by Will Dean
She knocks on the double-glazed window and I stand up and knock back. She gestures toward the door and I run out.
‘Doors will be closing in one minute,’ says the announcer.
‘Sorry I was away,’ she says, down there on the platform, her head at the level of my knees. ‘I should have been there for you.’
‘No,’ I say, my breathing fast and desperate. ‘I was an idiot.’
She nods her head and bursts into tears and I jump down to the icy platform and hug her. We hold on. We both squeeze and tighten our arms and we both cry for a dozen different reasons. We do not let go. I tuck my face into her hair and feel my guts start to untwist.
A man at the far end of the platform blows a whistle and we disengage.
‘Come see me,’ I say.
‘Try and fucking stop me,’ she says.
I jump back up the steps onto the train, lighter now. We hold hands as the automatic door closes and she throws her pale blue blanket inside just in time. It’s the one I love, the soft one with the tassels.
‘Thank you,’ I mouth through the window.
She makes a fist and thumps her chest twice in some primal gesture which says ‘I am your sister and I will always be your sister. Always.’
The train lurches and pulls away from the station.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Will Dean grew up in the East Midlands, living in nine different villages before the age of eighteen. He was a bookish, daydreaming kid who found comfort in stories and nature (and he still does). After studying Law at the LSE, and working in London, he settled in rural Sweden. He built a wooden house in a boggy clearing at the centre of a vast elk forest, and it’s from this base that he compulsively reads and writes. He is the author of Dark Pines.
Acknowledgements
To my agent, Kate Burke: thank you for your energy and wisdom. You’re the best.
To the team at Northbank Talent: thank you all for your backing and passion.
To my editor, Jenny Parrott: thank you for your belief, enthusiasm, and brilliance.
To the rest of the team at Oneworld and Point Blank: thank you for being so fantastic. Thanks to Juliet, Novin, Harriet, Margot, Thanhmai, Cat, Mark, Emily, Aimee, James, Paul and the whole team. I could not ask for a more excellent publisher.
To Mark Swan and James: thanks for the beautiful covers.
To all the bloggers and booksellers and reviewers and early supporters and tweeters and fellow authors: thank you for your enthusiasm and time. Readers benefit so much from your recommendations and insight. I am one of them. Special thanks to Liz Barnsley, Nina Pottell, Leilah Skelton, Sam Missingham, Isabelle Broom, Ali Karim, Mike Stotter, Abby (Crime by the book), Mart, Kate (Quiet knitter), Gemma Wiles, Ellen Devonport (and Bibliophile BC), Tracy Fenton (and all of TBC), Helen Boyce, Tripfiction, Mary Picken, Janet Emson, Jen Lucas, The Booktrail, Noelle Holten, Ayo Onatade, John Fish, Anne Cater, Abby Slater, and Dan Stubbings.
To Hayley Webster, Bethany Rutter and Alice Slater: thank you for early incisive comments, and for all your warmth and wisdom.
To @DeafGirly: thank you so much for your expert feedback, and your support. In many ways your opinion matters to me more than anyone else’s. I will be forever grateful.
To the Zoe Ball Book Club: thank you so much for everything.
To Val McDermid: thanks for choosing me as part of your New Blood panel at Harrogate. It was one of the best experiences of my life.
To Swedish nature: thank you for making me feel like a kid in a candy store. Thanks for surprising me. Thanks for stunning seasons (and for all the moose).
To my family, and especially my parents: once again, thank you for letting me play alone for hours as a child. Thank you for letting me read and make up strange stories. Thank you for allowing me to be bored. It was a special gift.
To my friends: apologies if I’ve missed (even more) bonfires and lunches due to rewriting. Thank you all for being wonderful.
Special thanks to my grandma and my late great-grandma. I loved writing Cici and that’s partly because she’s inspired by you both.
To my sister: thank you for reading Dark Pines and thanks for telling me it got you back into reading. That meant the world to me.
To my wife and son: thank you. Love you. Always.
A Point Blank Book
First published in Great Britain and the Commonwealth by Point Blank,
an imprint of Oneworld Publications, 2019
This ebook published 2019
Copyright © Will Dean 2019
The moral right of Will Dean to be identified as the Author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved
Copyright under Berne Convention
A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78607-479-9 (hardback)
ISBN 978-1-78607-590-1 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-78607-480-5 (ebook)
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Oneworld Publications
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