Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

Copyright © Lucy Clarke 2018

Cover design by Simeon Greenaway © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

Jacket photograph © Roderick Field/Trevillion Images

Lucy Clarke asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008262549

Ebook Edition © July 2018 ISBN: 9780008262563

Version: 2020-11-10

Dedication

For my parents, Jane and Tony.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

1. Elle

Previously

2. Elle

Previously

3. Elle

2003

4. Elle

Previously

5. Elle

2003

6. Elle

2003

7. Elle

Previously

8. Elle

Previously

9. Elle

2003

10. Elle

11. Elle

2004

12. Elle

Previously

13. Elle

Previously

14. Elle

Previously

15. Elle

2003

16. Elle

Previously

17. Elle

Previously

18. Elle

2004

19. Elle

20. Elle

2004

21. Elle

Previously

22. Elle

2004

23. Elle

24. Elle

Previously

25. Elle

2004

26. Elle

2004

27. Elle

28. Elle

29. Elle

2004

30. Elle

31. Elle

32. Elle

33. Elle

34. Elle

35. Elle

36. Elle

37. Elle

Epilogue: One year later

Read on to enjoy an exclusive extract of The Castaways

Acknowledgements

If you enjoyed You Let Me In, don’t miss these other breathtakingly gripping novels from Lucy Clarke

About the Author

Also by Lucy Clarke

About the Publisher

Prologue

I’d like to offer you one piece of advice. It’s just a small thing. It won’t apply to many of you – but it is important.

It changed everything for me.

It’s this: if you’re considering letting someone into your house, pause first. Think.

Think about what it means to give a stranger – or strangers – the keys to your home.

Think about that stranger drifting through your house; a hand slipped into a drawer; fingers trailing through the clothes hanging in your wardrobe; the bathroom cabinet opened, examined.

Think about where their gaze may linger; the photos of you and your family hanging on the walls; the calendar in the kitchen outlining your plans; the file you keep at the bottom of a trunk.

Think about that person lying in your bed; the mattress moulding to their warm body; tiny cells of their skin shedding on your sheets; their breath moist against your pillow.

What other parts of themselves will they leave behind?

What parts of you will they discover?

1
Elle

‘What happens in the first chapter of your novel should be like an arrow pointing to the last.’

Author Elle Fielding

I slow the car into the curve of the lane, feeling it bounce over ruts and channels, loose gravel spraying from beneath the tyres.

As the track climbs, I straighten, peering beyond the hedgerows to catch a glimpse of the sea. In the muted light of dusk, I spot whitecaps breaking across the water, the sea ruffled by wind. Already, my breathing softens.

I flick off the radio, not wanting the presenter’s voice to dilute the next moment. I’ve been looking forward to it during the long drive from London to Cornwall.

As I turn the corner, I see it: the house on the cliff top, standing like a promise at the track’s end.

*

Pulling into the driveway, I cut the ignition, and sit for a moment, engine ticking.

It still feels entirely incredible that this is where I live.

In the first meeting with the architect, I’d no idea what I’d wanted beyond the number of rooms and a space to write. Over the months that followed, those untethered ideas began to weave together into a vision, which now stands three storeys tall, overlooking the wave-pounded bay.

The house is painted dove-grey, with large windows framed in natural wood. ‘Contemporary coastal heritage’, the architect said. I’m glad the weatherboarding is starting to lose some of its stark newness, and the windows look pleasingly salt-licked. I still need to soften the exterior, perhaps train some wisteria to climb around the entrance – if it can survive the bracing sea winds.

I’ve never owned a house before. Or a flat. Growing up, my sister, mother and I always lived in rented accommodation. Words like house and mortgage were for other people, not us.

The car door swings wide as I step out, the sea breeze causing my dress to billow and flatten around my thighs.

Gravel crunches underfoot as I cross the drive, hauling the case onto the flagstone doorstep, then searching the depths of my handbag for my house keys. I’m one of those people who carries too much – purse, phone, pens, a novel, my notebook.

Always a notebook.

Slotting the front door key into the lock, I hesitate.

There is something unsettling about returning home knowing strangers have been staying here. My fortnight in France was laced with worry over the decision to Airbnb the house, so much so that twice I’d clambered onto the roof terrace of the farmhouse in search of mobile reception. Thankfully there were no cries for help from them, or my sister.

Standing on the doorstep, I have the unnerving sensation that when I open my front door, I will find the family who rented it still inside. The mother – an attractive woman with an expensive-looking hairstyle, I recall from her Airbnb profile – will be at my butler sink, water sluicing over pale hands that hold a plastic beaker. Behind her, I imagine a child in a high chair, pudgy fingers pushing a strawberry into its mouth. At the breakfast bar, a father will be cutting slices of toast into soldiers, lining them onto one of my stoneware side plates, before carrying it to a girl of three or four, who will count the pieces carefully with a fingertip.

There will be music playing. Talking and laughter. The side-step of parents’ feet as they avoid a toy car on the floor. All that noise and energy and movement that a family generates pulsing inside my house.

My heart contracts: it should be my family.

Pushing open the front door, I’m immediately aware that the air smells different. Something earthy and damp, mixed with the residue of someone else’s cooking.

The wind sucks the door shut, slamming it behind me with a startling clang.

Then silence.

No one to call out to. No one to greet me.

I drop my handbag onto the oak settle beside a pile of neatly stacked post. I glance at the bill resting on top, then look away. I slip off my shoes and walk barefoot into the kitchen.

Sea and sky fill the windows. Even at dusk the light is incredible. Two gulls wheel carelessly on the breeze, and beneath them the sea churns. This is why I fell in love with the house, which was originally a rundown fisherman’s cottage that hadn’t been modernised since the sixties.

I read somewhere that the beauty of a sea view is that it’s always changing, no two days are the same. I remember thinking the statement was pretentious – but actually, it’s true.

Pulling my gaze from the water, I scan the kitchen. The long stretch of granite surface is clean and empty. A note is tucked beneath the corner of a terracotta basil pot. In my sister’s handwriting, I read:

Welcome home! All went well with the Airbnb. Pop over for a glass of wine when you’re settled. Fiona x

I missed her. And Drake. I’ll go over tomorrow, suggest a beach walk, or a pub lunch somewhere with a play area so Drake can roam.

Right now, all I have the energy for is taking a long bath with my book.

I reach into the cupboard for a glass, and as I draw it towards the tap, a movement by my fingertips causes me to drop it, the tumbler smashing into the sink. A thick-legged house spider scurries from the broken pieces to take up a crouching position in the plug hole.

I shiver. There’s just something about the way spiders move – the jerkiness of all those articulated legs. With a sigh, I resign myself to the new task of removing the spider from the house. Catching it in a spare glass, I head for the front door.

The flagstones are freezing as I climb down the steps barefoot, then wince as I pick my way across the gravel to the far end of the driveway. This bugger isn’t getting back in. I set down the glass, then nudge it over with my toe, before hopping back. The spider remains motionless for a few moments. Then, with a flurry of black legs, it scuttles away.

I turn back towards the house just in time to see my front door catching in a gust of wind, slamming shut.

‘No!’ I hurry across the driveway and grab the handle, yanking at it fruitlessly. My palms slam against the door; I’m furious with myself.

My handbag is on the settle, my keys and mobile zipped within it, my jacket hanging from its hook. Idiot!

Fiona is my spare key holder, but her house is a good half-hour walk away. I can’t do it barefoot and coatless in November – I’ll probably freeze to death before I get there.

I look over my shoulder towards the bungalow that crouches beyond my house. It is the only other property on the cliff top and belongs to Frank and Enid, a retired couple who’ve lived there for thirty years.

I remember walking to their door that first time, my hand pressed in Flynn’s, filled with an excited anticipation that we were homeowners, that we were meeting neighbours. It all felt so impossibly grown up, as if we were play-acting. Frank had a brusque manner and looked at us through the corners of his eyes, as if trying to get the full measure of us. Enid fretted over the strength of the tea and that there were dishes in the sink from breakfast. But Flynn always had an easy, relaxed way with people and by the end of the visit a friendship had been made.

Now those visits are over. I haven’t been inside their home in months. If we pass on the single-lane road, Frank ensures it is me who reverses to a pull-in, or if he catches sight of me while putting the bins out, he looks determinedly away.

With a sinking feeling, I cross the driveway, framing my request for help.

My hair whips around my face, and I gather the long twist of it in one hand. I’m about to press the bell when the door swings open and a man steps out, shrugging on a black leather jacket.

He stops abruptly, hooded eyes fixed on mine.

‘Oh. Hi,’ I say, taken aback. ‘I’m Elle. I live next door.’

Through a curtain of thick, dark hair, his gaze flicks towards my house. The set of his features shifts, tightens. He looks to be a few years younger than me – in his late twenties, perhaps – the first scribblings of lines settling around his eyes, his jaw grazed with stubble.

‘The author.’ There’s something about his intonation that makes it sound like an insult.

‘That’s right. You must be Enid and Frank’s son?’

‘Mark.’

That is it. They’d mentioned a son some time ago – when we were all still on good terms. I think Enid had said he’d left Cornwall for work, but I can’t recall the rest of the details.

‘Here’s the thing, Mark. There was an incident with a spider … I was evicting it from the premises, when the wind caught me unawares and the door slammed shut. Stupidly, my keys and phone are inside.’

His gaze travels down my body, over the pale blue summer dress, down my tanned legs, settling on my bare feet, which are set together, my toenails painted a shimmering pearl. I want to explain, I don’t usually dress like this in November. I’ve come from the airport. I—

‘Shoes.’

I blink.

‘Your shoes are locked inside, too.’

‘Oh. Yes. They are.’ I hug my arms to my chest. ‘Would you mind if I used your phone to call my sister? She has the spare key.’

He waits a beat, then steps aside, holding the front door open. I move past him into the narrow hallway.

The smell of fried onions hangs thickly in the air, alongside something pungent. Weed, I realise, a warm burst of memory swimming back to me.

‘Are Enid or Frank home?’

‘No.’ There is a heavy clunk as Mark shuts the door. He stands with his back to it.

I shift. I always need to know where an exit is, to plan how I could get out of a room, a building – a habit ignited at university, which now seems impossible to shake. My gaze travels to the lock. Yale. No key on the internal side of the door.

‘So, are you visiting for a few days? You live in the city, don’t you?’ I ask, my friendly tone overlaying the first prickle of fear. ‘What is it you do? I think your mum mentioned something about computers, or I may have made that up.’

‘Why would you make that up?’

I can feel myself shifting uncomfortably beneath his gaze. I am a thirty-three-year-old woman. I don’t need him to like me. I just need to use his phone.

The landline sits on an old-fashioned telephone table, set below a brass-framed mirror. ‘May I?’

‘Not working.’

‘Do you have a mobile?’

There is a pause before he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a mobile. He taps in a passcode, then holds it out to me. There is an odd moment of resistance – no more than half a second – where he holds onto the phone as I go to take it.

Flustered, I try to recall Fiona’s number. I don’t want to look up, yet I’m certain Mark’s gaze is on me. Heat is building in my cheeks.

‘I can’t remember her number. I used to know everyone’s numbers, but now they’re all programmed in our mobiles, aren’t they?’

He says nothing.

I clear my throat. I begin entering the dialling code and, as I do so, the rhythm of the rest of the number comes to me. Relieved, I hold the mobile to my ear, listening to it ring. I make a silent prayer that Fiona will be there.

The leather of Mark’s jacket squeaks as he leans against the door, checking his watch.

‘Yes?’ Fiona whispers, Drake most likely asleep nearby.

‘Oh, thank God! You’re there! I’m calling from someone else’s phone. Listen, I’m locked out. Tell me you have my spare key? That you’re home?’

‘I’m home. I have the spare.’

‘Can you come over? Or I could get a taxi to you if Drake’s in bed?’

‘Bill’s here. I can come. Gets me out of bath-time.’

‘Perfect, thank you.’

‘Whose phone is this?’

‘I’ll explain later.’

I can imagine Fiona’s expression as she tells Bill that she has to go and rescue her sister. Again. Getting locked out of the house is not the sort of thing that happens to Fiona. There will be some sort of system in place, a back-up key meticulously hidden, or a syndicate of neighbours with spares.

I return Mark’s phone. ‘My sister is on her way. She’ll only be ten minutes.’

There are several beats of silence. Then Mark says, ‘I’m going to be late.’

‘You … you want me to wait outside?’

He doesn’t answer, instead he opens an under-stairs cupboard and spends a moment rummaging within it. He turns back to me holding out a woman’s purple fleece.

Then he opens the front door. There is no mention of whether I’d like to borrow shoes. I step out onto the freezing concrete step noticing that dusk has slipped into night.

I push my arms into the sleeves, a musty, lavender scent filling my nostrils. ‘I’ll drop this back later.’

He shrugs as he moves past me, pulling the door closed behind him.

A black motorbike is parked at the edge of the property. I almost laugh. Of course he’d ride a motorbike! I watch as he pulls on his helmet, straddles the bike, then guns the engine.

Crossing the driveway, I’m grateful when the security light flicks on. I perch on my doorstep, the cold of the flagstone seeping through my seat bones.

‘Hurry up,’ I mutter to myself, imagining my sister sitting stiffly behind the steering wheel, sticking religiously to the speed limits.

I pull the fleece tighter, my shoulders hunched towards my ears.

I can feel the house behind me, looming, empty. I half wonder if it’s punishing me for abandoning it – like a dog put into kennels who ignores its owners when they return.

The security light switches off and I’m left shivering in the darkness.

Previously

A single-lane track carves through tall hedgerows, climbing towards the cliff top.

‘It’s at the very end,’ I tell the taxi driver.

The driveway is gravelled with grey and white stone, no doubt selected to complement the exterior paintwork and natural wood weatherboarding.

The house sits imposingly on the cliff top, steel struts bored into the rock so that the sea-facing side of the house seems to hang suspended above the cliff. There is something in the contrast of the fresh warmth of the house, versus the jagged dark hues of the rocks below. It is an incredible feat of architecture.

‘Lovely place you’ve got here,’ the driver says as the taxi crunches to a halt.

‘Yes, indeed,’ I say with a private smile.

I pay the fare, tipping him more than is necessary.

I carry my holdall to the front door, setting it down on the flagstone steps. I wait until the taxi has circled from the driveway and disappeared within the tunnel of hedgerows. Then I cross to the edge of the property where, as described in the email, the wheelie bins are stored within a discreet fenced area.

I drag the green recycling bin aside, which clinks with bottles. Beneath it lies a large pebble. I lift it carefully, feeling like a child turning over rocks in search of a treasured glimpse of woodlice or bugs.

There it is: the key to the house.

I return the wheelie bin into position, then cross the drive to the doorstep. My fingertips meet the solid wood door, painted in a grey-green shade that recalls the sea. I pause for a moment, aware of the magnitude of this moment stretching around me, raising the beat of my heart.

I glance once over my shoulder, just to be sure that there’s no one watching. I take a breath, then slot the key into the lock.

2
Elle

‘Thank God you were in,’ I say, refilling Fiona’s wine glass, then sinking back onto the sofa.

‘And if I hadn’t been?’

‘Flynn’s the only other person with a key.’

‘He still has a key?’

I shrug. ‘It’d feel churlish to ask for it back.’

Fiona doesn’t say anything. She never needs to. Her eyebrows – dark and angular – speak for her.

‘How did Drake get on at Bill’s parents?’ I ask. ‘I missed him. Maybe he could come over this weekend? I got him a little treat while I was away.’

‘He needs a treat reprieve. Bill’s parents let him watch cartoons for two hours a day – and took him for ice cream every afternoon. I’m surprised he hasn’t asked to be formally adopted.’

‘You must have missed him.’

‘You’re kidding? I had lie-ins. I didn’t cook. I got more work done than I’ve managed in months. I’ve asked if they’ll make it an annual thing.’

‘Is that right?’ I say, my turn to arch an eyebrow. Drake has just turned two and it’s the first time he’s stayed a night away from home. Bill spent months carefully negotiating the week-long visit to his parents in Norfolk.

‘What about you? How was France?’

‘Oh, fine.’ I’d been invited as a guest-speaker on a writing retreat. I’d deliberated over going, anxious about my approaching book deadline, but equally the retreat was so well paid that it would have been a mistake to turn it down. ‘They put us up in this stunning old farmhouse in the middle of the countryside. There was a beautiful pool. I swam every morning.’

‘If you’ve come back skinnier than you went, then you didn’t eat enough cheese.’

‘I ate cheese for breakfast.’

‘Good girl,’ she says, taking a drink of wine. ‘What were the guests like?’

‘Interesting, intelligent, passionate about books. One or two were a little intense. Deadly serious about word counts. In bed by ten o’clock.’ I pause. ‘You’d have liked them.’

Fiona laughs – a laugh I’ve always loved, loud and unapologetic.

‘Yes, but did any of them take revision notes into the shower?’

During her A Levels, she used to tuck her revision notes into a plastic sleeve, so that she could continue to study while showering. She’s always been the one with the focus, the drive.

‘Can’t say I witnessed it.’

‘And what about …’ Fiona pauses dramatically, ‘… your work in progress?’

I glance towards the window, lamplight reflected in the dark pane. Just the thought of my second novel makes my stomach tighten.

‘Still floundering in the wilderness.’

‘Will you make the deadline?’

I lift my shoulders. ‘It’s in six weeks’ time.’

Fiona assesses me closely. ‘What if you don’t?’

‘I lose the book deal.’

And then I lose this house, I think, panic beating its wings within my ribcage. I can’t let that happen.

Fiona knows the energy I’ve committed to this house, the long process of architectural drawings and planning applications, the months and months of builders clambering over scaffolding, craning in huge glass panels, drilling into rock to fit unyielding iron struts, the hours I spent studying bathroom fittings and flooring and paint charts.

It was all so unlike me – the me who drifted through my twenties owning little more than I could squeeze into a backpack. But I wanted it more than anything. Cornwall was where Fiona was. A house overlooking the sea was our mother’s dream. It was putting down roots, it was stability.

One evening, mid-build, when I’d returned to our rented flat in Bristol, Flynn kept his back to me, watching the flames dance in the fireplace, as he’d said, ‘I wonder if you’re putting too much energy into that house.’

That house. Never our house.

I wish I’d noticed the distinction back then.

I replied, ‘I want to make it perfect, so we never have to leave.’

‘Thank you for looking after things while I was away,’ I say to Fiona. ‘The house looks immaculate.’

‘Surprised?’

‘Very.’

‘It’s because I hardly had to do a thing. It was spotless.’

‘Was it? I was worrying about it while I was away. It just felt so strange knowing there was someone in my home that wasn’t me.’

‘I knew you’d be like that.’

Bill was actually the one who’d suggested I rent the house.

‘You know, if money is tight,’ he’d begun while we were barbecuing on the bay one evening, ‘you should think about putting the house on Airbnb over the summer.’

‘Remember my friend Kirsty from university?’ Fiona had asked.

I must have looked blank.

‘The English teacher. Had sex with the headmaster in his office – and a parent walked in.’

‘That Kirsty!’

‘She has a three-bed house in Twickenham and goes away over the school holidays and rents her place. She gets two grand a week for it.’

‘Two grand?’ I crouched down to examine a shell that Drake had brought to me. ‘It’s beautiful, baby,’ I said, planting a kiss on the smooth curve of his forehead, then folding my fingers around the shell. He trundled off in search of more.

‘Everyone’s doing it,’ Bill said. ‘Easy little earner.’

‘Yes, but this is Elle.’ Fiona threw me a look. ‘She took three days to choose the right handles for her doors.’

‘I can handle it,’ I said, grinning.

‘Anyway, don’t encourage her, Bill. You know who’ll have to look after it when she jets off on another book tour and some porn company decides to use it as the location for their next shoot—’

‘God, don’t!’ I laughed.

‘Contract cleaners in that case,’ Bill said.

‘Kirsty puts all their valuables in their study and locks off the room. Easy.’ Fiona plucked a piece of mint from her glass of Pimm’s and tore it between her teeth. ‘You know that place Bill and I stayed at when we went to Pembrokeshire? That was an Airbnb. They left everything. The wardrobes were full of this woman’s clothes. I think she was a ballroom dancer.’

‘Tell me you tried on something sequinned.’

‘She was more Bill’s size.’

‘I do love a leotard,’ he said, patting his stomach fondly. ‘Seriously though, you could charge a fortune for your place. You should think about it.’

And I had. I thought about it as I stared at the final invoice from the builders, my fingers trembling as I tapped numbers into my calculator. Fiona and Bill didn’t know – they still don’t – that I had to remortgage to pay the builders.

So this first Airbnb rental is a trial, a test run. The idea is that I rent out the house again in the summer and bugger off somewhere. My two best friends both live on the other side of the world; Nadia has moved to Dubai to teach English, and Sadie lives on a farm in Tasmania with her husband’s family.

I turn to Fiona, asking, ‘What were the family like who rented it?’

‘Yes, fine,’ she says, setting her wine glass on the lounge table.

‘Did they seem nice?’

‘I only met them briefly.’

I detect a tightness in her tone, which makes me ask, ‘Everything did go okay?’

‘Yes, absolutely. No breakages. I’ve released the deposit. They left a couple of bits and pieces behind.’ As Fiona unfolds herself from the sofa, I notice she’s lost weight. We’ve both always been slim, but there’s something angular about the breadth of her shoulders, her sternum pronounced at the open neckline of her shirt.

Fiona moves to the sideboard, picking up a pot of nappy rash cream, and a well-chewed plastic giraffe.

‘These were the only things I came across,’ she says, squeezing the giraffe until it squeaks.

Unexpectedly, sadness swells in my chest.

‘I’ve washed all the bedding – hot wash,’ she adds with a wink, ‘and taken Drake’s high chair home.’

‘Oh yes, thanks for the loan.’

‘I dropped it in the evening before they arrived and almost had a heart-attack as the alarm was on. I’d forgotten you’d told me you’d set it.’

‘You turned it off okay?’

‘On the sixth attempt. My eardrums bled. Right,’ Fiona says, sweeping across the lounge towards the doorway. ‘I’m going. Told Bill I’d only be half an hour.’

‘Sorry for stealing you.’

‘It’s fine, he has the television. Three’s a crowd.’

I stand and kiss my sister, our cheekbones clashing.

Locking the door behind Fiona, I move into the kitchen, flicking on all the lights and the radio.

I take my notebook from my handbag and position a pencil beside it. I take a step back, looking through the screen of my phone at the configuration. I snap the picture, then upload it to Facebook, adding the caption:

After a lovely fortnight tutoring on a writing retreat, I’m back home and SO excited to be diving into my novel – on the home straight now! #amwriting #authorlife

Then I put the props away.

Opening the fridge, I inspect its contents, hoping Fiona might have left a pint of milk or a loaf of bread – but it’s bare.

Too tired to contemplate getting back in the car, I root around in the pantry and pull out a bag of pre-cooked quinoa and toss it through with tahini and lemon juice. I eat standing up, flicking through the post.

I glance at the bills, trying to ignore the words FINAL REMINDER blazoned across my electricity statement. Next there are a couple of packages from my agent containing proof copies of other authors’ books requesting advance praise. The remainder of the mail includes requests for charity donations, two fan letters forwarded on from my publishers, and an invite to a friend’s birthday. Nearing the bottom of the pile my hands reach for a thick cream envelope embossed with a gold logo. It’s from Flynn’s solicitor.

In France I’d been reminded of our first trip together in our mid-twenties, when we’d taken the ferry to Bilbao and then driven north to Hossegor in Flynn’s battered Seat Ibiza with a surfboard strapped to the roof and a tent in the boot. We’d camped in the shade of thick pine trees and lived on noodles and warm batons of French bread. We drank cheap stubby beers and wine from cardboard containers, and spent the evenings playing cards by headtorch, or lying in the tent, the door unzipped, salt and sun-cream glossing our entwined limbs.

On that trip Flynn had talked about all the places he wanted to travel – and I had said yes to it all, knowing that I wanted to be anywhere but home. When I was with him, the rest of my life seemed like something that had happened to a different person, someone I was happy to leave behind in the campus of a university town I’d never return to.

I scrape the rest of the quinoa into the bin, then collect my suitcase and go upstairs. Flicking on my bedroom light, I pause in the doorway, my gaze on my bed.

Fiona has done a half job of making it, of course. The cushions aren’t plumped, the soft olive throw is stretched across the entire bed, not just the foot of it. These tiny details remind me that I wasn’t the last person to sleep in this bed – rather another woman and her husband.

I set down my case, then wander round my room, eyes scanning the clean surfaces. I slide open my wardrobe door; my clothes are still hanging in one portion of the wardrobe just as I’d left them, the rest of the rail clear for the other couple’s clothes. I move to my bedside drawer and pull it open. Empty, as I’d left it – oh, except for a small pot of men’s hair wax pushed right to the back. I twist off the lid and, seeing it is almost empty, drop it into the bin.

Taking out my washbag, I move to the large free-standing mirror at the foot of my bed, where I dab cleanser onto a cotton pad and sweep it gently around my face. I’ve picked up a little colour in France, and my hair has been lightened by the sun to a warm caramel shade.

As I lean in, that’s when I notice them: fingerprints. Larger than mine. I look closer: a hand has been pressed flat to the mirror, the smear of a stranger’s skin marking the glass.

Standing here with the empty room reflected behind me, an unsettling feeling creeps over my skin. Someone else has been in this room. Been in my house. The woman who’d rented it – Joanna – must have stood where I am, her image caught in the mirror. It feels as if this stranger’s gaze is still here, watching.

As I step back, a hot pain bursts into my heel.

I snatch up my foot, reaching out for the wall for balance. There is a deep puncture in the very centre of my heel, a bead of blood springing to the surface. What the hell have I stood on? I crouch down, searching the carpet, running my palms across it until they meet the waspish scratch of something.

A shard of glass, knife-sharp, is lodged deep in the plush carpet. I grip it between my fingers and carefully pull it out. The downlights illuminate a beautiful blue icicle, something vaguely familiar in the glitter of the glass.

Has something of mine been broken? I can’t think of anything in my bedroom that this piece could’ve come from. I keep the surfaces of my bedside table clear, except for a tripod lamp and a jug for flowers. My bottles of perfume have been packed away with the other breakables and valuables, which I’d locked in my writing room. It’s unsettling to not be able to place this lethal dagger of glass.

I wrap it in a tissue and, as I drop it into the bin, I glance down at the cream carpet and see it is marked with the crimson blush of my blood.

Previously

Oak, jasmine and something citrus – those are the smells that greet me as I step inside. There is a clean, fresh quality to the air that is different to my house: it is dry, free of cooking smells, or that earthy dampness that comes from washing dried on radiators.

I can’t help myself. ‘Hello?’

There is, of course, no reply. I smile. The quiet is beautiful, softened by the distant sound of the sea.

My black holdall looks incongruous on the solid oak floor. I kick off my shoes and leave them discarded. Yours, I see, are placed neatly beneath the oak settle.

I walk through the entrance hall, which leads straight into the spacious kitchen. The walls are a warm shade of white; I think the paint has been chosen with light-diffusing particles so that it feels as if the walls are breathing air into the room. The splashes of colour – chalky pastel shades – come from the painted wooden cabinets, the well-chosen artwork, the pottery carefully displayed.

The style is graceful, calming. It’s as if a handful of sea-bleached pebbles have been gathered and used as the basis for the palette. The modern, sleek lines of handle-less cabinets and a granite work surface have been married with a beautiful old farmhouse table, the wood ring-marked and age-worn. A long bench seat is set against the wall, strewn with hessian cushions. It’s a table for a family, or for dinner parties. Not a table for one.

I smile to see that the high chair, as requested, is placed at the end of this table, although it won’t be used, of course. On the kitchen counter there is a small bunch of wildflowers in an old honey pot, tied with brown string. Leaning against it is a handwritten card addressed to Joanna and family.

A thoughtful touch.

I pick up the card, tracing a finger across the elegant handwriting, but I don’t open it.

Setting it back down, I move past an aged dresser painted duck-egg blue, where earthenware mugs hang from neat iron hooks. Seagrass-speckled pots are stacked artfully between mason jars containing nuts, pulses and attractive spirals and ribbons of pasta. I slide open the dresser drawer and, as I reach into it, I experience the sharp sensation that someone is going to snap the drawer shut on my fingers, a child caught snooping.

I feel like a trespasser. Yet, in my pocket, I’m aware of the small but solid presence of the front door key resting against the top of my thigh.

I am no trespasser, I remind myself. You let me in.

3
Elle

‘If you’re going to throw a ticking bomb into the story, light the fuse at the beginning, and let us hear it tick.’

Author Elle Fielding

In the charcoal-coated dark of three a.m., I am awake. The cut to my heel throbs; my pulse seems to tick there.

Over the years I’ve tried a wealth of tips and tricks to soften insomnia’s grip: a soak in a lavender-scented bath; listening to an audio book; blackout blinds; a warm, milky drink before bed; that sodding meditation app that I’d thought was the key but eventually stopped working, too; no screen time; no sugar after dinner; sleeping pills; homeopathic remedies; acupuncture. Everything. I’ve tried everything.

People don’t understand that it’s not falling asleep that’s the problem. It’s staying asleep.

If only there was just a switch for my mind, some way of turning it off, or at least turning down the volume; instead, as the night draws deeper, worries begin to stir, stretch, wake. Harmless, innocuous happenings take on a different shape – the shadows they cast, stretching.

The chef I used to work with when I was waitressing in a pub called them the heebie-jeebies.

‘Don’t trust any thoughts you have between two a.m. and five a.m. It’s like listening to your drunk self.’

Reminding myself of this advice doesn’t settle me tonight. I inhale and exhale slowly, following the path of my breath.

But I can still feel it: the ice-sharp point of that shard of glass as it pierced my skin.

*

I lean against the kitchen counter, listening to the low gurgle of the coffee machine as the water begins to heat. What would I do without coffee? I finally stumbled into a deep, dreamless sleep at around five a.m., but now I feel thick-headed, disjointed.

Beyond the window, mellow white clouds blanket the sky, thin swatches of blue glimpsed beyond. A kayaker is powering across the bay, the paddle lifting and dipping with pleasing fluidity.

On the shoreline there’s a lone birdwatcher, collar pulled to their chin. They are standing with their head tilted back, binoculars raised towards the cliff. There’s a stillness about them that I admire – lovely to be so enraptured by bird life that you’d want to dedicate hours of your day to simply observing it.

I follow the direction of the birdwatcher’s gaze to see if I can locate what they’ve spotted.

As I follow the angle of their binoculars, unease trickles down my spine. Their gaze isn’t focused on the cliff. It is set higher.

They are watching my house.

A memory, match-bright, flashes through my thoughts: his slow smile; the dark, knowing eyes that followed me, hawk-like with exacting focus; the pleasure in his voice as he said my name.

I extinguish the memory with a blink, yet feel the shiver it leaves behind.

Course they’re not watching the house, I tell myself. The binoculars must be trained on a bird; sand martins nest nearby, and there are rare but occasional sightings of a pair of peregrine falcons.

The stranger’s hair is covered by a hat pulled low to their ears, but something about the way they stand, the straightness of their posture, a narrowness of shoulders, makes me wonder if it’s a woman.

The stranger seems to become aware of me at the window, as they lower their binoculars and, just for a moment, our eyes meet. There is a beat of time – no more than a matter of seconds – when we are looking at one another. Then the stranger turns, moves on.

Sliding my mobile towards me, I see my editor’s name flashing.

I adjust my face into a smile. ‘Jane. Hi.’

We exchange niceties about my writing retreat and Jane’s visit to the Frankfurt Book Fair, and then Jane takes a breath, signalling the inevitable slide from small talk to business.

‘So, I just wanted to touch base and check we’re on track for next month’s deadline.’

My shoulders stiffen. The book is already months overdue. I’ve cited house renovations and marriage difficulties – and in fairness to Jane, she has been understanding, extending the deadline twice. Her patience, however, is starting to thin – and I can’t blame her. A final deadline has been set for the tenth of December and, if the new novel isn’t handed in, I’ll be in breach of contract.

During the writing retreat, I’d made time to think about the novel I am writing – or more accurately, am not writing. I’ve been switching between ideas for months, with so many false starts that I’ve lost my confidence, my instincts. The ideas aren’t big enough, aren’t exciting enough to carry a reader through. If I’m not inspired or excited by a story – why should readers be?

Second novel syndrome, David, one of the other tutors on the creative writing retreat, had called it.

‘If you have a big success on your hands,’ he’d said, while spreading sun-warmed brie onto a cracker, ‘then it’s like all those generous words of praise from reviewers and readers are stacked up in front of you. Your debut was an international bestseller – it scooped every bloody award going. Readers are desperate for whatever’s coming next. It’s hardly surprising that every time you attempt to write, the expectation towers over the page. You’re writing in a book shadow.’

Book shadow, I’d thought afterwards as I’d lain in the cool of my room, red wine making my head swirl, the shutters thrown open so I could catch the sound of birdsong beyond the window.

‘It’s coming on well,’ I say to Jane now, the tightness between my shoulder blades spreading down my spine.

‘We’re all so excited to read it,’ Jane says brightly. ‘Would you be happy to send across what you’ve written so I can start to get the flavour of it? I’m eager to brief the designers for our cover development.’

I picture the plain black notebook, a tangle of words jostled into paragraphs, sentences scribbled out, entire pages slashed with a single pencil line.

‘Actually, I’m in the middle of revising a plot thread. If you don’t mind, let’s stick to the tenth of December.’

Jane accepts – what else can she say? We talk a little about an upcoming interview my publicist is in the process of securing with Red magazine, the date yet to be confirmed. Before Jane signs off, she says, ‘I’m looking forward to your Facebook Live debut shortly.’

I glance at my watch. Just under an hour to go.

Before I left for France, Jane talked me into doing a series of live videos, telling me it would be a good way to connect with readers and build up pre-publication buzz.

When I said I had no idea what I’d talk about, she sounded genuinely surprised.

‘Elle, you’re a confident, eloquent young woman. You’ll be fine. Readers just want to know more about you – where your ideas come from, how you write. That sort of thing. Keep it informal – maybe start each week with a writing tip, you know, like “Things I’ve learned as an author”. Then answer any questions.’

I couldn’t think of a good enough reason to say no.

Now she says to me, ‘We’ve been pushing it across our social media channels, so we’re hoping you’ll have several thousand people tuning in live. We’ll all be cheering you on at the office.’

All those people watching me. Asking me questions. Live. No room for mistakes. No possibility to edit. Nowhere to hide. Just me – Elle Fielding, author – in my writing room.

I put down the phone, aware that I’m sweating.

The air cools as I climb the stairs to the top of the house.

I kept my writing room locked during the rental; I needed somewhere to store my valuables – but also, I didn’t like the idea of a stranger sitting at my desk. Odd of me, I know.

I slip the key from my pocket and spend a moment fighting the lock, turning it back and forth until I hear the bolt release. I push the door wide open.

Light fills the space, the shimmering scales of the sea pouring through the glass wall, streaming over the stripped wooden floorboards and across white walls. When I’d designed this room, I’d wanted to create a space where my imagination could travel beyond a desk, beyond a computer screen, beyond the walls of the house – for it to sail off towards the endless promise of the horizon.

I’ve kept everything purposefully pared back and unadorned. The only pieces of furniture are an aged oak desk, a simple bookshelf constructed from reclaimed scaffold planks, which display a collection of my favourite novels, and a ceramic oil burner. In the far corner of the room, there’s a wingback chair turned to the view, and beside it an oak trunk that houses notebooks, photographs and diaries.

I cross the room, surprised to notice the fresh scent of salt in the air. I thought it would be stuffy up here after keeping the room locked for a fortnight.

Then I see it: the small window at the edge of the glass wall is open. I’m surprised – I always double-check the doors and windows. I must have somehow overlooked it. I know no one could have accessed the room during the Airbnb as I left it locked and took the only key with me.

I let the thought go as I settle myself at my desk. I love this desk. I came across it at Kempton Market four years ago. At the time, Flynn and I were living in a rented flat in Bristol, and I’d just begun working on my first novel – carving out slices of time to write in lunch breaks, or after I returned from a shift. I kept my ambition secret – except from Flynn – as somehow the dream felt too new, too fragile to be spoken about, as if a misplaced remark could have the power to damage it. As we’d left Kempton Market, I’d told Flynn, ‘If I ever get a book deal, the first thing I’m going to do is buy a writing desk.’

Unbeknown to me, Flynn called the seller and arranged for the old desk to be delivered to his mother’s garage. On the weekends when he visited his mother, he spent hours restoring the desk, treating it for woodworm, sanding it right back, working into the grooves of the ornate legs, removing the layers of varnish that had been reapplied over the years. He’d changed the handles, waxed the runners, and sealed the cracks.

A year later, when my novel was finally finished, I printed out six copies ready to send to prospective literary agents. That’s when Flynn took me to see the desk.

‘I was going to wait till you got your first publishing contract,’ he said, as we’d stood in his mother’s garage, the smell of turpentine spiking the air, ‘but I think this day is more important. You finished your book, Elle. Whether this one’s published, or whether it’s the next one, or the one after that – you’re a writer now.’

The timer on my phone beeps.

One minute to go.

My stomach turns over with nerves. Several thousand people tuning in live.

I sit up straighter, pull my shoulders back. I know what I need to do. What everyone is expecting from me.

I reset my focus, drawing my gaze to my laptop. My own face glares back at me on screen using the laptop’s camera. Perhaps it’s just the tilt of the screen, or the way the light pours into the room, but for a moment, I don’t recognise myself.

I reach for the mouse, hovering it over the GO LIVE button.

I click.

My smile stretches across my face. I can hear it in my voice as I say, ‘Hello, everyone. I’m Elle Fielding, and I’m live today from my writing room here in Cornwall. Thanks so much for joining me. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m the author of Wild Fear, a psychological thriller that was published last year.

‘Over the coming weeks I’m planning on chatting about my writing journey, sharing tips of what I’ve learned so far, and answering any of your questions.

‘Right, I suppose a good place to start would be with today’s writing tip. It’s something simple that we can all do: get a notebook. Keep it with you at all times. Our short-term memory retains information for three minutes, so unless it’s written down, ideas can be lost. This is my current one,’ I say, holding up a plain black notebook. ‘I keep it in my handbag, or by my bed at night, or anywhere I go. It reminds me that I’m always a writer, wherever I am, whatever I’m doing.’

I’m careful not to open it.

Not to show what is inside.

I take a breath. ‘Okay, so now it’s over to you and your questions.’ I peer at the left-hand side of the screen, where viewers are typing them in real-time. ‘I’ll do my best to answer as many as I can. The first one is from Cheryl Down. She asks, Your debut novel was an international bestseller. Does that put pressure on you for your second novel?’

I’m aware that Jane and her team will be watching. ‘Yes, there is some pressure – but, the good thing is that I began my second novel before Wild Fear was released, so I didn’t have any expectation at that point. I must admit, I’m a little behind in delivering – there was a house move and a big book tour – but things are finally settling, so I’m planning on getting my head down now.’

Tick.

‘Next up, Adam Grant asks, What did you do before you became an author?’ I smile. ‘What didn’t I do? I waited tables, served coffees, worked on a reception desk, manned a nightclub cloakroom, cleaned offices. I travelled as much as I could afford. I lived in New Zealand for a while, and later, Canada. I pretty much spent my twenties bouncing from one thing to the next trying to work out what I wanted to do.’

Who I wanted to be.

‘And then I found it: writing. It just clicked. I felt stupid for not recognising it earlier. The moment I started to write, I fell in love with it. I didn’t know if I was any good at it, or whether I could ever make my living from it. All I knew was that I loved it.’

That is the truth.

I answer half a dozen more questions, then take a sip of water and glance at the clock.

‘Time for just two more questions today. Amy Werden asks, Do you have any writing rituals? PS You have the perfect life!’

‘Perfect life? I’m obviously using too many filters! With regards to writing rituals, something that is important to me is writing down my early ideas by hand. There is something about the germ of an idea, when it feels too precious, too delicate to be tapped into a computer screen and locked there. I like the curve of words on the page, a lack of uniformity, the scratch of a pencil on cream paper. The ideas can flow and find their rhythm.’

If Fiona is watching this, she’ll be rolling her eyes.

‘The final question is from Booklover101.’ I immediately recognise the username. The accompanying profile picture is of a bike, its wicker basket filled with books. Booklover101 has followed me from the very beginning, commenting on almost every post I write. She tweets me, sends me direct messages, has sent me handwritten cards via my publishers.

‘As your no.1 fan,’ I read now, ‘I’m interested to know, does an author need to have a dark mind to write dark books?’

I should have skipped it – chosen a different question.

I keep my face set in a smile.

‘What you need,’ I say slowly, giving myself a moment to think, to get it right, ‘is an enquiring mind. To be able to look at any situation and see the possibility for shadows. To always ask, What if?’

I leave it there. I thank everyone again for tuning in and remind them that I’ll be live again next week.

My face disappears from the screen.

I sit for a moment, taking several deep, slow breaths. Almost pitch-perfect, I think. Jane will be pleased.

Then I push to my feet, moving away from the desk, and I open the window wider. Hooking a finger under the neckline of my top, I shake it to let air circulate to my flushed skin.

I stand there, gaze mapping the waves, waiting for my heartbeat to settle.

2003

Sitting in the passenger seat of her mother’s old Renault, Elle turned the silver star stud through the cartilage at the top of her ear. Around and around she twisted it, like a rosary, as she ran through each of her worries. Would her new housemates like her? Would she be homesick? Had she chosen the right course? Was her outfit okay?

She didn’t know then, as she wound down the window, pushing her face into the salty, marshy breeze as they crossed the Severn Bridge, that none of those questions were the ones she needed to ask.

The event that would change everything was marked out for later. For a time when she was settled and happy, her life ready to bloom.

That’s when it would blindside her.

Elle arrived first. They pulled up on the pavement, leaving the hazard lights blinking as they trooped back and forth with Elle’s belongings: a duvet spilling from a torn bin liner, a cardboard box heavy with food raided from the cupboards at home, a lava lamp wrapped in a towel, a duffle bag bulging with clothes, two posters rolled into tubes that had bent in the car.

She didn’t mind the dreary pebbledash student house that backed onto a trainline, or the stretch of damp on the wall behind her bed. She looked at her student house and saw freedom.

Her mother helped her tack up posters of Bob Marley and Lenny Kravitz, and postcards from Fiona who was interning at a news desk in Santiago.

‘You’re going to be so happy here,’ her mother said, holding Elle’s face in her hands. ‘I’m so proud of you. I hope I tell you that often enough.’

Elle could sense the emotion brooked in her mother. It was the first time in two decades that her mother would be returning to an empty flat.

‘You know, Mum, you could do this, too. Study. Make more time to write. You could get a student loan …’

Her mother had waved a hand through the air. ‘This is your time. You enjoy every moment of it.’

And Elle would do.

Until she met him.

4
Elle

In the moon-streaked dark of one a.m., I twist onto my side, pulling the covers under my chin.

When I was a girl, if I couldn’t sleep, I’d slip into my mother’s bed and ask her to tell me a story. She’d pluck ripe characters from the branches of her imagination and I’d lie on my back, eyes open, a forest of snow leopards or daisy fairies dancing across our ceiling.

It’s been four years since she died, yet some nights, it’s still hard to believe that she’s gone.

In those awful first weeks after her death, when Fiona and I were both reeling, I’d read everything I could about sepsis. I’d pick up the phone, outraged to tell Fiona: Did you know, eight million people worldwide die every year from sepsis? How, how have we not heard of it? How can our mother no longer be alive because of something that began with a urinary tract infection?

I flick on the light, too agitated to sleep. From my bedside drawer, I pull out my copy of Wild Fear, and turn to the front.

I read the dedication.

For my mother.

I run a fingertip beneath those words.

Your mum would’ve been so proud, a reader once said at a book signing.

They were wrong.

*

Wind funnels along the side of the house as I step from the back door into the morning’s cold bite. Beneath bare soles, the paving stones are ice. Tightening the cord of my dressing gown, I feel the glossy kiss of my swimsuit beneath.

At the end of the pathway, private steps carve into the rock face, which I share with Frank and Enid’s property. I concentrate on each footstep, avoiding the puddles of seawater pooling in grooves, the rock edges furred with seaweed.

Last night I only managed to snatch an hour or two’s sleep. It felt like there was an axle out of alignment in my mind, causing my thoughts to over-steer, almost imperceptibly, in one direction so that, no matter how far I travelled, eventually they’d turn a circle and I’d arrive exactly where I started.

Out here though, buffeted by the blast and sting of salt air, my head begins to clear. Reaching the beach, the sand is compact, cold against my feet. Whitecaps rise and crumble beneath blustering clouds.

‘You’re mad,’ Fiona always tells me whenever she hears I’ve been in for a winter swim. ‘No one knows you’re out there. You don’t even wear a wetsuit. What if something happened?’

‘It won’t,’ I reply, confident in my ability to judge conditions, to know my own limits. I’ve always loved to swim, but there is something intoxicating about swimming in the depths of winter. When I moved here, I made a bargain with myself that I’d get in the water once a week – all year round.

As children, we used to holiday in Cornwall, renting a caravan set back from the beach. I remember a particularly cold April, books and blankets scattered across the caravan, and a sense of restlessness at having spent too long indoors. I’d looked up from my page to watch a group of elderly people in swimsuits gathered at the water’s edge. There was no squealing, no tiptoeing, no fuss. They simply walked into the sea and swam.

‘That’s what dementia does to you,’ Fiona had declared, clambering onto the sofa beside me to watch.

‘They’re brave,’ I countered, chin resting on forearms.

‘They’re like, a hundred. They’ll get pneumonia.’

Our mother, who’d been writing in the gold-edged notebook we’d bought her for Christmas, glanced up.

‘Cold water boosts our white blood cells because our bodies are forced to react to the changing conditions. It’s good for you.’ She’d always had a knack for casting a relevant, articulate fact into almost any stream of conversation.

Fiona turned to me, eyes glinting. ‘I dare you to join them.’

Four years older than me, her approval was hard to gain. I thought about the sharpness of the cold, the feel of the icy waves lifting and dropping me, the way my skin would pucker with goose bumps. I placed a bookmark into the spine of my novel.

‘Sure.’

I lasted a minute and a half, the cold squeezing the air from my lungs, but Fiona had clapped and cheered from the shoreline and I felt like a hero. Afterwards our mother warmed a pan of hot chocolate and I sat cross-legged in front of the electric fire watching the wiggling red lines of heat, the mug cupped in my hands, a surge of endorphins pumping in my body.

Now at the shoreline, I step from my dressing gown, the cold nicking my skin. I set the gown on the damp sand, then snap a picture of it, typing a quick post:

My drug of choice for getting the brain cells firing. #wildswim

Then the phone is away, and it is just me and the sea.

The trick, I’ve learned, is not to rush. To set a pace that doesn’t falter. I walk purposefully to the shore and straight into the sea. I don’t focus on the cold gripping my ankles: I concentrate on my breathing, keeping it level as the water climbs to my waist.

I push off, kicking away from shore. The bitter sea wraps around me, stealing every thought in my head. It is all I can do to remember to breathe.

I’m careful to remain near shore, not wanting to chance my luck against the stronger currents that pull and suck towards the horizon. I can taste the salt on my lips, feel the pleasing sting of it against my skin.

I look back towards my house. I realise that I’ve left the light on in the writing room and I can see straight inside, the empty desk eyeing me.

It looks, just for a moment, as if someone passes behind it.

I tread water, blinking saltwater from my eyes, looking again. It is a trick of the light, of course. A strange reflection, because now the shadow has gone.

*

The first time I saw the cliff-top house was with Flynn. We had come to Cornwall to be introduced to a ten-day-old Drake. Fiona seemed shell-shocked that this tiny pink creature with tightly curled fists and a fierce cry was hers. She moved around the house in a daze, a muslin flung over her shoulder, patches of her shirt stiff with leaked milk.

‘Take him,’ Fiona had begged, when I passed the nursery one evening and found her jigging him wearily.

Pressing him to my chest, I slowly circled my palm over the curve of his tiny back. I began to sing in a low, half-whispered voice, words that unravelled from some distant song that our mother had taught us. The rhythm seemed to soothe him, and I placed my lips against the soft down of his head and breathed in. Longing bloomed like blood rising to the surface of my skin.

When I turned, I saw Fiona still standing in the doorway of the nursery, watching. Her eyes shone with tears that didn’t fall.

‘I can’t even stop him crying.’

‘You’re doing brilliantly – but you’re exhausted. Get some sleep. I’ll wake you when he’s hungry.’

Fiona didn’t seem to hear. Her gaze was on the empty cot.

‘There are so many things I want to ask Mum. She did it on her own. The two of us.’ She shook her head. ‘Dad left when you were six weeks old. How the hell did she manage with two kids and no family nearby to help? I can’t even imagine. She was a hero, but I didn’t … I didn’t tell her how incredible she was … it’s only now …’ She pulled back her lips, as if baring her teeth. ‘I just, I miss her so much.’

‘I know you do,’ I whispered.

It was no surprise that the cruelness of our mother’s absence revisited us again with the birth of Drake, in the way that life and death circle each other. She would have loved rocking Drake to sleep in her arms, examining those tiny pink toes, carefully dressing and undressing him, bathing him, washing the blankets he used, the Babygros he soiled, the muslins he posseted on. She would have made meals, stocked freezers, emptied bins, folded washing. She would have praised Bill’s easy competency at changing nappies, or with manning the sterilizing station. She would have looked at Fiona and known that sleep deprivation was sinking her, that the baby blues were in danger of growing into something more serious.

She would have done all those things because she was a mother herself, and she knew.

I tried to fill that role as best I could, but each time I held Drake, my own longing sharpened. Flynn, sensing I needed a break, removed the pile of clean vests and white hats and delicate cardigans I’d been folding, took my fingers in his and told me, ‘Let’s walk.’

We weaved down a footpath in the direction of the coast, eventually coming to a steep path of switchbacks leading to a small bay hugged by cliffs.

I had a vague memory of visiting this beach years before. I could recall the red tassels of a picnic blanket, my mother sitting with a hand shading the sun from her eyes, marvelling at something. I could picture the black rocks that lay exposed and dripping at low tide.

As we walked, Flynn said, ‘It will happen for us.’

I’d slipped my hand into the back pocket of his jeans, leaning into him. ‘It’s been over a year.’

‘Maybe it’s time to see a doctor.’

I felt myself stiffen, retract. But I needed answers, too.

When we reached the far end of the bay, we looked up, noticing the squat fisherman’s cottage set on the cliff top. ‘What a view.’

‘It has a For Sale sign,’ he said, pointing to the red board at its shoulder.

The owner was home – a retired nurse who didn’t mind this young couple knocking on her door – and she invited us to look around. The cottage was hopelessly run-down, the roof sagging, the wallpaper curling at the edges, yet there was magic there.

‘Imagine living here,’ Flynn had said when we were alone, turning me to face the view, wrapping his arms around my waist, chin resting on my shoulder. ‘We could do it, couldn’t we?’

The money from my advance had just landed in our account, and Flynn had some savings from a family inheritance.

‘Yes, I think we could. But Cornwall? What about your job?’

‘I can be a tree surgeon anywhere,’ he’d said. ‘I think this is where you want to be, isn’t it? Near your sister, near Drake.’

I thought of Fiona cradling her new son; I thought of our mother’s dream to own a house overlooking the sea; I thought of the chances of stumbling across this cottage, finding the owner home. It seemed serendipitous.

‘Yes,’ I’d said to Flynn. ‘It is.’

Twelve weeks later, we had the keys. We moved in, sleeping on a mattress on the floor while we made plans. A lick of paint. A wood burning stove. New curtains. Fresh carpet. It was everything we’d need.

Now, as I swim looking up at the towering house on the cliff top, I wonder if we’d stuck to the plan – if the idea of the house hadn’t overtaken me – whether our marriage would have had a better chance of surviving.

Here I am alone, with a house I can no longer afford, and a career that feels like it, too, is teetering on a cliff edge.

My feet look bloodless and pale against the dark rock as I climb the cliff steps, shivering beneath my dressing gown. My hair hangs wetly at my neck and I am already anticipating the warmth of the shower.

As I follow the narrow path alongside the house, a plastic bag wheels past on the breeze, brushing my bare ankle. I grab for it, but a gust lifts it out of reach, parachuting the bag beyond me. Hurrying after it, I come to the end of the path and halt.

The driveway is scattered with litter. Used kitchen roll, empty tins, plastic containers, and cereal boxes are strewn across the gravel. Sheets of newspaper dance in the gusts, several more pinned against the fence line. A crumpled page from a notebook rolls past me. At the edge of the driveway, the recycling bin lies on its side, lid open. Although the wind is blowing, I know it isn’t nearly strong enough to upturn a bin.

I hurry across the drive, gravel cutting into my feet, and with some effort, I manage to right the bin. I re-knot the belt of my dressing gown, then begin gathering the litter. My wet hair whips around my face, leaving trails of fresh salt.

As I push my hair back from my face, I have the growing sensation that I’m not alone.

Across the lane, I spot Mark standing in the doorway of his parents’ house, a cigarette held between his fingers.

‘Foxes,’ he calls.

He stubs the cigarette against the wall, then turns and disappears inside the house.

I stand there, open-mouthed. Did that just happen? Had he – a grown man – upturned my bins?

I half-laugh, staggered. Is this a reaction to the house build – a retaliation for compromising the view from their family home? I think of the awful visit six months after we’d bought the house, as I unrolled the architect’s drawings across Frank and Enid’s kitchen table.

‘You said renovate, not rebuild!’ Frank exploded, colour bursting into his cheeks.

When I’d worried about the neighbours’ reaction, friends reassured me that No one owns a view! Any other buyer would do the same! Although they were right, it didn’t lessen the guilty heat that crept up my neck.

Enid had moved towards the kitchen window, heavy-knuckled hands worrying the edge of her cardigan. She looked out towards the sea as if her time with the view was waning. If there’d been a moment when I was close to reconsidering, that had been it.

I finish collecting the litter, then drag the bin back into position at the end of the driveway. If I were Fiona, I’d go over and demand an apology from Mark, but I don’t have the energy for a confrontation.

My novel, I think. That’s what I need to focus on.

Setting myself at my desk with a steaming coffee and salt-damp hair, I am ready. I open the drawer to grab a pencil – but can’t find one. I pull the drawer right out, trailing my hand through the mess of pens, Sharpie markers, Post-it notes, and glue sticks. There is a hole puncher, a calculator, a pot of drawing pins, a lighter for my oil burner – but no bloody pencils.

It’s a stupid detail, but it bothers me: I always have spares.

I tramp downstairs and locate a pencil from the depths of my handbag. I’m tetchy by the time I return to my writing room. I open the window, settle myself for a second time. I keep a well-thumbed dictionary on my desk and I watch as its cover lifts in the breeze, pages fanning.

Something doesn’t feel quite right. I try not to indulge the feeling – I don’t want to become one of those writers who demand a certain ambience to create – but I can’t shake the thought that something is off-balance.

Then I realise what it is. The dictionary. It is usually secured by a paperweight – a beautiful glass globe that my mother bought on a hiking holiday in Malta three years before her death.

‘It looks like it’s caught the sea inside,’ she’d told me, a wistful look in her eyes. I always keep the paperweight on top of the dictionary – but oddly, it is now positioned beside it.

I pick up the paperweight, turning it through my fingers, feeling its solidity and coolness against my palms. Daylight catches in the silver flecks, making it shimmer like the surface of the sea. As I rotate it, my skin catches on something jagged.

Lifting the globe towards my face, I see the crack – a chip no greater than the length of a fingernail.

I can’t remember damaging it.

There is something unsettling at the back of my mind, a sense of discord. I pace for a moment, trying to work it loose.

Then I seize on it: the jagged shard of glass that punctured my foot. It’d looked like a tiny, lethal icicle. The same colour as this.

I hurry from the writing room, descending the stairs, fingers gripping the paperweight. Pushing open my bedroom door, I go straight to the wastepaper basket at the foot of my mirror. Digging through it, I pull out a parcel of tissue.

Opening it carefully, I remove the dagger of glass I’d found embedded in the carpet.

I press the missing fragment against the paperweight.

Like a key slipped into a lock, it is the exact fit.

Previously

When staying in someone else’s house, one would have to be incurious not to wonder about the owner. There are clues everywhere – the photos carefully selected for display on the walls, the clothes hanging in the floor-to-ceiling wardrobes, the stock of medicines in the bathroom cabinet, the box file filled with documents in the bureau, the post that arrives with the handwritten address.

I can take my time, enjoy these small discoveries because, for now, your house is mine.

I drift from the kitchen to the lounge, admiring the sense of continuity and flow between rooms. Everything is marvellously tasteful: the low-backed cream sofa, framed by two upholstered tub armchairs, each carefully angled to face the water. The neutral tones and uncluttered lines naturally focus the gaze towards the sea. Even on a dull day, such as this, there is a mesmerising quality to the water. In warmer weather, I imagine sliding back the bifold doors, removing a wall of the room so that it feels as if the house and water are just a breath apart.

It’s a truly beautiful home. I’m sure some people would be quick to add, ‘Well, yes, easy if you’ve got the money.’

I disagree. This takes vision.

I could never have created this.

My gaze is drawn to a slight groove in the seat of your sofa, the lightest depression in the fabric. This is where you sit. My eye travels to the adjacent coffee table, where there is a scuff mark close to the edge where you must put your feet up.

I lower myself into the spot that is familiar to you. I find my hand sliding down the side of the sofa. It’s the forgotten corners in a home that are often the most revealing. I feel the rough grate of sand or crumbs beneath my nails. My fingers meet something firm and narrow, and I withdraw a pencil. The end of it is splintered, the lead protruding further than the wooden housing. It appears as if the pencil has been snapped in two.

An accident?

Pushing myself to my feet, I turn. Behind the sofa is a library wall. Carefully selected pieces of pottery punctuate the rows of books with the grace of well-placed commas. I stand for a moment admiring your literary choices, many of them classics: Hemingway, Shakespeare, Brontë and Austen. A little predictable, but nice all the same.

I step closer, running my finger along the worn spines of the fiction shelf, passing psychological thrillers, romance novels, literary novels – but no, I still do not see it. I keep looking until I’m sure.

There is only one notable absence on these shelves: your book.

5
Elle

I drop the final piece of naan into my mouth, then gather the takeaway dishes, following Fiona through to her kitchen.

‘Avert your eyes,’ Fiona instructs, glancing at the sink, which is piled with washing up. ‘One of those weeks.’

‘I’ll do them. It’ll take me a minute.’

‘You will not.’ She blocks the sink. ‘You can pour us more wine.’

My sister’s relentless bossiness has a nostalgic flavour. I’m used to my actions being channelled, as if I’m something fluid, destined to flow around Fiona.

‘I’ve been meaning to ask,’ I say, watching her rinse the plastic takeaway dishes, then jam them into the recycling bin, punching down a cereal box to make room. ‘You know when you cleaned after the Airbnb, did you happen to go into my writing room?’

‘Oh God, don’t tell me I was meant to clean in there, too?’ She forces the bin door shut with a shove. ‘I had such a busy week that I only got over for an hour. I’m not doing it again, by the way. Next time you can find a cleaner.’

‘No, it’s not that – it’s just, when I went in there, the window was left open and it felt like things were different.’

‘Different?’

‘Like things had been moved.’

Fiona turns. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I have this blue glass paperweight on my desk. Do you remember? Mum brought us them back from Malta.’

‘Yes, with the swirls of ink.’

‘It’s been chipped. I found the missing part lodged in my bedroom carpet.’

‘And?’

‘I think it happened while I was away.’

‘Thought you’d locked your writing room?’

‘I did.’

‘So, you think,’ Fiona says, an eyebrow cocked, ‘that the Airbnb renters broke into your writing room, chipped your paperweight, then tossed the broken piece into your bedroom?’

I’d anticipated this reaction: dismissive, unperturbed. That is precisely why I decided to tell my sister.

Fiona continues. ‘The glass probably got stuck to the sole of your shoe, and then you walked it around the house, and it finally came loose in one of the rooms.’ She slots a tablet into the dishwasher and clanks it shut with more force than is necessary. ‘I knew you’d get like this after renting your house. You need a dog.’

‘I do not need a dog.’

I fetch a bottle of white from the fridge and refill our glasses. The fridge door is covered with photos, notes, and the first of Drake’s crayon scribblings. My gaze lands on the picture of me and Flynn standing in front of our campervan, alongside Bill and a heavily pregnant Fiona.

I miss that camper. An old Mercedes Sprinter, which Flynn had spent months converting. We’d pull up at quiet beaches and cook dinner with the slide door pulled wide.

I pluck the photo from the fridge, looking more closely. I remember the first time I’d seen Flynn – the long sandy hair, the sun-tanned face, the skateboard slung under his arm, the carefree curve of his smile. My stomach flipped with desire as I’d served his coffee, slipping an extra biscuit on the saucer. He’d come back to the café every day for a week before he worked up the nerve to ask, ‘Fancy hanging out after you finish?’

I was twenty-four years old at the time and felt impossibly lost. I was working shifts in cafés and bars, sleeping at strange hours, barely leaving my rented flat except to go to work. I felt as if I were submerged … that life was happening to other people and I was watching it at a distance. I’d lost contact with my school friends and had distanced myself from Fiona and our mother. I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted until, on a Tuesday morning in spring, Flynn Fielding walked into the café with his skateboard. I could see the surface again; I could breathe.

Fiona moves to my shoulder. ‘Remind me why you’re divorcing again?’

I shoot her a look that says, Don’t.

‘You know what I’ve been thinking?’ Fiona says as I pin the photo back in place.

‘Here we go.’

‘You need to start dating.’

‘I thought I needed a dog.’

‘Date a man with a dog.’

‘Leave it with me.’

We take our wine through to the lounge and settle onto the sofas. In the warmth of the room, I find myself yawning, my eyelids heavy. It’s not even ten o’clock.

‘So tell me about the tenants. What were they like?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Joanna and her family. The renters. When you did the handover, did they seem okay? You know, not paperweight-chipping maniacs?’

Something passes over Fiona’s face. She inspects the stem of her wine glass. ‘Yes, they seemed fine.’

I know my sister. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

‘Nothing at all.’

‘Fiona …’

There is a good three- or four-second pause before Fiona looks up, right at me.

‘Listen, I’m sorry, but I didn’t meet them.’

‘What?’

‘I went over the morning they arrived like we agreed, but they were out – so I just left a note with my phone number. I planned to check in with them later in the week, but then things got a bit chaotic and—’

‘You said you had! You told me you’d met them.’ My palm slams the sofa arm, surprising us both.

It is just like my sister to not follow through with something that doesn’t directly benefit her.

In the bright overhead light of Fiona’s bathroom, I’m confronted by how tired I look – the bags beneath my eyes settling into dark bruises. I’ve learned that you do not say you’re exhausted to a mother of a toddler who has been parenting on her own all week.

I wash my hands, forgetting that the cold tap sprays water, which shoots over my top. I snap off the tap. Not finding any towels, I dry my hands on the dressing gown hanging from the back of the door.

I remember offering to pay for a bathroom refurbishment – back when my book advance felt like it might never run out – but Fiona had given me one of her lethal, haughty stares, and I knew not to offer again. In a way, I’m pleased. There’s a sense of comfort in the bath edge lined with shampoos and conditioners, the plastic ducks and toy boats spooling from a net suckered to the tiles; there are toothbrushes jammed into a chipped mug, a bowl of tiny bottles of shower gels pilfered from hotels. There are no hidden cupboards for toiletries, or woven baskets to house neatly folded towels. It feels lived in and there is something appealing in that.

I’ve often thought that people who know Fiona in a professional capacity – who are used to her straight-talking, razor efficiency – would be surprised if they stepped into her home. It is a valve, a little pocket of chaos to relieve the pressure of her exacting approach to her work.

In that sense, I suppose we’re opposites. My house is my sanctuary: uncluttered, ordered. Everything has its place – and that gives me a sense of security, of calm.

It’s the rest of my life that’s in chaos.

Moving onto the landing, I pause outside Drake’s room. His door is ajar and my heart lifts at the thought of his little pyjama-clad body, the biscuit smell of his neck, the light raspy sound of his snores. It is so tempting to slip into the room, check his blanket, make sure he has his comforter by his hand – but I daren’t risk waking him. It took Fiona an hour to get him down and I don’t want to experience her wrath at being dragged to her feet again.

The room opposite is Fiona’s study, which is lit by a desk lamp. It is the boxroom in the house – the would-be-nursery, if Fiona would entertain the idea of another child (she won’t). Her desk is swamped beneath a sea of papers, notebooks and articles, a computer screen floating above the flotsam.

For years, Fiona worked as a journalist in London, writing ground-breaking exposé pieces about industry professionals. She went after those men and women like a hound following a scent, uncovering illegal fund transfers, tax evasion or any whiff of inequality towards staff. The work appealed to her exacting sense of fairness and she thrived in an industry with punishing hours and high pressure.

Moving to Cornwall and having a baby was not so much a change of direction, but the squealing of brakes, the burn of tyres on tarmac, a vehicle sliding out into a U-turn. It was impossible to do both; her job was driven by contacts, interviews, sources – all of which needed to happen in London.

Fiona’s work has always been central to her identity, so Bill and I were pleased when, on the evening of Drake’s first birthday, as party plates were being stacked, Fiona announced that she was going to set up as a freelance copywriter.

Now her working hours are defined by seeking out the perfect word, a crisp turn of phrase to appeal to customers, to draw them to a brand. A pin board is tacked to the wall above her desk, filled with briefs, images, and guidelines about a client’s specific language choices. In the middle of it all, there is a postcard. I recognise my own handwriting. You are so fearless, so talented, that I KNOW you’ll succeed. May Cutting Edge Copy fly!

I smile, touched that my sister keeps this note pinned above her work station.

Behind me, there is the creak of floorboards. ‘Not quite a sea view, is it?’ Fiona is standing in the doorway.

‘I love it in here.’

‘What are you looking at?’

‘You kept this postcard I sent you.’

‘Did I? I’d forgotten it was there.’

Then, from behind Fiona, there comes a wail. ‘Mummy!’

The front door opens, and Bill loafs into the house, a rush of cold air chasing after him.

He throws down a holdall, slinging his suit jacket over the top. His shirt is undone at the collar, tie removed.

‘Hey, aren’t you that famous author?’ He beams at his old joke, then opens his arms, shirt straining across his barrel chest. ‘Thought I spotted your car.’

As we hug, I catch the scent of car air-freshener and mints – and the subtle hint of cigarette smoke, too. Fiona banned him from smoking when she gave up six years ago, but we all know Bill likes the occasional secret cigarette. As does Fiona.

‘They taste better smoked in secret,’ Fiona had once explained. ‘Makes us feel as if we’re living dangerously.’

‘So where’s that gorgeous sister of yours?’

‘Upstairs. Drake woke.’

‘Ah.’ He glances at the takeaway menu on the side. ‘Fiona’s been cooking you lavish meals again?’

‘Makes a wonderful korma. Sorry, we didn’t know you’d be back early. We’d have saved you some.’

‘All I need,’ Bill says, moving into the kitchen, me following, ‘is one of these.’ He pulls a bottle of beer from the fridge, twists the cap free, and clinks the neck of it against my wine glass. ‘Cheers. To the end of the week.’

‘The end of the week,’ I agree, although I don’t share his buzz. Tomorrow I’m delivering an author talk at the local library and know I won’t relax fully until it is over.

Bill grabs a packet of pistachios and shakes them into a dish. He offers them first to me, then begins snapping the shells, dropping the nuts into his mouth, washing them down with beer.

‘How was France?’

‘Good. I enjoyed it – although I was ready to come home.’

‘House still standing?’

‘Thankfully, yes.’

‘Fiona said the Airbnb all went well.’

‘Think so.’

‘Next time you rent it, give me the nod. Wouldn’t mind escaping the chaos of this place for a few days.’ He laughs, eyes sparkling.

I remember meeting Bill for the first time when Fiona was living in London. He was standing at her sink, thick arms plunged into a bowl of soapy water, the kitchen light reflecting off the curve of his bald head. My first thought was that he was one of her housemates’ fathers.

Bill was so unlike the sallow-skinned academics who Fiona tended to date that I’d worried it wouldn’t last – that Fiona, with her tendency to bore quickly, would become distracted.

‘You know he has a proper job,’ Fiona told me later, when we were alone. ‘Something to do with sales. They give him a car to drive. This ugly great silver thing with awful tinted windows.’ She spoke about their relationship with a tone of quiet amusement, as if she couldn’t quite believe she’d fallen for him. ‘Bill hasn’t read a novel in two years. He watches snooker. He classes a good night out as having “a few jars” at a comedy club. He’s twelve years older than me. He wears jewellery – and I don’t mean body piercings. I mean actual jewellery. A gold neck chain. And a signet ring.’

I’d looked at her closely. ‘You really like him, don’t you?’

She’d smiled, glanced away – a girlish expression I rarely saw in my sister. ‘Yes, I think I do.’

Now Bill is asking, ‘Everything okay? You’re looking a bit tired, m’dear.’

I love Bill’s knack for sensing when I’m off-kilter.

‘I’m not sleeping brilliantly at the moment, that’s all.’

‘Ah, the insomnia snake. You’ve got a lot going on, eh? Flynn. Your book deadline. Maybe you’re still adjusting to being in the new house, too.’

I nod, reminded of how intuitive Bill can be.

‘You know that we’re here if you need us, don’t you?’ he says, placing a large hand on my shoulder. He squeezes – his grip just a fraction too firm.

‘Thought I heard the door,’ Fiona says, crossing the kitchen and kissing Bill on the mouth. ‘No traffic?’

‘I had a meeting in Bristol. Finished on time. Came straight here. Drake all right?’

‘Fine – but he’s yours for the weekend.’

‘As long as you’re all mine for the weekend, too,’ he says, pulling Fiona into his arms and burying his face in her neck.

I move towards the chair where I’ve left my coat and handbag. ‘I’m going to disappear.’

‘Don’t be silly! Stay!’ Bill says, releasing Fiona.

‘I’m giving a library talk in the morning.’

‘I saw the posters,’ Fiona says. ‘We’re going to try and pop in.’

‘Are we?’ Bill asks.

‘Don’t you dare!’ I say.

Fiona bats away my resistance. ‘It’s at eleven, isn’t it?’

‘Please, you’ve got better things to do with your weekend.’

‘We are immensely boring people, Elle.’

‘And anyway,’ Bill adds, ‘we want to sit in the audience and show off that we’re related to you.’

‘Just don’t ask any embarrassing questions, okay?’

Bill links his arm through Fiona’s, wiggling his brows as he says, ‘Us?’

I step from the warmth of their house and cross the street towards my car. Fiona and Bill watch from the doorway, checking I make it safely to the vehicle.

I start the engine, flick on the heater, turn up the radio. As I move off, I lift my hand to wave – but they are already turning away.

Bill pulls the door firmly behind them, locking his family inside.

2003

Elle’s skin held the deep tan of a summer holiday spent largely unoccupied. She was running late, still learning to navigate the sprawling campus, and she slipped into the back of the lecture theatre, breathless.

She scanned the sea of heads looking for an unoccupied seat, dismayed to spot only one at the front. As she tiptoed down the central stairway, trying to make herself invisible, the lecturer paused mid-sentence.

He was sitting on the edge of a desk, the screen behind him illuminated with the words Shakespeare’s Tragedies. He had foppish brown hair and wore a well-cut cord jacket, over a pair of dark jeans.

‘I should mention,’ the young lecturer said, ‘that if anyone is late, they have the regrettable task of being my assistant at the end of the lecture and handing out the day’s notes. So,’ he said, his gaze finding hers, ‘that role is awarded to you, today.’ He smiled. A boyish smile that lit up his face and created sunbursts of lines around his eyes.

The attention in the auditorium swung to her, as a hundred pairs of eyes followed his. Perhaps because she was nineteen, perhaps because she was still buzzing from the shots she’d only stopped drinking at four a.m., she had – right there in front of a packed auditorium of English Literature students – grinned as she curtsied to him.

‘At your service.’

Luke Linden, he was called, ‘but just call me Luke’. He was one of those lecturers, she would learn, who abandoned the lectern and preferred to roam, striding expansively from one end of the hall to the other. He had a flair for using a pause to great effect, causing even those students with a tendency to drift, to suddenly look up as if silence had summoned them. Luke Linden was a man who could talk passionately about semantics and notions of romantic love in Jacobean England – yet still looked like one of them.

Except he wasn’t one of them.

And that’s where Elle had made her first mistake.

6
Elle

‘The best story to tell – the only story to tell – is the one living within you, inhabiting you, insisting that it be heard.’

Author Elle Fielding

I push open the car door into darkness, feel the hurried beat of my footsteps across my frost-hardened driveway.

On the doorstep, I fumble in my handbag looking for my key.

Maybe I should have had an extra glass of wine, crashed on Fiona and Bill’s sofa, not come back to an empty house.

I slot the key into the lock and slip inside, bolting the door behind me.

There it is, the silence. It pins me, fills my ears with its voiceless boom.

I hate coming home to an empty house – particularly after dark. Jesus, maybe Fiona is right: I do need a dog.

I keep finding myself missing the congestion of my old life in Bristol; the steady thrum of traffic, the stores open all hours of the night, the sounds from other people’s lives that filtered through the walls of our flat – voices, televisions, cisterns refilling, plates being stacked, laughter.

I force myself to move briskly through the house, flicking on lights, the radio and television.

It will be my first winter here and I wonder how warm it will be. Underfloor heating doesn’t give the same heat as a fire. I must start using the log burner – but each time I think about laying it, I’m overwhelmed by Flynn’s absence. It has always been his thing.

In the last place we rented, there was an open fire, and I remember the way he’d carefully select the wood each evening, telling me whether it was apple or silver birch, or a piece of plum chopped down from a job he’d done the previous year. He’d describe how long each piece would burn for, what the notes of the smell might be, how long it had been seasoned.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I slip my mobile from my pocket and dial his number. I want to hear his voice. I want to say, I’m thinking of lighting the log burner you chose. I want to tell him, I miss you. To hear him say, I forgive you.

When he picks up, I catch the low riff of music. Muddy Waters. One of Flynn’s favourite blues artists. He plays his music on a record player that used to belong to his father. He loves the ceremony of setting the needle, hearing the fuzzed scratch as the record begins to spin.

‘Elle?’

‘I just … I thought I’d … say hello.’ I glance at my watch. It is midnight on a Friday. Shit.

‘Right. Hello,’ Flynn says, lightly amused.

Tucking the phone under my ear, I move into the kitchen to make certain the back door is locked. I press on the handle, check the bolt. Then I follow the perimeter of the kitchen ensuring each of the windows is secure, and the wine cellar is locked.

I tell Flynn about my evening at Fiona and Bill’s as I move into the lounge, looking behind the sofa, running my hand along the curtains until I can feel the wall. Every room needs to be checked. Every window. It gives me peace of mind.

When I’m satisfied that the house is secure, I move into my bedroom, sinking down onto the bed, letting myself fall backwards, my head hitting the pillow with a soft thump.

Pressing the phone close to my ear, I can hear the slow draw of Flynn’s breath, can picture him sitting on the sofa, fire lit, an empty bottle of ale on the side table, the lights low.

The Muddy Waters record comes to its end and our conversation ticks comfortably into silence. I let my eyes close. In our previous life – the version of us that runs parallel to this one – I would be stretched out on the sofa, my feet on his lap, the warmth of the fire playing over my shins. We would be making plans for the weekend ahead: a walk in the forest with a pub lunch perhaps, or a drive to the coast to visit friends.

Across the phone waves I hear a door opening, then footsteps. Quick and light. There is the murmur of a female voice, low, keening.

‘Oh,’ I say, sitting up, a hand moving to my chest. ‘You’ve got company.’

His mouth sounds closer to the phone, as he says, ‘Listen, Elle, I didn’t know you were—’

I try to form words that will make this okay, but I can’t think what to say, what to do with this sudden, crushing realisation.

So I do the only thing that comes to me: I hang up.

I pace my bedroom, replaying the phone call, over and over.

Flynn.

Flynn and another woman.

It’s a fist in my stomach.

I launch my mobile at the bed. It bounces off, hits my cream bedside table and lands on the carpet.

I run a bath, add some essential oils, let the water slip over my body until it is cupping the disc of my face. I concentrate on my breathing, on trying to relax.

But I can’t. I climb out, water sloshing over the bathroom floor.

I wrap myself in a dressing gown, then eye my bed. There’s no point trying to sleep when I’m agitated, wired.

I’ll write, I decide.

The lamp casts a white spotlight across my desk. Behind me, the rest of the writing room is in darkness.

I take a breath. Hover the mouse over the Word document labelled BOOK 2.

It’s coming along well, I’d told Jane.

Five and a half weeks until my deadline.

Downstairs, I picture the unopened bills piled on the bureau, the mortgage repayment not met this month. Everything is riding on this book, waiting on me. I think of Booklover101’s latest post on my Facebook page. A gif of a woman sat at a typewriter, face possessed, keys bashing up and down. Hope you’re working hard. Remember, your no.1 fan is waiting .

I click.

The document opens onto the title page:

BOOK 2

By Elle Fielding

And below it, nothing.

Whiteness.

All that blank space eyeballing me, waiting to be filled. It’s like staring into a black hole – only white – as if I could be sucked into it, lose myself in all that emptiness.

Beneath the desk, my foot jigs up and down.

I remember how excited, how inspired, I felt before I was published. Back then I was writing without expectation or deadlines – writing just for myself. There was such freedom in it. I didn’t realise it at the time when I was yearning to get published, but it was a beautiful way to write – out in the wilderness, without a contract.

Now thousands of readers are eagerly awaiting my next novel, a publishing house is primed and ready, the security of my home teeters on it. I rub the skin below my collarbone, pressure tightening in my chest.

This isn’t how I imagined it to be.

None of this is how it was meant to be.

‘It’s going to be fine,’ I say aloud to the empty room, my voice unnaturally bright. ‘You can do this. You just need to focus, stop doubting yourself. Don’t overthink this, Elle. Just write.’

Team talk to self.

Jesus Christ, all this silence. No wonder I’m talking to myself. I play some music, turning it up loud. Then I flick on the large overhead light, too. There, that’s better, I think, pacing.

If someone is in the bay tonight, they could look straight into this room, see me up here, alone.

I pick up the paperweight from my desk, pressing my thumb into the jagged crack. I can almost feel the sharp point of the missing shard as if it’s still embedded in my heel.

That feeling, the hot breath of fear.

I lower myself into my chair, placing the paperweight beside me. The lamplight bounces off it, throwing my image back at me, distorted by the curvature of the glass.

I know the story I need to write. I think I’ve known it all along.

I’ve got it all here, in me. I see that now. My characters are already alive, living under my skin. I just need to get them on the page, pin them there.

So I picture them, I tune into their voices, I invite them in.

And then I start to type.

2003

Elle’s second mistake came later.

Glancing up, she checked the librarian was still focused on unstacking her book trolley, then continued deconstructing a Crunchie, biting off the top layer of chocolate before sucking the honeycomb until it turned sticky in her mouth.

Her housemate, Louise, who was sitting opposite, was whispering her plan to spray-paint a roll of bubble wrap and fashion it into a dress for that evening’s space-age party.

Louise halted mid-sentence, her eyes fixing on something beyond Elle’s shoulder.

‘There he goes.’

Elle removed the Crunchie from her mouth, twisting in her seat.

Luke Linden was crossing the library with long, easy strides, a newspaper tucked underarm. A ripple of attention followed him. At a table to the left of theirs, a group of students waved him over. He paused mid-step to listen to a question, nodding lightly. He delivered his answer into the hushed silence and then, a moment later, continued.

As he passed the table where Elle sat, his gaze lifted, met hers. He smiled, his mouth curling to one side. Then he moved on, disappeared.

Placing her elbows on the table, Louise whispered, ‘I’m going to have to do an MA, just so I can look at him for one more year.’

‘Take a photo. Less debt.’

‘You can’t tell me you’re not in love with him.’

‘I’m not in love with him.’

‘But you’d sleep with him in a heartbeat, yes?’

She shrugged.

‘You would, of course you would!’

Later, Elle would wonder about what she’d said next. Whether she’d meant it, how it changed things. She would want to go back, edit the memory. Rewrite that tiny detail in her story, because – although it was only a sentence – it would become pivotal.

It would become the hook from which she would hang.

But in that moment, Elle was just a teenage girl, hair to her waist, skin unlined, still bright with the promise of how her life was about to flower.

Elle held Louise’s gaze as she finally answered, ‘Yes, I absolutely would. In fact,’ she added, her mouth spreading into a grin, ‘maybe I will.’

7
Elle

In the black-velvet darkness of four a.m., I twist onto my side. The sheets are a hot tangle around my waist. The snake in my brain is alive, wide awake.

I listen to the house. I want there to be noises of other people – the purring snore of a child asleep in the nursery, the cast-iron creak of the log burner opening, a hunk of wood fed to the flames.

But it is just me. My breathing. My heartbeat, rapid.

And then my thoughts. They are not silent, but loud and rowdy, like a bad drunk. They seem to echo in my mind, filling my head with their noise and spite.

You invite your story, your characters, into your thoughts – but what then if they won’t leave?

I sit up. Eyes open in the darkness.

*

I feel raw this morning, empty. It’s that strange depleted feeling you get after you’ve cried. I wrote five thousand words last night. I couldn’t switch off. I still can’t. The last thing I feel like doing is giving a library talk. I want to stay here, get this story down.

Pulling on my winter coat, I pause in the hallway, examining myself in the mirror. God, I look terrible. My skin tone is uneven and there are purplish blooms beneath my eyes.

I glance at my watch. One hour until I’ll be standing at the front of the library talking about my great life as an author.

Why did I agree to this?

But of course, I know why. I need to start getting more involved locally, putting down roots. Demolishing the original fisherman’s cottage hasn’t been a popular decision, and I’m sure people think I’m just another city blow-in. I want to make friends here, make Cornwall home.

I need this.

Opening the clasp of my handbag, I check for the second or third time that my notes are tucked inside my novel.

Anticipating the cold beyond the front door, I draw my coat snug to my throat. Something’s wrong. My fingers meet the empty space at my collar where a brooch is always pinned. It belonged to my mother – a silver swift in flight – and I never remove it. It was here the last time I wore this coat. That was the day I left for France. Since then the coat’s been hanging right here in the hallway. I crouch, searching the line of shoes beneath the row of hooks, shaking each one – but they are all empty.

There isn’t time to search thoroughly now, but I don’t like leaving the house without it. It’s unsettling, a bad omen.

As I get to my feet, an image of Joanna slinks into my thoughts: a pale hand travelling over the collar of my coat, long fingers meeting the silver wing of the bird, then the lightest of movements as the brooch is unpinned, cool metal hidden within a palm.

Collecting the box of books from the back seat, I close the car door with a swing of my hip, then fumble with the key fob.

Set back on an expansive lawn, the pebbledash library looks tired in the morning sunlight as I follow the stone pathway towards the entrance. A trail of wisteria, the blooms long dead, snake across the wall, bird droppings staining the concrete beneath.

I shoulder open the door and breathe in the warm pulp smell of books.

A young librarian, wearing a checked shirt that strains at her bust and stomach, abandons her book trolley and races over.

‘Welcome! Here, let me take that box!’ she says, removing it from my grip. ‘I’m Laura. By the way, I loved Wild Fear. Literally loved it! I recommend it to, like, everyone!’

‘That’s so lovely of you, Laura. Thank you.’ I smile.

She guides me towards an area where chairs have been set out in a semi-circle facing a small table.

‘Does this look okay?’ Laura asks, with a faint Cornish accent. Her cheeks are flushed, wispy strands of hair escaping from her ponytail. ‘I’ve popped a jug of water on your table. There’s a microphone on standby if you need it – but I know some people prefer not to use one. Maeve did say there’s a lectern in the store room if that’d be better?’

‘Everything looks great just as it is. Thank you.’ My attention drifts towards the window, the sea glimmering in the distance. I have a burst of longing to be out there, in the water, salt on my skin.

‘Oh, I’m sorry. The windows don’t open, but if you think it’ll get a bit stuffy, I can prop open the fire exit. What do you think? Should I do that now?’

‘I think the temperature is just right. I love the event poster,’ I say, indicating the noticeboard.

‘I just whizzed a few out on our printer,’ Laura says, pressing her hands to her chest, pleased.

I remove my coat and drape it over the back of a chair, then set my copy of the novel on the table, opening the cover and checking my notes.

‘Oh, look! Here’s our library manager, Maeve. I don’t think you’ve met.’

A petite, middle-aged woman in a vintage pinafore dress approaches, a bluebird-print headscarf knotted over deep red hair. Her pale green eyes fix on me.

‘Hello.’ She smiles.

‘Nice to meet you,’ I say, offering a hand.

Maeve’s is cool and soft in my grasp. There is something vaguely familiar about her.

‘Likewise.’

‘Thank you for hosting today’s event.’

‘Laura has done all the work, haven’t you?’

Laura beams. ‘It’s been my pleasure. Not often that a bestselling author moves to town. Everyone is so excited about the talk. It’s a sell-out,’ she says, turning to look at the seats, which are steadily filling.

The library doors open and Fiona strides in, unbuttoning a high-necked coat, her gaze scanning the crowd. She is dressed in black, a pop of red lipstick adding colour to her otherwise make-up-free face, a large handbag swinging from a shoulder strap. Her utilitarian style looks abrupt in the fusty library setting. Seeing me, she lifts her fingers in the air, then crosses the room towards me. We kiss, and I breathe in the smell of croissants and coffee.

‘This is my sister, Fiona,’ I say, introducing her to Laura and Maeve.

‘We all know each other,’ Maeve explains, smiling. ‘Book club.’

‘It’s at your house this month, isn’t it?’ Laura asks Fiona.

‘Oh Christ, you’re right! I should warn you that salted caramel brownies will not be on the menu. I can, however, guarantee that there’ll be a sea of alcohol.’

‘Then the masses will descend,’ Maeve says.

Laura turns to me. ‘Are you in a book club, Elle?’

‘No.’ Fiona has mentioned the book club before, but I wasn’t offended that she hadn’t invited me – we’ve always kept our social lives separate.

‘Then you should join ours!’ Laura says, bouncing lightly on her heels. ‘It’d be so lovely to have an actual author there. We’re doing The Secret History this month. Think I’m the only one who’s not read it before. You should come. I’d love it. Everyone would love it!’

‘Yes, come,’ Fiona says, and I find it difficult to tell whether she genuinely wants me there.

‘Okay, then.’ Glancing over my shoulder, I see that the room has filled, people jostling to find seats, draping winter coats over the backs of chairs, setting handbags on laps. Two young women sit together near the front, notebooks on knees, their heads inclined as they talk. I think, It was only a breath ago that I was you. That I watched other authors speak, praying, ‘Please let that be me, one day.’

Maeve and Laura disappear to hand out membership forms, and Fiona says, ‘Bill sends his apologies. Drake was desperate to go to the beach.’

‘That’s fine.’ Fiona could have been spending the morning with them – but instead she has come here to support me. I reach out and squeeze her fingers. ‘Thank you for coming.’

Fiona glances down. ‘Clammy hands?’

‘Nerves.’

She considers me. She has a penetrating gaze that makes me feel as if she is unpeeling layers of me, seeing deeper than other people are able.

‘Juliet. Sandy. The Virgin Mary. You were the lead in just about every school production there was. You owned the stage.’

‘That was years ago. And anyway, I was in character. I learned a script.’

‘So get in character now. You’re an internationally bestselling author. You have one of the most coveted houses in Cornwall. You’re young, beautiful and successful. And – on top of all that – you’ve got one pretty fucking incredible sister.’

Standing in front of the mirror in the library toilets, I take a moment to compose myself. My neck is flushed and I fasten an extra button of my shirt, aware that my hands are trembling.

I can do this. I’ve played this part dozens of times before, on book tours, at literary festivals, in interviews.

In my head, I run through the first section of my talk. I plan to briefly touch on my childhood holidays here in Cornwall, and then I will skirt that strange dark cloud that hovered around my early twenties, and I’ll begin the story when I’m in my late twenties. I’ll explain about the vague dissatisfaction I’d felt simmering, how I’d tried various jobs but none of them were a valve for the bubbling restlessness. I’ll then talk about travelling with Flynn (to mention him by name, or not? Not, I decide, unwilling to risk the possible waver in my voice) – and how it was when I returned home, renting a flat in the heart of Bristol, that the idea of writing was seeded.

‘There is this night course,’ Flynn began one evening as we were eating takeaway pizza straight from the box. ‘It’s in creative writing. It started last week – but you’ve only missed one session. I saw a flyer about it. Here,’ he said, pressing it into my hand.

It was an abstract image of a wing cutting across a blue sky. Let your imagination soar, was the heading in a stylish grey font.

‘I thought,’ Flynn said tentatively, ‘that I could treat you to it. For your birthday. If you were interested.’ Flynn had just taken his first salaried position as a tree surgeon, returning home each evening with wood chip clinging to the weave of his jumper, bark staining his jeans.

‘It’s taught by a woman,’ Flynn said. ‘She’s written a couple of books. You should look her up.’

I’d lain in the bath that evening, candles lit, essential oils making a film on the surface. When we’d been travelling, I kept a journal, filling page after page with descriptions of new experiences and interesting places. Those moments I found myself sitting cross-legged on a beach, or in the back of our van, a pencil scratching across the smooth page of my journal, had filled me with a deep sense of calm. Yet I’d never considered nurturing that passion into something more.

Fiction was my mother’s world. She’d always worked as a teaching assistant because the hours suited our schooling, but she’d often set her alarm early ‘to get the best of this old brain’ before her day began. Over the years she’d had several short stories printed in magazines, but when Fiona had asked if she dreamt of becoming an author, she replied, ‘I don’t write to get published. I write because I can’t not.’

‘Yes,’ I told Flynn, as I stood in a towel, my feet wet on the lino flooring. ‘I’d like to do the course.’

Wednesday evenings became the highlight of the week. I loved my tutor, a woman in her fifties with short red hair and a limitless collection of animal-print neck scarves. She had a wickedly sardonic sense of humour, and she filled the room with her passion for words. Her students were a mix of ages: two men, recently divorced, who wrote wild adventure stories in the realm of Wilbur Smith; an English graduate who’d lost a twin sister; three retired friends who met for dinner before each class, the smell of Thai spices or wine clinging to them. Wednesdays were a beacon for us all.

During the course I had the idea for my first novel. It wasn’t a lightning-bolt moment of inspiration; it was simply an image. I could picture two women standing together on a shoreline, their hands gripped, squinting into the distance. I wondered what or who they were looking at. As I encouraged my mind’s eye to zoom in more closely, other details emerged: two boys in the water; the flash of an orange life boat; one boy brought back to shore alive – not two.

Once the idea took hold, I worked on it feverishly. I was a receptionist at the time and the jotter by the office phone filled with plot ideas and character notes. I spent my lunch breaks writing in the back seat of my car, not willing to use the staff room for fear of someone disturbing me. Following my mother’s example, I set my alarm an hour early each morning to write, and in that quiet dawn hour, I left behind the walls of the studio flat and I soared.

Gradually, gradually, the shape of a novel began to form. It was loose and unpinned, but there was something in it, I’d felt sure.

Authors often talk about that magical moment of securing their first book deal – and I remember every detail of it. Invited to meet an interested publisher, I sat with my agent in the spacious atrium of the publishing house reception, staring up at a metallic sculpture of a globe suspended from the ceiling, a disco ball without the party. My outfit, which I’d spent an entire afternoon deciding upon – corduroy yellow skirt with embroidered detail, and a green silk top – now seemed oddly provincial.

I watched other visitors streaming into the atrium, being ushered through security: handbags and briefcases conveyored through an X-ray machine, lanyards swinging from visitors’ necks. Everything was so removed from the process of writing the book that I suddenly felt like I was in the wrong place. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my mother’s fountain pen. I turned it through my fingers, exploring the faded patch near the nib, where the gloss had worn away with use. I remembered the way my mother wrote with it, the slant of her hand, her elbow sliding along the table edge. As a girl, I used to be fascinated by the empty black ink cartridges, containing a tiny glass bead, like the eye of a vole.

Holding it between my fingertips, I knew my mother would have been proud that I had got this far, that I, Elle Fielding, former barista, waitress and travel bum, had written something good enough to draw the attention of a publisher.

My literary agent and I were collected by an assistant and taken by lift, up twelve storeys, and deposited in a glass-doored meeting room that overlooked a sprawling open-plan office. I had never seen so many people working in one place.

A few minutes later, a woman in a simple blue dress and ankle boots walked in, clutching papers.

‘Elle, I’m Jane – one of the publishing directors here. It’s so lovely to meet you.’ She kissed me warmly. I liked Jane immediately. She was sincere, intelligent, and passionate about books.

‘Let me just tell you, I loved your story. I got lost in the characters. Those women – I felt like I wanted to pick up the phone, call them. You have a wonderful eye for observation.’

A surge of delight rushed through me and I began to relax, talking with ease about how the idea came to me, why I ended the book as I did. My agent smiled at me enthusiastically. Yes, it was going well.

Jane briefed me on the next steps: she’d be pitching the book at their acquisitions meeting that week.

‘One of the questions that will be asked,’ Jane said, ‘will be what other ideas you have.’

I’d poured every ounce of energy into that story, those characters. I hadn’t dared step outside of them, in case they shut the door behind me while my back was turned.

‘If you’ve got anything you could share with me ahead of the meeting,’ Jane said, ‘even if it’s just a very loose idea or two – that would really help my pitch. We like to be able to look ahead to see how we can establish your brand in the marketplace.’

Marketplace. Acquisition. Brand. My stomach fluttered with excitement. I allowed myself the smallest butterfly of hope: this could be the start.

Now, standing in the library toilets, I wipe my damp palms against my jeans. I take a deep breath, feel my shoulders pulling back.

‘Hello, I’m Elle Fielding,’ I say to the mirror, fixing on a smile.

Looking at myself, I think about the author the audience are expecting to see. A thirty-something woman with a successful, glittering career. A woman who is confident, composed, happy.

Who do I see? I wonder, leaning closer to the mirror, looking right into the dark centre of my irises, seeing the skein of red lines mapping the edges of them.

I blink. Push her away.

‘Hello, I’m Elle Fielding,’ I say again, brighter this time, with more volume. ‘It’s lovely to be invited here to—’

I stop short at the sound of a toilet flushing. A bolt is unlatched, and Maeve appears from one of the cubicles.

Her gaze meets mine in the mirror.

I have the feeling of being caught out.

‘Pre-talk warm up,’ I say.

Maeve moves to the sink, letting cold water stream across the backs of her pale hands. She flicks off the tap with her wrist, then pats her hands carefully with paper towels.

‘Practice makes perfect.’

Previously

Even though you’re not in the house, I feel close to you.

There are traces of you everywhere. Earlier, I found one of your hairs clinging to the sleeve of my shirt. I held it up to the light, examining the caramel shade, surprised to see the root bearing a hint of grey.

In the recycling bin, I found a screwed-up Post-it note, reading, Focus! No internet! I smiled at that because I can imagine how much self-discipline must be required as an author. What pressure you must be under to deliver an exceptional second novel.

We are all waiting for it.

I remember reading your debut for the first time. It blew me away. I read it in one sitting, pinned to the chair. The beauty and skill of the story, the racing pace. It left me breathless.

You’ve signed my copy at the front, a looping signature with a kiss.

I went to one of your book signings, I watched you from the back of a snaking line.

I studied the dip of your head as you bent to sign each copy, hair falling forward over your shoulder. You were smiling, chatting to readers as you asked their names, asked who you should dedicate each book to.

It was only when I looked closer that I noticed it – the way your legs were shaking beneath the table.

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