Your Life for Mine

KAREN CLARKE writes her novels in Buckinghamshire, where she lives with her husband and three grown-up children. Having previously published twelve romantic comedies, Karen switched to the dark side, co-writing psychological thriller The Secret Sister with fellow author Amanda Brittany.

Your Life For Mine is Karen’s first solo psychological suspense novel and she’s currently working on her second.

When she’s not writing, Karen reads a lot, loves walking, photography, going to the cinema, baking and eating cake (not all at the same time).

Your Life For Mine

KAREN CLARKE

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

Copyright © Karen Clarke

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

A catalogue record for 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, downloaded, 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.

E-book Edition © October 2020 ISBN: 9780008400385

Version: 2020-09-07

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Dear Reader …

Keep Reading …

About the Publisher

For Tim, with love.

‘You don’t have to be underwater to feel like you’re drowning.’

Prologue

After all the planning, I suppose it’s natural to be looking forward to what’s coming with a mix of apprehension and pleasure. Mostly pleasure, to be honest. The planning has been so meticulous, I haven’t left room for anything to go wrong. I’ve been careful and patient – more than I’d ever have believed possible.

Knowing you’re in London today, swanning about without a care in the world, simply brought home the fact that now – finally – is the perfect time to execute my plan to create maximum suffering. It’s been a long wait, but that means the reward will be sweeter.

Time to get started.

Chapter 1

The text came as I was getting off the train. I’d kept the volume at maximum since missing a call from my daughter’s school a few days ago, and the vibration made me jump.

I fumbled my phone from my bag, ignoring the thrust of commuters keen to reach home after a hard day’s work or, in my case, a hard day’s wandering around London.

It was probably Vic, checking I was on my way home. He was throwing a surprise party for my birthday, and to celebrate us being together for six months, and although it wasn’t a surprise (Vic knew better than that) he wanted to make it special.

Moving down the platform of Oxford railway station as the train pulled away, I pictured him in the kitchen with a checklist: food delivered, house tidied, cake baked – he’d been practising – my loved ones gathered and primed, eager to see my reaction. I’d been practising a look of joyful astonishment I hoped I could carry off.

I opened my messages, a smile hovering. I didn’t recognise the number.

Enjoy your birthday, Beth. It’ll be your last.

My brain froze. I read it again, heart beating unevenly. Who is this? I typed back, fingers slipping across the screen before hitting send. The response came swiftly.

You’ll find out.

My heart rate accelerated as I tapped out a reply, not stopping to consider whether it was a good idea. If this is a joke, it’s not funny.

No joke.

I glanced around, as if whoever had sent the message might be grinning with sinister intent on the platform, but the stretch of concrete was empty, sunshine glinting off the tracks. I’d been boiling on the train, but now cold fingers touched my spine, sending ripples of gooseflesh over my skin.

Who are you?

No reply.

With a plunge of dread, my mind barrelled back to a message I’d found on my car windscreen just after Christmas, A LIFE FOR A LIFE printed in big, black capitals on a sheet of plain white paper. I’d thrown it away, assuming someone had got the wrong car, or it was a religious thing, like the leaflets sometimes thrust at me in the street, offering salvation through Christ – but the words had still made me shiver and look around, just as I was doing now.

Another message buzzed in.

Bye, bye, Beth.

I dropped my phone as though bitten. Whoever it was had my name and number, yet no one I knew would do this, even as a joke.

My brain swooped around the possibilities.

‘Everything OK?’

I spun round to see the station assistant watching me curiously.

‘Fine.’ I tried to smile but my face felt stiff as I bent to retrieve my phone.

‘Have a nice evening,’ she said, giving me a funny look.

‘You too.’ I stumbled a little as I hurried through the exit towards the car park. She probably thought I’d been drinking.

In my car, I switched on the engine to get the air-conditioning flowing and looked at my phone again. Nothing.

I tried to breathe through the tightness in my chest. I’d spent too many years feeling like this in the past. I didn’t want to be pushed back to that place.

You know I can report you?

No response.

Perhaps one of my art -therapy clients was playing a prank. They knew my name and could have got hold of my number. It didn’t make much sense, but neither did anything else.

Except … A LIFE FOR A LIFE. With a twist of fear, it struck me afresh that only someone who knew me well would know the impact those words would have.

I jumped when a text from Vic came through.

Are you on your way back?

I let out my breath. Five minutes. X

Love you. X

You too. X

I still couldn’t say it back, even in writing. I’d been with my daughter’s father Matt for seven years, had loved him deeply. My feelings hadn’t died the minute he left, but Vic understood. It was one of the things I liked about him. He was a grown-up, who grasped that love was complex. He’d been patient, allowing my feelings to flourish at their own pace.

I manoeuvred out of the car park on autopilot, breathing from my diaphragm the way I’d been taught by a counsellor, but my skin and muscles were stiff with tension as I drove the short journey home.

When I turned into the street where I’d lived for the last six years, my shoulders relaxed a little. Home was a Victorian terrace on a quiet, leafy street overlooking the park near Hayley’s school – a house we’d only been able to afford because Matt’s grandfather died and left him enough money for the deposit. We would have to sell it soon. He needed a new place, where Hayley could go and stay, and Vic wanted us to buy somewhere together.

I switched off the engine, trying to picture the scene behind the olive-green front door; everyone hiding, waiting for a cue from Vic to leap out and shout ‘Surprise!’. Hayley would love it. She’d been to several parties lately, running out with extravagant party bags, eager for her own birthday in October. Five. I had a nearly-five-year-old daughter I’d willingly die for. A daughter I’d fight to live for.

Enjoy your birthday, Beth. It’ll be your last.

My breath caught when I detected a movement at the landing window, as if someone had been watching me and dipped out of sight. I stared for a moment, but the glass was opaque with the sun’s reflection and I couldn’t make anything out.

Getting out of the car, I tried to smooth the wrinkles from my flower-patterned, summery dress with a shaky hand. No point checking my face or refreshing my lipstick. If I looked too polished my guests might guess I was in on the ‘secret’ – if they hadn’t already.

The air was thick with humidity, but I suppressed a shiver as I slipped my key in the lock and pushed the front door open, inhaling the smell of home; a mix of clean laundry, Vic’s classy aftershave, and a heady waft of freshly-baked sponge cake. He’d neatened the hallway, lining up our shoes, putting Hayley’s scooter out of harm’s way and straightening our coats on the hooks along the wall.

He didn’t live here full-time but came round most days, slotting easily into our lives – more easily than I could ever have imagined – but at times, it still felt wrong that Matt wasn’t there, waiting with his guitar to burst into song the second I stepped through the door, his boots left wherever he’d kicked them off, something simmering in the kitchen as he experimented with new ingredients.

Placing my keys on the console table, I was hotly aware of my phone in my bag like a hand grenade. I waited for my breathing to settle. The silence in the house felt manufactured and somehow sinister. A sound, quickly smothered behind the living room door, conjured an image of strangers waiting to pounce. Swamped in sudden dizziness, I shot out a hand to steady myself, overcome by a suffocating certainty.

Somebody in this house wanted me dead.

Chapter 2

‘There you are!’ Vic emerged from the living room and closed the door, his smile of welcome fading to concern. ‘Hey, what’s wrong?’

‘Oh, nothing.’ My voice sounded strained, as though I’d been shouting. ‘I felt a bit faint, that’s all.’

I wanted to tell him the truth. After Matt, I hadn’t wanted a relationship with areas ‘not discussed’, but Vic had gone to a lot of trouble to make today special and I didn’t want to spoil it.

He glanced at the door behind him before coming over, probably wondering how much time he could spare. He looked typically stylish in well-fitting chinos with an open-necked shirt and his favourite loafers; his intelligent, olive-skinned face framed by a close-cut beard. It was flecked with grey and matched his short, black hair. My brother had declared Vic out of my league when they met, because of his polished accent, and the fact he’d been to Oxford University and worked as an eye doctor. Although Jamie had a habit of putting me down, I’d secretly agreed with him. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ he said.

‘Honestly, I’m fine,’ I lied, hanging my bag over the post at the foot of the stairs. I tried to smile and make it true, but my mouth wouldn’t make the right shape.

‘Beth, you don’t look good.’ He cradled my face in his palms, his brow creased in an unfamiliar frown as he scanned my face. He was so close I could see gold-specks in his brown eyes, reminding me of the way he’d studied me when I pitched up in his consulting room six months ago, referred by my doctor to determine the cause of my headaches and blurred vision.

‘Have you been under any more pressure than usual?’ he’d asked, after a battery of tests had failed to reveal a physical cause. ‘You’d be surprised how often stress can manifest itself in the sort of symptoms you’ve been having.’

Undone by his genuine interest, I’d burst into tears and blurted out my life story, ending with my marriage break-up the year before when I’d told my husband he’d be better off with someone else. ‘I think, deep down, I didn’t expect him to agree with me, and definitely not to move out,’ I’d said, between sobs. ‘He loves his daughter so much I knew he’d miss her badly. He must have been looking for a way out for a while and I gave him one.’

‘Why do you think he’d been looking for a way out?’ Vic had gently tugged a tissue from a box on his desk and handed it to me.

‘Because I couldn’t let go of the past.’ I’d scrubbed at my face with the tissue, aware I looked a state. ‘I’d been fine for a long time, but after Hayley was born it all came back. I kept going over what had happened and wondering about different outcomes, feeling guilty all over again. It drove Matt mad, he just wanted me to be happy, especially as we had a daughter to think of now, but it wasn’t that simple for me.’ I shook my head. ‘I realised later that hormones had probably played a part, but I was a mess. I started seeing a counsellor again, but Matt thought she was keeping me stuck in the past, going over and over it all, so I stopped, but then I resented him, so we were both on edge, not being natural with each other and treading on eggshells. I knew the atmosphere couldn’t be good for Hayley, so I suggested he move out, and he said he agreed and …’ a fresh bout of weeping had broken out. ‘He went and didn’t come back, except to see Hayley.’

‘And the headaches and vision problems started around that time?’

‘Not really, that’s why I didn’t make a connection,’ I said. ‘I sort of went into overdrive once he left, trying to make everything as settled for Hayley as possible, so her life wasn’t too disrupted, especially as she missed her dad. It was hard for him too, not being able to see her every day, but he went to stay in France for a couple of months – his parents live there – and it was actually easier, but he’s been back a while now and although we’re civil with each other … I don’t know, it’s not how I’d imagined things turning out, I suppose. We didn’t have a big wedding, just family and friends, but I thought we’d be married forever and give Hayley the sort of upbringing he’d had – he has a lovely, big family – and like I had before … before everything changed.’

Vic had been calm and accepting, as if it was normal for patients to break down and empty their hearts, crying until their eyes were swollen shut. Maybe it was, I’d thought afterwards, mortified by my emotional outpouring. He’d had the sort of aura that invited confidences, and it was easy to imagine patients opening up to him.

Even so, I’d been surprised when he called a week later, asking whether I’d like to meet for a coffee. Not for dinner, or a drink, which I probably wouldn’t have said yes to, being far from ready to start dating. It wasn’t even on my radar, but somehow coffee had turned into dinner and a drink, and maybe because he knew the worst and hadn’t judged me, I’d been able to relax in his company in a way I wouldn’t have believed possible.

It was no coincidence that my headaches retreated around the same time, and even though levels of civility had dipped when Matt found out about us, they hadn’t returned, and nor had the blurry vision. Being with Vic had made me realise that Matt had been part of the problem. He’d wanted me to change, but Vic accepted me the way I was.

I reached up now and covered his hands with mine. ‘Honestly,’ I said, managing to produce a smile. ‘I just got a bit overheated on the train.’

‘There’s nothing else?’ As his gaze probed mine, my resolve weakened.

‘It’s just … I had a couple of weird texts.’

He frowned. ‘Weird?’

‘I’m probably making too much of it, but …’ I pulled away, annoyed with myself. It was too late to take it back. ‘It felt like someone knew what had happened, you know. When I was a child.’

His gaze didn’t waver but his posture stiffened. ‘What did they say?’

‘They were kind of … threatening.’ Without warning, my mind rolled back to surging waves, burning lungs and thrashing arms. Cold seeping into my bones.

‘Look, if you’re worried, you should talk to Rosa.’

‘Is she here?’

He nodded. ‘She switched shifts, specially.’

‘Jamie won’t like it.’

‘She’s a police officer. Surely he’d expect you to talk to her.’

He didn’t know my brother as well as I did. ‘She’ll want to know what it’s about.’

Vic’s eyebrows rose. ‘You think Jamie hasn’t told her the story?’

‘I’m sure he has.’ As I dug in my bag for my phone to show him the texts, there was a rush of air behind us.

‘Mummy, what are you doing? I’m waiting and waiting and you didn’t come and I want to have cake and you’ve got to blow out your candles.’

‘I’m here, sweetheart.’ Dropping my bag, I fell to my knees to catch my daughter, burying my face in her silky hair as my arms closed around her. ‘I was just talking to Vic,’ I said, marvelling anew, as she wriggled free, that this soft bundle of energy was mine, dressed in her favourite sparkly princess dress, her bare feet dusty from playing in the garden. ‘You were very quiet.’ Smiling, I brushed a sweep of fair hair from her heart-shaped face, my heart lifting at the sight of the bright blue eyes she’d inherited from Matt – like fragments of summer sky. ‘Were you hiding?’

When she nodded solemnly, my heart swelled further at the obvious effort she was making not to give away the surprise. ‘It’s because of your birthday, Mummy.’ She tilted her head. ‘I’ve been helping.’

‘She certainly has.’ Vic’s voice was gentle as he briefly rested his palm on the top of her head. ‘She’s been such a good girl.’

He was so natural with Hayley – despite the fact that he didn’t want children of his own – but sometimes, when he spoke like that, I felt a pang that it wasn’t Matt, which added another layer of guilt to my already towering pile. While Hayley didn’t love Vic in the same, heartfelt way she did her father, she liked him a lot, and we were hoping to broach the subject of us all living together soon.

‘Come on!’ Growing impatient, she tugged my hand and I rose, throwing Vic an apologetic smile.

His shrug conveyed all the things he couldn’t say in front of her – that we’d talk about the texts later, that he had my back … that he loved me.

Why couldn’t Matt have been like that?

Banishing the thought, I let Hayley pull me towards the living room as Vic spoke in a stagey voice intended for our guests.

‘I was telling Mummy she doesn’t have time for a shower after her shopping trip.’

‘No, you don’t, Mummy, that’s silly.’

‘Well, I hope I don’t smell bad.’

I also hoped no one would think to ask what I’d bought. Instead of shopping – not my favourite pursuit – I’d spent most of my day wandering around the Tate, and taking photos of buildings for an art-therapy project.

Vic thrust open the door with a theatrical ‘Ta-da!’ and the tension in the room gave way to a chorus of ‘Surprise!’ and ‘Happy birthday!’ and a shout of ‘About time!’ from my brother. In the end, it wasn’t too hard to look surprised, though I exaggerated for Hayley’s sake, scooping her up and swinging her round as everyone laughed and applauded.

‘I can’t believe you didn’t say anything!’

‘It was a secret,’ she said, flushed with pleasure, before breaking away and darting across to a small heap of presents on a side table as people gathered round me, laughing and wishing me well. For the next few minutes, I let myself be swept along on a tide of goodwill, happy that Vic had managed to pull this off – with my help.

‘None of my clients,’ I’d said, when he asked who I’d want to be there. ‘No extended family either.’ Mum and Dad had big families scattered around the country. ‘And definitely not Grandpa Buckley. He’s stopped wearing his false teeth and Mum says he’s started telling racist jokes.’

In the end, we’d settled on my immediate family – Vic only had one older sister, who lived in Canada – a couple of friends and colleagues, Lewis and Jude from across the road with their son Rory, who was Hayley’s age, and Pam from next door. She’d been a big support after Matt left and sometimes looked after Hayley, who adored her, partly because she had a chocolate-brown Labradoodle called Baxter. My daughter craved a puppy more than anything else.

Pam was there in a flower-print dress, her short white hair neatly brushed, smiling a little self-consciously. I managed a wave before Mum grabbed me in a crushing embrace.

‘I thought you’d got lost,’ she said, as I breathed in a waft of the Gucci perfume Dad bought her every Christmas. ‘Happy birthday, sweetheart. I bought you that jacket you said you liked, but if it doesn’t fit, I’ve got the receipt.’

‘Thanks, Mum.’

‘Everything OK?’ Her voice dipped into anxiety, always attuned to my mood.

‘Fine,’ I said automatically, stretching my smile as she scoured my face with her pale blue, searchlight eyes. ‘Just hot, that’s all.’ I wondered whether she’d still be this overprotective when I was forty, fifty – if I lived that long. The thought made my heart trip.

‘You do look a bit feverish.’ Mum was gripping my upper arms. ‘Maybe you’re coming down with something.’

‘I don’t think so.’ I subtly moved out of her grasp. ‘This is such a lovely surprise,’ I said, gesturing at the room, which seemed much smaller now it was filled with people. The dove-grey walls – which I’d repainted after Matt moved out – felt as if they were closing in and panic briefly stirred. ‘I can’t believe Vic has gone to all this trouble.’ I looked around for him but he’d vanished, no doubt to check on the food or to fetch more drinks.

‘He’s a good man; he’s thought of everything.’ Mum’s face relaxed into a smile. ‘Make sure you hang on to him,’ she said, playfully. She’d been distraught when Matt left, but, once she’d accepted I wasn’t heading back into therapy, had cautiously retreated and welcomed Vic into the family with open arms.

‘Happy Birthday, Lizbet.’ Dad materialised, holding a mug of coffee. He rarely touched alcohol, preferring to keep a clear head. ‘If you’re thirty-three now, that means I must be …’ He slung his free arm around my shoulder and pretended to do a sum in his head. ‘Getting old.’

‘Sixty-four’s not old.’ I forced a grin, used to him treating me like a child, calling me by his own diminutive of Elizabeth. He’d never forgiven himself for his part in what had happened; it sometimes seemed he’d been stuck in the past ever since, trying to make up for it. ‘Thanks for coming,’ I said, knowing nothing would have kept him away, even if it meant leaving his beloved furniture repair shop earlier than usual.