Praise for Michelle Davies
‘A tense, clever look at how quickly paradise can turn into hell. I read it in one sitting’
Erin Kelly
‘I couldn’t put it down. Michelle Davies manages to extract every ounce of threat from the powerful emotions of envy and greed’
Rachel Abbott
‘Gripping, thought-provoking and expertly plotted – a cracking read’
Katerina Diamond
‘It’s a brilliant, compelling read, with characters who came alive and were completely believable, as was the heart-wrenching portrayal of the anguish suffered by the parents of a missing child’
Debbie Howells
‘This book deserves to shoot to the top of the bestseller lists. I read it in a single sitting’
Daily Mail
‘Get familiar with the edge of your seat – you’re going to spend a lot of time there’
Sunday Telegraph
‘Sensational’
Stylist
‘An intense thriller with a riveting twisty plot’
Woman – Book of the Week
‘A clever but all too believable crime thriller that’s right on the money when it comes to creepy, twisted plots’
Fabulous
‘This is a gritty, no-nonsense, old skool story. Less Gone Girl and more Prime Suspect’
Red
‘This cleverly plotted novel brings its storylines to a satisfying conclusion’
Daily Express
‘A gripping read’
Bella
‘We couldn’t put it down’
Closer
To Nan
Contents
Praise for Michelle Davies
Dedication
Title Page
16 July 1994
Part One
Chapter One Cara, now
Chapter Two Cara
Chapter Three
Chapter Four Karen
Chapter Five Cara
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven Cara
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine Cara
Chapter Ten Cara
Chapter Eleven Cara
Chapter Twelve Karen
Chapter Thirteen Cara
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen Cara
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen Cara
Chapter Eighteen Cara
Chapter Nineteen Cara
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One Cara
Chapter Twenty-Two Karen
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four Cara
Chapter Twenty-Five Cara
Chapter Twenty-Six Cara
Chapter Twenty-Seven Cara
Chapter Twenty-Eight Karen
Chapter Twenty-Nine Cara
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One Cara
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three Cara
Chapter Thirty-Four Cara
Chapter Thirty-Five Karen
Chapter Thirty-Six Cara
Chapter Thirty-Seven Cara
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine Cara
Chapter Forty Cara
Chapter Forty-One Cara
Part Two June 1994
Chapter Forty-Two Anita
Chapter Forty-Three Anita
Chapter Forty-Four Lisa
Chapter Forty-Five Lisa
Chapter Forty-Six Anita
Chapter Forty-Seven Lisa
Chapter Forty-Eight Anita
Chapter Forty-Nine Anita
Chapter Fifty Anita
Chapter Fifty-One Lisa
Chapter Fifty-Two Anita
Chapter Fifty-Three Anita
Part Three Now
Chapter Fifty-Four Cara
Chapter Fifty-Five Cara
Chapter Fifty-Six Karen
Chapter Fifty-Seven Cara
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine Cara
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One Cara
Chapter Sixty-Two Cara
Chapter Sixty-Three Cara
Chapter Sixty-Four Karen
Chapter Sixty-Five Cara
Chapter Sixty-Six Cara
Chapter Sixty-Seven Cara
Chapter Sixty-Eight Cara
Chapter Sixty-Nine Karen
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One Nine weeks later
Acknowledgements
Credits
Also by Michelle Davies
About the Author
Copyright
16 July 1994
Cara must’ve fallen asleep at some point, but she can’t remember closing her eyes. She rolls over and peers at the luminous dial of her alarm clock. Telling the time is a relatively new skill and it takes a few seconds of concentration before she is sure the hands are pointing to half past midnight. Time to get up and catch Limey Stan, she grins to herself, her mind buzzing with her plan of how they are going to do it.
The early-hours temperature is mild, so she doesn’t bother to pull her robe over her nightie, nor stuff her bare feet into slippers. Yet outside it is raining. Heavily, she guesses, judging by the noise it makes pelting against her bedroom window.
Her bravado begins to wane as she creeps along the landing towards Matty’s room. Her parents’ bedroom door is firmly shut and the house is pitch-black, just the way Limey Stan likes it. Is he already downstairs, crouching in the shadows in the hallway, waiting to pounce? Shuddering from tip to toe, Cara wishes she’d included using a torch in her plan.
Matty is in such a deep sleep, it takes three attempts to rouse him. When he finally does wake, he takes one look at Cara, flips onto his front and buries his face in his pillow.
‘I know you’re scared,’ she tells him, ‘but that’s why we need to get rid of Limey Stan. So we can stop being scared.’ When he shakes his head, face still hidden, she pokes him hard in the back with her finger. ‘Come on, it’ll be an adventure. Isn’t that what the Power Rangers do? Fight the nasty men and have adventures?’
Referencing her little brother’s favourite TV show does the trick and a few minutes later, after a heart-pounding dash downstairs and along the hallway where Limey Stan usually prowls, the children have hidden themselves behind the full-length curtains in the front room.
‘Did you see him?’ Matty asks her breathlessly as they assume their places. He’s not heard Limey Stan speak yet, let alone caught a glimpse of him. Cara wakes him up whenever Limey Stan wakes her, but by the time Matty gets to the top of the stairs, to her frustration, he’s always gone.
‘No, he’s not here yet.’
But he will be, soon, and when Matty sees him too, everyone will know she is telling the truth about what’s been disturbing her night-times for the past few months.
Boredom quickly sets in while they wait for him to materialise, however. Then Matty, who is only six, gets the giggles and his entire body begins to shake, making the curtain ripple. Cara tries to be annoyed that he’s not taking it seriously, but secretly she welcomes the break in tension and soon she’s giggling uncontrollably too and the two of them are shaking so much, they wind themselves in the folds in the curtain. Plunged into even deeper darkness, Matty stops laughing and begins to panic.
‘I’m stuck.’
Cara blindly reaches forward until she makes contact with her little brother’s familiar form. She pulls at the fabric that’s now wrapped tightly around him, but as she does, she hears a creak in the hallway next door, quickly followed by another.
She yelps. ‘I can hear him, he’s coming!’
Frantic now, Cara pulls at the curtain again, but her hands
are sweaty and Matty’s writhing too much.
‘Stay still,’ she implores him. ‘I can’t get it off if you don’t stop moving.’
But as he finally obeys, she senses they are not alone in the room. She swears she hears breathing and it’s getting louder.
‘It’s Limey Stan,’ she wails. ‘He’s going to get us!’
Matty screams, but the curtain muffles the sound. Cara tries to make another grab for her brother, but it’s too late.
Limey Stan has beaten her to it.
Part One
Chapter One
Cara, now
The Brimsdown Arms isn’t the closest pub to our office, but it holds the distinction of being the nicest in the vicinity. Fashionably muted grey walls, an array of absurdly named craft beers and scrubbed wooden tables large enough to seat all eleven of us. Towards the end of the evening, if they’ve been vacated in time, we’ll migrate to the two leather sofas at the back of the room, grateful to lower our wearied selves into their bowed cushions.
Invariably, someone will doze off, alcohol limit breached, and phones will be whipped out to enshrine their slack-mouthed inebriation on social media. For this reason, I make sure it’s never me who drinks too much, sticking to vodka tonic and alternating with fizzy water whenever it’s my turn to go to the bar.
Tonight, the sofas are still taken and I’m sandwiched at a table between Donna, one pay grade above me and hardwired to never let me forget it, and Jeannie, head of our department and one of the most generous people I know. She buys the first round without fail every Friday after work and never minds when the same three people peel off home immediately after their free glass of whatever is drained.
She’s telling me about her plans for the weekend, but I’m struggling to hear what she’s saying over the music blasting from the speaker above our table. Earlier, we’d asked the manager to lower the volume, but he claimed it was designed to rise and fall with the pitch of customers’ voices and turning it off would mean shutting down the pub’s entire music system. We decided to test his theory and lower it ourselves by whispering for five minutes, but then Leo, the office junior, began to snigger and the spread of laughter around the table sent the decibel level soaring again and that’s where it’s remained.
As I strain to hear Jeannie, someone reaches between us to grab the empty glasses littering the table and I jolt as they lean a little too heavily against my shoulder for it to be accidental. My colleagues’ faces break into sly, knowing grins and immediately I know it’s him, the new bartender I went home with last week and whose name doesn’t easily spring to mind.
Donna theatrically digs me in the ribs. ‘Aren’t you going to say hello?’ she hollers above the music.
I shrug non-committally but do steal a glance up at him, then wish I hadn’t. He’s younger than I recall, his skin gloriously unmarked by any signs of creeping age, and I’ll admit I’m taken aback: how could I not have noticed how boyish he was? He’s really not my type. Then my memory crudely reminds me that our interaction was too urgent to allow for lingering looks, and my face reddens.
He stares down at me, waiting, a hank of messy blond hair flopping over his forehead. Acutely aware everyone’s watching us, I flash him a smile, which he returns, then I beckon him closer. His eyes light up, until I speak.
‘You’ve missed one.’
‘What?’
‘That one over there.’
I point across the table to the empty pint glass next to Leo, who has reached the swaying-in-his-seat stage of drunkenness.
My one-night stand snatches the glass up, his cheeks now a vivid shade of crimson to match mine, and he disappears into the crowd in the direction of the bar.
A couple of the others laugh at his retreating back, but Donna clicks her tongue disapprovingly. ‘You could’ve been nicer to him, Cara.’ Her voice is still raised to counter the music.
Jeannie catches the comment and leans across me to respond, forcing me to sit back in my seat. ‘Why should she?’
‘Yes, why should I?’ I mirror.
‘Because you went home with him last week,’ Donna bristles.
‘So?’ Jeannie shrugs. ‘This is 2019, not 1950. Not every sexual encounter has to lead to something. No need to get your knickers in a twist if Cara’s not bothered.’
It’s a paper cut of a remark, designed to sting. We both know Donna is unhealthily invested in my private life, regularly making it the focus of office chat, and I’ve complained to Jeannie about it more than once. Why should it matter to Donna, or anyone else, that I’m thirty-four and still single and content to be so? Jeannie gets it, and has cautioned Donna to stop prying, but it hasn’t deterred her. Then again, it hasn’t deterred me either, hence last week’s liaison after closing time.
‘But sleeping around is so dangerous. She might catch something.’ Donna is discussing me as though I’m not here. ‘Not that I’m saying you’ve got an STD,’ she adds, finally addressing me. ‘But you know what I mean.’
I bite back a retort. She makes it sound as though I’m with a different man every night, when the bartender is the first person I’ve slept with in three months. I would never share these simple truths with Donna, or even Jeannie, but I’m usually more discerning about whose bed I get into – the bartender is definitely the lower end of my age limit. I also have a rule, which Jeannie is aware of, never to have sex with anyone who might want to see me again afterwards. This is not the act of self-preservation people may assume – be the dumper, not the dumpee – I just struggle to entertain what a serious relationship entails and I’ve got so used to being on my own that I can’t imagine committing to someone long-term. Being loved unstintingly for years on end is a concept I am unfamiliar with.
‘I’m sure Cara is being sensible,’ says Jeannie, catching my eye and smiling. ‘We’ve talked about this before, Donna. Marriage isn’t for everyone.’
Donna scowls. She finds it impossible to believe I don’t want to settle down and that no relationship is worth relinquishing the privacy and lack of intrusion that being on my own gives me. She and ‘my Martin’ met at school, were married at twenty-two and had three children by the time she was my age. The way she talks about her husband though, I’m not sure she even likes him any more, let alone loves him. But broach the idea of them separating and you’ll get short shrift and a lecture on marriage vows being unbreakable.
‘Maybe if you seriously changed the way you look you’d attract a better standard of man,’ Donna sighs, washing down the insult with the dregs in her glass.
‘You think I should have plastic surgery?’ I laugh.
She eye-rolls as she reaches across the table for the bottle of wine in the ice bucket, then grimaces when she realises it’s empty. She plonks it back in the bucket neck-first, then hollers across the table at the others that it’s someone else’s round.
‘I doubt you could afford it on your wage, but that’s not what I meant,’ she says. ‘Your face is fine, but I think you should grow your hair long and wear more make-up. A pixie crop might be trendy, but it isn’t very feminine.’
She’s so drunk now it comes out as ‘femininny’. Reflexively, I fold my right hand over the nape of my neck, where the shortest hairs taper to a velveteen point.
‘I like my hair this length and, besides, you were telling me only three –’ I release my hand to check my watch to be sure, and am surprised to see it’s nearly ten ‘– actually, four hours ago as we left the office that you like the way I do my eyeliner. You even asked me to show you how I flick it up at the ends.’
I’m baiting Donna into continuing our quarrel because it’s a variation of the same one we have every Friday night and not to have it would be weird. However irritating she might be, and however much she crosses the line with my personal life, I do find a strange comfort in the repetition of how we are with each other and the way we bicker. I suppose it’s because routine is something I cleave to and have done for years. Having your life turned upsid
e down as a child can do that to a person.
Jeannie leans across me again.
‘Give it a rest, Donna. If I had my time again, I wouldn’t rush to settle down either. I’d have kept my options open too.’ She looks over at the bartender, who’s now serving someone. ‘Are you sure you don’t want a repeat performance with that one though? He’s lovely-looking.’
‘He’s way too young; don’t encourage her!’ Donna drunkenly shouts.
I don’t respond to either of them. I can’t. Their physical proximity is starting to make me feel hemmed in: their arms are pressed solidly against mine and I don’t like it. It’s overbearing, too intimate. I tense my body to prevent myself elbowing them off me, because I don’t want to cause a scene. The stark physicality of one-night stands I can cope with, affectionate embraces and touching I can’t.
They continue chatting, seemingly unaware of my discomfort, and I’ve just reached the point where I’m about to jump to my feet to escape their confinement when I receive an unexpected text. Unexpected because the people who usually text me are all seated at the table. I feel the message before I see it, in the vibration of my mobile in my handbag rammed between my feet beneath the table.
Grateful for the excuse to move, I reach down and rummage blindly in my bag, lifting out the phone just as the screen goes dark again, but not before I see what the text says. The words are succinct, the tone brisk – yet the emotional impact of them combined is so colossal it punches the breath from my lungs.
I scrabble to activate the screen again, my heart thudding so frantically it’s a wonder Donna and Jeannie can’t hear it. I read the text again and the clamour of the pub recedes to a low muffle as I try to take in the news that I am unutterably shocked to receive.
My mother is dead.
Chapter Two
Cara
The text isn’t from anyone in my contacts. Then again, it wouldn’t be. The people I count as friends and associates these days don’t know my mum. But this person does, right down to the last minute of her life.
CARA, YOUR MUM DIED AT 12.33 TODAY. WE THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW. KAREN.
I grip the phone tightly, a necessary anchor as my thoughts clamber over themselves to be heard. Mum’s dead? How? Was it expected, sudden … even planned?
Shadow of a Doubt Page 1
