by Nicci Cloke
And what was he actually going to do with her in the end? Why isn’t anyone asking that? It’s not like he could let her go, could he? She knew it was him, she remembered what happened. So, come on, let’s be real, he’d have killed her eventually. Guaranteed.
If he walks free tomorrow, I’m leaving the country. This is a total joke.
Extract from national broadsheet newspaper, The London Post:
Kevin Cooper was today found guilty of kidnapping and perverting the course of justice. He was sentenced to eighteen years imprisonment with a minimum term of twelve years. The jury also found him not guilty of an attempted murder charge. Though the judge said she accepted that Cooper had not initially intended to harm Summersall on the evening of 8th October, she called his actions following the event ‘unforgiveable and calculated’ and said that she had ‘no choice but to deliver a sentence that reflects the serious nature of his crime’.
Stocks in Cooper’s multi-million-pound technology empire have plummeted since the trial began. Cooper’s wife and stepson were not in court to see the verdict delivered.
AIDEN
I TRY TO move on.
I try to spend time with my mum, helping her unpack our things in our new, smaller house down by the river, down by Scobie’s. I try to ignore the constant stares we get, the whispers everywhere we go.
I don’t visit Kevin in prison. Neither of us do.
I try to get on with my last year of A Levels. I sit at the back of classrooms, I spend my lunchtimes at home; sometimes with Scobie, sometimes alone.
People wonder why I – we – didn’t go back to London, start again. Again. But Mum says she won’t hide. She’s back in her kimono and her flares, already looking for a job. She’s finally starting to smile again.
And so I try.
But at night, the loneliness stretches out in front of me and I ache for the old days, for the bleep of a new message in the darkness of my room.
She didn’t come back to school; they say she couldn’t face it. She’s finishing her A Levels with a private tutor, and then she’ll go off to uni, start again somewhere else. She still sees Marnie, she still sees Lauren. I know, because I hear them talking in class. Not to me obviously. They don’t talk to me.
Her privacy settings have all changed; I can’t even see her face. I just have the photo I took, the one of her as Blanche, her phone blocking most of her face. Blocked blocked blocked.
I think of all the people I could be. I think of all the faces I could use to win her trust back, to be her friend again. I just want to see her again, to know that she’s okay. I think how easy it would be; a simple click of a button. Follow.
But it wouldn’t be easy; it wouldn’t be real. I know that now.
And so I pick up my phone, and I draft a message, like the hundreds of messages I’ve started and sent before. I don’t even know if this is still her number; I don’t even know if she’ll read it.
But I have to try.
Lizzie, I’m so sorry. What I did was unforgiveable. And it put you in danger, and I’ll never get over that. But please. Let me try to make it right.
I press send. I watch and wait. Delivered, it says. 15:38.
The screen is still. The screen is silent.
And then:
…
She starts to write back.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks – first, foremost and always – to Margaret, Richard and Daniel Cloke. You are my favourite people in the world, and these books just wouldn’t happen without your support, encouragement and company. I love you.
And a huge thank you to:
Early readers Hayley Richardson, Ian Ellard and Lizzie Bishop, for all of your feedback and general wonderfulness.
Cathryn Summerhayes and Siobhan O’Neill at WME, for making the tricky stuff fun and the fun stuff better.
And to Emma Matthewson, Rosi Crawley, Georgia Murray, Debbie Hatfield and all at Hot Key, for being brilliant to work with and for giving Aiden, Lizzie, Marnie and Scobie the perfect home. Thank you!
Nicci Cloke
Nicci Cloke is a full-time writer, part-time doer of random jobs. These jobs have included Christmas Elf, cocktail waitress, and childminder. She is also the organiser and host of literary salon Speakeasy. She lives and writes in North London. Follow Nicci on Twitter: @niccicloke
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First published in Great Britain in 2016 by
HOT KEY BOOKS
80–81 Wimpole St, London W1G 9RE
www.hotkeybooks.com
Copyright © Nicci Cloke, 2016
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
The right of Nicci Cloke to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-4714-0543-3
This eBook was produced using Atomik ePublisher
Hot Key Books is an imprint of Bonnier Publishing Fiction, a Bonnier Publishing company
www.bonnierpublishingfiction.co.uk
www.bonnierpublishing.co.uk
