Copyright © 2014 Julia Crouch
The right of Julia Crouch to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in this ebook edition in 2014 by
HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
Epub conversion by Avon DataSet Ltd, Bidford-on-Avon, Warwickshire
eISBN 978 1 4722 0721 0
Cover art © Percy Ryall/Alamy (woman © Adrian Weinbrecht/Getty Images)
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
About the Author
Praise
Also by Julia Crouch
About the Book
Dedication
Epigraph
FISHERMAN
PART ONE
EMMA
KATE
EMMA
KATE
EMMA
KATE
EMMA
KATE
EMMA
KATE
EMMA
KATE
EMMA
KATE
EMMA
KATE
EMMA
KATE
PART TWO
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
PART THREE
2013
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
PART FOUR
Acknowledgements
About the Author
After a drama degree at Bristol University, Julia Crouch spent ten years devising, directing and writing for the theatre. During this time she had twelve plays produced and co-founded Bristol’s Public Parts Theatre Company. She lives in Brighton with her husband, the actor and playwright Tim Crouch, and their three children.
Praise
‘You’d be crazy not to read this book’ Daily Mail
‘[Her] best yet . . . downright terrifying. You will not want to miss this book’ Elizabeth Haynes, author of Into the Darkest Corner
‘A memorably disquieting story that twists brilliantly . . . to a chilling, destructive ending’ Daily Telegraph
‘Truly chilling . . . you won’t want to read it alone in the house’ Sunday Mirror
‘Another terrific page-turner’ Guardian
‘This psychological thriller is truly chilling and races to a creepy conclusion that’s so genuinely scary you won’t want to read it alone in the house’ Sunday Mirror
‘Brilliant, truly chilling’ Sophie Hannah
‘A tale of slow-burning suspense . . . Crouch deftly avoids the obvious and builds up a very convincing air of menace’ Daily Mail
‘Totally compelling . . . leaves you feeling shaken and out of sorts’ Heat
‘Very enjoyable; expertly paced and cleverly ambiguous’ Daily Telegraph
‘An entertaining rollercoaster of a read . . . I devoured it in hours’ Stylist
‘Hot on Sophie Hannah’s heels’ Mirror
‘A gripping and thrilling debut – you really don’t want it to end’ Sun
‘Crouch excels at creating an atmosphere of low level menace, slowly ratcheting up the tension to full-on horror’ Guardian
‘Dangerously addictive’ Erin Kelly, author of The Poison Tree
‘Locked-door-checkingly scary’ Julie Burchill
‘This luscious and sister British psychological drama is a chilling read . . . Deliciously creepy’ Marie Claire Australia
‘An amalgam of brilliant writing and heart-stopping tension!’ Sam Hayes, author of Tell Tale
Also by Julia Crouch and available from Headline
Cuckoo
Every Vow You Break
Tarnished
About the Book
How far would you go to protect your secrets?
Greece, 1980
Emma takes part in a shattering, violent event. An event to which she is anything but an innocent bystander.
She is only eighteen, but this marks her fall from innocence.
It will haunt her for the rest of her life.
London, now
Kate has the perfect existence: a glossy image, a glamorous home, a perfect family.
But there are cracks.
All is not what it seems.
And now the two world are about to collide.
Somebody’s out for revenge.
Someone who has been waiting thirty years . . .
For Gillie
Never regret thy fall,
O Icarus of the fearless flight
For the greatest tragedy of them all
Is never to feel the burning light.
Oscar Wilde
FISHERMAN
15 August 1980. Ikaria, Greece.
There were two truly unforgettable days in the life of Giorgios Moraitis. This was the first. The other he wasn’t to know for another thirty-three years.
It had been a good morning’s fishing, and he had stayed out much longer than usual, racing over the pitching, rolling Meltemi-whipped waves, the wind pushing his little boat far, far out, until his island home was just a line of darker blue on the horizon.
He had a good catch. Mostly barbounia, which would please his mother – she could get a good price for them, grilled over charcoal, for the feast of the Panagia. He planned to stop by the eastern beach, too, and drop off a couple of fish for the Americans. He liked the tiny girl, the thin one with the pale face and blue eyes. He hoped he would see her again up in the village. But it was hopeless, of course. The tall boy was in love with her. He could see that.
He, Giorgios, didn’t stand a chance.
He sighed. He would love to get away from the island, to see the world, meet a girl. The rare presence of foreigners made him long for it even more. But when would he ever get a chance to do that? All his life was duty.
He weighed anchor and started the long, zigzagging journey back to the shore, tacking into the strong offshore wind and using the big cliff above the beach as his navigation point. As he sailed, he thought about the girl and how he could possibly win her away from the tall American. He imagined how her tiny body would feel in his s
trong, brown, sailor’s arms.
As he drew closer, the island began to form into distinct colours and shapes. He changed and changed direction over the spumy waves until he was near enough to make out the gold and blue dome of his village church against the green of the mountainside. It was then that his eye was caught by a movement up on the big cliff.
Holding his hands up to his brow to shield his eyes from the sun, he made out three figures. He couldn’t see clearly – they were just dots, like ants, on the big rocks – but he thought it must be the Americans. No villager would be fool enough to be up on the cliff in the midday sun in the howling wind. They seemed to be dancing – playing some sort of game? It was strange to watch. A strange thing to be doing.
Then he realised that what he was watching was very far from a dance. One of the figures rammed into another. The third came in and shoved the first, who staggered towards the edge of the cliff.
Everything seemed to freeze for a second – Giorgios, the sea and the wind included – as the first figure hung, suspended. Then, with a rush, all came back to life, and the figure tumbled through the air to land with a crack that Giorgios swore he could hear, far out as he was on the roaring water. The two remaining figures stood motionless at the cliff edge, then one turned and ran away from the scene, streaming down the grassy top until it was out of sight. A few minutes later, the other followed. All that was left was the cliff, its sharp, high drop, and a tiny fallen speck down on the shore below.
Giorgios changed his tack and angled the prow of his boat towards where the body lay.
PART ONE
BEFORE AND AFTER
EMMA
20 July 1980, 10 a.m. English Channel between Dover and Calais. Ferry.
So, Emma James: the new you begins! You’ve worked for this. Well done.
List 1
What you’ll be leaving behind:
A small town in the north of England.
The whole north of England, in fact.
Clammy attentions suffered as only child of ageing parents.
Stupid Ripon boys (good bloody riddance).
Thatcher’s Britain (at least for a short while) with all its mealy minded Me, Me, Me
(and good bloody riddance, too).
List 2
What you have to look forward to:
A new, glamorous life as a grown-up at Cambridge.
Books.
Intelligent discussion.
Writing.
A life as a writer!
Lovers.
Parties.
List 3
The in-between bit:
First time abroad.
First long time alone.
£300 in traveller’s cheques.
One month InterRailing around Europe.
Seeing art.
Meeting interesting people.
Cheap alcohol.
Defining yourself away from all the crap in List 1.
Writing every day.
Total freedom.
Total freedom.
Total freedom.
Filling up (at least) the two notebooks you’ve brought with you. This being the first.
Yeah!
KATE
2013
The African sun outlines the golden halo of her hair.
The two little girls – whose names she didn’t know at the time, but who she had since been told were Mariam and Bintu – smile up at her as she reads to them, the white of their teeth somehow reflecting light at her so that even she could see why she had been described as radiant. She has her right arm round Bintu and the tripartite curlicues of that damn tattoo, visible on the inner part, between wrist and elbow, seem to echo the arrangement of the image’s three subjects.
Objectively speaking, it was a beautiful picture. Iconic. Extremely useful. International Charity Image 2013, no less. But Kate felt uncomfortable about the whole thing. She hadn’t asked to be the Face of Kindness.
Whatever, though. It had happened, and Sophie the PR consultant said it was wonderful.
So that was why she was sitting there, smiling and nodding, her sweat clogging thick studio make-up, watching her own ‘iconic image’ on the studio monitor as Hello UK! Anchorwoman Sally Marshall reeled off her introduction and Camera Two pointed at her face like a gun.
She squirmed and tried to keep her nails away from her teeth.
The floor manager counted down from ten, silently flicking her fingers for the last five, four, three, two, one, and . . .
As Sally Marshall turned to her interviewee and beamed, she shifted her arm to increase the valley of her cleavage. Was this, Kate found herself wondering, intentional? A weapon in the quest for ratings? Kate was glad she had decided at the last minute to slip a camisole under the V of her own dress. Not that she had much going on down there to worry about, but still.
‘Kate Barratt, welcome.’
‘Good morning, Sally,’ she said, as brightly as she could manage.
Two days earlier, when her nerves had almost led Kate to cancel the interview, Sophie PR emailed her a bulleted briefing list: Golden Rules for Addressing the Media. The first was Always greet your interviewer by name, if possible.
‘That’s a beautiful image,’ Sally Marshall said. ‘Tell us the story behind it.’
Kate told her about the girls’ school that Martha’s Wish had just opened in an impoverished West African country – the charity’s thirtieth such project. She reeled off the impressive statistics she had learned by heart: how many girls currently received schooling in that country, the changes the Martha’s Wish programme would make to that statistic, and the projected resulting shift in the fortunes of women – and therefore of the whole country – in ten years’ time.
‘And tell us about the little girls in the photograph,’ Sally said, her smile bright, her eyes studiedly concerned.
Kate told the fictional but plausible story Sophie had worked up with her a couple of days ago.
‘Well. Mariam and Bintu are both six years old. Were it not for Martha’s Wish building our school in their village, they would not have access to education. Mariam says she wants to be a doctor, and Bintu a lawyer. With their schooling guaranteed at least till the age of sixteen, these dreams are no longer unattainable.’
‘And I believe the photographer just caught you unawares as you read to them?’
Kate nodded. At least that was wholly true. ‘Steve Mitchell documented our field trip last year.’
‘That’s the top American Vogue fashion photographer Steve Mitchell?’
‘Um, yes. He donated his time to us.’ Kate felt herself reddening as she tried to pick up the thread of her interrupted story. ‘And – and this photo was just one in a series which we used for our annual report and website.’
‘And it’s caused quite a stir, hasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Kate said and, for a moment, there was a pause. She had broken Sophie’s second Golden Rule: Don’t give one-word answers. But she didn’t want to sound as if she were trumpeting.
‘What happened?’ Sally leaned forward and smiled, attempting to raise her Botox-thwarted eyebrows.
Kate had no choice: she had to go for it. ‘Well, it was picked up by social media, where it became the most shared worldwide image of the year. And now it’s won International Charity Image 2013 . . .’
‘Which is why you’re here today!’
‘More than that,’ Kate said, keen to move on from what she considered to be a point of vanity, ‘the recognition has done wonders for Martha’s Wish. Donations have soared compared to last year, and we’re planning to dramatically increase our activity—’
She stopped mid-sentence, appalled to see her own talking head replaced on the monitor by a film of her and Mark in their finery stepping out of a taxi and onto a red carpet leading up to a Mayfair hotel. How on earth had the TV people got hold of that?
‘Now,’ Sally said over the film, ‘this is you and your husband, the hedge fund manager Mark Barratt at a Mart
ha’s Wish gala dinner last year.’
She made it sound as if all they ever did was hold gala dinners. Kate watched herself on the film, tiny and tense beside the formal solidity of Mark, who led her through the door of the hotel with his habitual air of being in a hurry to get the thing over and done with. The gala dinner had been Sophie PR’s idea, and, like the African photograph, it had raised a great deal of money.
‘And I understand that you and Mark give a major annual donation to the charity,’ Sally went on, as the film cut to an ageing rock star, renowned for his humanitarian work, stepping from a limousine onto the same carpet. Sophie had managed to get him on board because she did yoga in Primrose Hill with his new wife.
‘We do,’ Kate said, glad that her visible discomfort at all this flaunting was not on camera.
‘Whaddaya know?’ Sally said, winking into Camera One as she replaced the gala dinner on the broadcast monitor. ‘A banker with a heart!’
Kate winced.
‘And tell me,’ Sally said, turning again to face Kate, her voice serious once more, ‘what’s the story behind Martha’s Wish? That’s an interesting name.’
Kate’s eyes flicked to the monitor to check that her thick pancake of foundation hid the flush that had spread to her cheeks. She thought she had made it quite clear when the producer had visited her while they were trowelling it on in hair and make-up that she didn’t want to talk about this.
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