Copyright

Published by AVON

A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

Copyright © Claire Allan 2019

Cover design © Claire Ward, HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Cover photographs © Karina Vegas/ Arcangel (shoes and background), Shutterstock.com (knife and flowers)

Claire Allan 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 ebook 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.

Source ISBN: 9780008321918

Ebook Edition © May 2019 ISBN: 9780008321925

Version: 2019-04-26

Praise for Claire Allan:

‘Amazing. I read it in one go.’

Marian Keyes

‘Utterly addictive! Literally couldn’t put it down all day! Compulsive, twisty, tense. And LOVED the ending.’

Claire Douglas

‘A powerful and emotional psychological thriller that will keep you guessing and leave you breathless.’

C.L. Taylor

‘SUCH a good read! It made me feel so uncomfortable, but I still kept gobbling up the pages.’

Lisa Hall

‘Her Name Was Rose is one heck of a read! It’s a psychological thriller with a heart; it’s taut, emotionally challenging and, unlike so many thrillers, each twist and turn is here because it deserves to be and not for the sake of it.’

John Marrs

‘An exciting debut that I couldn’t put down, Her Name Was Rose got under my skin in a way I wasn’t expecting. An intriguing and menacing page turner.’

Mel Sherratt

‘The depth of characterisation and its fast pace is what makes Her Name Was Rose stand out as a thriller. It had me hooked until the end.’

Elisabeth Carpenter

‘A tight and twisted tale with a set of seriously complex characters – kept me guessing right ’til the end. This is going to be one of 2018’s smash hits.’

Cat Hogan

‘All I can say is wow! Such a great concept, expertly delivered to keep you turning the pages. This book toys with the reader until the last page. Trust me, this will be THE book of 2018!’

Caroline Finnerty

‘A brilliantly paced, intriguingly plotted and thoroughly enjoyable story. One of the best psych thrillers I’ve read this year.’

Liz Nugent

‘I devoured it in a couple of days. Claire Allan managed to maintain an unsettling sense of unease that started at the very beginning and didn’t let up at all.’

Elle Croft

‘A superior psychological thriller with an intriguing set-up, a flawed heroine and some great twists. Recommended!’

Mark Edwards

‘Claire Allan’s transition into crime writing is seamless. Her Name Was Rose brings all the emotional heft and depth of characterisation her readers would expect, but with a taut, menacing plot line. A compulsively thrilling read from start to finish.’

Brian McGilloway

‘Mesmerizing to the point of complete distraction. I was totally engrossed in this book.’

Amanda Robson

‘I loved it. The plot is twisty and the issues being dealt with here are big scale but told beautifully through Emily. Her envy and confusion is so real as to be palpable and of course, all too relatable. Creepy and weepy.’

Niki Mackay

‘Claire’s thrillers are twisty like tornadoes.’

Liz Nugent

‘Fantastic, fluid and engaging, a 2019 hit!’

Jo Spain

‘A brilliant and hooky read.’

Fionnuala Kearney

‘A first-rate psychological thriller. Emotional and twisty, with excellent characterisation.’

Patricia Gibney

Dedication

For Julie-Anne, Vicki & Fionnuala

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for Claire Allan

Dedication

Prologue

Wednesday, 6 June

Chapter One: Elizabeth

Chapter Two: Rachel

Chapter Three: Elizabeth

Chapter Four: Rachel

Chapter Five: Rachel

Chapter Six: Elizabeth

Chapter Seven: Rachel

Thursday, 7 June

Chapter Eight: Rachel

Chapter Nine: Elizabeth

Chapter Ten: Rachel

Friday, 8 June

Chapter Eleven: Rachel

Chapter Twelve: Elizabeth

Chapter Thirteen: Rachel

Chapter Fourteen: Rachel

Saturday, 9 June

Chapter Fifteen: Elizabeth

Chapter Sixteen: Rachel

Chapter Seventeen: Rachel

Chapter Eighteen: Elizabeth

Chapter Nineteen: Rachel

Chapter Twenty: Rachel

Chapter Twenty-One: Elizabeth

Chapter Twenty-Two: Rachel

Chapter Twenty-Three: Rachel

Sunday, 10 June

Chapter Twenty-Four: Elizabeth

Chapter Twenty-Five: Rachel

Monday, 11 June

Chapter Twenty-Six: ‘Warn them’

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Rachel

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Elizabeth

Tuesday, 12 June

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Rachel

Chapter Thirty: Rachel

Chapter Thirty-One: Elizabeth

Chapter Thirty-Two: Rachel

Chapter Thirty-Three: Rachel

Chapter Thirty-Four: Rachel

Chapter Thirty-Five: Elizabeth

Chapter Thirty-Six: Rachel

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Elizabeth

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Rachel

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Elizabeth

Wednesday, 13 June

Chapter Forty: Rachel

Chapter Forty-One: Rachel

Chapter Forty-Two: Rachel

Chapter Forty-Three: Elizabeth

Chapter Forty-Four: Rachel

Chapter Forty-Five: Rachel

Thursday, 14 June

Chapter Forty-Six: Rachel

Chapter Forty-Seven: Elizabeth

Chapter Forty-Eight: Rachel

Chapter Forty-Nine: Elizabeth

Chapter Fifty: Rachel

Chapter Fifty-One: Elizabeth

Chapter Fifty-Two: Rachel

Chapter Fifty-Three: Rachel

Chapter Fifty-Four: Elizabeth

Saturday, 16 June

Chapter Fifty-Five: Rachel

Wednesday, 20 June

Epilogue: Rachel

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Claire Allan

About the Publisher

Prologue

I disappeared on a Wednesday afternoon, in June, right in the middle of the heatwave. I was there one minute and the next I was gone. You might think it hard to disappear in broad daylight. To be visible and then, just seconds later, to be invisible. To have a life, and then moments later to have lost it. It wasn’t hard at all.

It was much too easy.

They found my shoes. Well, one of them, turned upside down and covered in dust. They found my car, unlocked. The driver’s window down. My keys in the ignition. My weekly shop melting and rotting in the boot. Cooking in the unspeakable heat.

They found my bag, my purse, my bank cards. My phone. The memorial card with my mother’s picture on it and some rhyming words of comfort, which were supposed to make me feel better about the fact she’d died of breast cancer in her sixties.

They found traces of blood – mine – on the ground outside. Minute droplets. They found traces of unidentified seminal fluid on the back seat, too. Not my husband’s profile. Evidence of a sexual assault, maybe?

Or maybe not.

Scuff marks on the ground, the ground kicked up. Vomit on the patchy, faded tarmac. Smeared fingerprints – mine.

Signs of a struggle.

Half a packet of Wotsits crisps, crushed into the floor of where the rear seats are. An empty Fruit Shoot bottle – blackcurrant – under the passenger seat. An ankle sock. Pink trim. A booster seat in the front of my car.

Signs I was a mother.

‘She wouldn’t leave the baby,’ they said. The baby was three. Blonde curls and blue eyes. Cupid bow lips. A dimple in her left cheek. I wouldn’t leave the baby, they were right. Not unless I had no choice.

I’d been given no choice.

Wednesday, 6 June

Chapter One
Elizabeth

Even with every window open, this house is still too warm. It’s only half past five in the morning and I know there will be no reprieve from this heatwave. It didn’t cool more than a few degrees overnight and I’ve not slept properly in days. Izzy looked at me mournfully, big brown eyes, pleading for the chance to run about outside before the heat becomes oppressive. I feel sorry for her – even though she’s shed her winter coat, it’s much too warm for her. Like me, she’s become a virtual prisoner in our home.

We’d changed our walking routine a few weeks before. Setting out early now. Before six. Doing our best to avoid the full heat of the sun, though the temperature didn’t seem to drop much overnight. This heatwave was stronger than any I remembered in my lifetime. Even warmer than 1976. That morning I was tired, though. My bones ached and I felt every one of my sixty-seven years, and then some. Still, I’d be back at home within an hour, I reasoned, and I could spend the rest of my morning doing what I had planned – baking bread for my grandchildren, who were coming here after school. I eyed the bananas on the worktop – brown spots seeming to multiply with every hour that passed. I might even throw a quick banana bread in the oven. With chocolate chips. The children would love that.

I had to leave the dough for the bread to prove for another hour anyway – wrapped in clingfilm in the airing cupboard – so I had no excuse but laziness and the persistent ache in my left arm. It hadn’t been the same since it had been broken eighteen months earlier and was, according to the doctor, unlikely to improve further. I’d just have to work through it.

‘Come on, then,’ I called to the dog, who started to wag her tail with great enthusiasm. ‘You win. Just like you always do.’

She bounced her way down the hall, deliriously happy at seeing her lead in my hand. Patting my pockets to make sure I had everything I needed with me – phone, keys, poo bags – I opened the door then watched as Izzy bounded to the end of the garden before stopping, looking back at me and waiting. She was a good dog. She made me leave the house at least once a day, which was a positive thing. I could quite happily have never left the safety of my own home. I preferred my own company. Peace and quiet. My solitary routine. But fresh air was good for body and soul. Or so they said.

I clipped Izzy’s lead to her collar and off we set along Coney Road, narrow, quiet, just far enough from the main roads of Derry to feel as if we were in the middle of nowhere. We’d walk half an hour out on the road and half an hour back, taking in some of the back roads, maybe slip into the country park for a bit.

Striding out, I didn’t put my earphones in. I preferred to be able to hear what was around me. To keep my wits about me, just in case. I doubt I posed an attractive prospect to any would-be kidnapper, rotund and in my mid-sixties, but nonetheless, you never could be too careful. People who wanted to hurt others would do so regardless.

I was glad I’d brought a bottle of water with me. It didn’t take long for me to feel too hot. I chided myself for bringing a jacket. Even though it was light, it was still too heavy for this weather. Everything was too heavy for this weather.

I slipped it off and tied it around my waist. There was a beautiful calm to the morning. The sound of birds tweeting. In a while the city would start to wake up and the rat race would begin again. I was so glad to be out of that now.

After a while, I let Izzy off the lead. She ran on, occasionally stopping to look back at me, teeth flashing a bright canine smile, before setting off again. Occasionally, she’d spot a rabbit or a bird and would speed off up the road, or into the fields to chase them – bounding as she ran. It was then I felt guilty for wanting to stay inside and not walk her. This was where she was at her happiest.

She never wandered far enough that I couldn’t see her. She’d reach a certain point and stop, then turn her head back to me as if to say: ‘Come on, old girl! Keep up.’ She’d wait patiently until I was closer, then set off again.

We walked on until she started barking, running to the hedgerow, yelping and spinning around – running back to me and back to the hedgerow again.

‘What is it, girl?’ I asked as I followed her, wondering what it was she’d uncovered this time: an old ball, ripe for throwing into the field for a prolonged game of catch, or more likely a bone, or the remains of an animal that she’d then roll in, necessitating me wrestling her into the bath when we got home.

Only as I got closer, I saw her pull at something bright. Orange. Fabric. Whatever it was, it was heavy. She pulled and struggled with it, yelping all the time. Despite the heat, I felt a chill run up my spine. I wanted to turn around and run, but Izzy was becoming more and more distressed.

The orange object took shape before my eyes. Sharpened. Came into focus. As did a hand, bluish grey. Izzy pulled back. I noticed her white paws, which just minutes before were brown with mud, were now a dark red. Her barking had become whimpering. I wanted to run but I couldn’t. I was frozen to the spot.

I pulled my phone from my pocket, took a deep breath. Forced myself to keep walking. Before I even reached the crumpled wreck of a body curled in the hedgerow, I’d dialled 999. Asked for help. Police, yes. Ambulance, yes. Was the person breathing? I didn’t know, I wasn’t close enough, but I had to be now. I had to get close. I saw a face, blue, a gaping neck wound. Fibrous tissue, muscle and cartilage all on display. An arm that lay at a strange angle. Dried blood. Fresh blood.

Surely this figure before me was dead. Surely no one could survive such butchery.

‘It’s a woman. A girl,’ I blurted down the phone.

‘Is she breathing?’ The voice on the other end of the line was the calm to my panic.

‘I don’t think so.’

I got down on my knees, repulsed by the sight in front of me but knowing I at least had to check. I had to do what I could. I bent my head down over her body, my ear to her mouth – senses primed to pick up even the slightest whisper of breath. I took her poor, cool wrist in my hand – tried to feel for a pulse. I was shaking. Trying to push away the memories of another time. Other girls. Other men. Other children. Cold and grey and mutilated. This was why I stayed away. The thumping of my heart drowned out all noise, even the yelping of the dog at my feet.

But there it was. The faintest pulse. Thready. Slow. The softest exhalation. Short. Shallow.

‘She’s alive,’ I said to the operator. ‘But only just. Be quick.’

I untied my jacket, placed it on her – as useless as it probably was. Even though it was already hot, she was so cold. The bleeding from her neck wound had been profuse but it had slowed now. I lifted the jacket, moved it and pressed against the wound, almost afraid that I’d press too hard, that my hand would slip inside it.

‘Help’s on the way,’ I said, for my own benefit as much as for that of the unknown woman in front of me. ‘If you can hang on, help is on the way. I’m Elizabeth and I’m not going to leave you. I’m going to be here until the paramedics arrive. So if you could do me a favour and just hang on, that would be great, lovey. It really would.’

I took her hand in mine. Could barely countenance how it could feel so cold and still have life in it.

‘You’re not alone,’ I told her, trying to reassure her.

I wondered who she was and who she belonged to. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. There didn’t appear to be much at all distinguishing about her. It was hard to tell the true colour of her hair, matted as it was with mud and blood. If I had to guess, I’d have put her in her mid to late thirties. But it was hard to tell given how bruised and battered she was. Her toenails were painted bright green. It looked so gaudy against the mottled, discoloured skin of her feet – the large areas of raw flesh, gravel-speckled flesh where it looked as though she’d been dragged along the ground, her ankle pointing in the wrong direction.

Someone had wanted this woman very much dead. Someone had left her here. On this quiet country lane, bleeding out.

I could hardly believe she was still alive.

‘You keep fighting,’ I told her. ‘You hold on and keep fighting.’

I was shivering then. Shock was kicking in. My muscles were seizing. I rubbed my arms, tried to release the spasms. Kept an eye out for any traffic that might pass. An ear out for the sound of sirens. Any sound of an approaching police car or ambulance.

I both wished I’d stayed at home and was grateful I was here – at least she had a chance. However small. I put my ear to her mouth again, listened for those shallow breaths. Almost imperceptible but still there. I heard a small gurgle. A rattle. The words ‘Warn them’ carried on the last of her breaths.

Then she was silent. Still.

And I could hear the sirens approaching.

Chapter Two
Rachel

I saw the news on Twitter first: ‘Body of woman found on Derry outskirts.’ It linked to a short article in the Derry Journal saying little more than the headline. Police were at the scene. The Coney Road, from Culmore Point onwards, was closed until further notice. There would be more on this story as it broke.

I felt a shiver run through me. Was it a hit and run, maybe? Oh, God, I hoped it wasn’t a paramilitary attack. No one wanted a return to those days.

No matter the reason, someone would be getting bad news. I shuddered. This woman – she could be a mother, a sister, a friend. Some poor family was about to have their whole world turned upside down.

It was just another reminder that life was short – too bloody short – and as clichéd as it sounds, we don’t know what lies around the corner for any of us. If I’d known this time last year what the following twelve months would bring I might have run away or hidden under my duvet and refused to come out.

I would have wanted to hit pause, but of course I couldn’t. The world kept turning anyway – even though I felt mine had ended with the death of my mother – sixty-five. No age at all. Breast cancer.

I hated that when I talked about her to new people now, the conversation always seemed to wind its way round to how she died. Like it defined her. That final, stupid, too-short battle. Surely everything else she’d done in her life should have mattered more?

I slid my phone back into my bag and along with it I buried my emotions for now. I had to get in front of a classroom of thirty demob-happy youngsters and keep them focused.

At lunchtime, in the staffroom, I pulled my phone from my bag again. Switched it on and looked at it. No substantial updates from the Derry Journal except a photo from the scene – dark hedgerows, bright sunshine. In the distance, beyond the bright yellow, almost festive police tape, there was an ambulance and what looked like the top of one of those white forensic police tents.

Local political representatives were expressing their ‘shock and sadness’, all of them saying it was important not to jump to conclusions until the police had more information. All the police had said so far was that the road would remain closed for some time and that they were appealing for witnesses in relation to the ‘fatality’.

‘We’re appealing for anyone who travelled along the Coney Road on the evening of 5 June or the early hours of 6 June who may have seen any unusual activity to come forward and speak to police.’

I clicked out of the link, tried to join in the chat around the table. The looming end of term meant it wasn’t just the pupils who were feeling giddy at the thought of the long summer break. Still, this news story had brought a sombre feel to the classroom.

‘It’s awful,’ I heard Mr McCallion, one of the geography teachers, say. ‘I heard, from someone who knows these things, that it looks like a murder. A particularly gruesome one at that.’

‘What?’ Ms Doherty, our young, quirky, opinionated art teacher chimed in. ‘Like, is there any kind of a murder that isn’t gruesome? The two tend to go hand in hand,’ she said with a roll of her eyes and a smile that showed she was amused at her own wit.

‘I don’t think us gossiping about it is very appropriate,’ I snapped.

I couldn’t help it. The feeling that some poor woman had lost her life shouldn’t be the subject of staffroom banter. Maybe my own grief had made me raw to it all. Ms Doherty said nothing, but the look she gave me spoke a thousand words. She thought I was a killjoy, a fuddy-duddy. Someone bereft of ‘craic’. She hadn’t known me before my mother died. Before I’d been changed, utterly.

My phone beeped again with a text message from one of my oldest friends, Julie:

Have you heard anything from Clare? She didn’t go into work today. I called round her flat but there was no answer and her phone is off. You know, it’s not like her – and there’s been that woman found …

Julie was always prone to drama and tended to jump directly to the worst possible conclusion about everything, but this time a nagging, sickening feeling started to wash over me. Julie, Clare and I had remained the very best of friends after we’d left school. While I’d trained to teach English, they’d both joined the Civil Service and worked for the Pensions Department on Duke Street. They didn’t do anything without the other knowing.

I immediately tried calling Clare myself, I don’t know why. I hoped for some sort of rational and reasonable explanation as to why she wouldn’t have got Julie’s call. When it went straight to answer service, I wondered who else I could call to try to find her. It would be a bit hysterical to call the hospital, wouldn’t it? I mean, she was a grown woman. She could be anywhere. She might be with her parents. Out with another friend. She’d been seeing someone lately, someone she’d admitted to developing deep feelings for. She could be lying in post-coital bliss in his bed right now, being decadent and loved-up for once in her up-to-now sensible life. I almost envied her, if she was. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been post-coital anything, never mind blissed-out.

I was about to call Julie back, when my phone rang and her name popped up on the screen. I answered, said hello, expected her to tell me Clare had just rolled into work, hungover but happy.

I hadn’t expected the breathless, sobbing, gasping, almost screaming cry of my friend.

‘It’s her, Rachel. It’s Clare. She’s dead.’

Chapter Three
Elizabeth

I was sitting in front of the kitchen range, shaking. I winced at the sweetness of the tea I’d been given for the shock.

I had just been too late. Even if I’d got to her an hour before, it would probably still have been too late to save her. She shouldn’t really have survived for as long as she did – her wounds were so severe.

‘Mrs O’Loughlin, if we can just go over your statement one more time,’ the kindly-faced police officer said to me.

He’d been lovely. So gentle in his manner. So sorry for what I’d been through, even though I wasn’t the victim here. Not at all.

‘I’m not sure I’ve anything more to tell you,’ I said, placing the cup on the kitchen table, the shake in my hand more pronounced than it normally was. ‘I can’t think of anything more.’

My brain was trying to process the trauma. I knew that. In my younger years I’d worked as a theatre nurse. Cared for many survivors of catastrophic traumas – the de facto warzone that Derry had been during the Troubles meant I saw more than most. Heard more than most. Lost limbs, blast wounds, burns, gunshots, a child who couldn’t be saved, whose body was broken beyond repair by the impact of a car bomb.

Images were coming at me now. Fast. Horrific. I shook my head to try to get rid of them, but they didn’t go. They wouldn’t go and now I had these flashes of that woman, her orange T-shirt and linen trousers – blood-soaked, mud-soaked, wet through. Her eyes, flickering, closed. That wound, jagged, vicious, intentional. The soft warmth of her last breath on my cheek. How gentle it had been for someone who was taken from the world so violently.

‘And you saw no traces of anyone else along the road? No cars passed as you were out walking?’

I shook my head. It had been so quiet. Blissfully quiet.

‘It’s a quiet road at the best of times, especially at that hour of the morning,’ I told him as one of his colleagues offered to refill my teacup.

‘I imagine,’ he said. ‘And she just said those two words? “Warn them”? Nothing more at all?’

‘Well, my hearing isn’t as sharp as it used to be, but no, DI Bradley, she didn’t say anything else. I don’t think she had the strength. The poor girl. Do they know who she is yet? Who she belongs to? Her poor, poor family.’

‘I believe they think they’ve identified her,’ he said, his soft blue eyes sad. ‘But I’m afraid I can’t give you any further information until she’s been formally identified by a family member. You know how it is.’

I nodded. I did, indeed, know how it is, and how it was. I’d stood with family members myself as they’d identified bodies of their loved ones. A matter of procedure. A formality that sometimes felt unspeakably cruel.

‘And you’ve never seen this woman before?’

I shook my head, rubbed my arm to try to ease the aching muscles. ‘I don’t often get out and about, apart from walking Izzy there. My health isn’t what it used to be. And I don’t tend to bump into too many people when I’m around these roads and fields.’

The handsome DI Bradley nodded again, closed his notebook and sat back in his chair.

‘Mrs O’Loughlin, I appreciate this has been exceptionally traumatic for you, but we really appreciate your time and the information you’ve been able to give us. Have you any family members who can call over and sit with you? You’ve had quite a shock.’

‘My son-in-law will be visiting later. He always comes on a Wednesday with my grandchildren. Makes sure I’ve everything I need.’

That reminded me that that bread was still proving in the airing cupboard and the bananas were still overripe in the bowl. I didn’t have the energy left in me to make banana bread any more. The children would have to make do with fresh bread and jam. It had been good enough for their mother when she was little.

He handed me a card with his details. Told me to call him if I could think of anything else. Any detail at all.

‘If there’s any way we can be a support to you then please get in touch. We’ll have someone from victim support get in touch to talk to you about your experience, help you through the trauma.’

‘Detective Bradley, victim support have no need to be wasting their limited resources on me. I’m tougher than I look, you know!’

He smiled. ‘Well, I imagine you are, especially with all the help you’ve given to people in the past, but we all need a little help from time to time,’ he said.

I didn’t argue. There was little point. But I knew I wouldn’t talk to anyone from victim support. I’d just file the horror of this morning’s find with all the other horrors in my mind. They were my cross to carry.

Chapter Four
Rachel

I moved through the early afternoon in a haze. I considered crying off to the head but what good would that have done? I’d just have ended up sitting and thinking about the unthinkable. Not that staying in my classroom stopped that. As much as I tried to focus on my work, I couldn’t. It was stupid of me to ever think that I could have.

My friend was dead. Someone I’d known for thirty years, from the first day we’d sat together on the newly polished floor of the assembly hall in St Catherine’s College, our too-big green pinafores and coats swamping us as we nervously waited to be divided into our form groups.

We’d clicked over a mutual dislike of geography and Kylie Minogue, and we’d stayed friends since. We didn’t live in each other’s pockets, but we were there for each other through everything life threw at us. When Julie had postnatal depression, when Clare’s marriage had crumbled just days before her third wedding anniversary and when I’d fallen to pieces after the death of my mother. The girls had held me up, literally at one stage, as grief took the legs out from under me and I’d fainted. They’d welcomed the steady stream of mourners to our home, directed them to where my mother’s body lay so that they could pay their respects and then offered a cup of tea afterwards. They’d made sure everything ran smoothly, while I’d sat, ashen-faced and bowed with grief, by the side of the coffin, unwilling to move – struggling to let go of my beloved mother.

How could it be that Clare was gone now? That her body had been found by the side of a road? The police weren’t saying murder yet and I hoped, perhaps naively, that it wasn’t murder. That it was an accident. Although I couldn’t think of any possible excuse for her being on that road, alone in the early hours of the morning.

I didn’t know how she’d died. Didn’t know when she’d died. All manner of horrors kept dancing through my head until I couldn’t hold in my pain and my fear any more. I simply lifted my bag, left my Year 12s open-mouthed and walked out of the classroom midway through a discussion on the book Of Mice and Men.

I walked to the head’s office, my legs shaking – the grief hitting me from the ground upwards, weakening me, diminishing me.

‘You’ll have to send someone to deal with my Year 12s,’ I muttered. ‘I’ve got to go home. I’ve had bad news.’

Sheila, my deputy head, looked me up and down. ‘Are you okay, Rachel?’

I didn’t trust myself to speak. I didn’t want to say the words. It was so completely, utterly, surreal. You never expect to have to say those words to anyone. Those are words for TV shows and movies, not for school offices on sunny June days as the school secretary eats an ice cream and talks about her forthcoming holiday.

I just shook my head as a surge of something powerful, painful and overwhelming rose up inside me. She was dead. My friend. I’d be sitting by her coffin next. And if Mr McCallion was right, it was a ‘gruesome murder’.

The shock rose up inside me until I had to run from the room to the staff toilets and throw up until I could barely breathe.

I was aware of someone, Sheila most probably, behind me. I was embarrassed she’d hear me retching, sobbing and trying not to scream. She sat down beside me, put her arm around my shoulder and pulled me into a hug. It should have been awkward. It certainly wasn’t professional. But it was just what I needed in that moment. It gave me time to find my breath again, to slow the shaking.

‘That body,’ I told her. ‘The one found this morning? It’s a friend of mine. One of my oldest friends.’ I stumbled over my words. My tongue felt too big in my mouth. The sentences too alien. ‘People are saying it’s a murder, Sheila.’

She hugged me a little closer, told me that of course I could go, but she wasn’t happy about letting me drive given that I’d had such a shock.

‘Do you want to call Paul?’ she asked.

I shook my head. I didn’t want to call my husband. I wanted, no, needed to go and see Julie. She was the only other person who could possibly understand.

‘I need to see my friend. Our friend. Julie. She works with Clare. Worked. I suppose. We all went to school together.’

I knew I was rambling and talking too much, but I couldn’t seem to stop. Nor could I stop shaking. Once it had started, it became severe. Teeth chattering, legs jiggling. As if I had no control.

‘Maybe we should get you a cup of hot, sweet tea or pilfer a bottle of whisky from the summer fair tombola – for the shock,’ Sheila said.

I shook my head. I knew she meant well, but I couldn’t stomach it and I just wanted to go. It was the adrenaline, I imagined. The shaking and the sickness and the pounding of my heart.

‘Well, let’s get you to your friend, then,’ she said and helped me to my feet. ‘I’m so, so sorry you’re going through this,’ she offered. ‘It’s awful.’

I nodded because I didn’t know what to say, and despite the sickness and the pain in my chest, it still didn’t feel real. I didn’t know just how awful it was to become. Once I knew how she died, I knew it would only be worse. But for that moment I just kept thinking of my friend, hair tied back in a ponytail. Embracing life again in a way she hadn’t through her thirties. My friend smiling from her Facebook page. My friend who had the most contagious laugh in the world.

My friend who was dead.

Julie was perched on the edge of her sofa, her knees tight together, her body stiff with shock. She lit one cigarette off the end of another and continued smoking. Her hand shook as she brought the cigarette to her lips. Her eyes closed on the inhalation and as they did, a tear escaped, running down her already streaked face.

She looked wretched. Old. I’d never looked at one of my old school pals and thought we looked our age before, but Julie did in that moment, in that room. Her usually neatly preened hair was messy, strands of copper escaping from her ponytail, frizzy and unkempt. Her make-up was mostly gone, washed away by her tears and the rough way she pulled the sleeve of her cardigan across her cheeks to dry her face. Her skin would be red and sore later, I thought, as if that would matter. As if that was important in the grand scheme of things.

I’m not sure what I expected. Perhaps that we’d run into each other’s arms and cling on, sobbing like lost souls. That didn’t happen. Julie looked at me through glazed eyes and just shook her head while I sat down at the opposite end of the sofa, my adrenaline gone and a weariness washing over me.

‘Do you want a cup of tea or coffee, or something stronger?’ Julie’s husband, Brendan, asked me.

It had been him who’d let me in, who’d hugged me awkwardly at the door and who’d warned me that Julie was ‘in a bad way’.

‘I’m on the vodka,’ Julie spoke, her voice hoarse.

I noticed the tall glass, half full of a clear liquid and ice cubes, on the floor by her feet.

‘I’ll stick with tea,’ I said, knowing I’d have to deal with the girls later.

How would I tell them? Tell Molly her godmother was gone? I felt something in my stomach contract.

‘Probably the wise choice, I just … I just needed to block it out. Or something,’ Julie said. ‘Oh, Rachel, I can’t believe it. I can’t get my head around it.’

‘How much do you know?’ I asked her.

She took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Ronan called me. He was in bits, Rachel. Could barely talk. He said the police had just called to their parents’ house, asked about distinctive marks, hair colour, clothes, that kind of thing. They’d found a bank card or something stuffed into her trouser pocket.’ Her voice broke as she spoke. ‘They’ve got to go for a formal identification. Can you imagine that?’

A sliver of hope surged inside me. ‘So the body hasn’t been identified yet? They could be wrong, Julie. Someone could have stolen her card or something. It doesn’t mean it’s her.’

Julie sighed, dragged on her cigarette again. ‘It’s her, Rachel. They had jewellery – that bracelet she always wears. They described the tattoo on her wrist. The identification is just a formality. It’s definitely her.’

The feeling of that sliver of hope disintegrating almost broke me in two. ‘But maybe …’ I offered to no one in particular, the sentence dying on my lips as I realised how futile it was.

Julie just shook her head. ‘I wish. I really, really wish. I can’t stop wishing and hoping, but Ronan was as sure as he could be. He’s going with their parents. He says he’s not sure his mother or father will be up to the task of identifying her. He might have to do it.’

My heart ached for Ronan, Clare’s older brother by eighteen months. As much as he’d roll his eyes at us and our giggling, melodramatic, annoying teenage ways, he’d been almost as much a part of our gang back then as any of us were. He and Julie had even shared an ill-fated snog at the youth club Halloween disco once. It was such a drama at the time. Drama. We hadn’t known the meaning of the word.

This wasn’t how our lives were supposed to go. Julie, Clare and I – we were meant to live to a ripe old age and become our own version of the Golden Girls. This wasn’t meant to be how it ended. I wondered whether I should have a drink, after all. Numb the senses. Dull the edges, just as Julie was doing.

‘Do they know what happened?’ I asked, not sure if I was ready for the response.

Julie’s hand shook more as she took another sip from her glass, shuddering slightly as the vodka slid down her throat.

‘It definitely wasn’t an accident,’ she said. ‘He didn’t have details – I’m not even sure that I want to know them. But the police are treating it as a murder inquiry. I imagine it’ll be all over the news by teatime.’

Brendan walked back into the room and handed me a mug of tea, but my hand was shaking too much to hold it. I sat it on the coffee table in front of me and looked at my friend. I couldn’t speak. I didn’t know what to say. It was taking all my strength to keep breathing normally.

‘She was so happy, Rachel. I don’t know when you last spoke to her, but she was so happy. Said she felt her life was finally going in the right direction. She was finally over that bloody break-up and was ready to move on. It was the brightest I’d seen her in years. I don’t understand it. Who would do this to her? You know Clare like I do; she wouldn’t ever hurt a fly. I don’t understand …’ She finally gave in to her tears, her body shaking.

I thought of the last time I’d seen her. It was about three weeks before. We’d met for a hurried brunch one Saturday. She’d been so happy – glowing, in fact. Told me she believed more than ever that it was absolutely true that life began at forty. She was happy in work, hoping for a promotion, and she’d met someone.

I wondered about him. Did he know? Jesus, could he have done it? We knew so little about him. Had the police spoken to him yet? Did they know who he was? Clare had always been coy about him when we’d talked. Said she didn’t want to ‘jinx’ it. But she’d met him through a dating app and they’d been out a couple of times.

‘He’s a real gentleman. Not a player, like so many of the men on those sites. He seems genuinely interested in a relationship,’ Clare had said.

I’d warned her to take it slowly. She was a romantic at heart – threw herself into relationships too easily. Allowed her heart to be broken. She’d reassured me. ‘We’ve not even slept together yet,’ she’d whispered, blushing. ‘But I’m enjoying the snogging sessions.’ She’d sounded so upbeat. Young. Innocent. I’d been almost jealous of her joie de vivre.

‘Joy of life’. How quickly things had changed. I sat, numb, looking at Julie.

‘Have the police spoken to her new man?’ I asked.

Julie shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. If they can find him, but you don’t think he’d be behind it, do you? He was making her happy.’

‘There’s something about it all that I don’t like. Did she ever tell you who he was?’

Julie shook her head. ‘She said we’d meet him soon enough. I wasn’t going to push further … Oh, God!’ She doubled over again. Another gut punch. ‘What if they don’t find him?’

‘There’ll be stuff on her phone. Her computer. They’ll find something,’ Brendan piped up. ‘But don’t jump to conclusions. Let the police do their job.’

‘I can’t breathe thinking about it,’ Julie said, tears falling thick and fast.

I felt useless. I couldn’t ease her pain. I couldn’t make sense of any of this. I just hugged her while she cried.

The sound of sobbing was nipping at me. It was too loud. My head was too full. My heart was too sore and yet at the same time I felt as if I were reading lines from a script. No one had these types of conversations in real life. No one. I dropped my head to my hands, covering my eyes, blocking out the glare of the sun through the window.

The doorbell ringing pulled me back to the present. I sat up, moved closer to Julie so that I could hug her as she cried. It seemed such an inadequate gesture.

I heard a man cough as if to announce his presence, and turned round to see Brendan standing with a man in a suit and a uniformed police officer.

‘This is DI Bradley,’ Brendan said. ‘And his colleague Constable King. They wanted to talk to you, Julie. And probably you, too, Rachel, come to think of it.’ He turned to inform them that I was one of Clare’s oldest friends, too.

‘Rachel Walker?’ the policeman asked and I nodded.

‘Yes, it’s good to have you here too, then.’

I nodded again.

Julie and I shifted apart. She pulled the cuff of her cardigan across her face again to dry her tears – her skin now red and angry.

‘I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs Cosgrove, Mrs Walker,’ Bradley said, looking at both of us in turn.

‘So, it’s definitely her?’ I asked, knowing even as I spoke that it was a stupid question. He’d hardly be here if it was someone else.

‘A positive identification was carried out a short time ago,’ he said.

I felt my body sag and Julie grabbed my hand. Brendan invited the two officers to sit down on the armchairs on either side of the room. DI Bradley took the seat closest to us and pulled out his notebook.

‘We’re trying to speak to as many people as we can, as quickly as we can, to try to gauge Ms Taylor’s last movements. Her brother, Ronan, gave one of my officers your details. He said you were very close to the deceased.’

I shuddered at the use of the word ‘deceased’. It seemed wrong. I felt angry. He shouldn’t be reducing who she was to how her life ended.

‘We are … were … very good friends with Clare. Yes,’ I said.

Julie just nodded.

‘And can I ask, both of you, about the last time you either saw Ms Taylor or spoke with her? When was the last time you received any communication from her at all, be it a text message or social media chat?’

Julie spoke first.

‘I saw her yesterday. At work. We work in the same building – the pensions office. Or we did.’

‘And how was she? Did she talk of her plans for after work?’

Julie shook her head. ‘It was a busy day. We just had a brief chat at lunch. Mostly nonsense stuff. About the book she was reading and holiday plans. I said I’d call her later and maybe we should go for a drink at the weekend.’

‘And you?’ he asked, turning to me. ‘When was the last time you spoke to her?’

‘I think we had a chat on Facebook a few days back. It was something and nothing. I think I asked her how things were going with her new boyfriend. Hang on, I should have it here on my phone.’

I noticed the glance pass between Bradley and his colleague at the mention of a boyfriend, and I rifled in my bag to pull out my phone, scrolling through my messages to find the last chat I’d had with Clare.

God, if only I’d known it would be the last chat I’d have with her, I’d have said more. It would have been more heartfelt than a simple exchange of gossip. I handed my phone over.

‘Do either of you know the identity of this new boyfriend?’ DI Bradley asked.

I shook my head before looking to Julie. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she did know, given how close they were, but she was looking downwards.

‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry. Clare was so scared of jinxing it, she wanted to keep it to herself for now. It was all fairly new, you see. Do you think it’s him? You do, don’t you?’

‘We’re at the very early stages of the investigation. At this stage we’ve no clear suspects, but nor have we ruled anyone out. How new is fairly new?’ DI Bradley asked.

‘Maybe a month, six weeks at most. Something like that.’

We were interrupted by a knock on the door. Brendan popped his head around and spoke.

‘Sorry, love. I’m just going to go and pick up the kids from school. I’ll take them to your mother’s house, keep them out of the way for a bit.’

Julie nodded, her eyes darting to the packet of cigarettes on the coffee table. She clearly wanted to smoke another one.

I glanced at the clock on the mantlepiece and realised with a start that it was almost three o’clock and I usually picked Molly up from daycare at three thirty on a Wednesday. I needed to go, too, or I’d be late.

‘Actually, DI Bradley, I need to go, too. I have to pick my little girl up from crèche, and I need to collect my car from work first. I’m sorry, my husband’s working in Belfast and there’s no one else who can collect her.’

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘But could you call into the station at some stage in the next twenty-four hours if at all possible? We’d like to take a full statement and get a copy of these messages, Mrs Walker.’

‘Of course,’ I said, taking his business card from him. ‘I’m sorry to have to rush off.’

I was lifting my coat from the arm of the sofa, when Julie spoke.

‘How did she die?’ she asked, her voice small. ‘What happened?’

Constable King shifted a little uncomfortably in her seat. ‘At the moment we can’t say too much while we await a postmortem examination, but it looks as if the cause of death was severe blood loss brought about by knife wounds.’

I felt my stomach tighten again. My legs weaken. I thought of Molly standing at the door of the crèche, some brightly coloured painting in her hand ready to be shoved in my direction with a smile. I thought of how we usually sang nursery rhymes all the way home in the car. How my evenings, which I’d considered so completely dull and ordinary, could never be so again.

I desperately needed to speak to Paul, but more than that, I ached to speak to Michael. Michael who could distract me from any pain, who could help me block the horrific reality of what had happened. Michael who was my guilty pleasure, and my darkest secret.

Chapter Five
Rachel

‘Mammy, why are you sad?’ Molly blinked at me, her bottom lip trembling as I undid her seat belt and lifted her from her car seat.

I’d been trying to act normal for her; clearly, I wasn’t doing a very good job.

But just how do you tell a three-year-old something so catastrophic has happened? She trusted me implicitly to protect her from all the bad in the world. This would prove to her that I wasn’t infallible. That bad things happened. Horrible things. And while it’s a lesson we all have to learn, I didn’t want to be the one to take the innocence from my baby girl.

‘I’m just a bit sleepy,’ I lied, kissing the top of her head. ‘You know how you get really grouchy when you need a nap? It’s a bit like that.’

She looked at me for a moment, her blue eyes staring out from under the mop of tight blonde curls surrounding her face. I swear she could see right through me – knew I was lying – but just chose not to challenge me. Not this time.

‘Okay, Mammy,’ she said. ‘Let’s go see Daddy and Beth.’ She took my hand in hers and pulled me towards the front door.

‘Daddy’s working in Belfast still,’ I told her, ‘but Beth should be home and I bet she’s ready for cuddles from her best girl in the world.’

Molly beamed at me, delighted to have her place as best girl in the world reinforced, and I let us into the house, calling upstairs to my older daughter that we were home. I really needed her to take Molly out from under my feet for a little, just until I called Paul and then, of course, Michael. I should have been seeing him that night, at the creative writing class I tutored, but I’d hardly be teaching that night. Not after what had happened. It would have been wrong. Everything felt wrong, even the most mundane tasks.

Beth appeared at the top of the stairs, still in her school uniform, but her hair was loose around her shoulders and she was wearing her fluffy slippers instead of school shoes.

‘You called?’ she asked, giving me the same inquisitive look her little sister had just moments before.

‘Beth, could you mind Molly for a bit? I need to make a few phone calls.’

‘Mum, what’s going on?’ she asked, walking down the stairs towards me. ‘Trisha Donnelly was on Snapchat telling everyone you’d just walked out of class today. What’s up? Is it Dad?’

She was twelve years older than her little sister, but she looked just as vulnerable as she walked down the stairs towards me.

‘Mammy says she needs a nap, ’cos she’s a sleepyhead,’ Molly said, throwing her padded jacket on the floor and grabbing her favourite teddy bear from the hall table.

Beth raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow. ‘Mum?’ she asked again.

‘It’s not Dad. Dad’s fine. I’m going to call him now, but please, Beth, could you just mind Molly for a little? Put on a DVD or something. Just make sure I get a little peace.’ I heard the wobble in my voice and inwardly crumbled.

‘You’re scaring me, Mum,’ Beth whispered as if Molly didn’t have the ears of a bat.

‘Darling, please, I’ll explain it all shortly. But don’t worry. Everything’s okay.’

I felt awful lying to her, but this wasn’t something you just blurted out. Truth being told, I didn’t know how to say it. How to find the words.

Reluctantly, she led her little sister into the living room and I climbed the stairs to our bedroom, where I sat on the edge of the bed and took my phone out. It was Paul’s number that I dialled first. It rang three times before he answered. On hearing his ‘hello’, I felt my composure slip.

‘Paul,’ I said, my voice breaking. ‘You need to come home. Something really awful has happened. I need you here.’

‘The girls?’ he asked.

‘They’re fine,’ I assured him. ‘It’s Clare. Paul, have you seen the news about the body found at Coney Road?’ I realised I’d started to shake.

‘Yes, I saw it … but, God, no, Rachel,’ Paul said, his voice low. ‘It’s not Clare? It can’t be.’

‘Police confirmed it this afternoon,’ I said, my voice breaking. ‘It was murder, a knife wound.’

I finally gave in to sobbing as I heard my husband try to soothe me down the line.

‘I’ll be home as soon as traffic allows,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe it, Rachel. This is awful.’

I couldn’t even speak to say goodbye, so I just ended the call and curled up into a ball on my bed, burying my head in my pillow so that my daughters wouldn’t hear my sobs. I didn’t want to alarm them. I wished there was someone here to hold me and soothe me as I cried.

I knew I should have wished for that person to be Paul, and in a way I did. But more than that, I wished it were Michael. I needed him. My body physically ached for the comfort he could give me. Knowing that I wouldn’t see him tonight was hard, when I just wanted him to hold me and tell me everything would be okay in the way only he could.

I tried to slow my breathing, to regain control of my emotions, and I dialled his number, saved in my phone as Michelle. Just in case, I’d thought, long before I realised just what I was getting myself into.

‘Hey, you,’ his voice, smooth, comforting, came down the line. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing you later. Can you get away for coffee afterwards?’

At this point normally we may have laughed at the word ‘coffee’, knowing that it was about more than coffee. We’d not slept together. Not yet. But it was, we’d both realised, only a matter of time before we couldn’t hold out any longer. Before I took the final step, which would brand me a cheat forever.

‘I won’t be there tonight,’ I told him. ‘I’ve texted them and asked for a substitute to be sent in.’

‘Does that mean you’ll be pretending to be there and we might just have more time together if I skip class, too?’

I so wanted to say yes. I so wanted to be led astray by him. I wanted to be distracted by him, taken away from the horror that had been unfolding all afternoon.

‘Michael,’ I said, loving even the sound of his name, ‘I wish it were that simple. My friend’s dead.’ I gulped back a sob, closed my eyes and tried not to picture how she may have been found. ‘That poor woman out on the Coney Road. It’s Clare.’

‘Oh, Rachel,’ he soothed. ‘I’m so, so sorry. I wish I could do something to be there for you. Is there any chance we could see each other even for five minutes?’

I shook my head, told him no. ‘Paul’s coming back from Belfast now. We’ve got to tell the girls yet. And the police want a statement, so I’ve got to go to the station, too. It’s all just a nightmare. I can’t even …’

‘It’s okay,’ he soothed, his deep soft voice washing over me. ‘You know I’m here for you whenever you need me. You do believe that, don’t you? You know how I feel about you, Rachel. I’ll do whatever you need me to do to help.’

‘I don’t know what’s going to happen – these next few days, I just don’t know …’

He sighed. ‘Don’t worry about the next few days. Just take it a day at a time, Rachel. An hour at a time if you need to. I’ll be here when you’re ready, whenever that may be. Even if it’s just for five minutes.’

‘I wish you were here now,’ I breathed down the phone.

‘Me, too,’ he said. ‘More than anything. I hate that I can’t comfort you.’

I heard footsteps on the stairs, recognised them as Beth’s. She was no doubt done with waiting for me to tell her what was going on.

‘I’ve got to go,’ I whispered into the phone and hung up, just as my daughter walked into the room, chewing on her lip, her eyes, clear blue like her sister’s, wide with concern.

There was no way to hide the fact I’d been crying. My face, I knew, would be puffy and red, my eyes bloodshot. The bed was crumpled from where I’d thrown myself onto it.

‘Mum, I’m scared …’ she said, walking towards me.

I gestured for her to sit down beside me and I pulled her into the biggest hug I could.

‘Oh, my darling girl, I need you to be brave, okay? But there’s been some really awful news.’

Chapter Six
Elizabeth

By teatime it was all over the news. This murder. How a dog walker had discovered the body of 41-year-old Clare Taylor, a civil servant, that morning.

They didn’t say on the news that she’d still been alive when the dog walker had found her. I was grateful for that. People didn’t need to know all the sordid details of everything. It was bad enough I knew them. I doubted the image would ever leave me.

Izzy sat forlornly at my feet. The house was quiet again. The grandchildren and my son-in-law had gone home. I hadn’t told him it was me who’d found the body. I didn’t want him worrying. He worried about me enough. I didn’t want any fuss. I’d rather just forget about it as much as possible, if the truth be told. It would have been different if Paddy were still alive. I’d have talked everything through with him and he’d have helped me to make sense of it in the way only he could. I’d been blessed to have been married to him. I only wished I could have had him in my life for longer.

An image flashed on the screen. A beautiful woman. Chestnut hair – the colour mine used to be before the grey took over. She was smiling at the camera, the faces of two others in the picture blurred. She looked nothing like the person who’d died in front of me. Nothing like that grey figure, covered in mud, almost translucent owing to blood loss. Her face twisted in fear.

That policeman who’d been out to see me earlier was speaking. Describing the crime as ‘particularly depraved’. Appealing for witnesses. Answering questions from the media. Or not answering them. It seems Clare Taylor was a well-liked woman. Police had no idea what the motive might be. How could there be any justification for this kind of attack? How could one human inflict this kind of suffering on another?

My muscles still ached. I’d taken a warm shower – too warm for this heat, really – to try to ease the stiffness. Still, I thought, I was alive. I could think and feel, even if I sometimes wished I couldn’t.

Clare Taylor. I think my daughter went to school with a few Clares. It was a very popular name the year she was born. Laura would have been just a little older than this woman, if she were still here. We’d have just celebrated her forty-second birthday. But both of them were gone. Before their time. Both horrifically. I wondered what this Clare’s story was. What her life was like. If she’d left behind a grieving husband, as Laura had. If there were two children left completely lost without her. I wondered if there was a mother out there who felt as if she’d let her daughter down, as if she more than anyone should have been able to save her.

I decided I’d contact that police officer, ask if there was any way I could meet this Clare’s mother. I wanted to talk to her. To assure her that her child hadn’t been alone when she died. That someone was with her, trying to keep her warm and comfort her. I knew that would mean something. I know I’d have loved to have heard that after my Laura died.

Normally quite content with my own company, or at least with the company of just Izzy, I felt unsettled. My house didn’t feel quite so safe and secure any more. Knowing that something so horrific could happen so close to me had unnerved me.

I got up and walked around the old farmhouse, closing all the windows and locking the doors. I tried to recall the days when there was always someone coming or going. The blaring of music from the children’s bedroom. Paddy coming in and out of the kitchen door, filling me in on what he’d been up to in the milking shed, or down in the back fields.

Now, there was no noise and no movement bar the smallest of breezes trying to push its way through the dusty window with little luck. The air was stifling, stagnant.

‘What do you think, Izzy?’ I asked the dog, who didn’t seem to think very much at all. ‘Am I being a selfish old woman wanting to meet her family?’

Izzy trotted off in the direction of the cool kitchen floor, not that I could blame her. I followed her. It was still too early to go to bed, even though a deep, all-embracing tiredness had engulfed me. Instead, I sat down on the armchair beside the range cooker and looked out of the window over the fields. Bathed in sunshine, the sky blue with not so much as a whisper of a cloud, it seemed almost unthinkable that something so brutal had happened so close by on such a beautiful day.

It was only then that I allowed myself to cry for poor Clare Taylor and my poor Laura, who should have been able to bring her children to see me herself but who’d never do so again.

Chapter Seven
Rachel

Did I feel guilty that I texted Michael from my car just after I left the police station and asked if I could call round to his? Yes. Of course. But my need to see him had grown as the hours had passed.

Beth had been devastated; hysterical. Her cries still echoed in my ears. Molly had teetered up the stairs upon hearing the commotion and had stood, open-mouthed, her teddy hanging from her arm, tears spilling over from those beautiful blue eyes down her cheeks.

I’d told Beth I’d handle how we told Molly what had happened, but that I needed time to find the words. So both Beth and I had just hugged her, reassured her through our tears that we were just sad about a ‘grown-up thing’ and that everything was okay.

I’m sure she didn’t buy it but, thankfully, being three, she could be distracted by the allure of colourful TV characters and ice cream for dinner. Beth worried me. Her reaction was so visceral, as if any sense of innocence at the world she still possessed at fifteen had just been ripped from her.

She’d cried until she threw up and then she lay facing me on my bed while I stroked her face and tried to comfort her. But how could I? I couldn’t say everything was okay – because everything wasn’t okay. A woman she considered her aunt had been murdered. It would colour everything in her life from now on. She’d carry it with her.

I held her until I heard the front door open and the call of Paul from the bottom of the stairs, followed by Molly excitedly telling him she’d had three different flavours of ice cream for her tea. Her trauma was forgotten, or buried at least. I hoped it would stay there.

I didn’t cry when I saw Paul. I suppose, just as I’d expected to break down when I saw Julie, this surprised me. He sat on the edge of our bed and hugged a still-snivelling Beth, soothed her in the way he used to soothe me. Reassurances whispered into her hair, promises that he’d look after her. I drank in the tableau of father–daughter love in front of me and I felt another piece of my heart get chipped away.

When did Paul and I stop meaning everything to each other? When did the sight of him stop soothing my heart?

‘I’ve to go to the police station, make a statement,’ I said, breaking their moment.

‘Surely you don’t have to do that tonight?’ Paul asked, his face tilted, brow furrowed. He nodded surreptitiously towards Beth, as if to tell me she needed me more than the police did.

‘I want to do whatever I can to help,’ I said. ‘I want this man found, Paul, and soon. They want to build a complete picture of her life.’

‘But it’s weeks since you saw her,’ he said.

‘We talk, Paul. You know that. She’s one of my oldest friends.’

I was starting to feel irritated now. I felt myself tense. I knew I was being terse with him and it wasn’t right – not in front of Beth. Not now.

‘Of course,’ he said, almost apologetic. ‘You do what you need to do. Should I come with you?’

I bristled again. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I think it’s best you stay with the girls. I don’t think Beth here is in any state to mind Molly. Are you, Beth?’

My beautiful daughter blinked up at me, her eyes red and puffy. In that second she looked very much like my little girl again, not the young woman she’d blossomed into. My heart ached for her. She shook her head.

‘Okay, then,’ Paul said. ‘I’ll stay here with the girls. Maybe once Molly’s in bed, we can order in some Chinese food?’ he said to Beth, who nodded.

‘I’m going to get a shower and change into my pjs,’ she said and stood up.

I hugged her and told her that I loved her before changing into a linen skirt and white T-shirt.

‘Dressing up for the police station?’ Paul asked.

‘Hardly,’ I said. ‘But my blouse is a bit stained, with tears and make-up from our beloved daughter, and I just want to be comfortable. I’m hot and sweaty, and I don’t know how long I’ll be there.’

Suddenly, I was very tired. And hungry. I realised I’d not finished my lunch, or eaten anything since, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep anything down now if I tried.

‘Well, hopefully they won’t keep you too long,’ Paul said, standing. ‘I’m really, really sorry this has happened,’ he said, pausing to look me up and down before leaving the room.

I’m sure he was talking about Clare, but he could just as easily have been talking about the ongoing disintegration of our marriage.

As it happened, I wasn’t in the police station all that long. Less than an hour. I didn’t have much to tell them, really. I just let him copy all the messages from Clare from my phone then talked about her life and if there was any way she could have enemies.

Even the thought of Clare Taylor having enemies was laughable. She was the most easy-going person I knew.

Of course they asked again about her new man, but I couldn’t tell them much more than what I’d told them at Julie’s. He was handsome, according to Clare, and kind-hearted. He’d insisted on paying for dinner on their first date. But that was about it. I didn’t have his name. There weren’t any pictures of them together anywhere. I didn’t know where he worked or even where he was from. I’d assumed he was a Derry man, but I didn’t know for sure. We’d just never had that conversation. Clare had always been one to play her cards close to her chest and that was okay.

‘Maybe I’ll introduce you all at our annual August barbecue,’ she’d told me, ‘if it keeps going well.’

They asked me how Clare got on with her ex-husband, James. Was there any residual animosity between them?

I told them that as far as I knew, they rarely spoke. They’d both moved on since the divorce – which was as amicable as could be in the end. There’d been tears and a lot of soul-searching. She’d been hurt when he’d told her he didn’t love her any more, of course she had. And then angry when she’d found out he already had someone else lined up. But when all was said and done, they’d simply grown apart. He’d never, to my knowledge, been violent towards Clare and I didn’t think he was the kind of man who would be. There was no reason to suspect that he’d have murdered his ex-wife. But then again, the notion that anyone at all would want to murder Clare seemed completely absurd.

I felt as if I was being singularly unhelpful, unable to give the police anything to go on. Any questions I’d asked, they didn’t really answer. Everything was ‘too early to tell’, or they weren’t ‘at liberty to say’. They’d assured me no stone was being left unturned, that every avenue was being explored.

They used all the clichéd terms that police could use, which just made it all feel even less real. As if we were all acting in a TV show, saying our lines. A grisly-faced detective would show up at any minute and swear at his underlings before declaring there’d been a murder, in a thick Scottish accent.

It was impossible to get my head around the idea that somewhere my friend was lying cold, dead, carved up by a pathologist. I shook that image from my head each and every time it pushed back in and tried to focus on what the police were saying.

By the time I left, all I wanted to do was to feel something tangible. Michael replied to my text message almost immediately – telling me that of course I could call round. He looked forward to it. He hoped I was okay.

A wave of something I couldn’t quite put my finger on washed over me. It was desire, mixed with affection, mixed with guilt. I looked at myself in the rear-view mirror, glad I’d fixed my make-up and brushed my hair at home. My look still screamed middle-aged teacher, but it was presentable. I didn’t look as haggard as I had earlier.

Guessing I could probably spend an hour at most with Michael before any suspicion was aroused, I set off, eager to get to him as soon as I could.

Michael lived in a house close to the Irish border at Ballyarnett. It was an old house that he was midway through renovating. Still a bit ragged around the edges, there were more than a few half-finished projects on the go; the kitchen was minimal and due to be replaced by something sleek and modern, the bathroom was basic but work had begun on replumbing, and a new floor had been laid in the living room. Half of the house’s rattling old windows had been replaced with double-glazing. The whole thing was starting to take shape, but Michael didn’t seem overly bothered about getting it done quickly. ‘I’d rather take my time and do it right,’ he’d said. And being a single man living alone he had the luxury of being able to do that.

We didn’t spend an awful lot of time there, anyway; in fact, I’d only been to his house a handful of times. Most of the time we’d spent together had been walking through the nearby country park and sitting in my car, talking and kissing, of course. His kisses took me to somewhere where I felt like an unburdened teenager again.

I rang his doorbell and he answered within seconds – a sight for sore eyes. Standing there in his jeans and a red T-shirt, his dark hair messy and curly, unshaven but with deep green eyes that looked at me with such concern I felt myself melt into them. He pulled me into a hug, a hug that I didn’t let Paul give me earlier. He told me he was so, so sorry for what happened. That he wished he could make it better for me.

He poured me a glass of wine, which I knew I shouldn’t drink because I had the car with me, but I gave in to the temptation anyway. Just as I gave in to the temptation of his kiss – his lips full, soft, determined. His hands roaming. His body pushing against mine. It was wrong, but it felt right. It felt as if it was the perfect thing to do – to allow my nerve endings to fizz into life as a big two fingers up to death.

I needed to feel alive. I needed him. So when he wordlessly led me from the kitchen up the stairs to his bedroom, I didn’t hesitate. When he took the wine glass from me and sat it on his bedside table – before gently pushing me back onto his unmade bed, his eyes filled with longing – I responded by reaching for his belt and unbuckling it, desperate to feel as alive as I possibly could.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked as I unzipped his jeans, reached my hand inside, desperate to touch him.

I couldn’t speak. I could only nod. I desperately needed him. I knew this was taking whatever it was we had to the next level, that there’d be no going back once we did this, but I was powerless to stop. Life was just too short not to get what I wanted any more.

We lay curled together afterwards, in the fading light of his room. Still half-dressed. Passion had taken over. The need to have him. I could feel his heart beating in his chest against my back as he held me.

‘I wish you didn’t have to go,’ he said, kissing my shoulder. ‘I’d love to have you to myself all night. To be there for you.’

I took his hand in mine. Revelled in how strong it felt. ‘I wish I could stay, too. I don’t want to go home and face reality.’

He pulled back a little and I rolled onto my back, looking up into his eyes.

‘Then don’t go home, Rachel. Stay here, with me. This is real,’ he said.

‘You know I can’t stay,’ I said. ‘Beth was so distraught. Molly’s so confused …’

‘And him?’ Michael asked, avoiding using Paul’s name as if saying it would conjure him into the room between us. ‘You have him, too.’

‘Yes, he’s there. But it’s not that simple. You know it’s complicated,’ I said as I reached up and stroked his face, tried to convince him that I cared. Properly cared.

I knew I was just sounding like a serial cheat now. Spouting the oldest line in the book. It couldn’t have been further from the truth. I’d never been tempted to stray before I met him. Not even once.

‘It’s not fair of me to ask, not now,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’ He turned away, sat up and started getting dressed. ‘Do you ever think, though, Rachel, especially at times like this, that you have a right to be truly happy? If you tell me that you’re happy with him and all he has to offer you, then that’s fine. I’ll find a way to deal with that.’ He turned to look at me while putting his T-shirt on. ‘But I don’t think you are happy and you don’t deserve to be miserable for the rest of your life. You don’t know what’s coming next, none of us do. Clare would agree, I’m sure.’

I showered when I got home, washing away any scent of Michael and what we’d done; let my guilt at having slept with another man wash down the drain along with the soapy water. I slipped into fresh pyjamas and lay down on top of the bed, it being too warm to climb under the covers. Exhaustion washed over me. I was just about to switch off the bedside light, when Paul walked in and sat down on the edge of the bed at my feet.

‘I’m sorry if I’ve handled this all wrong,’ he said. ‘I just don’t know what to say. I can’t get my head around it, so God knows what it’s like for you.’

‘It’s awful for me,’ I said, pulling myself up to sitting. ‘I don’t know how to deal with it either, Paul. My head hurts, and my heart hurts, and I don’t know what actually happened, or how. I don’t even know if I want to know – the very thought of it. That someone did this to her on purpose. They said blood loss, you know. That they thought she bled to death, and my mind just keeps going over and over that. And whoever it was, whatever monster did this, left her on the side of a road like a wounded animal.’ I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged them as my voice began to break; I was just so tired now and confused about how I felt about everything. ‘She didn’t deserve this, Paul. And her poor family – her mother and father, Ronan – how will they cope? I’m not sure I could even begin to.’

Paul shuffled up the bed and pulled me into a hug. I felt guilty as I allowed him to comfort me. Not only at what I’d done that evening, but also that I was letting this man hold me when my feelings increasingly lay elsewhere. I wasn’t being honest with him. The hug felt awkward at first, but then it was as if my body remembered how we fitted together, Paul and I. How we knew each other inside and out and, selfishly perhaps, I gave in to the softness of his hug, breathing in the familiar smell of him. I wondered, did he feel the same as I did? That we were falling into old roles, our awkwardness masked by the tragedy we were going through?

‘Do you know what happens next?’ he asked, still holding me close.

I shook my head. There would be a postmortem, if it hadn’t already been carried out. Beyond that I didn’t know. I hadn’t experienced this before.

‘I’d like to go and see her parents tomorrow, maybe see if Julie can come, too. I want them to know they aren’t alone in this.’ I pulled back from him and looked in his eyes, tried to read his face.

He nodded, tilted his head to the left slightly. ‘Hmmm, as long as you don’t feel they’d be too overwhelmed, you know, with loads of people arriving at the door.’

‘We all grew up together. We were in and out of each other’s houses as if they were our own. We’re not just “people” showing up for a look at their misery, you know.’

I was being sharp with him again. I knew it and I hated myself for it, but I wondered at how little he actually understood me. How could he not know I’d need to be there, with them? How was it that he no longer seemed to understand me at all?

‘That’s not what I meant,’ he said wearily.

‘I know, I’m sorry,’ I replied, deflated. The moment between us was gone. The closeness of our hug shattered. ‘I’m tired,’ I told him again and he moved to allow me space to lie down.

‘I’m going to watch TV for a bit,’ he said, leaving me alone in the darkness of our room.

Thursday, 7 June

Chapter Eight
Rachel

The following morning felt just as surreal as the previous day. We tried to keep things light as we got Molly ready for daycare, even though I wasn’t going to work. I couldn’t face it. I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate even if I was there. My sleep had been terrible, broken and filled with nightmares, and my head was thumping. Still, I wanted to keep things as normal as possible for Molly.

I threw back two paracetamol with my morning cup of coffee while Paul helped Molly into her favourite sandals. Beth was still asleep, having cried herself to sleep the night before. I’d already texted Julie and told her I’d call round after I dropped Molly off. We’d head to Clare’s parents from there.

It was something I felt I needed to do, but it wasn’t something I particularly relished. I was scared to see their grief up close. But there was something innate in that Irish-ness of having to be helpful following a death, how we could all spring into action, making sandwiches and tea, leading mourners through the house to view the remains and offer condolences.

There was no floral wreath or black ribbon on the door of the Taylors’ house, but the blinds were closed – more, I guessed, to try to ward off any intrusive members of the press than anything else.

After parking the car, Julie and I were set upon by a small but determined group of reporters hoping to get a topline to run with, or to strike gold and get an interview with Clare’s family.

I felt them swarm around me and while they were polite, it felt overwhelming. How did we know Clare? Were we related? Was there any more information? Was there any truth in the rumour that the police were hunting her boyfriend? Could we just, please, ask her parents to speak to them? Did we have a picture they could share?

Julie blinked at me, her eyes wide with panic. I clasped her hand tight in mine and politely told the reporters that I wouldn’t be answering any of their questions. Thankfully, the sight of a policeman at the door of the house was enough to stop them following us up the garden path. He looked us up and down, sizing us up.

‘We’re friends of Clare’s,’ I said. ‘Close friends. Ask Ronan or Mr and Mrs Taylor.’

He asked us to wait where we were while he went inside to check. We were expecting him to return, but it was Ronan, pale and exhausted-looking, who opened the door and let us in.

‘I’m so, so sorry,’ Julie said, throwing herself into his arms.

He didn’t speak for a moment, just hugged her back as they both cried. I stood awkwardly; there was an intimacy in their hug that made me feel like a third wheel.

When they pulled apart, Ronan gave me a hug, too, and I whispered my apologies for his loss. Never had words seemed so woefully inadequate.

‘My parents are upstairs, sleeping. It was a bad night, so we got the doctor to give them something first thing. I’ve told them they’ve to keep their strength up,’ Ronan said.

‘You’ve been here all night?’ I asked.

He nodded. ‘I didn’t want to leave them. They are so lost.’

‘Any more news?’ I asked as he ushered us into the kitchen.

Empty teacups were piled by the sink, testament to many visitors. Used to making herself at home, Julie emptied the teapot of cold tea and put on the kettle to make another. I filled the sink and started to wash up.

Ronan sat, shaking his head, staring into the middle distance. Trying to find the words he needed.

‘They still won’t tell us much,’ he said eventually. ‘They have to “protect their investigation”.’ He shook his head. ‘The postmortem was done last night. Did you know, they don’t do them here? They had to take her up to Belfast. We can’t even be with her, or near her, and they can’t release her body. Not “at this stage of the investigation”.’ He made quote signs with his fingers. Parroted what he’d been told. ‘We can’t bring her home. Can’t make any arrangements. They can’t tell us when we’ll be able to.’

Julie sat down across the table from him then reached out and took Ronan’s hands.

‘And yesterday. Did you see her?’

I stood, back to the sink, watching them. A tear rolled down Ronan’s cheek, which he brushed away quickly before taking a shuddering breath. Here was this grown man. This guy we’d all seen as cool and funny and untouchable in so many ways, and he was broken in front of us. My heart physically ached for him.

‘Mum couldn’t face it. Da and I went in together. They had her well covered up, you know, up to her chin almost. We were told they did that so we didn’t see the worst of her injuries. I don’t know if that just made it all worse. If I’d seen them, maybe I wouldn’t be imagining all sorts of horrors now.’

Or maybe he’d be plagued by the real horror of what he’d seen, I thought, but I didn’t speak.

‘I was still hoping, you know, until the last minute, that it wouldn’t be her and at first … God, it didn’t look like her. I thought they’d made a mistake. Her hair was all wrong, too dark. And her face seemed … I don’t know. It just wasn’t an expression I’d ever seen her pull. But Da gripped my arm so tight and I felt him buckle then he let out this noise like I’ve never heard before, and I knew it was her.’

I watched Julie squeeze his hand, rub his arm with her other hand. Tears ran unchecked down her face.

‘We’ve seen dead bodies before, right?’ he asked, looking at Julie and then up at me.

And of course we had, many times. It’s part of our culture to bring our dead home, wake them over the course of a few days and nights, spend time with them, ensuring they’re never left alone until they make their final journey.

‘She didn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen before. She was blue. Not even grey but blue and bruised. I could see the bloodstains on her ears, her face. Her hair was matted with blood. That’s why it looked all wrong. There was this huge graze on her cheek, as if she’d been dragged along the road. It was just a horror show.’ He broke down, gasping to gain his composure, while I tried to quell the nausea in the pit of my stomach. ‘We weren’t even allowed to touch her. I couldn’t hold her hand or kiss her forehead. I had to hold Da back … He wanted to hug her, but the police said it might interfere with evidence. Evidence? That’s all my sister is now. She can’t be touched by any of us until after the autopsy. I’ve never seen a man look so broken,’ Ronan said.

I realised I was crying too, and shaking. I wanted to shake the picture he’d just painted from my mind, focus on being there for him instead, but it was so hard.

‘They can’t get any information on the man she was seeing,’ he said. ‘They couldn’t find her phone. Her laptop was gone from her house. Why would that be? You know Clare. She always had that bloody phone on her. They’re going to access her phone records, see if it throws anything up.’ He looked up again. ‘Are you two sure she didn’t give you any details that might catch him?’

I shook my head. I wished I did know more. I wished I could point the police directly at him. I wished I could go and take him on myself. Ask him if it was him. Show him exactly what I thought of him.

‘So they definitely think he did it, then?’ Julie asked. ‘That’s who they want?’

‘Who else could it be?’ Ronan asked. ‘You know Clare … knew Clare. She didn’t have any enemies.’

Julie shrugged. ‘Could it have been random?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. But with the missing phone … something’s not right. They need to find this guy and quick. God knows if I find him first, the police won’t get a look-in.’

Ronan looked exhausted, as if he wouldn’t have the physical strength to take anyone on. I wondered if he’d had any sleep at all.

‘How are you holding up?’ I asked.

He gave a short, cold laugh. ‘I don’t know what side’s up. I feel so helpless. I can’t make it better. I’m trying to be here for my parents as much as possible, but you know, Jenny needs me home with the kids, as well. It’s hard to get the balance right.’

‘I’m sure Jenny understands,’ Julie said. ‘Your parents need you.’

‘My kids need me, too,’ he said, pulling a face as if he were mimicking the words of his wife. ‘I know they do, you know. But I’m only one person and I can’t split myself in two.’

‘You have to be careful you don’t burn out,’ I told him.

‘That’s what Patricia says. The family liaison officer. You’ll meet her soon, no doubt. She was just calling at the station and then she said she’d be over. She says I’ve to keep myself strong and well.’

Julie nodded. ‘She’s right.’

‘And the media camped at your door? I assume she’ll deal with them?’ I asked.

‘We’re planning what to do, if we need to do a TV appeal, that kind of thing. It’s all so strange. As if it’s happening to someone else but at the same time, I know it’s happening to us. I just wish I knew why.’

‘The police asked me about James,’ Julie said. ‘You don’t think it could be him, do you?’

It had been four years since Clare’s marriage had officially ended, following two years of repeated attempts to patch things up and try again. It was James who’d made the final call to walk away once and for all.

I shook my head. ‘I don’t see it. He wanted out – she’d have given him her whole life and more. It was his choice to end things when push came to shove. They both worked through it and isn’t he with someone else now, anyway?’

‘Maybe he wasn’t happy about her seeing someone new,’ Julie offered. ‘He didn’t want her but he didn’t want anyone else to have her.’

‘I wouldn’t put it past him,’ Ronan said bitterly.

But no, I knew in my heart it wasn’t James. He had no reason to hurt her. He was no saint, but he’d been a part of our gang of friends for ten years – surely we’d have known if he had the capability to snap like that? Grief was clearly making Ronan clutch at whatever straws he could see.

‘In so many of these things, it’s the husband or the partner or whatever. We’d be stupid to discount him,’ Ronan said while Julie nodded.

‘Well, I’m sure the police’ll speak to him, but I think it’s more important to find whoever this mystery man was that she was seeing. Don’t you all think it odd not one of us had met him, or knew his name even? And where is he now? His girlfriend’s been murdered. If he has nothing to hide, why hasn’t he come forward?’

Ronan shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I don’t understand any of it. Maybe he’s married and coming forward would risk his marriage.’

‘If he’s married, and is cheating, I’ve no sympathy for him,’ Julie sniffed. ‘I hope he gets hauled in front of the media. Scumbag.’

A shiver ran through me. What would they think if they knew about Michael and me?

Chapter Nine
Elizabeth

I lifted my keys and told Izzy I wouldn’t be long. She looked at me mournfully, wanting to go on an adventure with me. But this wasn’t much of an adventure. This was just something I felt I had to do.

I’d been the last person to speak with Clare Taylor. If I could bring an ounce of comfort to her parents, it was only right that I did so.

I hadn’t been able to speak to DI Bradley that morning. He was busy, which was hardly surprising. But I had been able to speak to a friendly-sounding woman called Patricia Hopkins, the family liaison officer, and she’d okayed it for me to call round to the Taylor household. She’d be there to meet me, she said. ‘I think it really could help them greatly to know their daughter wasn’t alone when she passed,’ she said, which is exactly what I’d hoped she’d say.

Still, my heart was thumping when I arrived outside their house and saw the street lined with cars. There were huddles of photographers and reporters standing around, dressed in summer frocks and short-sleeved shirts. There was an air of informality to it that I didn’t care for. I saw some laugh as they talked to each other, slugging from bottles of cool water. I knew they were only doing their jobs but it felt ghoulish. They were waiting for a soundbite of misery. I’m sure they couldn’t have enjoyed it all that much, either. I’d seen reporters over the years breaking down under the pressure of covering some of those horrific atrocities.

I nodded an acknowledgement in their direction, wondered if they’d come running to me for a statement. Then again, they didn’t know who I was. What I’d seen. How I’d held her hand. If only they knew, they’d be all over me. I kept my head down, hoped that the natural invisibility that seemed to come with being a woman of a certain age would stop me from beeping on their radar.

They say you know you’re getting on in years when policemen and doctors start to look unconscionably young. The uniformed police officer at the door of the Taylors’ house looked as if he had yet to start shaving. He’d a nervous disposition about him, a natural air of suspicion in how he looked me up and down. It was laughable, really. It was hardly as if I posed any kind of threat to him.

I introduced myself as Mrs O’Loughlin, asked to speak with Constable Hopkins, the FLO – as Patricia had directed.

He nodded and opened the door, directing me through.

‘Patricia, Mrs O’Loughlin’s here,’ he called.

I was surprised and a little reassured to hear his voice had broken.

A short woman, with cropped dark hair and a friendly face, walked out of the kitchen and reached her hand out to welcome me. Her handshake was firm and I wondered whether or not she could feel my own hand trembling in hers.

‘Thank you for coming, Mrs O’Loughlin. I’m sure it’ll be a real help to the Taylors to hear from you.’

‘Please, Constable,’ I said, ‘call me Elizabeth.’

She nodded with a small smile. ‘I will do, and you must just call me Patricia. I’m here as support for the family at this very difficult time. We like to keep things informal. It helps everyone.’

I nodded and followed as she led me through to the small kitchen where three adults, two women and a man were sitting around the table drinking tea. I guessed they were all around the same age as poor Clare had been. Were they siblings, or cousins?

They looked at me and to Patricia as I stood awkwardly, waiting for an introduction.

‘Ronan,’ she said, ‘this is Elizabeth O’Loughlin, the lady who was with Clare yesterday morning when she passed.’

The man in front me, his eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion, got to his feet and crossed the room. He stretched his arms wide and pulled me into a hug. I could feel him shaking, heard him say ‘Thank you’ over and over. I felt like a fraud. Sure, what was there to thank me for? I’d done nothing. I hadn’t saved her. Maybe if he knew I was a nurse who didn’t save her his welcome wouldn’t be so warm.

‘Ronan’s Clare’s older brother,’ I heard Patricia say, just as I heard the two women who’d been sitting with him excuse themselves.

‘We’ll give you some space,’ one of them said.

I wanted some space just then. Needed some air. I felt guilt and sorrow wrap around me just as Ronan’s arms did.

‘Maybe you’d like a seat, Elizabeth,’ I heard Patricia say and Ronan pulled away from me.

Patricia just looked at me sympathetically. She’d known I was feeling overwhelmed, or she was familiar enough with horrible events like these to assume that I would be.

‘Thank you,’ I said, sitting down on one of the pine kitchen chairs.

‘Tea or coffee?’ Patricia asked.

‘Tea, please,’ I said as Ronan tried to compose himself, wiping his eyes with a tissue.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, I just don’t know how to thank you enough.’

‘I didn’t do anything, really,’ I said, feeling my face blaze. I didn’t like being thanked for my woeful inadequacy.

‘She wasn’t alone, at the end …’ he said. ‘The police told us you were holding her hand. Had put your jacket over her. That means a lot.’

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

‘Did she say anything? Did she speak at all?’ he asked.

I was aware of Patricia close by. She’d asked me not to reveal what Clare had said to me. That it was sensitive to the case. I didn’t want to lie – that felt wrong – but I had to do what Patricia had asked, so I shook my head. I watched Ronan deflate in front of my eyes. Watched as Patricia took in every detail of our exchange.

‘She wasn’t really conscious, slipping in and out, you know …’ I told him. ‘I doubt she’d have been too aware of anything around her at that stage.’

‘But you held her hand?’ he asked.

‘I put my coat over her and called the emergency services, then I held her hand. Pleaded with her to hang on. She was just too ill.’

I felt a tear roll down my cheek. Saw images of her poor, mutilated body flash before my eyes. I shuddered. Patricia placed a cup of tea in front of me.

‘It’s a great comfort to my parents to know someone was with her,’ Ronan said.

‘Mr and Mrs Taylor are sleeping at the moment; it was a bad night for them,’ Patricia explained.

‘I can imagine,’ I said softly.

Although that wasn’t quite true. I didn’t need to imagine. I knew exactly how it felt to lose a child in the most horrific of circumstances.

Chapter Ten
Rachel

I was exhausted, physically and emotionally, by the time I got home. I’d picked Molly up from crèche and had done my best to pretend everything was normal, but I could feel my facade slipping.

Spending time with Ronan, and then his parents, had been harrowing. It had made it too real. Mrs Taylor was the kind of woman who was always impeccably dressed and made up. She used to give us girls make-up lessons when we were teens – warning us against the dangers of going overboard on the rouge or choosing the wrong shade of lipstick. I’d never seen her without her make-up before – not even when I’d had a sleepover at Clare’s. Yet, there she’d been, her face pale, devoid of its usual glam look, her hair pulled into a loose bun, wearing a pair of black trousers and a jumper that seemed to swamp her. She’d looked so small, so vulnerable that it had shaken me, but at least she’d been able to talk to us. Mr Taylor – this big teddy bear of a man with a booming voice and an even louder laugh – just sat silently, staring into a mug of tea that he didn’t once lift to his lips.

Julie had been silent on the drive back to hers. I’d been grateful for it. There wasn’t much we could say to each other. We both knew how awful this was.

But when I’d picked Molly up, I’d plastered on a wide smile and pulled her into a hug that was probably a little tighter than it should have been.

‘Why are you hugging me so tightly? Mammy! You’re hurting me!’

I loosened my grip and she squirmed away from me. I wanted to pull her back into my arms, but I didn’t. I thought of Mrs Taylor, though – all the times she must have held Clare to her and never imagined that this was how things would turn out.

How could anyone have imagined this?

Beth was already home when I opened the door. If I wasn’t mistaken, I could smell the makings of a bolognese on the hob.

My eldest daughter walked into the hall to greet me. Still in her pyjamas, her eyes still red, it was clear she was still hurting. All I wanted to do was protect her.

‘I’ve put some dinner on,’ she said, shrugging in that awkward way teenagers do.

I knew she was trying to make life easier for me and I loved her so much for it. I pulled her into a hug. The same tight hug I’d given her little sister before. Beth didn’t wriggle away, though; she just hugged me harder.

‘I love you,’ I whispered.

‘I love you too, Mum,’ she answered, without a hint of her usual teenage sarcasm.

When we pulled apart, she took Molly into the living room to put the TV on for her while I walked through the kitchen to check on dinner. A bouquet of flowers, in hues of red and purple, sat in a vase on the table.

‘Beth? Where did these flowers come from?’

Beth popped her head out of the door. ‘They were delivered earlier. I meant to text you. They’re from your work, I think.’

I was touched by the gesture of my colleagues. I walked to the table and lifted the little white envelope from the arrangement. Opening it, I saw a message that made my heart soar then sink in quick succession:

Thinking of you at this difficult time

All our love,

Michelle and all your colleagues at NWRC

‘Michelle’ – I knew immediately the flowers were from Michael. It was a nice gesture but a risky one. I knew he was just reaching out and after what we’d done the night before, I knew that things had shifted between us. But this was outside of my comfort zone. Paul would never have heard me talk about a ‘Michelle’, either in my day job or at my nightclasses. He’d wonder why ‘she’ put her name specifically on the card. He could ask questions. Get suspicious.

I was both touched and angry with Michael for putting me in this position. Beth had seen them. Paul could have. He might have, for all I knew. He was working from the Derry branch that day and hadn’t returned to his bolthole in Belfast. He might have come home at lunchtime to check on Beth.

I swore under my breath, contemplated ripping the card up and binning it, but then I remembered just how Michael made me feel. Desired. Wanted. Loved. Special. It had been such a long time since anyone made me feel special. I put the card back in the envelope and slipped it into my handbag.

I’d send him a text. Thank him but remind him of the need to be careful.

I didn’t want to risk Paul finding out, largely because, I realised, I didn’t want to risk having to give up Michael. With everything that was happening, I needed him in my life more than ever.

Friday, 8 June

Chapter Eleven
Rachel

There was a moment when I woke up the following morning when everything was as it should be. Nothing had changed. I lay in the early morning sunlight and listened to the gentle snore of the man I’d married beside me. Passing thoughts of the summer holidays went through my head. Having two children so far apart in age had made it hard to find a holiday that would suit them both. We’d opted for a villa with a pool and allowed Beth to ask a friend along.

I smiled, thinking of Molly – who’d already thrown a couple of dolls and a swimming suit into her Trunki suitcase. Yes, she’d been a bit of a surprise when she’d arrived. The result of too much wine, a missed pill and caution being thrown to the wind. But she was so precious to me. And to her daddy, too. I’d give him that much. He was a doting father. It was almost as if he’d taken all the love and attention he used to give me and simply transferred it to his beautiful baby girl. I supposed she was easier to love than I was.

I yawned, glancing at the alarm clock. It would go off soon. The day would begin. And that’s when it swooped in again. The reality of what was happening. I’d have to go back to work. They’d only be understanding to a point – and I couldn’t let my pupils down – but the very thought of it intimidated me. My head was too full of the horror of what was happening in my life to stand in front of a classroom and pretend to be normal. This wasn’t normal.

I sat up, turned off the alarm clock before it beeped and made my way downstairs to make a coffee. I’d take this time to myself to gather my thoughts before the rest of the household woke.

Sitting at the kitchen table, coffee cup in hand, I scrolled through my phone. It was filled with messages about Clare, questions – people I’d barely spoken to in years wanting all the juicy gossip. Facebook wasn’t much better. A grief fest. Everyone who’d ever seen Clare before making a claim on her and how much they’d miss her.

There were no new leads from the police. There’d be a press conference in the afternoon. I wondered if Ronan and his parents were preparing to make a statement, after all. Would they be like those poor families you saw on TV, blinking and crying in front of all the flashing lights and cameras. Stunned by their grief and this horrendous way of getting fifteen minutes of fame.

Michael hadn’t replied to my message. The one where I’d thanked him for the flowers but urged discretion. I didn’t like that. It made me nervous. I chewed on my thumbnail as I contemplated calling him to make sure everything was okay. But it was barely gone seven in the morning and it would be risky to have a phone conversation in the house at this time. What if the girls woke? Or Paul?

I thought of Michael’s words to me just after we’d slept together. How he’d asked me whether I thought I deserved to be happy. Had what happened with Clare not shown me how life was short and I should grab at happiness?

It wasn’t as simple as that though, was it? I had daughters. A house. A job. A reputation. A mortgage, for goodness’ sake. I deleted my messages to ‘Michelle’ – I’d been selfish for wanting him … for needing him. Other people relied on me to be there for them. To be strong and stable. Even when things weren’t always going well.

For better and for worse, that was how it went, wasn’t it? Had I been looking for an easy escape from the harder times – fooling myself with romantic notions for a man who hadn’t even messaged me back?

I slipped my phone into my bag, finished my coffee and wondered quite what the hell I was doing with my life. Wondered if I was just a stupid woman enduring a midlife crisis and justifying my selfish actions to myself in whatever way I could. Maybe this was how it was supposed to be. After so many years of marriage. So many years of raising children and being sensible. Maybe I was stupid to expect anything more than simply working together like a team, managing the house and the family we’d created together. Stupid and vain and desperate for male attention. Why couldn’t I just be content with what I had?

Chapter Twelve
Elizabeth

I’d had that nightmare again. The one where I was with Laura but not with her. I’m watching her go through the last hours and minutes of her life and it’s as if I’m watching from behind a screen. I keep trying to reach out to her, but my hand only ever gets close. I never make contact. I can only ever reach out with my bad arm – the one that doesn’t work properly. No matter how much I try to use my other arm, it won’t move.

I call to her to wait for me, but she disappears, or the scene changes, or it gets too dark. I’m watching her as she tries to phone me, reaches my voicemail but doesn’t leave a message. I’m shouting at her to speak. ‘Leave a message, Laura! Let me hear your voice one more time!’

Maybe if I’d got a message, things would have been different. I wouldn’t have ignored a message the same way I’d ignored a missed call. I’d promised myself I’d call her back later, but I never got the chance. In the dream, she doesn’t hear me shouting. I’m stomping my feet, and banging cupboard doors and shouting until my throat hurts and my stomach constricts with the effort of it. I’m throwing things – hoping if I don’t reach her, don’t touch her, they will. They’ll distract her. They’ll get through to her.

I’m begging and pleading and shouting as I watch her walk out of her house, away from her husband, away from her children, away from me. I’m praying to Paddy, imploring him in his heavenly seat to get through to her. Pleading with a dead man, as if that would ever work. ‘Please, Paddy. Stop her. Stop our girl. Let her know she can’t leave me. It’s bad enough you’re not here.’

I run to the door to follow her, but I can’t open it. It won’t open. The locks keep disappearing and changing and locking again, and all the time I’m screaming at her not to go.

That was how it usually went. It had been different this time, though. I’d crumpled to the floor, shouting and crying, and turned to see Clare Taylor sitting at the bottom of the stairs shaking her head. She was smiling – a weird, twisted kind of smile. It unnerved me. Her hand reached out to mine, just as I’d tried to reach out to Laura. I expected not to quite get close enough. I expected us just to miss each other, just as I always missed Laura’s hand. But I felt Clare’s hand, in my dream. It was holding mine, squeezing it. I looked in her eyes and she told me again to ‘Warn them’ – I just didn’t know who ‘they’ were.

I woke with a start, a cold sweat drenching me despite the heat. My breathing was laboured. I didn’t want Clare in my dreams. I wanted Laura. I wanted to hold her hand and feel her hand. Not this woman I didn’t know. I didn’t want the trauma of what I’d shared with her to take my daughter from my dreams – no matter how harrowing those dreams had been. At least it had been Laura in them. At least she’d been alive in my imagination.

I sat up, aware of the first signs of light in the sky outside. I hugged my knees to me, looked to the empty side of the bed. I’d never get used to it. Paddy being gone. It had been seven years and still I never allowed so much as my foot to slip over to the space where he once lay. This house had known too much loss and too much pain. I sat and rocked myself until my heartbeat settled.

I’d call that DI Bradley as soon as was appropriate and I’d ask him more questions. Ask him if he was warning anyone. Surely I had a right to know that? I shouldn’t have to carry that burden on my shoulders alone.

‘The investigation is at a very sensitive stage,’ Patricia had told me after I’d sat drinking tea with the Taylors – both of them too numb with shock to talk to me. ‘I know that our methods might seem a little strange, but please bear with us,’ she told me.

I’d nodded. Agreed. Because that was what I did. I nodded and agreed with people – did what I was told. Meanwhile, I was being haunted in my dreams by that poor woman and I’d never forgive myself – ever – if anyone else got hurt.

DI Bradley led me through a series of dull and uninspiring corridors until we reached a small and equally uninspiring office. It was tired-looking; dank and depressing. I saw he was tired, too. In fact, he looked exhausted – his shirt wrinkled. His face unshaven. The room had a musty smell to it – as if someone had slept there, grabbed a few hours when they could.

‘You look done in,’ I said as I sat down.

‘It’s been a busy forty-eight hours, Mrs O’Loughlin. Busy and frustrating.’

‘You’ll have to be careful not to burn yourself out,’ I said.

I’d seen it before, police officers chasing a case until they had nothing left to give.

‘I’ll be going home in a bit,’ he said. ‘Grab a couple of hours’ kip, get a shower. Be back here for the press conference. Now, what can I help you with? Have you remembered anything else?’

I shook my head. ‘No, it’s not that. I’m very grateful you’ve taken the time to see me. I just feel uneasy about it all. I know maybe I’ve no right to keep asking what’s happening, but that poor girl told me to warn people and I’ve made myself sick with worry that I’ve not been able to warn anyone. Patricia – Constable Hopkins – asked me not to say anything to the family.’

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sat back in his chair. ‘I know this must be very difficult for you. We’re asking you to stick with us. Just as it’s important that information gets out there, it’s important that some information is held back – for the sake of the investigation. I’m not at liberty to go into it all, but we have good operational reasons.’

Frustration niggled at me. ‘But what if someone else gets hurt? Won’t it be my fault then? I mean, it’s bad enough now, knowing I couldn’t help her. I don’t want to feel worse if something happens to someone else. And I felt awful lying to her family yesterday – telling them she hadn’t said anything. I mean, they’ll find out eventually, won’t they? They’ll think me a liar. I don’t understand why they haven’t been told.’

‘This is a complex investigation,’ DI Bradley said. ‘We have to play our cards close to our chest at the moment until we’re able to identify a clear suspect. We have concerns that revealing her last words could, in fact, place you in a position of some jeopardy.’

My heart thudded. ‘Me? Why?’

‘Because if there are more people out there who this killer might target, you warning them might make him, or her, unhappy.’

I felt sick. Why had no one mentioned to me before that I could possibly be in danger? Didn’t I have a right to know?

‘We’re doing our best to protect your identity. We’ve not released any of your details to the press; nor have they been discussed outside the confines of the incident room.’

He must have noticed the colour draining from me. The police may have kept it under wraps, but I’d been to see the Taylors. Had they been warned to say nothing about my identity? And those two women who’d been drinking tea with Ronan in the kitchen. Who were they?

‘Mrs O’Loughlin, at the moment we have no reason to believe at all that you’re in any danger,’ DI Bradley said, cutting through my thoughts. ‘We intend on it staying that way, but we’re reviewing the situation as often as the need arises.’

I nodded, but I couldn’t push down the nausea increasing in my stomach, nor stop the thudding of my heart. I’d have to check all the locks in the house. Get that security light in the yard fixed. It had broken at least six months ago and I’d kept meaning to get it looked at.

‘The investigation’s proving more complex than we thought,’ he said. ‘We hope the press conference later will jog some memories or bring some more information to light. We just ask that in the meantime you trust us and trust what we’re doing.’

I was hardly in a position to say no.

As I left the police station and walked out into the hot morning air, the brightness of the sun in my eyes, I felt a growing sense of unease wash over me. I cursed myself for going for my walk on Wednesday morning. I should have stayed inside. Things would have been easier if I’d just stayed inside.

My body tensed, my muscles aching. Stress, they say, makes every ache and pain flare up. Fibromyalgia, the doctor told me. On top of the nerve damage from my fall. Physical pain to match the mental anguish I lived with every day.

As I walked my ageing, aching body back to my car, part of me hoped that whoever it was that had brought this horrific end to Clare Taylor would come back and end my life, too.

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