltd

  123 Grange Hill, Baldoyle

  Dublin 13, Ireland

  E-mail: poolbeg@poolbeg.com

  www.poolbeg.com

  © Andrea Mara 2020

  © Poolbeg Press Ltd. 2020, copyright for editing, typesetting, layout, design, ebook

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-78199-766-6

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  www.poolbeg.com

  About the Author

  Andrea Mara lives in Dublin with her husband and three children. She blogs about balancing work and home at OfficeMum.ie.

  The Sleeper Lies is her third book. Her first book, The Other Side of the Wall, was shortlisted for the Kate O’Brien Award 2018, and her second book, One Click, was shortlisted for Irish Crime Novel of the Year at the 2018 An Post Irish Book Awards.

  Also by Andrea Mara

  The Other Side of the Wall

  One Click

  Published by Poolbeg

  To Dad, for everything

  CHAPTER 1

  2018

  I don’t know what a dead body looks like. I’ve seen them in coffins in tidy funeral homes, but not like this – not in this maybe-state, flat on the frozen ground.

  Dead. Or not dead, just waiting for me to come closer.

  One or the other.

  It’s too dark to see, and I understand now that it’s always been too dark – for me, and for Hanne. Spinning blindly in the wind while other people pulled the strings.

  And I feel it even now, the snap of the string, pulling me forward. Towards the body.

  Dead. Or not dead.

  One or the other.

  My breath comes fast. Another step. A closer look. A movement. Slight, but enough.

  And I think about all of it, all of the deaths and all of the accidents and all of the pain. And it’s not dark anymore. I know what I need to do.

  24 days earlier

  The day it all began started out, in many respects, just like any other. I woke up on my own, in my own bed, in my very old cottage, in the Wicklow hills. So far, so normal. I checked the time, noted I had thirty minutes until my first conference call, and got up to make coffee. Still all very normal. Then I walked through to the kitchen and saw that it would not, in fact, be a normal day – outside, my back garden was covered in a blanket of white. Just as the weatherman had predicted. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen so much snow. I’d been away for the big freeze of 2010, and before that . . . maybe back when my dad was alive? A memory surfaced – a snowman, a pipe in his mouth, pebbles for eyes, and my dad’s scarf around his neck. We didn’t have a carrot and my dad made up some story about snowmen not needing noses, because they always had colds. I was probably four or five at the time, although – I realised with a sudden pang – there was no way to check. Not now, with nobody left but me.

  Still mesmerised by snow and memories, I mad
e a coffee, went back through the living room, and opened the front door to get a better look. I wasn’t fully awake, and maybe I was dazzled by the brightness, but for whatever reason, in those first moments, I didn’t notice the footprints.

  And even when I did, I still didn’t register that there was anything strange about them – about their very existence in my garden in the middle of nowhere. I stood in the doorway, cradling the coffee, as my eyes followed the trail, tracing their journey from the garden gate all the way up to the cottage. I shook myself, suddenly wide awake. Someone had been here. While I was asleep.

  I pulled on boots and stepped outside, my feet sinking into powdery white, and squinted to see where the prints went. That’s when the first prickle of unease hit. The footprints led right up to my bedroom window.

  I stared at the indentations, deeper under the window, as though they – he? – had stood there, watching me, while I was asleep.

  My stomach lurched. I didn’t want my coffee anymore. Putting the cup on the snowy ground, I stepped towards the window. Two deep, wide prints, side by side, just inches from the front wall of the cottage. Directly under my bedroom window. I leaned forward and, with my hands on the windowsill, peered into my room. Through the muslin curtain, I could make out my bed, duvet thrown back just moments before. Who on earth had been spying on me? And why?

  An icy wind whipped at my hair, reminding me I was wearing pyjamas in zero-degree temperatures. Inside, I shut the door and stood with my back against it, staring around the living room. Could he be in the house? The front door was closed when I woke. It could only be opened from outside with a key. What about the back door? In a haze, I crossed the living room and walked through to the quiet, shadowy kitchen. On my left, the door to the boot room stood ajar – had I left it open last night? Stepping towards it, I pushed it wide. Empty, save for my jacket on its hook.

  The bathroom door beyond the coat-hook was closed. Wishing it was already open, I pushed down the handle. Cold air and shadows greeted me, but nothing looked out of place. The shower curtain was pulled around the bath, just as I’d left it yesterday morning. My toothbrush stood in the mug, exactly where I’d left it last night. About to turn away, I stopped, and looked again at the shower curtain. Dark green, to match the bath, I wished now it was lighter. Transparent. Unmoving, I listened. Nothing. Not even the sound of my own breath. The silence was cold and heavy and suddenly false – a trick – someone else listening, not moving, not breathing. Before I could change my mind, I stepped forward, grabbed the curtain and wrenched it back.

  Empty.

  Lightheaded with foolishness, or maybe relief, I half-ran out of the bathroom, and pulled the door behind me.

  Now the back door. I stared at it, the chipped wood and spotted glass reminding me it needed replacing. The key was in the keyhole, just as it always was. I had turned it when I came in last night. Steeling myself, I pulled down the handle.

  Nothing. Still locked. Turning the key, I pulled it open, letting in an icy blast. A foot-high snowdrift swooped upwards against the house, and some of it fell inside onto the floor. Kicking it out, I closed the back door and locked it again.

  The kitchen was quiet save for the ticking of the wall clock – twenty to eight, and my first conference call was at eight. An eerie half-light rested on counter-tops and pale green cupboards, gloomy and bright all at once. The small kitchen table, littered with files and chewed biros, sat quietly in the centre of the room. Nothing stirred. Nobody here.

  I made my way back to the living room, and stood in the centre, my eyes roaming across every detail. The Aztec-print throw lay on the dark-red couch, exactly where I left it when I put down my book last night. My laptop and the TV remote sat side by side on the coffee table, my book had slipped to the floor. Agatha Christie’s A Murder Is Announced. I picked it up and put it back on the coffee table. Nothing out of place, nobody here but me.

  Unless there was someone in one of the bedrooms.

  I swallowed, wishing for the first time in a long time that I didn’t live on my own, and moved towards my dad’s old room, on the far side of the living room from mine. The door creaked, loud in the silence. Inside, dust particles danced in weak morning light but, apart from my dad’s old bed, Ray’s old desk and a mahogany wardrobe, the room was bare.

  Only my room left. The one he’d looked into.

  Crossing the living room in quick strides, I pushed the door and burst into my bedroom with forced ferocity. I scanned the room, taking in the overstuffed bookshelves, the narrow wardrobe in the far corner, the waxed-pine dresser, the Oriental rug. The muslin curtain, and the window through which he’d looked.

  My eyes went to the bed. The duvet dipped low on the side nearest me, almost but not quite touching the floor. From where I stood, I couldn’t see underneath. Biting my lip, I stepped back towards the door and bent down. Just a little. I could see between the duvet and the floor now – the empty space and the light beyond. Nobody there.

  I stood again, looking at the wardrobe in the far corner. A single wardrobe with a single door and one scant rail of clothes, but still big enough to fit a crouching human. Christ. Checking it was impossible. But not knowing was impossible too. With every childhood bogeyman story running through my head, I made a decision. In three long steps, I was at the wardrobe, my finger looped through the metal ring, ready to pull it towards me. I stopped, but only for a second, then yanked it. I jumped back, letting out a yell, not at all ready for whoever or whatever was in there.

  There was nothing. No-one.

  There was nobody in my house.

  But it was comfort of a cold sort – who was looking in my window while I was asleep?

  CHAPTER 2

  The French office didn’t care that it was an hour earlier here in Ireland – the world of banking had no time for easing into a new week, and the Zorian IT Programmers’ call signalled the start of business at eight every Monday morning. Today would be no different, inexplicable footprints or not.

  “Marianne here,” I said as I dialled in, still staring out the window.

  I needed to look around outside. What if he was still out there? Could I do the call on mute and check the garden at the same time? My gut said no. I’d need my wits about me to search, not project managers mumbling in my ear. Or maybe I just didn’t want to go outside.

  Distracted and on edge, I waited as participants announced their names and locations.

  My boss was up next. “Clare in Dublin here – morning, everyone – Marianne, are you snowed in? I heard on the news that Wicklow is bad – they’re calling in the army to clear the roads?”

  “It’s not too bad,” I told her. “I’d get down to the village in the jeep if I needed to.”

  The jeep. Could that be what he was after? Holding my phone to my ear, I slipped into boots, opened the front door and stepped out into the snow. The jeep was always parked around the side of the house, and I readied myself for empty space when I turned the corner. But it was still there. I wondered why I didn’t feel more relief.

  Back inside, I put the chain on the door, just as fresh snow began to fall. I hit the light switch, and the bulb flickered unconvincingly to life. I sat but couldn’t sit still. There’s nobody here, you’ve checked, I reminded myself over and over, as my eyes flitted from window to door. A creak from the bedroom gave me a jolt. There’s nobody here. The creak of an old house. Nothing more.

  As the meeting rumbled on, I picked up a pen and notebook. Writing things down would help, it always did. Calm, cool, unemotional words. Black and white. Reliable. Like computers. Unlike humans.

  Footprints: Man’s boots/large boots = male, not female

  Alan? Jamie? Bert checking on me? Someone lost/drunk?

  Kids from village (footprints too large for kid?)

  Burglar checking if someone in house?

  I put down the pen and stood, pacing the living-room floor as the meeting meandered. Catching my reflection in the mirror above the couch, I
shook my head, glad none of my colleagues could see me this morning. With my uncombed hair and unwashed face, I looked nothing like the groomed version of myself on the Zorian staff website. That photo was five or six years old – my hair was golden-blonde then, warmer than the natural pale colour I have today, and I wore make-up then too, an unnecessary step now that I was spending most of my days on my own. Something flickered in the top corner of the mirror and I spun around. Through the window, I could see the branches of the old hawthorn tree at the bottom of the garden swaying in the wind. That’s all it was.

  There’s nobody here.

  “Marianne?”

  Clare was asking me something.

  “Sorry, I just dropped my notes – would you mind repeating?” I said, sitting back down. I opened my laptop and prepared to talk.

  The meeting ended just after nine and, with it, my excuse to stay indoors – I’d have to go outside for a proper look around. Jesus, I wasn’t cut out for this. People on TV were always racing into danger – I just wanted to stay locked in my living room until . . . well, until what? That was the problem. Nobody was coming to rescue me.