Last Seen: A gripping psychological thriller, full of secrets and twists

Some time later, I found myself at the quay, my dress stuck to the small of my back, my breath coming hard. I gripped the metal railing, sucking in the salt-tinged air.

The beach huts sat quietly on the distant sandbank, a comforting presence with their pastel-light colours cutting through the grey, rolling sky. When the harbour ferry arrived, I didn’t pause to think about the guests abandoned in my home, or worry that Sarah would be left to lock up; I simply climbed aboard.

Within minutes, I was standing on the shoreline of the sandbank before a grey, restless sea. Tears ran down my face, dripping from my chin into the neckline of my dress. I had no coat, not even a cardigan, and I could feel the cold beginning to seep into my bones as I hugged my arms around myself, shivering into my sobs. When the first drops of rain began to fall, I stood firm thinking I could outlast them – that I would dance in the face of the cold, of the rain, my grief burning like heat inside me – but after a few minutes, the dark romance of the idea waned, and I hurried for cover beneath the pitched wooden roof of a beach hut.

Sheltering from the rain, I noticed a handwritten advert was tacked to the window, the blue ink faded: Beach hut for sale.

I stepped back, considering the hut. It had once been painted a brilliant blue, but the paint had peeled and flaked over the years. In places the wood had rotted, and the deck I was standing on had moulded in the corners, long fingers of dune grass reaching up beneath the planks.

There was a small gap at the base of the blinds, and I pressed my face against the damp glass, peering in. Through the dimness, I could see the deckchairs, a barbecue and a windbreak cluttering the small space. A sun-bleached sofa bed was piled with a rabble of patterned cushions. Above it was a driftwood shelf that had been emptied of the previous owner’s belongings, hardened candlewax pooled in two spots. At the back of the hut there was a small kitchen area with an ancient gas oven and a two-ringed hob. An old wooden spice rack was tacked to the wall, and an array of mugs hung from hooks below it. The mismatch of colours and patterns reminded me of my mother’s bungalow – and I wanted it.

I wanted that beach hut more than I’d ever wanted anything.

I could picture it: the hut would be a place to retreat to; somewhere I could rebuild myself; a place where I could watch the weather moving across the horizon and begin to make fresh memories.

As I stood on the deck of that old hut with the roar of the sea at my ear and the fresh breath of salt air on my skin, the sandbank seemed to stretch around me, holding me tightly, anchoring me.

Back then, I had been certain that buying the beach hut was the right decision. I used the money from the sale of my mother’s bungalow, though everyone had told me I was mad. Keep the inheritance in brick-built property – not a beach hut! But I was nineteen. I didn’t want mortgage repayments, council tax bills, or responsibility. I wanted the sea. I wanted space. I wanted to do something for myself.

Summers I’d live in the beach hut. Winters I’d rent one of the cheap holiday lets that always stood empty in the winter months.

It was a plan. It was the best I could do.

‘Go for it!’ Sarah had said to me as we ate Chinese takeaway sitting on the floor of my mother’s bungalow, surrounded by boxes marked for charity shops. ‘That’s what your mother would have told you to do, isn’t it?’

I nodded because she was right.

I remember how Sarah had put down her plate and slung her arm around my shoulder, pulling me in close. ‘The beach hut will be a fresh start, Isla. It’s going to change everything.’

Sarah was right about that, too.

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