by Karen Clarke
1
The text came as I was getting off the train. I’d kept the volume at maximum since missing a call from my daughter’s school a few days ago, and the vibration made me jump.
I fumbled my phone from my bag, ignoring the thrust of commuters keen to reach home after a hard day’s work or, in my case, a hard day’s wandering around London.
It was probably Vic, checking I was on my way home. He was throwing a surprise party for my birthday, and to celebrate us being together for six months, and although it wasn’t a surprise (Vic knew better than that) he wanted to make it special.
Moving down the platform of Oxford railway station as the train pulled away, I pictured him in the kitchen with a checklist: food delivered, house tidied, cake baked – he’d been practising – my loved ones gathered and primed, eager to see my reaction. I’d been practising a look of joyful astonishment I hoped I could carry off.
I opened my messages, a smile hovering. I didn’t recognise the number.
Enjoy your birthday, Beth. It’ll be your last.
My brain froze. I read it again, heart beating unevenly. Who is this? I typed back, fingers slipping across the screen before hitting send. The response came swiftly.
You’ll find out.
My heart rate accelerated as I tapped out a reply, not stopping to consider whether it was a good idea. If this is a joke, it’s not funny.
No joke.
I glanced around, as if whoever had sent the message might be grinning with sinister intent on the platform, but the stretch of concrete was empty, sunshine glinting off the tracks. I’d been boiling on the train, but now cold fingers touched my spine, sending ripples of gooseflesh over my skin.
Who are you?
No reply.
With a plunge of dread, my mind barrelled back to a message I’d found on my car windscreen just after Christmas, A LIFE FOR A LIFE printed in big, black capitals on a sheet of plain white paper. I’d thrown it away, assuming someone had got the wrong car, or it was a religious thing, like the leaflets sometimes thrust at me in the street, offering salvation through Christ – but the words had still made me shiver and look around, just as I was doing now.
Another message buzzed in.
Bye, bye, Beth.
I dropped my phone as though bitten. Whoever it was had my name and number, yet no one I knew would do this, even as a joke.
My brain swooped around the possibilities.
‘Everything OK?’
I spun round to see the station assistant watching me curiously.
‘Fine.’ I tried to smile but my face felt stiff as I bent to retrieve my phone.
‘Have a nice evening,’ she said, giving me a funny look.
‘You too.’ I stumbled a little as I hurried through the exit towards the car park. She probably thought I’d been drinking.
In my car, I switched on the engine to get the air-conditioning flowing and looked at my phone again. Nothing.
I tried to breathe through the tightness in my chest. I’d spent too many years feeling like this in the past. I didn’t want to be pushed back to that place.
You know I can report you?
No response.
Perhaps one of my art -therapy clients was playing a prank. They knew my name and could have got hold of my number. It didn’t make much sense, but neither did anything else.
Except … A LIFE FOR A LIFE. With a twist of fear, it struck me afresh that only someone who knew me well would know the impact those words would have.
I jumped when a text from Vic came through.
Are you on your way back?
I let out my breath. Five minutes. X
Love you. X
You too. X
I still couldn’t say it back, even in writing. I’d been with my daughter’s father Matt for seven years, had loved him deeply. My feelings hadn’t died the minute he left, but Vic understood. It was one of the things I liked about him. He was a grown-up, who grasped that love was complex. He’d been patient, allowing my feelings to flourish at their own pace.
I manoeuvred out of the car park on autopilot, breathing from my diaphragm the way I’d been taught by a counsellor, but my skin and muscles were stiff with tension as I drove the short journey home.
When I turned into the street where I’d lived for the last six years, my shoulders relaxed a little. Home was a Victorian terrace on a quiet, leafy street overlooking the park near Hayley’s school – a house we’d only been able to afford because Matt’s grandfather died and left him enough money for the deposit. We would have to sell it soon. He needed a new place, where Hayley could go and stay, and Vic wanted us to buy somewhere together.
I switched off the engine, trying to picture the scene behind the olive-green front door; everyone hiding, waiting for a cue from Vic to leap out and shout ‘Surprise!’. Hayley would love it. She’d been to several parties lately, running out with extravagant party bags, eager for her own birthday in October. Five. I had a nearly-five-year-old daughter I’d willingly die for. A daughter I’d fight to live for.
Enjoy your birthday, Beth. It’ll be your last.
My breath caught when I detected a movement at the landing window, as if someone had been watching me and dipped out of sight. I stared for a moment, but the glass was opaque with the sun’s reflection and I couldn’t make anything out.
Getting out of the car, I tried to smooth the wrinkles from my flower-patterned, summery dress with a shaky hand. No point checking my face or refreshing my lipstick. If I looked too polished my guests might guess I was in on the ‘secret’ – if they hadn’t already.
The air was thick with humidity, but I suppressed a shiver as I slipped my key in the lock and pushed the front door open, inhaling the smell of home; a mix of clean laundry, Vic’s classy aftershave, and a heady waft of freshly-baked sponge cake. He’d neatened the hallway, lining up our shoes, putting Hayley’s scooter out of harm’s way and straightening our coats on the hooks along the wall.
He didn’t live here full-time but came round most days, slotting easily into our lives – more easily than I could ever have imagined – but at times, it still felt wrong that Matt wasn’t there, waiting with his guitar to burst into song the second I stepped through the door, his boots left wherever he’d kicked them off, something simmering in the kitchen as he experimented with new ingredients.
Placing my keys on the console table, I was hotly aware of my phone in my bag like a hand grenade. I waited for my breathing to settle. The silence in the house felt manufactured and somehow sinister. A sound, quickly smothered behind the living room door, conjured an image of strangers waiting to pounce. Swamped in sudden dizziness, I shot out a hand to steady myself, overcome by a suffocating certainty.
Somebody in this house wanted me dead.
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Acknowledgements
There’s a brilliant team behind every book, and I’m lucky to have such a great one at HQ.
Thanks to my wonderful editor Belinda Toor for her clever guidance, copyeditor Helena Newton, Helen Williams for the proofread, Anna Sikorska for the brilliant cover and everyone in marketing for spreading the word.
Enormous thanks to my lovely readers, the community of bloggers and reviewers, and to my friend Amanda Brittany for her support and feedback.
None of it would be possible without the support of my family, in particular my husband Tim, who never gets tired of listening to me rave about plot holes or making me cups of tea to keep me going.
Thank you.
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