by A J McDine
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‘Full of suspense, twists and turns but just when you think you've guessed the twist there will be another one waiting...'
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‘What a great read this was! Fast-paced, cleverly plotted and incredibly addictive. Hooked from start to finish, this is my new favourite book by McDine.'
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‘The plot really kept me engaged. I couldn’t read fast enough towards the end as the tension mounts.’
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The Promise You Made
A J McDine
Copyright © 2021 by A J McDine
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All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
* * *
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by A J McDine
Chapter One
I should have realised the baby rabbit was an omen.
I was up a ladder with my hands in the leaf-clogged gutter when a muffled yowling announced the arrival of Dinah with a present for me clamped between her determined little jaws. Feeling my way down, rung by rung, I reached the back door as Dinah’s grey tail disappeared through the cat flap.
‘Bloody cat.’ I shouldered open the door. ‘Where are you?’
I found her guarding her quarry in the front room. She growled softly as I approached with the dustpan and brush. A cotton-wool tail trembled under her paws.
I banged the brush against the dustpan. Dinah dropped the rabbit and darted across the room. ‘Come on, little one,’ I crooned, crouching down. ‘I’ll make sure that nasty cat doesn’t hurt you.’ The rabbit didn’t move, so I nudged it with the end of the brush. ‘You’re safe now.’
An urge to feel the soft fur against my skin caught me unawares. ‘There, there,’ I soothed. ‘Pretty little thing.’
But as I edged closer to scoop the tiny rabbit up and nestle it against my chest, my breath caught in my throat. A hideous bulbous eye stared at me, the fur around it wet with milky discharge. I recoiled, knocking over the walnut wine table behind me. The baby rabbit shuffled around, the whiskers on its ulcerated face quivering at the sudden sound. It lurched towards the gap between the sofa and the floor. ‘Oh no you don’t,’ I said, coaxing it into the dustpan with a flick of the brush.
The fetid smell of rotting flesh agitated the contents of my stomach like aspirin in a glass of water and I gagged.
Come on, Rose. You’ve seen worse.
I cleared my throat and, with my eyes averted and holding the pan at arm’s length, retraced my steps along the hall to the kitchen.
Outside the back door, I paused. Myxomatosis was slowly eating the rabbit’s small body away. If I let it go, it would suffer a long and agonising death. Instead, I carried it up the sloping garden to the log store, tipping it onto the beech chopping block I used for splitting kindling. I picked up my axe, holding the yellow handle with a sturdy golfer’s grip. Breathing in, I swung it over my right shoulder, letting the weight of it stretch my triceps, my eyes trained on the rabbit’s scabby neck. With one fluid strike, the poor creature had been dispatched. Pulling on my gardening gloves, I picked the head up in one hand and the body in the other and lobbed both into the woods for the foxes.
I clumped back down the hill, my boots sliding on the muddy ground and rain running in rivulets down the back of my neck. I was halfway to the house when I felt the sodden ground shift under my feet. I teetered for a second, then tumbled forwards, landing in a heap in a hole in the ground, my right ankle buckling beneath me. Another bloody sinkhole. It had been such a wet autumn on the chalky North Downs they’d been popping up all over the place. Just last week, one had opened up in the fast lane of the M2 between Sittingbourne and Faversham. A gaping mouth in the tarmac that caused traffic chaos and had taken several days to fill.
‘What next?’ I muttered, pulling myself to my feet and rotating my foot gingerly. Nothing broken, mercifully.
First the rabbit, then the sinkhole. I wasn’t superstitious and had no truck with people who believed bad things happened in threes. The poor sops were only looking for patterns to find order in disorder. Nevertheless, I took extra care as I hobbled back to the house, my ankle throbbing, and instead of climbing back up the ladder, I went inside and made a cup of tea. The guttering could wait.
I sought refuge in the small room my mother had pretentiously christened the library. It was my father’s favourite bolthole and, even though he’d been dead fourteen years, a faint smell of tobacco still clung to the walls. If I closed my eyes and concentrated hard enough, I could picture him, sitting with his feet up, a pipe in one hand and a book in the other.
I trailed my hand along the shelves, looking for my childhood copy of Watership Down. After the part I’d reluctantly played in the baby rabbit’s demise it suddenly seemed imperative that I spend the evening losing myself in the world of Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig and even General Woundwort. Finding the dog-eared copy between an English O-level study guide and a Penguin Classics edition of The Friend of Madame Maigret, I pulled it out, dusted it off and settled down to read.
Outside, the rain continued to fall, and the sky slowly darkened. At seven o’clock, I closed the book and went in search of sustenance. When I returned to the library, Dinah dignified me with her presence, curling into a ball on my lap, and I was grateful for her warmth as night closed in and a chill crept into my bones.
I had just reached the chapter where Bigwig and Kehaar set off to rescue the does from Efrafa when there was a bang on the door. I glanced at Dinah in surprise. We didn’t get many visitors, especially at nine o’clock on a wet and windy Saturday night.
‘Who on earth can that be?’ I asked her. She stared at me with narrowed eyes. ‘Well, it can’t be Amazon, because I haven’t ordered anything, and the local elections aren’t until May. Sod it,’ I said, picking up my book and finding my place. ‘If it’s that important they can come back tomorrow.’
Another rap on the door sent Dinah scurrying off my lap and out of the ro
om. I climbed stiffly out of the armchair and tramped down the hallway, pulling my cardigan tightly around me.
My mystery caller pounded on the door again. ‘All right, all right, I’m coming,’ I said, making sure the security chain was in place before I turned the lock and opened the door a couple of inches.
Any notion I’d had of giving my visitor short shrift melted away when I saw a slim figure on the doorstep. Her right arm was raised, and her hand was curled in a fist, as if she was about to pummel down the heavy oak door. She was wearing a big black overcoat, the type we used to call donkey jackets back in the day, and her long dark-blonde hair was drenched and as straggly as seaweed. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from her face. My heart beat furiously and goosebumps multiplied like a virus on my skin. As they would, wouldn’t they, if you found yourself staring into the face of a ghost?
The girl turned her pale face towards mine.
‘Rose?’ she said. ‘Rose Barton?’
I licked my lips. ‘Who’s asking?’
She peered through the gap between the door and the jamb. ‘Don’t you recognise me?’
I recognised someone, but it wasn’t her.
My grip on the safety chain tightened. ‘I said, who’s asking?’
‘It’s me. Eloise. Juliet’s daughter. Your goddaughter.’ She shivered.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I came to see you.’
‘No one comes to see me.’
‘Can I come in? Please?’
I stepped back. ‘It’s very late. Why don’t you come back in the morning?’
She frowned, and all at once she reminded me of someone else entirely. ‘You promised to help me,’ she said. ‘At Mum’s funeral, remember? You said…’ she gulped, almost choking on her words, ‘you said if I ever needed help, that I should come to you.’
‘Did I? It’s such a long time ago.’
‘Ten years,’ the girl, Eloise, said. ‘I was only eleven, but I’ve never forgotten. We were standing by Mum’s grave. You said if there was ever anything you could do for me, I only had to ask.’
I watched, mesmerised, as she wrestled with the buttons of her jacket. Her eyes on mine, she pulled it open to reveal a ripped white cotton top covered in blood. Splashes of the stuff darkened the base of her neck and her jutting collarbone. I lowered my gaze.
‘It’s time, Rose,’ she said. ‘Now’s the time I need your help.’
Chapter Two
Focus on the practicalities, I told myself as I ushered the girl inside. Her teeth were chattering, and she was shaking like a leaf.
‘Second door on the left. There’s a fire. Sit down and I’ll make you a hot drink.’
In the kitchen, I flicked the kettle on, then leaned against the worktop and attempted to compose myself.
Juliet’s daughter was here, in my house, covered in blood and asking for my help. What on earth had happened? My chest fluttered at the endless possibilities. A car crash, a mugging… or worse? My mother always said I had an over-active imagination. But no, I was getting ahead of myself.
Eloise was hunched on the edge of the armchair nearest the fire, still in the donkey jacket, when I returned. Trying my best to ignore the pervading smell of wet sheep, I set a mug of soup on the hearth.
‘Why don’t we get you out of that wet coat?’ I said. ‘You’ll never warm up, otherwise.’
She nodded and pulled herself unsteadily to her feet. As she swayed, I wondered if she was drunk, but I couldn’t smell alcohol on her breath. More likely, she was suffering from mild hypothermia, in which case I needed to raise her core temperature. I helped her out of the jacket, wrapped a throw around her shoulders, and guided her back into the chair.
‘For you,’ I said, handing her my old Winnie-the-Pooh hot water bottle.
She stared at it, a glimmer of a smile on her face. ‘You don’t look like a Winnie-the-Pooh sort of person,’ she said.
‘Appearances can be deceptive.’ I hung her coat on the back of a chair. ‘Drink the soup. It’ll warm you up.’
She picked up the mug and wrapped her hands around it but didn’t take a sip.
‘It’s all right. I haven’t laced it with arsenic or anything.’
She blinked and, too late, I realised how batty I must sound. But I wasn’t used to visitors. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time anyone other than me or Dinah had stepped foot inside the house.
I desperately wanted to ask why she was here, but the question lodged in my throat. Instead, I said, ‘Did you walk from the village?’
‘No, I drove.’ She trembled, her whole body juddering so violently, cream of asparagus soup slopped over the brim and onto the hearth rug. She clapped a hand over her mouth.
‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s fine. I’ll get a cloth. It’s seen worse.’
When I returned, Eloise was staring into the dying embers of the fire.
‘I should get going,’ she said quietly.
‘But you’ve only just arrived.’
‘Coming here was a mistake.’
‘Don’t be silly. It’s a lovely surprise,’ I said, even though we both knew it wasn’t. ‘Where are you living these days? Still in Marylebone?’
‘I haven’t lived there since Mum died.’ As she sipped her soup, the throw slipped from her shoulders, revealing a gash just above her collarbone. I’d pretended I hadn’t seen the blood, but I couldn’t ignore that.
‘You’re hurt!’ I cried.
She shook her head. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘Let me look at it.’
I took her shrug as permission and knelt down to inspect the wound. It was a clean cut, about an inch long, as if someone had scored her with a knife.
‘I’ll fetch a bowl of water and we’ll get it cleaned and dressed,’ I said, hurrying into the kitchen.
I washed and dried my hands and gathered some sterile dressings, a pod of saline solution and gauze from my first aid kit under the sink. As I filled a mixing bowl with tepid water, a clatter at the back door made me jump. It was only Dinah. She shook off the raindrops, padded over to her empty bowl and miaowed pitifully.
‘In a minute,’ I said. ‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’
She followed me back down the hallway and into the front room. ‘Come and meet our visitor,’ I said.
Eloise sprang up from her chair. ‘I thought you lived alone.’
‘Dinah’s my cat,’ I said. ‘Dinah, my goddaughter, Eloise.’ The word sounded unfamiliar but not unwelcome, and I felt a jolt of something unexpected. If I had to stick a label on it, I’d say it was pleasure. ‘I say she’s my cat. But every cat owner will tell you, they own us, not the other way around. I am merely here to serve her needs.’ It was the longest sentence I’d uttered since I phoned up the council to complain they’d missed my brown bin.
Dinah lingered in the doorway like a teenage girl at her first dance, her owlish eyes fixed on Eloise. Eloise slowly lowered herself to her knees, extended a hand and made a kissing noise with her lips.
The cat strutted over, sniffed Eloise’s hand and, apparently deciding our guest was friend not foe, started purring loudly.
‘She doesn’t normally like strangers,’ I said.
Eloise smiled as she looked at me. ‘But I’m not a stranger, am I?’
‘You are to Dinah.’
‘It’s a cool name for a cat.’
‘It’s not very original. I have Lewis Carroll to thank.’
‘Who?’
‘You know, Alice in Wonderland? Dinah was Alice’s cat.’
‘Never read it.’
‘You’ve never read Alice in Wonderland? But it’s one of the classics.’
Eloise shrugged again. ‘I didn’t have that kind of childhood.’
‘We need to rectify that at once. I’ll lend you my copy.’
While Eloise petted Dinah, I rinsed her wound with water, tipped the saline solution onto a square of gauze and dabbed it until I was satisfied it
was clean, before patting the area dry.
‘There,’ I said, sticking a sterile dressing over the top. ‘That should be fine. But you should keep an eye on it and if it shows any signs of infection, take yourself to minor injuries and get it seen to by the professionals.’
‘But you trained as a doctor, didn’t you? I remember Mum saying.’
I almost dropped the bowl of water. How much had Juliet told her? ‘Only for three years,’ I said. ‘My mother had a stroke, and I was needed here.’ It was more or less the truth. ‘But never mind that. Tell me, Eloise,’ I said gently. ‘What the hell happened to you?’
Chapter Three
Eloise sat back in the armchair and patted her knee. At once, Dinah jumped onto her lap.
‘She’s a lovely colour,’ my goddaughter said. ‘Is she one of those British Blues?’
‘No, she’s a common or garden moggy from the local rescue centre.’
‘Her colouring’s so unusual.’
‘She’s a dilute tortoiseshell. A mutation in her melanophilin gene diluted her pigments, fading the black pigment to a bluey-grey, and the red pigmentation, which would be orange in a true tortoiseshell, to apricot.’
