The Sleeper Lies

by Andrea Mara

  But, in the end, Patrick wasn’t ill, they said – he was guilty. He was going to prison for life, or whatever life might mean. And as Jamie and I sat in the courtroom, holding hands, then, finally, the story was over. Not a happy ever after. Not a fairy-tale ending. But for us, a new beginning.

  THE END

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  First and foremost, thank you to Paula Campbell, Gaye Shortland, and all at Poolbeg – third time round, you made this even easier than ever – it has been a joy from start to finish.

  Thank you to my agent Diana Beaumont. I’m so glad we had our serendipitous meeting!

  To my sisters, Nicola, Elaine, and Dee – thank you for being my first readers and constant entertainers. Dad, you were off the hook for proofreading this time, but only because you went to South East Asia at the critical point, a fairly extreme attempt to avoid being roped in. Also, this one’s for you, to say thank you for everything.

  To my early readers, Karen Mulreid, Elizabeth McDonnell, Naomi Lavelle, Emmet Driver, Gavin Driver-O’Donnell, Lorna Sixsmith, Tric Kearney, Noeleen Rooney and Denise Slevin – thank you so much, I know it’s not easy to read pdf! Particular thanks to Naomi who swooped in at the last minute and saved the day.

  Sincere thanks to Darragh, Stephen and Allen, for making sure my officers are stationed in the correct stations and ranked in the correct ranks. (Stephen, I think you should be writing a crime series.)

  Thank you to the Denmark gang: to Melanie Hayes of DejligeDays.com, for answering my big Danish questions; to Zoe Healy and to Rachael’s friend Aoife for the little bits and pieces along the way, and especially to Nanna Kock Johansen for always being at the end of the line when I needed a translation. Any remaining errors, as they say, are mine.

  Special thanks to Theodor Hans Helsengren Gøgsig and his dad, Johnny, for inventing the town-name Købæk.

  Thank you to Tricia Griffith of WebSleuths, and to the Lurvers Armchair Detectives – so many rabbit holes, so little time.

  Thank you to dlr Lexicon and The Mellow Fig, where chunks of this book were written.

  Thank you to my oldest friends from my own school and my newest friends from my kids’ schools, and everyone else in between – you have been so incredibly supportive throughout all of this.

  Thank you to my blogger pals – the parent bloggers and book bloggers, for all the reading and sharing and advising and turning up – you are all more brilliant than you know.

  Thank you to the Irish writers I’ve come to know – for the honest insights and inspirational chats in the backs of taxis and in the pubs of Listowel and in the beer tent in Harrogate and on WhatsApp and Facebook – you make a sometimes lonely pursuit far less lonely.

  And a huge thank you to the OfficeMum.ie readers, because that’s where it all started.

  A side note for any Danish readers or Myths and Legends aficionados: I’ve taken some liberties with Nøkken (though I still wouldn’t like to meet one).

  More liberties: The Sleeper Lies is set during the big snow of March 2018, but in my fictional version, the curfews and red weather warnings and fresh snow don’t occur on exactly the same days as they did in real life.

  It was while I was hunkered down, snowed in with my husband and kids for three days, that it struck me how eerie and sometimes sinister the snow looks, especially at night. Then there was the cabin fever side of things – three days in an upside-down world of closed schools, depleting food stocks, and no escape. It was a time that brought out the worst in my fictional characters but the best in real-life people, banding together to shovel snow, clear roads, and share information about when Tesco was really opening again. Particular thanks to my friend and neighbour Rachael Barry, who gave me half a sliced pan when she had one and I had none – that’s how I remember the snow.

  It was during this suspended reality that the idea for the The Sleeper Lies came about, so thank you to Elissa, Nia, and Matthew for muddling along so admirably during the snow, for brainstorming plots with me, and for helping to find cake recipes that didn’t require butter, when we ran out of that too.

  Thank you to Damien for trudging through the snow to bring home supplies, and for your unfailing support of this new and sometimes erratic career. I couldn’t do any of it without you.

  And finally, thank you to you, the reader, for reading this book!

  Now that you’re hooked why not try

  ONE CLICK

  also published by Poolbeg

  Here’s a sneak preview of

  Chapter 1

  1

  CHAPTER 1

  One Click

  The woman is where she is every day. Her eyes closed, her face turned to the sun, and she has no idea I’m here. Turquoise waves lap around her feet and the low frame of her deckchair. Dark-red hair glints in the morning light and her book hangs loosely in her hand. It’s Utopia wrapped up in a single square shot and I can’t resist.

  My phone is on silent, and there’s no tell-tale click when I take the photo, but still she glances up. Does she know? She looks at me for a moment, then down to her book.

  I turn and take some more shots, out to sea this time. My arms drop to my sides and I stand for a moment, breathing in the sea air, letting the babble of accents wash over me. Then a wave splashes across my feet and the spell is broken.

  My wet trainers squelch on the sand on the way back to the campsite. I should run, but it’s too hot now, and I’m tired. Or maybe old. Older than yesterday when I’m sure I ran for longer.

  “Caffè? Pasticcini?” comes the familiar call from the kiosk.

  “Cappuccino, per favore,” I say, feeling only slightly guilty that I don’t have enough money with me to take pastries back to the girls. I’ll drink my coffee on the walk back so they don’t get cranky. Especially Rebecca, I think, picturing the raised-eyebrow look she’s been perfecting since we arrived in Italy. The coffee is strong and hot as it hits the back of my throat, and the morning ritual is complete.

  “Mum, did you bring us anything?” Rebecca asks as I walk up to the deck, not looking up from her phone. Her hand hovers absentmindedly over a plate of toast.

  “Are you on Snapchat again? It’s going to cost a fortune, Rebecca.”

  Now she looks up, and there’s the raised eyebrow. “Did you bring us pastries?” she asks, and takes a bite of toast.

  “Nope, I didn’t have any money with me,” I tell her. “Where’s Ava?”

  “Still in bed,” she says, going back to her phone.

  Pulling up a chair beside her, I scan through my photos. Fourteen taken this morning – the girls will have a field day. They never take photos of the sea, or anything that doesn’t have a pouting human in the foreground, and they can’t understand why I do. I stop when I get to the girl with the dark-red hair. There’s something about her expression that radiates an easy indifference to the sunbathers and paddlers around her. The way the book hangs from her hand, the tilt of her wrist. Her upturned unlined face. The blush-coloured dress against nutmeg skin, a turquoise bracelet the only flash of colour. A sun goddess dressed up as a carefree millennial. Clicking into Instagram, I upload the photo. It doesn’t need a filter – the girl on the beach speaks for herself. I type a caption.

  *All* the envy on my morning run – this is #howIwishIspentmytwenties

  I hit share, and put down my phone as Ava pads out of the mobile home and flops into a chair.

  “I’m starving – did you bring us anything? Hey! Rebecca, did you eat all the bread?”

  And just like that, I’m back to the real world of ever-hungry teens and bickering siblings.

  It’s after lunch before I check into Instagram. 354 likes already. I share it on Facebook and Twitter too, and Rebecca catches me smiling.

  “Mum, are you obsessing over your blog again? You’re never off that phone,” she says, mimicking me.

  “It’s not my blog, it’s Instagram, and I’m just checking it. I haven’t been on in hours actually,” I say, mimicking he
r back.

  She leans in to have a look.

  “Who’s that in the pic?”

  “I don’t know – just a woman I saw on my run this morning. Doesn’t she look so happy and chilled?”

  “Yeah . . . does she know you took her photo though? Did you ask her?”

  “No, but it’s just a photo of the beach – people take pictures like that all the time. With strangers in them, I mean.”

  “Sure, but this picture is very much about her, and now you’ve put it online. Like, you can see her really clearly – she’s not just one of the crowd. Ha – you’re constantly telling us not to post photos without permission, and now you’ve just gone and done it!”

  “Excuse me, it’s not the same thing – photographers take pictures like this all the time. It’s a candid shot – a study of a person having a moment in time, that’s all.” I’m aware of how defensive I sound and, watching my daughter do her perfect eyebrow-raise, I see she is too.

  “Whatever, Mum, but maybe practise what you preach?” she says, picking up her plate and walking inside.

  I can hear her telling Ava about it and I can picture the eye-rolls. Shutting out their voices, I look down again at my phone. It’s just a good photo. That’s all. And the woman will never know I took it. Even if she did, she’d surely be flattered. She’s beautiful, and she has 354 likes now too.

  At the pool, the girls jump straight in the water while I stay on a sunlounger with my book. It’s odd to think of all those times I wished for this when they were small – now they don’t need me any more, and I miss it. I watch as Rebecca stands under a fountain of water, shrieking that it’s cold. Memories of a similar pool in another campsite surface – a much smaller Rebecca standing under a stream of water while Dave held her, the two of them laughing hysterically. I close my eyes to block it out but it doesn’t work. Dave did all the holiday bookings – he was rubbish at lots of things, but great at finding just the right campsite in just the right part of France. That’s why we’re in Italy now – because I needed it to be different.

  Still thinking about Dave, my eyes move across to the next pool and that’s when I see her – the woman from the beach is lying on a lounger, reading her book. Shit. I had no idea she was staying on the campsite. Then again, what does it matter? She’s hardly going to see the photo. I wonder where she’s from? At the beach I assumed she was Italian, but now I’m not sure. I squint to see the name of her book but I can’t. Did it show up in the photo? I click into Instagram to check. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt – so she’s an English-speaker, or at least someone who can read books in English. A splinter of unease digs into the pit of my stomach. Maybe I should take down the photo . . . But it has over 600 likes on Instagram now and almost a hundred between Facebook and Twitter. I’m being silly – it’s not doing any harm. There are dozens of new comments about what people wish they’d done in their twenties too and, as I scroll, I spot one from Rebecca.

  So much for ‘don’t post pics online without permission’, Mum.

  She’s followed it with a smiley face but it still makes me defensive.

  It’s a candid shot of a beach, smarty-pants, I reply before scrolling on.

  A message interrupts my browsing – Dave wants to know if he can let himself into the house to collect some more stuff. He’s thinking of booking a week in the sun, he says. With Nadine, of course. Closing my eyes, I take some deep breaths and only start to type when I know I can say the right thing.

  Of course, any time. Weather great here.

  I hit send, and stuff my phone in my bag. My book is on the ground beside me but I don’t feel like reading any more. How ironic, after all those years wishing I could do just this. I close my eyes.

  Continue Reading One Click

  Also available from Andrea Mara

  There’s something up with the people next door

  When Sylvia looks out her bedroom window at night and sees a child face down in the pond next door, she races into her neighbour’s garden. But the pond is empty, and no-one is answering the door.

  Wondering if night feeds and sleep deprivation are getting to her, she hurriedly retreats. Besides, the fact that a local child has gone missing must be preying on her mind. Then, a week later, she hears the sound of a man crying through her bedroom wall.

  The man living next door, Sam, has recently moved in. His wife and children are away for the summer and he joins them at

  weekends. Sylvia finds him friendly and helpful, yet she becomes increasingly uneasy about him.

  Then Sylvia’s little daughter wakes one night, screaming that there’s a man in her room. This is followed by a series of bizarre disturbances in the house.

  Sylvia’s husband insists it’s all in her mind, but she is certain it’s not – there’s something very wrong on the other side of the wall.

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