Guilt: The Sunday Times best selling psychological thriller that you need to read in 2018
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Copyright
Published by Avon an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street,
London, SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © Amanda Robson 2018
Cover photograph © Plain Picture
Cover photograph © Shutterstock
Cover design © www.blacksheep-uk.com 2018
Amanda Robson 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: 9780008212247
Ebook Edition © April 2018 ISBN: 9780008212254
Version: 2018-03-09
Praise For Amanda Robson
‘I absolutely loved it and raced through it. Thrilling, unputdownable, a fabulous rollercoaster of a read – I was obsessed by this book.’
B.A. Paris, bestselling author of Behind Closed Doors and Bring Me Back
‘Obsession is a welcome addition to the domestic noir bookshelf. Robson explores marriage, jealousy and lust with brutal clarity, making for a taut thriller full of page-turning suspense.’
Emma Flint, author of Little Deaths
‘What a page turner! Desperately flawed characters. Bad behaviour. Drugs. Sex. Murder. It’s all in there, on every page, pulling you to the next chapter until you find out where it will all end. I was compelled not only to see what every one of them would do, but also how they would describe their actions – they are brutally honest and stripped bare. This is one highly addictive novel!’
Wendy Walker, author of All Is Not Forgotten
‘A compelling page-turner on the dark underbelly of marriage, friendship & lust. (If you’re considering an affair, you might want a rethink.)’
Fiona Cummins, author of Rattle
‘Very pacy and twisted – a seemingly harmless conversation between husband and wife spins out into a twisted web of lies and deceit with devastating consequences.’
Colette McBeth, author of The Life I Left Behind
‘Amanda Robson has some devastating turns of phrase up her sleeve and she expertly injects menace into the domestic. It was clear from the very first chapter that this was going to be a dark and disturbing journey.’
Holly Seddon, author of Try Not To Breathe
‘A compelling psychosexual thriller, with some very dark undertones. Thoroughly intriguing. Amanda Robson is a new name to look out for in dark and disturbing fiction. High quality domestic noir.’
Paul Finch, Sunday Times bestselling author of Strangers
‘Compelling and thoroughly addictive’
Katerina Diamond, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Teacher
‘A real page-turner – deliciously dark, toxic and compelling’
Sam Carrington, author of Saving Sophie
‘I absolutely tore through Obsession – compulsive reading with characters you will love to hate and an ending that will make your jaw drop.’
Jenny Blackhurst, bestselling author of Before I Let You In and The Foster Child
‘Mind games, madness and nookie in a tale that will give you pause for thought. 4 stars’
Sunday Sport
‘A dark tale of affairs gone wrong’
The Sun
‘One of the sexiest, most compelling debuts I’ve come across this year, it cries out to become a TV drama. But I recommend you read it first.’
Daily Mail
Dedication
To Richard, Peter and Mark.
Love you all, too much.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Praise For Amanda Robson
Dedication
The Present: Chapter 1
The Past: Chapter 2. Miranda
Chapter 3. Sebastian
Chapter 4. Miranda
The Present: Chapter 5
The Past: Chapter 6. Miranda
Chapter 7. Sebastian
Chapter 8. Miranda
Chapter 9. Zara
Chapter 10. Miranda
The Present: Chapter 11
The Past: Chapter 12. Zara
Chapter 13. Sebastian
Chapter 14. Miranda
The Present: Chapter 15
Chapter 16
The Past: Chapter 17. Zara
Chapter 18. Sebastian
Chapter 19. Miranda
Chapter 20. Zara
Chapter 21. Miranda
The Present: Chapter 22
Chapter 23
The Past: Chapter 24. Zara
Chapter 25. Miranda
Chapter 26. Sebastian
Chapter 27. Miranda
Chapter 28. Zara
Chapter 29. Zara
Chapter 30. Miranda
Chapter 31. Zara
Chapter 32. Sebastian
Chapter 33. Miranda
The Present: Chapter 34
The Past: Chapter 35. Sebastian
The Present: Chapter 36
The Past: Chapter 37. Zara
Chapter 38. Miranda
Chapter 39. Zara
Chapter 40. Zara
Chapter 41. Miranda
Chapter 42. Zara
Chapter 43. Miranda
Chapter 44. Zara
Chapter 45. Miranda
Chapter 46. Zara
Chapter 47. Miranda
Chapter 48. Zara
Chapter 49. Miranda
Chapter 50. Zara
The Present: Chapter 51
The Past: Chapter 52. Miranda
Chapter 53. Zara
Chapter 54. Sebastian
The Present: Chapter 55
The Past: Chapter 56. Miranda
Chapter 57. Zara
Chapter 58. Miranda
Chapter 59. Sebastian
The Present: Chapter 60
The Past: Chapter 61. Zara
Chapter 62. Miranda
Chapter 63. Zara
Chapter 64. Zara
The Present: Chapter 65
The Past: Chapter 66. Zara
Chapter 67. Miranda
Chapter 68. Zara
Chapter 69. Miranda
Chapter 70. Zara
Chapter 71. Miranda
Chapter 72. Zara
Chapter 73. Miranda
Chapter 74. Zara
Chapter 75. Miranda
Chapter 76. Miranda
Chapter 77. Sebastian
Chapter 78. Zara
Chapter 79. Miranda
Chapter 80. Zara
Chapter 81. Miranda
Chapter 82. Sebastian
Chapter 83. Zara
Chapter 84. Sebastian
Chapter 85. Miranda
Chapter 86. Sebastian
Chapter 87. Miranda
Chapter 88. Zara
Chapter 89. Miranda
Chapter 90. Zara
Chapter 91. Sebastian
Chapter 92. Miranda
Chapter 93. Zara
Chapter 94. Miranda
Chapter 95. Sebastian
The Present: Chapter 96
The Past: Chapter 97. Zara
Chapter 98. Miranda
Chapter 99. Zara
Chapter 100. Sebastian
Chapter 101. Miranda
Chapter 102. Miranda
Chapter 103. Zara
Chapter 104. Sebastian
Chapter 105. Zara
Chapter 106. Miranda
Chapter 107. Miranda
The Present: Chapter 108
The Past: Chapter 109. Miranda
Chapter 110. Miranda
Chapter 111. Sebastian
Chapter 112. Zara
Chapter 113. Miranda
The Present: Chapter 114
The Past: Chapter 115. Zara
Chapter 116. Miranda
Chapter 117. Zara
Chapter 118. Sebastian
Chapter 119. Zara
Chapter 120. Miranda
Chapter 121. Zara
Chapter 122. Miranda
Chapter 123. Zara
Chapter 124. Miranda
Chapter 125. Zara
Chapter 126. Miranda
Chapter 127. Zara
Chapter 128. Miranda
Chapter 129. Zara
The Present: Chapter 130
Chapter 131
Chapter 132
Chapter 133
Chapter 134
Chapter 135. Sebastian
Chapter 136
Chapter 137
Chapter 138
Chapter 139
Chapter 140
Chapter 141
Chapter 142
Chapter 143. Sebastian
Chapter 144
Chapter 145. Sebastian
Chapter 146
Chapter 147
Chapter 148
Chapter 149. Sebastian
Chapter 150
Chapter 151
Chapter 152
Chapter 153. Sebastian
Chapter 154
Chapter 155. Sebastian
Chapter 156
Chapter 157
Chapter 158. Sebastian
Chapter 159
Chapter 160. Sebastian
Chapter 161
Chapter 162. Sebastian
Chapter 163. Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Read on for a sample of Amanda’s debut, Obsession.
About the Author
By the Same Author
About the Publisher
THE PRESENT
1
She presses a tea towel to her wound to try to stem the blood, but it is gushing, insistent. The harder she presses the more it pushes back. She cannot look at her sister, at her clammy, staring eyes. A siren grinds into her mind. Louder. Louder. Her eyes are transfixed by repetitive flashing lights. The doorbell rings and she feels as if she is moving through mercury as she steps to answer it. To open the door with a trembling hand – a hand that smells like a butcher’s shop. Three police officers stand in front of her: two men, one woman.
The woman asks her name softly.
She gives it.
‘Can we come in?’ the female officer asks.
She nods her head.
Two steps and they are out of the tiny hallway. Two steps and her entourage follow her into the living room of their shiny modern flat: stainless steel and travertine, brown IKEA furniture. Two more steps and three police officers stand looking at her sister’s blood-mangled body. At hair splayed across the white floor. At alabaster stiffness.
The larger male police officer barks into his phone, demanding backup, forensics, a police photographer. And someone who sounds like a robot talks back to him.
‘Backup on the way.’
The policewoman turns towards her, puts her hand on her arm. She has soft blue eyes that remind her of a carpet of bluebells hovering like mist on the floor of the woods back home in springtime. Woods where they used to play.
‘You said on the phone that you’d killed your sister. Is that what happened?’ the policewoman asks.
‘I thought she was going to kill me. So I … So I …’
She cannot continue. She cannot speak. She opens her mouth but no words come out. She hears a howl like a feral animal in the distance, and then as the policewoman puts her arm around her shoulders and guides her towards the sofa, she realises that she is the one making the noise.
The policewoman sits next to her on the sofa, smelling of the outside world. Of smoggy city air. Soft blue eyes melt towards her.
‘What happened?’ the policewoman asks.
‘My sister was angry. So angry. I’ve never seen her like that. Never.’
Her words die in the air, like her sister has died. They just stop breathing, without the blood. She moves towards bluebell eyes. The police officer puts her arm around her and she clings to her, sobbing. The woman strokes her back, whispers in her ear, rocks her back and forth, like a baby.
She sits for a while. She does not know for how long. Time has abandoned her. Somewhere in the distance of time that she is no longer part of, her neck stops bleeding. Somewhere in the distance of time her flat is invaded. By people in cellophane suits wearing plastic caps and rubber gloves. By a photographer. By an army of dark-suited people with no uniforms.
Somebody is moving towards her. She cannot see him properly; everything is blurred – nothing in tight focus. He is speaking to her, but she cannot hear him. He looks so concerned, so insistent. Some of his words begin to pierce through the silence that is pushing against her eardrums.
‘Arrest. Suspicion of murder. Something which you later rely on in court.’
And he is pulling her up to standing and cuffing her. The gentle bluebell woman has melted away. As he leads her out of her flat, she cannot bear to turn to say goodbye to her sister. She cannot bear to take a last look.
Into the custody suite. Plastic bags taped to her hands and feet. When did that happen? In her flat? Before she got into the police car? The custody suite is a state-of-the-art tiled rabbit warren. No windows. No corners. No edges. It doesn’t seem real, just as what has happened doesn’t seem real. Voices don’t speak, they reverberate. It smells of stale air and antiseptic.
A police officer wearing rubber gloves and carrying a pile of paper bags escorts her to a cell. The cell is so modern it doesn’t even have a traditional lock on the door. Everything is electronic. Space age.
‘I’m just going to take a picture of your neck wound,’ the police officer says.
A small camera appears from her pocket and the officer takes a string of snaps.
‘And now I need to remove your clothes and bag them. They will be sent for forensic analysis. Is that OK?’
The prisoner nods her head. The police officer removes her clothes, so gently. Folds them and puts them in individual paper bags. Gives her a paper jumpsuit and instructs her to put it on.
‘Forensics will be here soon to examine your hands.’
Hours later, hands inspected, plastic bags removed, a silent police officer is escorting her to the interview room in the custody suite. She looks at the wall clock. Eleven p.m. The officer opens the door of the interview room to reveal her family solicitor, Richard Mimms, sitting behind a plastic table, the skin around his overtired eyes pushed together too much, framed by black-rimmed glasses.
She has only seen him once before, when they went to his office with her mother, many years ago. She thought his eyes were strange then. They’re even stranger now. She sits down next to him on a plastic chair, the grey table in front of them. The officer leaves the room, locking the door behind him.
‘Your mother has instructed me to act for you. Is that acceptable?’ Richard Mimms asks.
The word mother causes nausea to percolate in her stomach. She pictures her being told the news. Home doorbell slicing through canned TV laughter. Mother putting her teacup down on the coffee table and walking across the sitting room, into the hallway to answer the door, silently begging whoever is disturbing her evening peace to go away.
But the voice she doesn’t recognise in the hallway isn’t going away. It pushes its way into her quiet evening, tumbling towards her, becoming louder, more insistent. Mother is pale, moving like a wraith. For she has seen the foreboding in the police officer’s face.
‘Please sit down, I’ve something to tell you,’ he says.
‘Your mother has instructed me to act for you. Is that acceptable?’ Richard Mimms repeats, jolting her back into the room. She looks at him and nods her head.
‘Yes. Please.’
‘So,’ Richard Mimms continues, ‘we’re allowed a short time on our own together before your interview.’ There is a pause. ‘I want you to say as little as possible about what happened. Too much detail can be twisted against you.’
‘How?’ she asks, confused.
‘Stick to the basic outline of what happened – don’t tell the police anything personal. Anything they might be able to use against you.’
She can only just follow what Richard Mimms is saying. Her head aches and she isn’t concentrating properly. All she can see is her sister’s face contorting in her mind, from the face she loved, to the face that moved towards her in the kitchen.
‘Did you hear what I said?’ Richard Mimms is asking. ‘Leave the detail to us. Your brief and me. The professionals.’
Words solidify in her mind.
‘My brief? Already?’ she asks.
‘I’ve got someone in mind. Very thorough. Never lost a case.’
She tries to smile and say thank you but her lips don’t seem to move.
Richard Mimms leans towards her and puts his hand on her arm.
‘Keep strong until Monday. I’m sure we’ll sail through this and be granted bail.’
But his manner seems artificial. Overconfident. She wants him to go away.
They are interrupted by a senior officer arriving, filling the room with his broad-shouldered presence and understated importance.
‘Detective Inspector Irvine,’ he says, shaking her hand. He sits down opposite her. ‘My colleague Sergeant Hawkins will be here soon so that we can start the interview. Can I get you anything: tea, coffee, water, before we start?’
‘No thanks.’
A difficult silence settles between them. He is appraising her with his eyes in a way that is making her feel uncomfortable. She is relieved when the Sergeant arrives. He doesn’t introduce himself. He just sits down next to DI Irvine and nods across at her. She is too traumatised to nod back.
The DI presses a button on the tape recorder.
He leans towards it, announces today’s date, and the names of those present in the room. He leans back in his chair, and folds his arms.
‘So,’ he starts. ‘You called 999 and told the operator that you’d killed your sister. Is that what happened?’
‘It all happened so quickly. My sister stabbed me … and then I …’
She stammers. She stops.
‘Has the medical officer seen your injury?’
‘No. Not yet.’ She pauses. ‘An officer has taken a picture of it.’
‘So it can hardly have been that serious if you’ve not requested a doctor.’
He stands up to have a closer look.
‘We’ll need forensics and medical to check it properly,’ he says, without an ounce of sympathy. ‘So your sister stabbed you – what did you do to defend yourself?’ he asks as he sits down again.
Her insides tremble as she recollects. Her sister’s eyes coagulate towards her.
‘We were …’ She pauses. ‘We were in the kitchen.’ Another pause. She bites her lips. She begins to sob.
She feels the slippage of skin. The resistance. The wetness.
‘We need to know precisely what happened. Where you were standing. Step by step. Movement by movement. Can you remember?’
She doesn’t reply.
‘Can you remember?’ he repeats.
She stirs in her chair. ‘I was standing by the sink.’
‘What did your sister say to you?’
‘She was angry.’
‘Why was she angry?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t think.’
‘Please think,’ the DI insists.
‘My sister never got angry. Not like that. I had never seen her like that.’
His words rotate in her head.
‘Detective Inspector, my client is extremely distressed. Mentally incapable of continuing this interview. I request she is allowed some sleep and that we continue this tomorrow, when everyone is a bit fresher,’ Richard Mimms demands.
DI Irvine presses the tape recorder button again.
‘Request allowed,’ he says. Richard Mimms collects his papers, crinkling his eyes at her as he leaves.
Back in her cell, all she can think about is her sister’s cold, dead, fish-like eyes. She lies awake all night on the hard trundle bed, shivering and trembling.
In the morning, breakfast is a piece of dry toast, and lukewarm coffee in a disposable cup. She feels as if someone has punched her in the stomach, so she cannot touch the toast. One sip of the metallic-tasting coffee and she pours it down the sink. Then Sergeant Hawkins appears, to take her back to the interview room.
Once there, she begins to hear her sister’s voice screaming in her head. A hysterical scream becoming louder and louder. Trying to push her sister’s scream away she sits down next to Richard Mimms. She can smell his aftershave. Herbal. Overpowering. DI Irvine and Sergeant Hawkins are opposite, their accusing eyes pushing towards her. She watches a finger pressing the button of the recording machine. The date is announced. The names of all present. And the interview begins again.
‘Tell me, when did you first see your sister yesterday evening?’ DI Irvine asks.
Her words stagnate in her mouth. The screaming is overpowering her. And somewhere through the tears and the darkness and the scream, she answers DI Irvine’s questions. And somewhere through the tears and the darkness and the scream, she hears the words.
‘You are charged with the murder of your sister.’
Charged. Murder. Sister. Sister. Murder. Charged.
Words slipping through her brain as she is escorted back to her cell.
THE PAST
2
Miranda
‘Zara, you need to go to Tesco to buy something for supper,’ I say as I sink exhausted into my brown leather sofa after yet another day selling my soul as an accountant with Harrison Goddard.
You sigh impatiently and raise your eyes to the ceiling. You’ve been living with me for two weeks and it is only the second time I’ve asked you to do anything.
‘Isn’t there something in the fridge?’ You pout.
‘Why don’t you take a look? It’s your turn to cook.’
You open the fridge door to inspect the contents. I know only too well what you will see. Cans of lager and the garlic dips from our takeaway pizza last time it was your responsibility.