by C J Carver
Over Your Shoulder
CJ Carver
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
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
A note from the publisher
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Copyright © 2019 CJ Carver
The right of CJ Carver to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2019 by Bloodhound Books
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 publisher 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.
www.bloodhoundbooks.com
Praise for CJ Carver
Terrific! — LA Larkin
Twisting, tense, terrific — LA Larkin, author of Prey
A delicious final twist — Susan Opie
Enough twists and turns to keep any crime fan’s brow knitted — Chris Curran
Draws you in and keeps you on tenterhooks all the way to the end — Waterstones Bookseller
A terrific twist in the tail — Lancashire Evening post
One of the best on the market — Chris High, book reviewer Don’t expect to sleep, because this is unputdownable — Frost Magazine
Chapter 1
We were on the sofa as usual at 10pm, watching the news. Susie lay curled next to me, her head resting against my chest, my arm around her. The BBC’s political editor was discussing the Brexit narrative – nothing new that I could tell – and I was looking at the wood burner and thinking about nothing more than putting on another log, when Susie went quite still.
Whenever she did that – not that often to be honest – I was reminded of a wild animal. A rabbit who’d just sighted a fox. Or a wolf sizing up their prey. It depended on the situation. I quickly checked for spiders (Susie hates spiders, they are the only thing that seems to freak her out) and since we appeared to be spider-free, I followed her gaze to the TV, unable to see what had triggered her sudden tension.
The reporter was talking about a terror attack in London that happened earlier that day. Susie worked in London. That was weird, because she hadn’t mentioned anything. I glanced down at her but she was immersed in the TV, where the BBC reporter was pointing across a large pedestrian area strewn with police cars and news vans.
Apparently, a masked gunman had entered a restaurant and opened fire while yelling Allāhu Akbar! Four people had died and eight had been injured but it could have been much worse except for one of the diners who had taken the gunman on. Incredibly, the man had launched himself at the terrorist and either through luck or excellent timing hadn’t been shot. The second he’d brought the gunman down, three other men had joined in, disarming the attacker before sitting on him until the police arrived.
‘He’s been called a superhero,’ the journalist was saying. ‘And like a superhero he’s vanished. As soon as police officers arrived and arrested the gunman, our unidentified hero disappeared. All we have is CCTV footage.’
As the screen changed to a grainy black and white image, Susie yawned. Stretched a little before settling back in my arms.
I watched as a man in a balaclava, dressed in dark jeans and fleece, charged into the restaurant, firing his weapon. A man to one side launched himself from his table, diving for the gunman with no seeming concern for his safety, laying the gunman flat. I watched him deliver a full-fisted punch into the face – followed by a powerful blow to the throat – and wrestle the gun free. At that moment other men piled in too, but there was something about the first man – the hero everyone was talking about – that had me riveted. Was it his unreserved heroism? The way he hadn’t hesitated? Or was it the efficiency of his blows? As he sat astride the gunman’s chest, he looked up, straight into the camera’s lens. My heart stopped. My ears rang.
He was older, but then he would be. Twelve years had passed since we’d last seen one another. His hair was longer, curling at the nape, but appeared just as untidy. His face had always been boyish, but now it looked leaner, more mature. His gaze was direct, his eyes blazing from the adrenaline rush – a look I could remember all too well from when we competed against each other. My heart gave a gigantic thump when I saw the scar I’d given him when he was three still marred his chin.
I heard the reporter asking viewers to help identify the superhero but the voice faded into the background as the years poured away.
I was no longer in our cottage with my wife in my arms. I was standing on a wind-blasted beach staring at the debris of an eighteen-foot skiff shattered by one of the worst storms to hit the south coast in a decade. I was listening to the policeman telling me this was all there was, that they’d found no flotation devices, no body.
I was looking at the pieces of wreckage and hearing Mum sob.
I was shivering with grief as I laid a wreath on his grave.
I stared at the TV, straight into the eyes of my brother, Rob, who’d supposedly drowned at sea. He was still alive.
Chapter 2
No sooner had my brother’s face disappeared from the TV screen when our phone rang. I should say phones, because not only did our landline ring but my mobile and Susie’s too. I didn’t move. I didn’t want to speak to anyone. I wanted to sit by the fire and pretend I hadn’t seen my brother. I wanted to pre
tend he was dead and that he hadn’t let me bury him, grieve over him and miss him with a gut-wrenching loss that could still catch me unawares. Above all, I didn’t want to face the fact the brother I loved, had looked out for since he was born, had betrayed me. Had lied to me all this time.
‘Nick?’ Susie had twisted round and was staring at me. ‘Was that who I thought it was?’
Our phones continued to ring but neither of us moved to answer them.
I felt numb, my emotions oddly suspended.
‘Nick.’ She gripped my hands in hers. My skin felt icy against her warmth. Shock, I suppose.
‘Was it Rob?’ she insisted. ‘Was it him?’
I didn’t want to speak. Instead I gave a nod.
‘Fuck.’
‘Fucksake. Where the fuck…?’ She closed her eyes briefly. ‘I can’t…’ She exhaled. ‘Fuck.’
Nausea washed through me. I needed to breathe. I got to my feet. Walked to the front door. Opened it. A rush of cold air laced with the smell of seaweed and salt steadied me a little. I felt Susie come to stand at my shoulder.
‘You okay?’ she asked.
I didn’t respond. Just stared out into the blackness of the harbour.
‘You want me to come with you?’
I shook my head.
She offered me my sailing jacket but I stepped outside without taking it even though it was close to freezing. For some reason, I needed the cold. There was no moon and the sky was a brilliant black scattered with stars.
Bosham – pronounced Bozz-um, another of those bizarre English names that don’t sound like they’re spelled – was a heartbreakingly pretty village with a harbour in its centre. I loved high tide when the sea came right into the village, flooding the lower road and several car parking spaces. There were warning signs everywhere but visitors still got caught out when they returned from a look around the church, or a pint in The Anchor Bleu, to find their car practically floating out to sea.
We lived in a quaint cottage whose official name was Sea Breeze but which Susie called the Mouse House. I bought it because it had a studio on the second floor, along with French windows and a tiny balcony. From my desk, if I leaned out and craned my neck slightly, I could see the sea. It has one bedroom, one bathroom and the ground floor’s one large room combining a kitchen and sitting room with a worktop in between. There’s a small garden, but I’m not a gardener by any stretch of the imagination so I employed my aunt’s gardener, Mrs Downing, to keep it in shape. She planted flowers I never know the name of along with a variety of herbs, and created a really nice space that I use all the time in summer. I thought the cottage would be too small for two, but luckily Susie fell in love with it.
‘It’s the perfect weekend getaway,’ she told me, beaming. She had her own flat in London, a large modern white and chrome space with bleached wooden floors in the heart of Chelsea. I never asked how she could afford it and assumed her parents must have had a hand in its purchase because as far as I knew, she had no mortgage and owned it outright. Lucky me, marrying into money. I pay for the upkeep of the cottage, while Susie takes care of her flat. She stays there four nights a week: Monday to Friday.
Sometimes she works from home but not that often. Besides, I think she likes her space and for me, absence makes my heart grow fonder and our weekends are usually fantastic reunions. We’ve talked about selling both our places and buying somewhere bigger closer to London, but that’s all it’s been. Talk. I’m not sure if living away from the water would necessarily be easy for me, but I’d give anything a go for Susie. She’s the love of my life, and I’d pretty much do anything to make her happy.
I turned the corner and paused, looking at the breadth of harbour, the outlines of a handful of skiffs bobbing gently on the water and lights from the village shimmering in the black. This was where Rob and I had learned to sail. This was where I’d taught Susie to sail. We’d met at Rob’s memorial and now he wasn’t dead after all.
I stood quite still, staring at the view. I was perfectly aware I was keeping my thoughts light. I felt as though if I let my true emotions out, actually looked at what Rob had done to us – to me – I might lose it. So I kept my thoughts skimming across the surface of my emotions. Skim-skim, like a shiny grey stone gleaming above the water and never sinking into the depths below.
I could picture Rob as a toddler in my skiff, clutching the side and shrieking every time the wind caught the sail and tipped us towards the water. I could picture Susie as clearly, her narrow intelligent face topped by a frown of concentration, her deep brown eyes intent on the job in hand. I loved watching her at the tiller, her silky hair snapping in the breeze, her slender body taut as wire, her hands quick and capable. She’d look up and our eyes would meet and I’d feel a kick in my stomach, a punch in my heart, and she’d grin, safe in her feminine confidence and power – she knew I adored every inch of her.
How much do you love me? she’d tease.
To Betelgeuse and back. With no beginning, no end. I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I will love you until I die, and if there’s an afterlife, I’ll love you then.
Susie and Rob. The two people I loved most in the world
It may sound odd, but I’d always thanked Rob for getting Susie and me together. If he hadn’t died, she’d never have come to Bosham to pay her respects and we would have had a whole other life apart from one another. Whenever I think how it could have been, I feel a chill in my heart because I’ve never loved any woman like Susie. She’s a one-off, the only woman I’ve met who loves sailing and rollercoasters as much as I do. I wondered whether Rob knew we’d married. What he thought about it.
Susie had met Rob through someone at work, apparently. Yup, that’s right. My feckless kid brother, who we despaired about because he couldn’t hold down a job – he’d get bored, get restless, itching for something more exciting, more fun – had actually been hanging out with grown-ups at the civil service. She’d met him several times at social events and liked him enough to join a couple of Rob’s work colleagues and come to his memorial service.
Had Rob’s skiff Kingfisher got into trouble and he’d taken the opportunity to vanish? Maybe he’d suffered memory loss? Or had he orchestrated the entire scenario? If so, why? I suddenly wanted to talk to Susie. She may not have known him well, but she might know someone who did. Maybe she could give me another insight.
Time to head home.
Chapter 3
No sooner had Nick vanished into the darkness of the harbour than his family turned up. His mum, dad, Aunt Julia and Nick’s sister Kate and her husband Simon crammed into the kitchen area, all talking at once. Susie hastily poured them all drinks. Whisky for her father-in-law, white wine for everyone else except Simon, who only drank red. Susie stuck to water. She may have felt like downing a treble vodka and tonic – actually snapping open a bottle and necking it down neat would be more appropriate – but she wanted to keep a clear head.
Now she’d got over the initial shock, her nerves had steadied. She had to be honest, she couldn’t help admiring Rob for faking his own death. Because that was what he’d done, wasn’t it? She remembered the column on the second page of The Guardian.
The boat builder and international sailor’s body was never found despite an extensive air, sea and coast search after debris from his yacht was found washed ashore.
Clever, huh? She’d fallen for it along with everyone else, and his ruse had kept him safe. But for how long?
Susie poured everyone another round of drinks, letting their panicky talk wash over her: Where’s he been? What’s he been doing? Is it really him? It’s been twelve years. Why did he take Kingfisher out when he knew there was a storm brewing? Why did he sail into danger? How did he survive the storm? Why hasn’t he rung? Susie, did Nick know he was alive? What about you?
Susie shook her head and excused herself to move into the living area, where she called Rob’s wife, Clara, who everyone seemed to have forgotten. Luckily,
Clara hadn’t seen the news and Susie took advantage of the fact to ask a few questions before telling her what had happened. When she hung up, poor Clara sounded as though she’d been rabbit-punched in the gut.
Next, Susie rang the office but they already had a team checking the CCTV to see if they could get a bead on Rob. Not for the first time, she wondered if she’d made a mistake not telling Nick what her real job was. What her relationship had been with Rob before he’d supposedly drowned. She was naturally secretive – hence being drawn to a secretive world – but it was more than that. She wanted to protect him. Not have him worry about her, or be put on the spot when talking about her work. Then there was the small problem that he was a terrible liar. He wouldn’t give her away on purpose, but he’d still give her away. Plus, he’d probably want to tell his family, and she didn’t want that. What she did was her business, not theirs.
