GUILT
Amanda Robson

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.

‘Mmm delicious, lager and garlic – what’s wrong with that?’ you announce.

So hopelessly undomesticated, and yet I can’t berate you. Sometimes your incompetency, your vulnerability, make me love you more than ever – my unidentical twin sister, who I feel so responsible for. Your eyes smile into mine and we both start to laugh. You lift your arms in the air in surrender.

‘All right. All right. See what you mean. I’ll go.’

You are gone a long time. So long I begin to worry. Mother and I, we always worry when you move off radar. You’ve been living with Mother for years, doing a filing job in our hometown. It has taken over ten years since leaving school for you to find the confidence to apply for a degree course. Now you’ve moved to Bristol, a mature photography student at UWE, it’s my turn to look out for you. And I need to look out for you. Because you’re a cutter.

And twice you have cut too deep.

Once, a very long time ago when we were at school. I still remember that winter afternoon so clearly. Walking to meet you from your netball session, after my hockey had finished. A perfect winter afternoon. Sunny, with a nip in the air. The sort of afternoon that fooled for a second, making me believe I was walking through a ski resort. But something was wrong. People were staring at me. Whispers on the wind.

‘Zara. Zara Cunningham.’

‘They called the ambulance and the police.’

The PE teacher told me what had happened.

‘Your sister slit her wrists.’

A slow creeping numbness seeped through me.

‘The PE assistant found her unconscious covered in blood. This afternoon, just before netball.’

‘Is she all right?’ I asked with a tremor in my voice.

The PE teacher put her hand on my shoulder. ‘We found her in time. I am sure she’ll have regained consciousness by now.’

In time. Regained consciousness. The PE teacher’s words jumped in my mind. Zara, I wanted to know how you could do this to yourself. How could you try to take your own life? You whose life always seemed so much more interesting, so much more carefree than mine.

But it wasn’t like that, was it? You hadn’t tried to kill yourself. Cutting seems to give you some sort of euphoria.

‘I cut to take the pain away,’ you told me later. ‘And to stop the panic attacks.’

‘What pain?’ I asked. ‘How can more pain take pain away?’ I paused. ‘And what panic attacks?’

The second time you cut too deep by mistake was only six months ago. Just when Mother and I thought that maybe at thirty years old, after so many years of antidepressants and CBT, maybe you had stopped doing it. A phone call to Harrison Goddard to inform me. Just as I was tidying my desk, about to go for lunch. Mother’s voice on the line, riddled with panic, only just recognisable.

‘Come quickly Miranda. She’s slit her wrists again. Deeper this time. The paramedic said it’s touch and go whether she’ll survive.’

I left work immediately. I drove up the motorway to our hometown, the world passing me in a blur. When I arrived at the hospital I scrambled out of the car and allowed the place’s sprawling bowels to swallow me up. I felt as if I was floating. The hospital seemed to move around me. People being triaged. The reception desk protected by an armoury of glass, with only a thin slit for conversation. The receptionist was busy. Tapping a computer keyboard with her long blue tapered fingernails. No time to look up. The phone on her desk rang. She picked up, frowning as she listened.

‘OK, OK. Will do.’

She put the phone down. At last she looked up and noticed me. ‘Can I help?’ she asked.

‘I’m looking for my sister, Zara Cunningham. She was admitted earlier. My mother is with her.’

Blue fingernails stabbed at the computer keyboard again. ‘She’s in Critical Care. I’ll get a nurse to take you to her. Wait by the door to A&E.’

‘Thanks.’

I stood by the door, as requested. Bracing myself to wait for a long time. But no sooner had I arrived than a plump, blonde nurse wearing a pink uniform was putting her head around the door asking me whether I was Ms Cunningham. No sooner had I said yes than I was escorted into the unknown depths of A&E.

‘I’ll take you to find your mother,’ the nurse said.

‘Can’t I see Zara?’ I asked.

‘Not right now.’

The panic that had been simmering inside me for hours became volcanic. ‘Why not?’ I asked.

‘A team of doctors are assessing her at the moment.’

A team of doctors assessing my sister who’s slit her wrists. A team of doctors assessing my sister, who was laughing and joking with me on the phone the previous evening. Just under twenty-four hours ago. The nurse and I walked past cubicles containing people in distress. A man lying on his back with a protruding stomach, his mouth covered by an oxygen mask. A young child giving a bloodcurdling scream. A woman with a black eye and a bloodied nose.

Through A&E.

Right and right again. Along a corridor with windows to a small garden with pebbles, ferns, and rubbery plants. The pink nurse stopped by a soap dispenser at the entrance to Critical Care. I washed my hands with something that looked like cuckoo spit. And then finally she led me to a small seated area where my mother was waiting.

My mother, but not my mother. A woman wearing a facial expression that my mother never wears. She stood up. She walked towards me. She held me against her. Holding me so tight as if she wanted to engulf me. She felt like my mother. She smelt like my mother. Of love. Of despair.

Deborah Cunningham of Heathfield Close, Tidebury, Lancs.

Heathfield Close, an oxbow lake of modern housing, at the right end of town. Wide pavements. Leafy streets. Divorced from my father when we were toddlers. He moved to the States. We never saw him again. Mother working her socks off as a teacher, to support us. Always responsible for us alone.

‘How is she?’ I ask.

‘No news yet.’

‘Can I get you anything? Tea, coffee, anything?’ the nurse asks.

‘My daughter back,’ Mother said.

‘We’re doing our best.’

The nurse evaporated, I don’t know where. Mother turned on the small TV mounted on the wall in the corner. But I did not watch it, figures just moved about on the screen in front of me, and I thought of you, Zara. Of holding you, touching you. Asking you why you had done this again after so much help, so much therapy. You always said you cut to feel better. But was it true? Or did you really want to kill yourself?

The previous time this happened, so many years ago, you denied that suicide was your motive. But it is hard for someone who doesn’t understand cutting to really grasp the significance of its euphoria.

This time, the second time, somehow, I don’t know how, Mother and I managed to contain ourselves, as hours and hours passed. I felt as if I was sitting in a vacuum. My life had stopped and I would only feel better if I got you back. At last a doctor was walking towards us, stethoscope around his neck. We did not stand up to greet him or walk towards him. We did not have the strength. We sat and watched him approach, transfixed, waiting for news. He stood in front of us, a half smile in his ice-blue eyes.

‘Zara is stable. She has regained consciousness. All the neurological tests are positive.’

Stable. Positive. Neurological. Words tumbled in my head and for the first time in hours I stopped having to concentrate to breathe.

My stomach tightens with worry. What are you doing now, Zara? Why have you been gone so long?

You finally return to my flat after your trip to Tesco, over an hour later, looking flustered.

‘What’s the matter?’ I ask, unable to disguise the anxiety in my tone, as you waltz through the door, placing two microwaveable boxes of chicken tikka masala on the kitchen table and sighing noisily. You are wearing your Doc Marten boots and a floral skirt with a creamy background that always looks a bit grubby. I do not like your nasal piercing. I do not like the way you have sliced into your hair, just on one side, above your ear, with a razor. I don’t think it suits a woman of your age.

‘I’ve met someone,’ you say.

The word someone hovers in the air. A word of importance. You are always meeting people, laughing with them, talking to them, dating them. But never someone. Not until now.

‘Someone?’ I ask.

‘Yes. Sebastian Templeton. I met him in Tesco. Just now!’ You are trying to look nonchalant, but not managing. ‘He’s moving to Bristol from London. He’s got an interview at your firm.’ A deep, overegged sigh. ‘He’s really handsome.’

All your boyfriends are handsome. Nothing unusual about that. Not that their looks help them keep your attention. None of them ever last more than a few months.

‘He has a lovely voice,’ you continue.

‘A posh southerner perhaps?’ I ask.

‘Give me a chance to find out where he comes from. All I know so far is that his eyes are electric.’

Instead of eating the chicken tikka ready meal you have just bought, you inform me that you are going out to a restaurant with him. One of the expensive ones on the front. A restaurant that reeks of interior design. Plated food, pretty enough to be used as wallpaper. Edible flowers. Colour coordinated. You spruce yourself up by putting on an extra layer of make-up, run your fingers through your already carefully tousled hair, and leave.

3
Sebastian

Jude, I was sitting on the bench outside Tesco when I first saw Zara. She walked past with a jaunty step like you used to have; shiny-eyed, as if she was about to do something far more interesting than visit Tesco. Feeling sociable after the E I had taken, I followed her in. With her tousled hair and creamy skin, she reminds me of you. There is an edginess about her that makes me feel invigorated, as if, after all my problems, one day I will feel alive again. One day my life will work out.

‘Have you eaten here before?’ Zara asks, as I sit opposite her at Chez Luigi’s.

‘Once or twice, on special occasions,’ I reply.

‘So being here with me is special?’ she asks, flicking her hair from her face. ‘I bet you say that to all the girls.’

‘I don’t usually pick people up in supermarkets.’

‘Neither do I,’ she replies.

‘When I met you in the supermarket, you said you were a twin,’ I remind her. ‘Are you identical?’

‘No.’ She pouts a little. ‘I can assure you that I am one hundred per cent individual.’

Zara Cunningham. Not defined by being a twin. Zany. Interesting. Button nose. Perfect cheekbones. So spontaneous, so free flowing. Someone I so want to fuck.

4
Miranda

The chicken tikka meal you brought back from Tesco tastes weird: a mix of canned tomatoes, anchovy paste, ground coriander and additives. After I have forced myself to finish it, I download the latest series of Game of Thrones from Amazon – my latest addiction. This evening, its strange world engulfs me as usual, then spews me out, as my favourite character dies. She is decapitated, which distresses me. There is something about decapitation that seems so much more brutal than other sudden deaths.

I am contemplating why this is when you float through the front door at midnight humming to yourself, looking ethereal and strange. You seem overfriendly, elated, holding me against you and hugging me before you go to bed, as if I am long lost, and you haven’t seen me for years, not just a few hours.

And the next morning, over orange juice and Dorset Cereal, your Sebastian Templeton monologue starts.

Sebastian. Sebastian. Sebastian. A eulogy to a modern-day god.

‘He’s from Bristol,’ you say as we sit cramped together at our veneer table. ‘Attended Bristol Grammar School and then went to Cambridge to study maths. Stellar CV. Like yours. His parents are doctors. His dad’s a consultant in obs and gynae. His mother’s in community medicine. A lot of medical women do that. Go into community medicine because it’s more nine to five, easier if you have children, or so Sebastian says.’ Silence for a second as you take a spoonful of muesli and sip your orange juice. ‘He’s so empathetic because he’s so close to his mother.’

Zara, you talk about Sebastian all the time. I know more about him than anyone else in Bristol, even though you’ve only known him for five minutes and I’ve lived here for years. He doesn’t drive a car because of its effects on the environment. His chest size is forty-four. He votes for the Green Party. He supports Chelsea FC. He isn’t religious. He isn’t superstitious. An Aidan Turner lookalike. A dark-eyed cavalier of a man, whose hairy arms turn you on. His favourite film is Love Actually, which always makes him cry. Thirty-two years old.

He knows how to find the G-spot and tells you you are the first person he has ever been in love with. He told you he loves you, two days after he met you. A real romantic – big time. You love him back. You know I will appreciate him when I meet him. What’s not to like, about a man like that?

THE PRESENT
5

Her mother is visiting her at the custody suite, allowed to see her in the visit area. Waiting, surrounded by grey sterility. Shell-shocked by what has happened. By what she has done. Exhausted by her long drive from the Lancashire coast.

She is being escorted to the visiting area, along the corridor, not knowing at first that her mother is here. She hasn’t been told. She assumes she’s being interviewed again. When the door is opened and she is brought in, the sight of her diminished mother greets her. She inhales sharply and struggles for breath.

Mother and surviving daughter are standing opposite one another, eyes locked. Her mother sees a bedraggled young woman standing in front of her, panda-eyed from lack of sleep, hair tangled, hands trembling. She smells her other daughter’s blood. Her daughter sees the earthy fragility of her mother’s grief. The damage it has done. Grief more virulent than disease.

Her mother steps towards her. They clamp together. At first, touch replaces words. For a while neither can speak. The more her mother holds her, the more the screaming in her head begins to decrease. Then, slowly, slowly, pushing back the tears, she tells her mother what happened. What her sister did.

The day of the bail application arrives. She is escorted from her cell by a police officer with friendly eyes and a sympathetic smile. The sympathy cuts into her. She shrugs it away, too emotionally closed down to cope with it. She pulls her eyes away from the officer as they step out into the yard and he hands her to the guard.

For the first time in days, fresh air assaults her face. She inhales greedily, drinking it like champagne, but before she is satiated, she is shunted into the van – a cattle van. Or at least that is what it looks like. The sort that takes sheep and bullocks to be slaughtered. The sort she has seen so many times rattling up and down the motorway, making her think how awful it must be to be inside.

Inside such a thing now, in her own pen, which has a seat and a high window. All she can see through the window is sky. She looks up intently. A mackerel sky. Pale blue. White feathers. Beautiful white feathers. She would like to be up there with them, flying and floating, inhaling fresh air. The van sets off, jostling her from side to side. Making her feel sick. Look at the horizon, look at the distance, she tells herself. Her mind rotates towards the feathers in the sky, but still she feels sick. She feels sick as she remembers.

The van finally judders to a halt in a car park at the back of the crown court. Now her experience becomes surreal. She cannot believe it is happening to her. She feels as if it is happening to someone else and she is looking down upon it from above. Someone else being cuffed to a middle-aged guard with grey hair and dandruff. Being taken in a small lift to a holding cell beneath the court. Sitting on a wooden slatted bench, head in her hands, waiting to be called into court. Someone else turning her mind in on itself to close it down and allow time to pass in a mist.

After a while, the grey middle-aged guard is standing in front of her again. ‘You’ve got a legal visit. Your brief.’

She is ushered along a winding corridor, through two metal gates, and escorted into a legal visit room. A man is sitting waiting for her. A man who looks about her age. He stands up when she enters the room. He has golden amber eyes and auburn hair with a wave in it that caresses the top of his shoulders. The shoulders of a rugby player. Smiling at her with a wide dimpled smile. He moves around the plastic table he was sitting at to stand in front of her.

‘Hi, I’m Theo Gregson, your brief.’ His voice is strong and deep.

He takes her hand in his and squeezes it lightly. Her eyes are caught in his. He doesn’t look like a barrister. He looks like the front man in a sexually pumped-up rock band. Springy and virile. About to go on stage to play a riff.

He removes his hand from hers.‘Let’s sit down and talk about the bail application.’

He sits back down at the other side of the table; she sits opposite him. He pushes his hair back from his eyes.

‘I’ve read the papers so far. Bail isn’t normally granted for the defendant in a murder trial, but you have made it quite clear from the moment the police arrived that you acted in self-defence so I am going to give it a go.’

She looks into his amber eyes.

‘Thanks.’

Time has melted away. She is sitting in the dock, behind a wall of glass, next to a rotund guard with a red face. She looks across at her mother in the front row of the public gallery, head turned anxiously towards her. She smiles at her across the courtroom. A whisper of a smile, tangled by grief. Her mother is wearing her best black trouser suit and a baggy frilly blouse, which disguises her love handles. Her heart shreds as she looks at her, eyes stinging with tears.

She searches the courtroom for Sebastian. He is not here.

The lawyers are sitting at the rows of wooden workbenches in the middle of the court. Richard Mimms and the rock star brief, heads together in deep discussion. Her heart leaps for a second. Are they really going to get her out? Then the heavy leaden feeling in her stomach expands and takes over. Wherever she goes from now on her sister won’t be there. Will going home help? Will her memories of her sister assuage the guilt or make it worse?

In the distance of her mind, she sees lawyers on the other side of the court. A tall thin brief, talking to a small pretty Asian woman with a neat face. Lawyers from the Crown Prosecution Service. Must be. She can’t bear to look at them. She looks at the floor. At her feet, clad in the sensible flat pumps her mother brought into the custody suite for her to wear. Then she raises her head to check for Sebastian again. He still isn’t there.

The guard nudges her. The court is rising for the judge’s entrance. A judge with a leonine face, wearing blood-red robes. He enters slowly, gracefully, like a swan or a king. He bows to the court and they sit. He asks her barrister to present his case.

Theo Gregson stands. Bull-like shoulders. Strong hair escaping beneath his wig, making his wig balance awkwardly on his head, like a small hat. He coughs a little before he speaks. The judge is watching him like a hawk.

‘I request bail for my client, the defendant, a responsible citizen. No previous brush with the law of any kind. She has stabbed and killed her sister in self-defence. She made that point quite clear from the initial point of contact with the emergency services. She presents no flight risk or danger to the public.’ He pauses. ‘I request bail in these circumstances as my client’s emotional vulnerability after losing her sister means she should be at home, not in prison.’

‘Thank you, Mr Gregson,’ the judge says. His voice is long-vowelled. Almost ecclesiastical.

Mr Gregson sits down.

‘Have the Crown Prosecution Service any comments on this?’ the judge asks.

A barrister from the other side of the benches stands up. The one she noticed earlier with a long thin back.

‘We oppose bail. She is so emotionally vulnerable that she has stabbed and killed her sister. We believe it is safer for all concerned, including the defendant herself, if she remains in custody.’

The judge frowns for a second.

‘Bail denied.’

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