About the Author

Diane Jeffrey is a USA Today bestselling author. She grew up in North Devon, in the United Kingdom. She now lives in Lyon, France, with her husband and their three children, Labrador and cat.

Diane’s debut psychological thriller, Those Who Lie, was a Kindle bestseller in the UK, the USA, Canada and Australia. He Will Find You, set in the Lake District and Somerset, is her second novel. The Guilty Mother, Diane’s third book, was a USA Today bestseller and spent several weeks in the top 100 Kindle chart in the UK. The Silent Friend is her fourth book.

Diane is an English teacher. When she’s not working or writing, she likes swimming, running and reading. She loves chocolate, beer and holidays. Above all, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends.

Readers can follow Diane on Twitter [https://twitter.com/dianefjeffrey] or on Facebook [https://facebook.com/dianejeffreyauthor] and find out more about her books on her website [https://www.dianejeffrey.com/].

Praise for Diane Jeffrey

‘Tense and compelling, a genuinely thrilling read’ Elizabeth Haynes

‘Brimming with tension, riddled with doubt and suspicion, insidious and compelling with a terrifying ending that had me catching my breath’ Sue Fortin

‘A tense, gripping domestic noir that shows just how fast the dream of a new life can turn into your worst nightmare’ T.M. Logan

‘A scorchingly good thriller’ Lisa Hall

‘This is a must read for anyone who lives to delve into psychological thrillers!’ Linda Strong

‘With brilliant main characters and a wonderful plot, this book is a real page-turner. I would highly recommend this book’ Stephanie Collins

‘I absolutely adored this book’ Lu Dex

‘Great book … keeps you guessing!! If you love twists and turns then this book is for you!’ Diane Merrit

‘With twists and turns that will wrong-foot you all the way, a dash of dark humour and a strong emotional punch, this is an excellent debut that more than earns its place within the genre’ S.J.I. Holliday

Also By Diane Jeffrey

The Guilty Mother

He Will Find You

Those Who Lie

The Silent Friend
DIANE JEFFREY

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

Copyright © Diane Jeffrey

Diane Jeffrey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © November 2020 ISBN: 9780008404710

Version: 2020-10-01

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Praise for Diane Jeffrey

Also By Diane Jeffrey

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Reading Group Questions

Extract

Dear Reader …

Keep Reading …

About the Publisher

For Anne,

My beta reader, cousin and friend,

With my love and gratitude.

Un grand merci à toi.

xxx

“The band that seems to tie their friendship together will be the very strangler of their amity.”

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, Scene 6

Prologue

I wonder how you knew. I keep replaying our whole conversation in my head, but I can’t pinpoint what gave it away. I’m glad you found out. Relieved. I should have told you the truth months ago, but I’ve grown fond of you and I was scared of losing you.

When you carry a shameful secret inside you, it becomes a heavy burden that weighs you down. The longer you put off telling the truth, the harder it gets. You try to paint as accurate a picture as possible, but in the end you add another coat of lies. And then another. Until you almost believe in the alternative reality you’ve depicted.

You know what it’s like. You were also hiding something. You tried to tell me your secret, but I was the last person you should have told. I reacted badly. I was unsympathetic. What I should have said was that none of what happened was your fault. I am culpable, but not you.

If I could go back, would I do things differently? I don’t think so. What choice did I have? If I’d been honest with you from the start, you would never have befriended me. Our friendship was important to me. I’m truly sorry that things turned out this way. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.

Chapter 1
7 MONTHS BEFORE
Laura

As Laura entered the flat, her phone pinged with a text. She groaned. It was time to make up her mind. But after mulling things over for the last fortnight, she was still indecisive. Kicking the front door closed behind her, she dumped her handbag and shopping on the floor.

It was always dark and gloomy in her flat, even on sunny days like that Saturday. Although poky, it was her refuge, and at the end of a working day, she liked to shut herself off from the outside world and relax with a book or a film. She kept the place obsessively clean and tidy, although no amount of bleach and polish masked the smell of damp.

‘I’m home,’ she called out, shrugging out of her coat and slipping off her shoes. Harry barely acknowledged her from his usual place on the sofa.

‘Lazy cat,’ she muttered affectionately, picking up her bags and making her way into the kitchen.

She put away the shopping before fishing her mobile out of her handbag to read the message. Just as she’d thought. It was from Claire.

You have to come.

Please.

xoxo

Laura couldn’t go. How could she get out of it this time? Last year, Claire had found cheap flights from Belfast International to Alicante. She’d tried to talk Laura into going with her and the others. A whole week in August. It would be great craic, according to Claire, all that sea, sun and sangria.

Her mother had said something catty. She usually did. How her father had put up with her for so long was beyond Laura. She’d been like that even before he died, although she became worse afterwards, when he was no longer around to keep her in check. Laura remembered her mother’s words as if it were yesterday. ‘Better ditch the bikini,’ she’d said. ‘They’ll mistake you for a beached whale.’

Laura wasn’t nearly as fat as her mother liked to make out. A little overweight, yes, but she was surely of average build for a citizen of Northern Ireland. And she didn’t even own a bikini. Cursed with a ghoulishly white Celtic complexion, Laura tended to stay out of the sun. Which was one of the reasons she didn’t go to Spain.

Even so, she’d been flattered that her colleagues had asked her to go to Alicante with them and grateful that Claire included her all the time. They were poles apart, she and Claire. Laura had freckles, eyes the colour of seaweed and scraggly ginger hair whereas Claire was skinny with cobalt blue eyes and long shiny jet-black hair. She was beautiful. Popular, too. Everyone at the library adored her.

In the end, Laura had lied. She said she’d been invited to the wedding of one of her cousins. She had twelve cousins on her mother’s side, and they were all married except for one: Declan. Same-sex marriage would have to be legalized in Northern Ireland before Declan and his partner could get married. But Laura’s colleagues knew nothing about her family and so, as implausible as that excuse was, it got her out of the trip.

Afterwards, she’d listened to the suntanned girls reminiscing about their holiday in Spain. They talked about nothing else for a week. The weather was lovely! We were bladdered! The paella was cracker! Spanish men have such firm arses! It had all made Laura rather envious.

In turn, Laura told them a bit about the fictitious wedding. She’d spent hours during the holidays devouring novels. As the main characters tied the knot at the end of a few of her summer reads, she used that for inspiration.

She made herself a cup of tea now. Sitting next to Harry on the sofa and cradling the mug in her hands, Laura thought of all the reasons she couldn’t go this year. A week in France.

‘Who would look after you for a start?’ she said to Harry, stroking his soft fur.

Plus, she didn’t have a passport. Deep down she knew these were excuses rather than reasons not to go. She could easily apply for a passport and her neighbour, Mrs Doherty, would happily take in the cat.

She’d have to make up a story. Perhaps she could buy her flights – Claire said they were cheap – and then drop out at the last minute. One of her uncles could die or her mum could break her leg. Then it wouldn’t look like she hadn’t wanted to go in the first place.

Lyon. That was this year’s destination. There were direct flights from Dublin. Laura had never been to France. She’d never been abroad unless you counted their family holidays on the mainland. They’d taken the ferry to Scotland – from Larne to Stranraer – four or five times when she was little, when her dad was still alive. But she’d never taken the plane.

And this was the main reason Laura didn’t want to go. She had an irrational fear of flying. Her stomach pitched at the thought of boarding an aircraft. She couldn’t stand the idea of putting her life into the hands of a pilot she couldn’t see. She knew it was safer to travel by plane than by any other means of transport, but that didn’t help. She didn’t mind taking the boat. She could swim if the worst came to the worst, or at least stay afloat until help came. But if something went wrong in the plane, she couldn’t fly. Or hover. This was why she’d bottled out of going to Spain the previous year. Silly, but there it was.

But France tempted her more than Spain. A lot more. Laura was a Francophile. She’d taken French A-level and gone on to read French at Queen’s. She read novels in French, her favourite writers being Guy de Maupassant and Marcel Pagnol; she watched old French films, especially by New Wave cineastes; and listened to France Info every day on the radio. She’d always wanted to go to France. It was just that she’d imagined travelling there by boat as far as Scotland or England, then by train and on the Eurostar.

Lyon. What did she know about Lyon? Not a lot. Nothing whatsoever, come to think of it. It was quite far south, wasn’t it? She googled it on her smartphone and scrolled through the Wikipedia page. South-East France, foot of the Alps. The basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière … Silk weaving … Fête des Lumières festival … Frères Lumière cinema … Roman theatre … Interpol … gastronomy.

Claire wanted to go to Lyon simply because The Naturals were playing there in August. The local rock band was playing on their doorstep in March – in the SSE Arena in Belfast, which would have been a lot handier, but tickets had sold out in less than ten minutes when they’d gone on sale six months previously. The Naturals were performing at two venues in France – Paris and Lyon. Claire said hotel prices in Paris for August were astronomical. So Lyon it was.

Lyon wasn’t by the sea. There would be no risk of turning red like a cooked lobster at the end of a day on the beach. Plus Laura loved The Naturals. They’d long been her favourite band. Her cousin Declan was friends with the bass guitarist – they’d been at school together. Connor, that was his name. She met him once before he was famous after a gig he and his group had done in The Dirty Onion. He was a ride, Connor. Not very tall, but muscular. She’d loved his smile and the mischievous twinkle in his clear blue eyes.

She looked up, catching her image reflected in the black TV screen. She gave herself a stern look while she thought things over. An opportunity. That’s what this trip was. Declan was always saying she should do something out of her comfort zone.

Picking up her mobile, she texted Claire.

OK! Count me in!

Claire’s reply came straight back.

Yay! You won’t regret it!

xoxo

Laura hoped Claire was right. But as she climbed into bed that night, she already regretted her decision. She couldn’t put her finger on why exactly, but going on holiday with her friends to France seemed like a very bad idea. She wrestled with a strange gut feeling she was heading towards some inevitable disaster. Pulling her covers up to her chin, Laura closed her eyes and told herself she was being ridiculous.

Chapter 2
7 MONTHS BEFORE
Sandrine

Sandrine shook Antoine as he lay in his bed, the covers kicked off onto the floor. He didn’t respond, his body warm and yet seemingly lifeless. Was he ill? She spent her life worrying about one child or the other, even though her elder son was now officially an adult and her younger son wasn’t far behind.

‘Antoine,’ she said, shaking him again, ‘you’re going to be late for work.’

He opened one eye, looked at her, then closed it again. ‘I’ve set the alarm on my phone,’ he said.

‘You won’t have time for breakfast if you don’t get up now.’

‘I work in a supermarket, Maman. The bakery there has croissants and pains au chocolat. And they have freshly squeezed orange juice.’

‘You won’t work there for much longer if you arrive late,’ she said playfully, picking up the quilt from the floor and throwing it over him. Pulling it over his head, Antoine groaned.

‘If you hadn’t stopped my pocket money, I wouldn’t have to work there at all,’ came his muffled voice. ‘I could have a lie-in on Saturdays like Maxime.’

Sandrine didn’t know if he was joking or not. She glanced around his room. As usual, it was tidy and orderly, unlike his younger brother’s bedroom. Even the posters on Antoine’s wall were neatly aligned. His clothes were folded in a neat pile on a chair by his bed whereas Maxime always left his clothes discarded in a heap on the floor.

She smiled to herself, marvelling, not for the first time, at how alike her boys were, and yet at the same time how different. They couldn’t have looked more similar if they’d been cloned. They had the same features, the same expressions and gestures. Sandrine and her husband Sam sometimes mistook one for the other in their photo albums. They had to examine the pictures closely to work out who was who. Max didn’t have the green flecks in his eyes that Antoine did and Antoine’s eyebrows were darker and more sharply defined.

Not only did they look alike, they also liked many of the same things – video games, jigsaw puzzles, fishing, the beach and the sea, dogs and cats. They had the same tastes in music: R&B, rap and rock. But Antoine was bookish while Max preferred the outdoors. Max had been cuddly as a child and was still affectionate whereas from a young age, Antoine had been fiercely independent and detached.

Antoine’s alarm went off, cutting off Sandrine’s thoughts. She left the room and went to join Sam for breakfast.

‘Do you think he’s depressed?’ she asked Sam.

‘No! You worry too much,’ he said fondly as she sat down opposite him at the kitchen table.

She couldn’t help worrying about her boys. That was her job as their mother. Indeed, she felt that bringing up her children was her only job, as she’d given up teaching years ago when Antoine was born. She’d intended to go back to work, but it hadn’t been necessary financially and she’d enjoyed her role as a stay-at-home parent. She had friends and didn’t feel isolated. Perhaps she’d get back into teaching – at least give some private lessons – once the boys left home. That might distract her from feeling grief over an empty nest when the time came.

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ she said. ‘I’m just concerned about him, you know, since … well, what happened with Océane.’

Sam reached across the table and put a hand on her arm. ‘That was months ago,’ he said. ‘I doubt he even gives her a thought these days.’

Sandrine wasn’t so sure. Antoine had told her he wanted to marry Océane. He’d been smitten. It had been a few months since Océane had broken up with him, but she didn’t think Antoine was over it yet. It was as if a light had gone out behind his eyes and hadn’t yet come back on. He didn’t smile as much. He didn’t laugh at all.

Antoine sauntered into the kitchen a few minutes later, dressed with his hair combed. Standing at the worktop, he tore off a hunk of baguette, and took a bite.

‘Catch you later,’ he said, his mouth full, waving the bread as he made for the front door.

‘Have a nice day,’ Sam called after Antoine, but he got no reply other than the sound of the front door slamming shut. ‘See?’ Sam said, turning back to Sandrine. ‘He’s a typical teen.’

When Maxime emerged, sporting a bedhead and pyjamas, Sandrine and Sam had almost finished their breakfast. He kissed first Sandrine then Sam on both cheeks.

His back turned to them as he made himself toast, he said, ‘Mamie and Papy have invited Antoine and me round this Sunday. I said yes. Is that all right?’

‘Of course,’ Sandrine said noticing Sam blanch at the mention of his parents. ‘You know it is.’

Sandrine had only met Sam’s parents once, briefly, on the day Sam had introduced her to them and announced their engagement. It had come as a complete shock to his parents. They’d had other ideas for him and they took an instant disliking to her. They made it clear they didn’t even want to get to know her and would sever all ties with Sam if he insisted on marrying her. There was a huge row and Sam and Sandrine were unceremoniously thrown out of the house before they’d even sat down to eat lunch.

‘Is your uncle picking you up?’ Sandrine asked, pushing the argument to the back of her mind.

‘Yes.’

Sam’s parents lived about forty kilometres away, in a suburb to the south of Lyon. His older brother took Antoine and Maxime along with his own children to see their grandparents, and she was grateful to him for that. It was important to Sandrine. It was bad enough that she’d come between Sam and his parents. She didn’t want to come between her sons and their grandparents, too.

In the first year or so after their marriage, Sam had spoken little about his parents, but over time he’d told her anecdotes about his brother and him when they were children and it was obvious he’d been close to his parents despite a somewhat strict upbringing.

But Sam rarely discussed the family rift with her. Sandrine hoped Sam’s parents would come round eventually. She knew Sam would jump at the chance to be reunited with them. But the more time passed, the less likely it seemed there would ever be any reconciliation. Not as long as Sam remained married to Sandrine.

Maybe that was partly why Sandrine had abandoned the idea of returning to work. She was close to her parents, although not as close geographically as she would have liked, and she desperately wanted her own family to be a loving one, too. The fact that Sam was no longer in touch with his parents because of her made Sandrine all the more determined to make her home a happy one. Sandrine was an only child, and she was glad Antoine and Maxime had each other.

To Sandrine, family was everything. And she would do anything for her sons. To make them happy, to protect them. Cook and clean for them, lie or even die for them. Anything at all.

Chapter 3
5 MONTHS AFTER
Laura

‘How did your appointment go?’ Declan asked, handing Laura a beer. She was sitting on the sofa, next to Declan’s partner Patrick, who had his feet up on the coffee table, a bowl of crisps on his lap and a bottle of beer in his hand.

It had been several months since that night and Laura still couldn’t tell her therapist everything. She couldn’t tell her cousin the whole truth either. ‘Put it this way. I enjoyed it more than lunch with my mum afterwards.’

‘I’ll bet. How is the old battle-axe?’

To say Declan wasn’t especially fond of Laura’s mum would be a massive understatement. Noreen was his father’s sister, the youngest of five children, and the only girl. She’d grown up used to getting her own way. Noreen had never warmed to Patrick, and so Declan had accused her of being homophobic. Laura didn’t think she was. It wasn’t personal. Her mother was objectionable and offensive towards pretty much everyone. But Declan had had a heated argument with his aunt, saying that having married a Protestant, Noreen of all people should show compassion towards couples that society ostracized. They’d never really patched things up, which made for an awkward atmosphere at family reunions.

‘Fine. Herself. You know.’

She was lucky to have Dec and Pat in her life. Declan was nine years older than her. He’d always been more like an older brother than a cousin, perhaps because like her, he was an only child. He had the same ginger hair and green eyes as she did and was the only person she knew who had more freckles than her. Pat was tall, dark and lanky, very different to Declan, but they had the same tastes in everything and nearly always agreed with each other. Laura had never heard a cross word between them.

‘So, your appointment?’

It had taken Laura a while before she felt able to talk to a complete stranger about what she was going through. To begin with, her GP had put her on small doses of beta-blockers to help reduce the symptoms linked to her anxiety – her frequent sweats and racing heartbeat. He’d suggested a prescription for light sleeping tablets or anti-depressants, although she could tell he wasn’t in favour of either. Laura had refused anyway. And finally he’d convinced her to go and see a therapist and referred her to Dr McBride, a psychologist who specialized in patient adjustment to anxiety and depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and major trauma.

‘It went well, I suppose. He said it’s perfectly normal – you know, after an experience like I had – to have difficulty falling asleep and flashbacks for several months. We did some breathing exercises. I think they might help calm me down if I get any more … panic attacks.’

Declan nodded. ‘Go on.’

‘According to Dr McBride – Robert – I shouldn’t repress my feelings …’ Laura had lost count of how many times she’d had to describe her feelings and at this point that’s what she’d had to do yet again – guilty, unmotivated, helpless, sick and, most of all, unworthy. ‘But I’m to continue to work on replacing the negative emotions and thoughts with positive ones.’

‘Sounds like it was beneficial,’ Pat said before taking another swig of his beer.

‘Uh-huh,’ Laura said, noncommittally.

She was still mortified that she was seeing a shrink in the first place. Her mother had always branded people with mental health problems as “weak” and “self-absorbed” and although Laura didn’t see eye to eye with her mother on this subject as on so many others, she didn’t want those labels applied to her.

‘So, when are you seeing your man again?’

‘I have another appointment. Same time next week.’

‘Baby steps,’ Declan said, putting his arm around her shoulders and giving her a squeeze. ‘You’ll get there.’

‘Hmm,’ Laura said.

Robert was gentle and had an easy-going, avuncular manner. Even though she felt more and more comfortable talking to him, she knew she wouldn’t make any headway until she could voice what had really happened that night. Each time she had to recount the events in detail, she omitted the worst part. She remembered it clearly, although she wished she didn’t. She’d replayed it in her mind hundreds of times, ashamed of how she’d reacted and wondering what she should have done. It was all too horrific to put into words, so she’d cut those few seconds out of the description she’d given her therapist and even Declan.

Pat brought Laura back to the present. ‘Chinese or Indian?’ he asked, sliding forward on the sofa to pull his mobile out of his back pocket.

‘I fancy a curry,’ Laura said.

‘Indian it is.’

‘Do you want another beer?’ Declan asked.

‘Better not. I’m driving.’

‘You’ll let us know if there’s anything we can do, won’t you? Pat and I are here for you.’

‘Thanks, Declan.’

They watched a romcom on Netflix while they ate dinner, plates balanced on their laps. Laura surprised herself by laughing at one point. The sound was foreign to her and she stopped abruptly, riven with guilt that she could laugh at all.

‘Are you going to eat that?’ Pat asked after a while.

‘What?’ She followed Pat’s gaze and realized she’d barely touched her meal. ‘Oh. No. I’m full.’

Pat took the plate from Laura’s lap and proceeded to load large forkfuls of tikka masala into his mouth.

‘He has that much appetite he needs two gubs, so he does,’ Declan whispered to Laura.

‘Hey! I heard that.’

Laura was tired and couldn’t concentrate on the film, even though the plot didn’t seem particularly complicated. She was glad of the company, though, and enjoyed Dec and Pat’s banter.

When the end credits started to roll, Declan walked her out to her car. ‘Safe home,’ he said.

Laura yawned all the way home. Perhaps she would nod off no problem for once. She felt more relaxed than she had for a while. Today had been one of her better days.

Harry weaved a figure of eight around her legs as she cleaned her teeth, then he followed her into the bedroom, taking up his usual night-time position on her pillow as she got ready for bed. As she pulled up her pyjama trousers and they promptly slipped down to her hips, she realized how loose they’d become.

Her mother was right. Well, partly. Laura remembered their conversation over lunch.

‘Are you sure you don’t want more than a salad, dear?’ her mother had asked. ‘My treat.’

‘No, I’m not hungry,’ she’d replied, thinking that eating lunch with Noreen in The Ivory was not her idea of a treat. Or anywhere else for that matter. It inevitably meant being subjected to jibes about being overweight, or “obese”, if Noreen was to be believed.

‘At least there’s a silver lining in all this,’ her mother had commented, smiling at her beatifically.

‘In all what?’ Laura had asked, staring at her blankly, her eyebrows pinching into a frown.

‘You know, your near-death experience,’ she’d continued. ‘You’ve lost tonnes of weight.’ Laura had choked on a cherry tomato.

Looking down and appraising her tummy now, Laura realized she had indeed lost several pounds. She didn’t feel good for it, though.

Her eyelids felt heavy and her body cried out with exhaustion. But as always when she tried to get to sleep, images flashed in front of her eyes – even as she squeezed them shut – a series of film-like stills of people frozen in the strobe lights as they ran for their lives in every direction while she stood rooted to the spot, compelled to watch the slideshow. She could hear the rapid gunfire, smell the stench of fear. Above all, she could clearly see the face of the Frenchman who had saved her life.

And then lost his.

Chapter 4
5 MONTHS AFTER
Sandrine

Sandrine slid the snapshot out from under the book in the drawer of the coffee table and stared into her dead son’s round face. He was looking directly at the camera, his eyes the same colour as Sam’s, hazel with green tinges that flashed wildly whenever he was angry or sad. She stroked Antoine’s cheek with her forefinger as she sat on the sofa, a solitary tear plopping onto the photo in her lap as her son grinned up at her. He still had braces on his teeth then. He must have been about fifteen. Only four short years of his life left, although no one could have predicted that at the time.

Sandrine had photos of Antoine hidden everywhere, although Sam – in one of the rare moments when they’d talked about what it meant to have lost Antoine that way – had asked her to take them all down. It was easier for him, he’d said, not to have a constant reminder.

Sandrine saw her son everywhere, even without the photos. She imagined him lounging in front of the television or sitting on the empty chair next to Maxime at the kitchen table. When she closed her eyes, she could visualize him so clearly it was as if his image was printed on the insides of her eyelids.

She was sure the same thoughts and images went through Sam’s head as hers. Identical memories of their son. The first time Antoine managed to swim a whole length of the pool, when he broke his arm falling from a swing, his first medal at judo, the afternoon the boys had all fished together in their grandfather’s pond in Brittany and Antoine was the only one to catch any trout, the day they realized he was taller than Sam … Memories that would forever more be bittersweet.

Sometimes, when she and Sam were sitting across the kitchen table from each other or next to each other on the sofa, they were so close she could reach out and touch him. And yet, the distance between them seemed too far to travel. They blamed themselves and each other, wondering what they would do differently if they could go back in time. They couldn’t talk about it. They couldn’t find the words. And so they barely spoke to each other, even though they both knew that saying the wrong thing was better than saying nothing at all. What was left unsaid loomed large in the small space between them, making the air rancid with resentment and reproach. They were each alone in their grief.

Since it had happened five months ago, Sandrine struggled to keep afloat as every day more waves of sorrow broke over her. She had so many regrets. She wished she’d been a better mother. If only she’d paid more attention to her son. She hadn’t known anything about his plans for that evening, although that wouldn’t have changed anything. Even if she’d asked him where he was going and he’d told her, she wouldn’t have stopped him. She couldn’t have foreseen the danger. Could she?

She hadn’t seen Antoine that day. For once, he’d left the house before she got up. She knew he’d had breakfast – he’d unloaded the dishwasher and cleared his plate and mug into it. But she didn’t know what he was wearing that day and she didn’t remember their last conversation. That still tortured her. Were her last words to him kind? Banal? Good morning or goodnight? Or did she nag him for something inconsequential like talking with his mouth full or playing his music too loudly? When was the last time she’d told her son she loved him or that she was proud of him? When was the last time he’d made her proud? Or smile?

She looked at the photo of Antoine one more time, drinking him in, then put it back under the book and closed the drawer. She rose to her feet, knowing she had to get out of the house and get some air.

She put on her coat and shoes, slung her handbag over her shoulder and stumbled through the door. Her legs felt unsteady as she walked to the bus stop. She could feel people’s eyes on her, boring into her. They must have thought she was drunk or drugged.

She saw her neighbour, Angélique, cross the road, throwing disapproving glances over her shoulder and pulling her toddler by the hand to the safety of the pavement on the other side. Angélique had once been a good friend, but all Sandrine’s friends avoided her now. It was as though her bereavement and affliction were contagious; as though she would jinx them or their children.

The background noise on the bus had a calming effect on Sandrine and chased the thoughts of her dead son to a recess of her mind. She looked out of the window as the bus hugged the River Saône, the road following its meanders. Sandrine lived in a suburb to the north-east of Lyon and hadn’t been into the city centre for many months, but she soon found herself walking across La Place des Terreaux and into the wind.

She glanced at the Bartholdi Fountain to her left. Once, when her parents had come to stay, she’d shown them around Lyon and was amazed to discover almost as much about the city as they had. How was it that when you lived in a place, you were always the last to visit its sights? The fountain’s four sculpted horses pulling the chariot represented rivers racing out to sea, Sandrine recalled, although she couldn’t remember which rivers. She stopped for a moment and studied the monument, wishing she could gallop away or flow out to sea. She’d grown up by the sea and she missed it.

Pulling up the collar of her coat against the cold as she passed the city hall, Sandrine headed for La Rue de la République. There were people everywhere, walking up, down and across the shopping street in undisciplined hordes. She felt as if she were swimming upstream, struggling against the current, but at the same time she appreciated the impression of blending into the crowd. There was little chance she’d see anyone she knew; no one here knew her or anything about her. She could pretend to be normal.

It wasn’t until Sandrine saw the red and white signs for SOLDES in the window of a perfumery that it dawned on her why there were so many shoppers in town. This was the first Saturday of the January sales.

She’d forgotten her gloves and her hands were freezing, so she stopped at Starbucks to warm herself up. When the barista called her name and handed her the vanilla latte she’d ordered, she turned round to see there were no free tables. She spotted a seat in the corner, opposite a woman with a baby, and made her way over.

‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ Sandrine asked.

‘Not at all.’

Sandrine sat down. The baby was pulling on a tuft of his mother’s long brown hair, which spilled out from under her glittery bobble hat. He was giggling and gurgling at noises and grimaces that his mother made. The game amused him for a few minutes before he began to whimper. Holding her baby in one arm, his mother opened a cavernous baby changing bag with difficulty and brought out some mineral water, a baby bottle and a transparent plastic container with milk powder in it. Then she tried to unscrew the cap of the bottle of water with one hand.

‘Can I help you?’ Sandrine asked, expecting the woman to talk her through making up the formula. To Sandrine’s surprise, the woman stood up and thrust her son at Sandrine while she got everything ready for the feed.

Sandrine cooed at the baby, soothing him. It had been several years since she’d held a baby. He wasn’t tiny, but she was careful to support his head anyway. He looked at Sandrine with wide eyes and she thought he was about to cry, but instead his mouth opened, forming a large “O”. Then his mother reached out to take him back. Sandrine watched as she sat back down and the baby latched on to the teat of the bottle, guzzling hungrily.

‘Thank you,’ the woman said, shooting a grateful smile at Sandrine. ‘That was very kind of you.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘A lot of people think bottle-feeding makes you a bad mother. They say mothers who breastfeed bond better with their babies.’

Sandrine nodded, hoping she wasn’t trying to strike up a conversation. Sandrine had breastfed both Antoine and Maxime, but there was a lot more to motherhood than choosing between formula or maternal milk. She used to think she wasn’t doing a bad job as a mum, but she was no longer so sure. She wanted to be a good mother to Maxime but her younger son seemed estranged from her now.

As she watched the mother with her baby boy, a memory from twenty years ago erupted into Sandrine’s mind: holding Antoine, her miracle baby, for the first time, seconds after he was born.

She and Sam had tried for a baby for so long. And just when they thought it might never happen, Sandrine finally got pregnant. At the seven-month scan, they asked if their baby was a boy or a girl. But the gynaecologist shook her head and wouldn’t answer the question. That was when they realized something was wrong. Their baby girl, Léa, had no heartbeat.

Sandrine had been inconsolable and Sam had been so supportive, even as he grieved himself. One night, six or seven weeks after they’d lost Léa, he held Sandrine in his arms and they made love. Sam was gentle, as if afraid she would break. She cried when it was over.

Her period hadn’t returned since the pregnancy and so she was nearly four months gone by the time she realized.

‘Women are quite fertile immediately after giving birth,’ her gynaecologist said.

It took her another fortnight to pluck up the courage to tell Sam. She was surprised he hadn’t noticed – her bump was getting prominent by then.

They were terrified. They didn’t dare to dream or hope. They didn’t make plans, but the baby’s room had already been decorated – for Léa. And so Antoine came along. Two days after his due date. Their miracle baby. A heavy, healthy baby boy.

Sandrine didn’t want to tempt fate again, but after a while she became anxious. What if something happened to Antoine? What if he got sick? What if she lost him? Her irrational fear that one day she might no longer be a mother grew stronger than her fear of having another miscarriage or stillbirth so she stopped taking the pill to see if anything would come of it. Something did. Maxime. She thought of her boys as her two princes, but never as the heir and the spare. She loved them both equally. But the fear she’d had of losing Antoine, which diminished gradually as the years went by, turned out to be founded in the end.

The media rarely mentioned it now. It was yesterday’s news. But that didn’t make it go away. Like everyone else in France, and the rest of the world, Sandrine had seen those images broadcast over and over again on the television. They continued, even now, to play on a loop in her head like a film she couldn’t turn off.

She’d added a sequence over time, the product of her imagination, based on survivors’ accounts. It showed what had happened inside the arena. There was no real footage of that. There had been no cameras. People filming the concert with their mobile phones had stopped when the first rounds rang out. The film in Sandrine’s head paused on the same frame every time, at the exact point where, in Sandrine’s mind, her son had lost his life. One second alive. The next dead. In a heartbeat. In the blink of an eye. In the squeeze of a trigger.

An invisible hand clutched Sandrine’s throat and she couldn’t breathe.

The woman stared from across the table. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked, startling Sandrine out of her reverie.

Standing up on shaky legs, Sandrine grabbed her coat and handbag. ‘Goodbye. Have a nice day,’ she said automatically, her voice sounding unfamiliar, even to her ears.

The cold air hit her like a slap to the face as she stepped outside. She walked up the avenue, back the way she’d come. In the window of an estate agency, she caught sight of a slim woman, stooping at the neck like a question mark so that her shoulder-length lank brown hair fell over her face. It took Sandrine a moment to realize that this elderly woman, who was still clinging to her forties, was her own reflection. Forcing herself to stand tall, she peered into the window.

Unsurprisingly, there were no signs in the window of the estate agency for the winter sales. Almost two weeks into January, and the Meilleurs Voeux! stickers, wishing everyone a happy new year, hadn’t been taken down yet. Underneath it, glossy photos showed expensive flats for sale or for rent in the city centre. Sandrine gazed at them. She couldn’t afford to buy a flat in the city centre, and wouldn’t want to live here anyway. She liked the anonymity here, but she didn’t care much for the bustle and noise. She longed to go back to Brittany, to be near her parents, by the sea.

Then a thought burst into her mind. Why didn’t they move? What was stopping them? They could easily sell up here and buy a house near her mum and dad. Get away from it all. Sam could set up his business there easily enough. He’d come with her, wouldn’t he? Would she go if he didn’t?

But even if Sam did get on board, there was Maxime to consider, not that they saw much of him these days. He slept over at friends’ places most nights now, during the week, coming home once in a while to dump his dirty washing and pick up clean clothes. She’d failed one son; she couldn’t abandon the other.

Chances were, though, Maxime wouldn’t be living with them much longer. He planned to move to Marseille after his baccalauréat exams this summer. She would talk to Sam about this idea, sound him out. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that this was what they needed. A new home. A fresh start.

Sam was still at work when she got home. She made her way into Antoine’s bedroom. She’d cleaned it after his death, as though he were coming back any day and she wanted to welcome him home. She hadn’t washed the bedclothes, though. She climbed into his bed, pulling the quilt over her mouth and nose, and breathing him in. She often did this when she found herself alone in the house, but as the months went by his scent had faded and the covers smelt only of her perfume now.

Tears streamed down Sandrine’s face, rolling into her ears and onto Antoine’s pillow, as she lay on her back in his bed. Did he know how much he was loved? Or had they been afraid to love him after losing Léa? Had they spoiled him? Perhaps they hadn’t spoiled him enough.

She wasn’t aware she was tired. Not any more than usual, anyway. Sleep was something Sandrine had given up on. It had become irregular and elusive. She slept through the night only occasionally now, and when she did she felt less energized than if she’d lain awake for most of it. It wouldn’t have occurred to her she might fall asleep during the day.

She woke up groggy and disoriented. It took her several seconds to work out where she was and a few more to realize she wasn’t alone. Daylight had faded now and she could make out only a silhouette. Someone was sitting on the bed. Sandrine sat bolt upright and screamed.

‘Shhh. It’s me.’ Sam put one hand on her shoulder. In his other hand, he was holding a steaming mug, which he passed to her. She saw worry etched around his mouth and in the green flecks of his hazel eyes.

‘Thank you.’ She was touched by his thoughtfulness.

For a while, neither of them spoke. Sam didn’t ask her what she was doing in here, or if she came in here often. He must have worked that out for himself. Maybe he sneaked in here, too, when she was out somewhere.

Sandrine blew across the mug and sipped the drink, crinkling her nose. It was too sugary. Sam said proper mint tea was sweet and that’s the way he always made it.

They’d bought the house from a couple of elderly Moroccans, whose garden had a bed of mint running riot behind the clothesline. Sam had wanted to dig it all up. It took up too much space, he’d said, but Sandrine felt it was part of the legacy of the house and liked the smell when she hung out the washing, so instead they found recipes to cook with it and froze it so they could make herbal teas during the winter. The smell of mint and the memory it carried slowed down Sandrine’s breathing and heartbeat.

‘Sam, I’ve been thinking,’ she said. ‘When Maxime has finished his exams later this year, we could move away. I’d love to move back to Brittany. You like it there, don’t you?’ He didn’t answer. She tried to read his expression, but his face was inscrutable. ‘We could get a house near the sea,’ she persisted. She could hear the quaver in her voice.

‘My family’s here,’ Sam said.

‘Your family! Your brother is the only one who talks to you! And even he’s …’

‘He’s what?’

‘Nothing. Forget it.’

Sam’s face clouded over and Sandrine regretted her outburst. After all, it was because of her that Sam had fallen out with his parents. It had been cruel of her to use that as an argument. She put her hand on Sam’s to placate him, but he pulled away.

‘We need to stay here. For Maxime.’ The green blaze in Sam’s eyes belied his calm tone. In that moment she saw Antoine in Sam and had to look away.

‘Max plans to go to Marseille,’ she muttered.

‘We’ve already lost one of our sons,’ Sam continued, as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘We can’t risk losing the other one.’ He got up and left the room, closing the door behind him and leaving her in the dark.

She set the mug on the bedside table and curled up again in Antoine’s bed. Oblivion. That was what Sandrine needed. She scrunched her eyes tight shut in an attempt to go back to sleep. But it was futile. Antoine’s face swam into focus as her imagination conjured up the photo she’d stared at earlier. She tried to hold on to that image, to zoom in closer. But it was as if, from behind her closed eyelids, her vision blurred and the colours faded to sepia. Her mind was playing a cruel trick on her, reminding her she would never see her son again.

Chapter 5
1 MONTH BEFORE
Laura

It wasn’t until she stepped out of the flat to go to work that she was reminded what day it was.

‘Happy birthday!’ It was her neighbour.

‘Thank you, Mrs Doherty,’ Laura said, locking the door to her flat. ‘It’s so good of you to remember.’

‘Ah, it’s an easy one to remember, so it is,’ the elderly lady replied. ‘It’s the anniversary of my husband’s death.’

Laura was thrown for a second. ‘Oh. I’m sorry, Mrs Doherty. I didn’t know that.’ Laura hadn’t even known there had been a Mr Doherty.

Her neighbour made a dismissive gesture with her hand. ‘Sure, when you start to forget dates, you start to lose your head, so you do.’

Mrs Doherty’s brain was still razor-sharp, but her arthritis meant she was losing some of her mobility, so Laura ran errands for her whenever her hips were playing up. ‘Do you need me to get you anything, Mrs Doherty? I can pick up some shopping after work if you like?’

‘Och, no pet, thank you. Right as rain today.’

Mrs Doherty nodded towards her tartan shopping cart and wheeled it over to the lift, which they rode down to the ground floor together. Then Laura headed for the bus stop.

The library opened at 9:30 but Laura and her colleagues usually arrived half an hour early so they could have a chat and a cup of tea together before work. As usual, Claire was already in the staffroom when Laura arrived that morning. She was wearing a flowery sundress with sandals. She had her back to Laura and was pouring milk into four mugs.

‘Good morning. What a pretty dress!’ Laura said.

Claire turned round, her large hoop earrings rocking energetically from side to side with the movement.

‘Hiya. Happy birthday!’ She put the carton of milk on the counter and picked up a small, beautifully gift-wrapped box, which she held out to Laura.

‘You shouldn’t have. That’s so sweet of you.’

‘Are you excited?’ Claire asked.

Laura frowned. Did she mean about the present? About turning thirty?

‘Four weeks tomorrow!’

‘Ah. Oh. Yes. I still have a few things to get before then, but I can’t wait,’ Laura said, as a small knot of trepidation tied itself in her stomach.

Laura picked off the Sellotape and opened the present. It was a necklace, a colourful glass pendant on a red ribbon. Laura remembered admiring a similar necklace around Claire’s neck a few months ago.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, moved. ‘Thank you.’

As Claire was tying the necklace around Laura’s neck, Ava and Sarah arrived. Both in their mid-twenties, they were the same height and build, when Ava wasn’t wearing heels. But the similarities stopped there. Sarah had fine blond hair, scooped back into a ponytail, and wore a serious expression as her default setting. Ava, on the other hand, had an unruly mane of thick, dark hair and flawless skin with permanently rosy cheeks. She had prominent front teeth, which were all the more noticeable as they were naturally very white and she smiled a lot.

‘Happy birthday,’ they chorused. They came bearing gifts, too. Laura hadn’t expected any of them to remember, let alone buy her presents, and for a moment she was choked up. They looked at her expectantly, Ava flashing her signature wide smile.

Claire finished making the tea and handed round the mugs while Laura opened Ava’s and Sarah’s presents. Ava had bought her an orange and yellow chiffon scarf.

‘It’s beautiful, thank you.’ Laura tended to wear black in the hope it flattered her body, so she could wear the scarf or the necklace with pretty much anything in her wardrobe. It might make her outfits more summery.

Sarah had bought her a set of mini Yankee candles.

‘That’ll help brighten up my flat,’ Laura said, realizing she’d complained to Sarah the other day about how grubby her flat was. ‘That was thoughtful of you.’

Looking at her colleagues now, Laura felt a little spark of excitement at the idea of going to France with them. They were kind, thoughtful people. They would have fun together. Once they got off the damn plane. She drained her tea and went to get ready.

She was running Rhythm and Rhyme that morning and by eleven o’clock, she and a group of under-fives with their accompanying adults were stomping like elephants, prowling like tigers and jumping like kangaroos around the room. After that day’s story, The Tiger Who Came To Tea, which was always a firm favourite with kids and carers alike, Laura did some finger-counting rhymes to end the session. When the half hour was up, she was exhausted and sweating like an animal herself.

The rest of the morning raced by and it was only when her stomach rumbled that Laura realized it was past midday. She ate lunch with her mother on Fridays. It had become a thing. Seeing as it was her birthday, maybe Noreen would take her to The Titanic Pub and Kitchen. It was just round the corner and Laura liked it there, as much for the atmosphere as for the food, although her mother considered it to be a tacky tourist trap.

Her mum was talking to Ava when Laura found her in the entrance hall. As they left, Noreen hissed, ‘She has a face only a mother could love, that one.’ Laura nudged her, afraid Ava might have overheard. ‘It’s true. She could eat an apple through a tennis racket with those teeth.’

Laura could feel her face burning. As they stepped outside, she turned to her mother. ‘Ava’s nice and that’s not—’

‘Oh, come on. I was joking. I’m sure she’s a lovely girl. Many happy returns of the day,’ she said, deftly changing the subject before Laura could protest any further. ‘I didn’t get you a present,’ she continued. ‘I thought we could choose something together in your lunch break.’

‘What? Now? We won’t have time to eat if we go shopping.’

‘Well, it’ll not do you any harm to skip a meal now, will it? Let’s go to CastleCourt. I’ll buy you some clothes for your holidays.’

It was a strange experience. Laura hated clothes shopping and tended to buy stuff online. She tried on garments her mother chose – things she wouldn’t normally buy herself – and then blushed as Noreen made her walk up and down and do twirls in front of the changing cubicle in Debenhams. Laura felt as if she was being made to parade naked along a catwalk in front of a large audience, certain the other shoppers were staring at her. With each outfit, Laura tried to gauge her mother’s reaction, hoping for approval, but expecting to read disappointment in her expression. But Noreen remained impassive.

Laura had to admit, though, her mum had an eye for this. The colours Noreen picked – greens and blues, with white rather than black, suited Laura’s pale complexion and went well with her ginger hair. Plus the clothes were comfortable. Her mother splashed out and bought her three dresses, five T-shirts, a pair of jeans and two pairs of shoes. She’d always been generous with her money, her mum. Laura decided to go on a diet. She’d look better in her new clothes if she were a bit slimmer.

She returned to the library ravenous. Her stomach growled all afternoon and by the end of the day she had a headache. She was glad the library closed early on Fridays. She could stop off at the supermarket on the way home and get what she needed to make herself a healthy dinner. Veggie lasagne, maybe. And some soda bread. That wouldn’t hurt. Especially as she hadn’t had any lunch. And she’d buy a bottle of wine for Mrs Doherty to thank her for agreeing to look after Harry while she was away next month. Then she could curl up on the sofa and read for a bit before getting an early night.

But her colleagues had other ideas.

‘It’s your birthday. Let’s go for a drink!’ Claire suggested as they finished work.

‘What about a drink and a meal?’ said Sarah. ‘I’m starving and it’s not good to drink on an empty stomach.’

‘Ooh, it’s Friday. Let’s make it a girlie night out,’ Ava said.

Laura left the bags of new clothes in the staffroom and allowed herself to be persuaded to go out. She’d been for a drink with Claire a few times and she’d had lunch with Sarah and Sarah’s mum on at least two occasions. But she’d never socialized with Ava. She didn’t know her as well as the others.

‘What did you have in mind?’ Sarah asked Ava.

‘Might as well get something to eat in Muriel’s, seeing as it’s not far, then we could move on to The Spaniard?’

Laura wondered if Ava was planning a pub crawl. She’d been to The Spaniard once with Declan and Patrick, but she’d never heard of Muriel’s.

Ava filled her in. ‘Muriel’s Café Bar. Gins to die for. Food’s great, too.’

Laura found Muriel’s to be a classy bar, despite the knickers suspended on clotheslines around the ceiling, a wink at the establishment’s past as a brothel, according to Claire. They were lucky enough to get a window seat upstairs. Ava was right. The food and the gin cocktails were delicious. And Ava turned out to be a hoot.

Over Cajun chicken burgers, pepper fries, nachos, guacamole and mixed berry mojitos, the conversation turned to their respective love lives. Sarah had a steady boyfriend, Claire had a string of exes, Laura was embarrassed to admit she hadn’t been out with anyone for more than two years. Ava, who wasn’t at all ashamed of her single status, regaled them with stories of her latest disastrous dates.

‘I’ve been on two so far this month,’ she said, ‘and I’m starting to think I’ll never find Mr Right.’

‘What was wrong with these two?’ asked Sarah.

‘Well, first there was Aiden. Other than the chunky chain around his neck, he was fine.’

‘You didn’t see him again because he wore a necklace?’ Sarah asked, incredulous.

‘No. I’m not that shallow! I’m not finished.’ Ava took a gulp of her gin. ‘At the end of the evening, he offered to drop me home and asked would I mind if we called in to see his granda on the way. He said it was “a difficult anniversary.”’ She made air quotes with her fingers. ‘So, I said, yes, of course. I figured his grandmother must have died on that date or something and it was hard on the old man.’

‘So, what did he mean?’ Laura asked, absent-mindedly twirling the paper umbrella from her cocktail between her fingers.

‘He took me to Milltown Bloody Cemetery,’ Ava continued. ‘It was the anniversary of his granda’s death.’

‘No!’ Laura suppressed a giggle as Claire’s mouth dropped open.

‘It was eleven o’clock at night and I was in a graveyard for feck’s sake. I was bricking it. I even texted me ma so she’d know where I was in case anything happened to me.’

Ava paused, for breath or to drink more gin, Laura wasn’t sure which. She had no idea if Ava was exaggerating or even making all this up, but as Declan often said, you shouldn’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.

When she’d finished laughing, Claire spoke the words Laura was thinking. ‘I can’t understand how no one has snapped you up, Ava. You’re lovely, smart and funny. Any bloke would be lucky to have you.’

‘So what happened on the second date?’ Sarah prompted before Ava could respond.

‘That one didn’t get off to a great start,’ Ava said. ‘As soon as Liam walked into the restaurant, he said, “From your photo I was afraid you’d be out of my league, but now I’ve seen you in the flesh, I feel more confident.” I almost walked out, but I thought I’d give him a chance.’

‘Not the best chat-up line,’ Laura agreed, giggling.

‘No, indeed. Anyway, when I went to the ladies’, the waitress was in there. She told me I was his third date that week. It was only Wednesday! I climbed out the toilet window and called a cab.’

It was one o’clock in the morning when Laura’s cab dropped her home. She’d had a wonderful evening and knew she would have a hangover.

‘I’ll do some exercise tomorrow,’ she said to Harry. She could go for a walk, a swim or even a bike ride. Tonight had been a temporary blip, but she’d get back on her diet tomorrow. She didn’t need to lose that much weight and she still had a whole month before the trip to France.

Yeah, right. Who are you kidding?

The little voice in her head – the one that sounded like her mother, the one that had made her feel worthless all her life – was clearly a lot less optimistic about her chances of success. She ignored it.

‘And I’ll carry on brushing up on my French,’ she added. Laura had studied French at Queen’s University but she hadn’t finished her degree. She’d had glandular fever and a sizeable student loan that needed to be repaid, so in the end she’d got a job at Belfast Central Library and dropped out of her course before the obligatory year abroad. She’d kept up her French over the years, though, and had been studying every spare minute since she’d bought her plane ticket to Lyon.

She found she was looking forward to this trip now. She’d never been adventurous or gregarious. A week’s holiday with some friends was exactly what she needed.

Chapter 6
1 MONTH BEFORE
Sandrine

Sandrine was convinced this would be their last holiday as a family. She intended to make the most of their week here at her parents’ house in Brittany and spend some quality time with her sons. She was surprised the boys had agreed to come this year. For a few summers now, they’d been asking if they could go somewhere else for a change. They’d certainly prefer to go on holiday with their mates from now on rather than with her and Sam anyway. As it was, Maxime had plans to go camping somewhere in Provence for a few days with his friend Benoît when they got back.

It was good to see Antoine smiling again. He seemed to finally be over his break-up with Océane and to have found a sense of purpose in life again. Sandrine had seen him typing on his mobile a couple of times. He’d hastily put his phone away each time she’d caught him, which made her wonder if he had a new girlfriend. But when she asked who he was writing to, he told her it was one of his mates. He hadn’t shown much interest in socializing for a while, so she took that as a good sign.

On their fourth day there, Sandrine and her mother went to Douarnenez, the nearest town to her parents’ house, which Sandrine considered to be her hometown. Their only mission was to buy vegetables at the street market to make a ratatouille for dinner, so they took their time and wandered around the cobbled streets, then sat on the terrasse of a street café and drank citrons pressés – squash made from freshly squeezed lemons. When they got back to the house, it was calm – almost too quiet – without the others.

Sandrine’s father, Sam and the boys had gone fishing for the day. Her father used to spend long afternoons fishing trout from a large pond in his own garden, but it had been replaced by a little fishing boat and a permit years ago. He’d bought his boat when Sandrine’s mother had made him drain the pond to avoid any accidents after an incident involving Maxime.

Sandrine winced as she thought about that day. She’d had the fright of her life. She remembered it clearly despite the sedative she’d been given by her mother’s GP. Sam and her father had been in the front garden, mending the fence. When she’d called everyone for lunch, Maxime hadn’t come. According to Antoine, Max had wanted to feed the ducks. Maxime was only five at the time and he couldn’t swim. Sandrine had raced out the back door and down the grassy slope to the pond.

Sandrine’s father kept repeating that the pond was neither big nor deep. It was both, and Sandrine was aware that a child could drown in just a few centimetres of water, but her father was trying to convince himself and everyone else there was no way Maxime could have drowned.

Sam had always been Sandrine’s rock and she’d clung to him like a limpet. He remained calm even though she could see panic in his eyes. He held her up when her legs threatened to give way. If it had been the other way round, if one of the boys had gone missing on his watch, she wouldn’t have been so forgiving.

Sam had called the emergency services, and Sandrine’s mother had called the doctor for Sandrine. There had been one awful moment when one of the divers from the fire brigade had held up what looked to be a small item of clothing he’d found in the middle of the pond. But it turned out to be an old towel.

It wasn’t until two police officers and the doctor took Sandrine back inside the house that they’d heard it. A thudding. A fist on wood. At first, Sandrine thought there was someone at the front door and immediately assumed it was bad news. But the knocking was coming from along the hallway. Then there were shouts and people came running in from the garden. One of the firefighters used a crowbar to prise open the door to the cupboard in which Sandrine’s mother kept her cleaning stuff. It appeared to have been locked from the inside.

Sandrine couldn’t understand what Maxime had been doing in the cupboard all that time. He’d been missing for over three hours. But he hadn’t seemed at all disturbed by the experience. Much to everyone else’s amusement he said he’d fallen asleep while playing hide-and-seek.

‘That was a great hiding place,’ Sandrine said through tears of relief as she scooped Maxime into her arms. ‘It took a lot of people a long time to find you.’

That caused a ripple of laughter to sweep through the hallway.

But even now, all these years later, Sandrine couldn’t raise a smile as she replayed the incident in her head. Standing in the kitchen next to her mother, prepping the vegetables for the evening meal, she didn’t know if it was the onions or the memory that brought tears to her eyes. It was definitely the memory that put the same sour taste of fear in her mouth, a taste of what it would feel like to lose one of her sons. Distressing. Disturbing. Devastating. It was any mother’s worst nightmare. She fervently hoped she’d never feel sheer terror like that again.

Sandrine didn’t realize she was shaking until she cut the tip of her finger with the knife. It wasn’t a deep cut, and although it stung only slightly, it was enough to dissolve the past and carry Sandrine firmly back to the present.

‘Are you all right?’ her mother asked, reaching for a first aid box in the cupboard above Sandrine’s head.

‘Yes,’ Sandrine said. ‘I wasn’t concentrating.’

She washed away the blood with cold water from the tap. As she was putting on a plaster, her father, Sam, Antoine and Maxime burst noisily into the kitchen with their day’s haul – mainly turbot and sardines. There was a lot of it. Some of it would go in the freezer for now.

Without having to be asked, Antoine washed his hands, put one of the turbots onto a chopping board, wiped it with kitchen towel and expertly filleted the fish with a knife, opening it along the side and then slicing it along the backbone.

Maxime watched his brother work.

‘You could pitch in, you know,’ Antoine said.

‘You’re doing a great job by the look of it. You don’t need me,’ Maxime replied.

‘Well, can you fetch me a beer, then?’

‘Well, just this once,’ Maxime said. ‘You’re the barman.’

Sandrine caught the look Antoine threw his younger brother. ‘What’s this about being a barman?’ she asked.

‘Change of career plan,’ Antoine said.

‘You’re not serious.’

‘No, I’m joking. Relax, Maman.’

‘Are you still working at the supermarket?’ Sandrine knew Béatrice, Antoine’s boss. They’d gone to the same Friday evening Pilates class for a couple of years.

‘Er, no. Not anymore.’

‘Why not?’

When Antoine didn’t answer, Sandrine looked pointedly at Maxime.

‘He got the sack,’ Maxime supplied, sheepishly. He pulled a face at Antoine and mouthed an apology as he handed him a can of lager.

‘You got sacked?’ Sandrine turned to Sam. ‘Did you know about this?’

Sam shook his head and carefully took the knife from her hand. She hadn’t realized she’d been waving it around.

‘Why? What happened?’ Sam asked, his voice much calmer than Sandrine’s. ‘What did you do?’

‘Nothing.’ Antoine lowered his head. ‘It was a mutual decision. I found another job. The supermarket job was just Saturdays. With the bartending, I can do a few evening shifts as well and earn more money.’

‘In a pub? A nightclub? I hope it’s not cash in hand,’ Sam said.

‘No. It’s all above board. In La Voie Lactée – the concert hall in the seventh arrondissement.’

Sandrine didn’t feel reassured and it must have shown on her face because Antoine said, ‘Don’t worry, Maman.’

Was it Sandrine’s imagination or was Antoine being cagey? She sighed. He’d probably turned up late for work a few times too many, in which case she couldn’t blame his boss. She hoped this wouldn’t make things awkward between Béatrice and her. She didn’t want to have to shop elsewhere. She also hoped the new job wouldn’t get in the way of Antoine’s studies after the summer holidays. Bar work would mean late nights. Unless it was just a summer job. But before she could ask, her mother had ushered everyone out of the kitchen and into the sitting room for an aperitif. Sandrine pushed the conversation with Antoine out of her mind.

Later, as they ate their dinner of fish, mashed potatoes and ratatouille, Sandrine looked around the table at everyone’s contented faces and knew they mirrored her own. She wished they could stay longer. The sea air and climate in Brittany would be far kinder than the stifling atmosphere in and around Lyon. An intense heatwave had been predicted for the rest of July and all of August.

The rest of the week went by quickly – too quickly. Sandrine was still reluctant to leave as they loaded their suitcases into the boot of Sam’s car the following day. It would be considerably hotter in Lyon – thirty-eight degrees, according to the forecast – and she was dreading it. Instead of heading home, she felt as though they were driving away from it.

Chapter 7
2 DAYS BEFORE
Laura

‘Where the hell is Claire?’ Sarah asked for the fourth time in five minutes.

They were sitting in the waiting area at Europa Bus Centre, looking out through the dirty windows for their coach. Sarah jabbed at her mobile, then, holding it to her ear, she grimaced at Ava and Laura, muttering, ‘It’s gone to voicemail again. I’ll leave a message this time.’ Into her phone she said, ‘Claire, our bus leaves from stand fourteen in …’ she held her mobile out in front of her, examining the screen ‘… three minutes. You’re not going to make it.’

As Sarah ended the call, their coach pulled into the bay. They stood up and headed for the automatic doors.

‘Damn it! Where is she?’ Sarah said, as she stepped outside, wheeling her suitcase.

Laura followed, suddenly feeling nauseous at the idea of going ahead with the trip without Claire. At the door she faltered, causing Ava to bump into her. Turning to apologize, she saw Ava shiver.

‘It’s like brass monkeys out here,’ Ava said. ‘It’s supposed to be August, for feck’s sake.’

Laura took in the pink T-shirt, short denim skirt and high wedge sandals. She could make out the goose bumps on Ava’s arms and wondered why she didn’t put on the light cardigan tied around her waist.

‘Baltic,’ Sarah agreed. ‘The forecast is for thirty-eight degrees in Lyon today.’

How could they talk about the weather when Claire was about to miss the bus?

‘Sounds lovely,’ Ava said.

‘I think that’s pretty hot,’ Sarah said. ‘As in heatwave-hot. A heatwave here is like nineteen, twenty degrees,’ she continued. ‘I think we’re in for a climate shock.’

Laura had checked the weather in Lyon every day for the last week. She’d never known temperatures anywhere near that high and had been hoping it would get cooler the week they were there. But that wasn’t what the forecast said.

Ava seemed unfazed, though. ‘Bring it on!’ she said.

‘Hiya, girls, what’s the craic?’ came a voice from behind Ava. It was Claire. Laura’s face broke into a relieved smile.

‘Better late than never,’ Sarah muttered under her breath. Laura remembered Claire once remarking that Sarah had a saying for every situation.

‘What are yous talking about?’

‘The weather,’ Ava and Sarah said in unison.

‘As you do,’ Claire said.

The bus driver, a small young man in his thirties, loaded their suitcases into the hold of the coach. Laura caught him admiring Claire’s bare legs when he straightened up again.

She found herself sitting next to Ava on the coach with Claire and Sarah in the seats behind them. As the bus careened round the corners, Laura felt glad she’d got the window seat. She sometimes got travel-sick.

As if reading her mind, Ava said, ‘We’ll be out of Belfast soon. It’ll be a smoother ride once we get onto the motorway.’

‘I hope so. The driver clearly fancies himself as the next Eddie Irvine,’ Laura said.

‘Who?’

‘Oh. He was a Formula One driver. From Newtownards? My father was a fan.’ Apparently. At the thought of her father, Laura’s heart clenched.

‘Was he killed?’ Ava asked.

Laura’s eyes and mouth opened wide. How did she know? ‘M … my father?’

‘No. I meant Eddie Whatshisname. You said was.’

‘Ah. No. Eddie Irvine. He wasn’t killed.’ My daddy was. ‘He retired from racing, that’s all.’

Laura fell quiet after that and Ava soon gave up trying to make small talk, becoming engrossed in her book and leaving Laura to her thoughts.

Over twenty years after his death and she still missed her father with a raw, visceral pain. And yet, the few memories she had of him were vague. Perhaps they weren’t recollections at all and merely images pieced together from what she’d been told about her father over the years. She was only six when he was murdered.

She’d spent her childhood trying to patch up her mother, who had understandably gone to pieces. Laura had tried to make Noreen proud, but no matter what she did, it was never good enough, never enough.

‘You remind me too much of your father,’ Noreen would say to Laura.

Laura didn’t look a lot like him – she got her red hair, freckles and pale skin from her mother’s side of the family. So she supposed that meant she must have a similar personality. Laura liked the idea of being like her da. But she wondered if Noreen secretly wished she’d lost her daughter instead of her husband. Laura sometimes felt as if she’d lost both her parents that day.

Tears sprang to her eyes, so she followed Ava’s example, pulling her novel out of her handbag to take her mind off her father. But after a few minutes, Laura realized she’d read the same paragraph four or five times and hadn’t taken in a word of it. She closed her book with a sigh. She still felt nauseous, so she looked out of the window. The bus was hurtling along at an alarming speed. At least they should arrive at the airport in good time.

But just outside Dublin, they hit traffic and came to a standstill. At first Laura’s nausea was replaced by relief.

Until Ava looked at the time on her mobile and said, ‘It’s going to be tight now.’

Sarah spotted it first. There had been a car accident, a collision between a white car – a Ford Fiesta, maybe, which was on its roof, and a badly damaged grey Audi a few feet away from it. There were also emergency vehicles with flashing blue lights – Garda cars, ambulances and fire engines – and a lot of broken glass. There was no sign of the drivers or any passengers. Laura hoped they were all right. They had a good view of it all from the bus, although Laura tried not to look. Once the traffic had trickled by in the one lane left open, the bus picked up speed again.

‘We’re going to be late,’ Ava said.

Oh no. They couldn’t miss the flight. Not now. Laura had psyched herself up for it. Plus she’d received her passport and gone on a diet – although she’d not lost much weight in the end – and spent months brushing up her French. And she did want to see The Naturals.

‘No, we’ll be all right,’ Claire said. ‘We’ll have to get a move on, though.’

‘At least we’re in the bus and not in one of the cars back there,’ Sarah said.

Despite her impractical footwear, Ava sprinted into the airport first, making a beeline for the Aer Lingus check-in area. The others followed, zigzagging around travellers pulling suitcases or pushing luggage trolleys. Laura jogged as fast as she could, struggling to keep up. Her heart was hammering, partly due to the physical effort and partly because she was terrified of losing the group. Thank goodness her new suitcase had wheels.

‘Take a carry-on,’ Claire had advised Laura when they’d bought the tickets. ‘If we all travel light, we won’t have to pay extra in Dublin or faff around when we get to Lyon.’

Laura only had the one suitcase. It had once belonged to Noreen. It was massive and heavy even when empty, so she’d rushed out and bought a smaller one.

‘We don’t need to go to the Aer Lingus desk,’ Sarah called after Ava. ‘We’ve already checked in online.’

This was true. Claire had talked Laura through it on the phone and she’d printed out her boarding pass. She also had it on the app on her phone.

‘Sensible Sarah,’ Claire said jocularly. Laura was grateful to Claire for keeping calm. It was saving her from losing it.

Ava stopped by the departures board. ‘The gate’s up,’ she announced.

‘That way,’ Sarah said, pointing towards a sign for Security.

The two of them started to run again, but Claire called them back. ‘The gate’s up, but the flight’s not boarding yet. We don’t need to rush.’

Laura followed the others through security, watching what they did and copying them. She hadn’t known to put liquids into small containers and transparent plastic bags, so most of her toiletries were confiscated.

‘Not to worry,’ Claire said cheerfully. ‘I’ve got shampoo and conditioner and we can always buy some more when we get there.’

In the end they got to the gate with five minutes to spare before boarding. Laura needed to rest but the seats were all taken, so she slumped to the floor with her back against the wall. Sarah sat down next to her.

‘You should check your suitcase in that metal stand over there, Ava,’ Sarah said. ‘It looks like it’s about to burst open. If it doesn’t fit in there, you’ll have to pay for it to go in the hold.’

Ava wheeled her suitcase over to the baggage sizer and as Sarah had predicted, it didn’t fit. Claire offered to take some of Ava’s clothes in her luggage.

‘You have to pack your own things,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s a safety thing. You’re not supposed to carry anyone else’s stuff.’ Everyone looked at her. ‘What? You’re not. Just saying.’

Claire and Ava ignored her, knelt on the floor and transferred some clothes from Ava’s suitcase into Claire’s. Sarah messed about on her phone. Laura resisted the temptation to take out hers and send a text to Mrs Doherty to ask after Harry. It had only been a few hours since she’d dropped off the cat at her neighbour’s.

And then it was time to board the plane. Laura’s stomach clamped in panic. By the time they’d got onto the plane and found their seats, she felt as if she were about to faint. Claire had to put her case in the overhead bin for her. Laura sat down, sandwiched between Claire and Ava. She fumbled with the safety belt – it seemed complicated and her hands were shaking.

‘Is something the matter?’ Ava asked as she deftly attached and adjusted hers.

Helping Laura with the seatbelt, Claire replied for her, ‘She’s never flown before.’

‘Away on!’ Ava exclaimed, then added, ‘Sure, the pilot can’t be worse than that buck eejit bus driver.’

Laura tried to grunt her agreement, but it came out as a sort of squeal.

‘The plane’s the safest means of travelling, so it is,’ Claire said, patting Laura’s hand.

‘There’s a first time for everything,’ Sarah said from across the aisle. There was no one next to her, but some passengers were still standing, stowing luggage or waiting for someone to sit down so they could get to their seats.

‘Do you want the window seat?’ Ava asked.

Laura managed to shake her head and force a smile.

‘You should never swap seats on a plane,’ Sarah piped up again.

‘Why not?’ Ava asked, leaning forwards to look at Sarah.

‘Well, in case the plane crashes and they have to identify the bodies.’

Laura blanched.

‘Not helpful, Sarah,’ Claire said.

‘What? It’s true.’

A large man put an end to their conversation as he lifted his suitcase to put it in the locker above Sarah’s seat. Claire nudged Laura and nodded in his direction. They observed him as he shrugged off his jacket. Laura could see huge wet patches under his armpits as he raised his arms again to cram his jacket on top of his case.

‘Um, I’m in the middle,’ he said, turning round to Sarah, who got up and squeezed past him into the aisle to let him get to his seat. As the man wedged himself into the seat next to her, Sarah turned towards the others, wrinkling her nose and waving her waving her hand in front of it.

As Sarah sat down again, Ava said to Laura, ‘I bet she wishes she could swap seats now.’

That made Laura laugh in spite of the kittens tumbling around in her tummy.

Shortly after everyone had boarded, Laura heard the thrumming of the aeroplane’s engine and felt it vibrate through her. She was suddenly cold and regretted putting her cardigan in the overhead locker. She rubbed the goose pimples along her arms. With her eyes glued to the flight attendant, she hung on his every word during the safety demonstration, wondering why no one else was paying attention.

They were several rows away from the nearest emergency exit, which did nothing to reassure Laura. By the time the flight attendant got to the words brace! brace!, Laura had freaked out. Her mind conjured up images of masked hijackers, crashing aeroplanes, inflatable yellow slides, and black boxes sinking to the bottom of the Irish Sea. As the plane accelerated along the runway, Laura gripped the armrests so tightly her knuckles turned white. Claire placed her hand on Laura’s arm.

Once they were airborne, it got worse. The plane turned abruptly, tipping to such an angle that Laura could see the ground out of Ava’s window. She closed her eyes, convinced they were going to flip upside down. The plane continued its ascent, but the higher it climbed, the bumpier it got. Laura wanted to ask Claire what was happening, but the words got stuck in her throat.

But Claire seemed to sense her unease. ‘It’s OK, Laura. It’s just a wee bit of turbulence,’ she said.

Laura wasn’t convinced, but the plane gradually righted itself and once it was cruising horizontally and had stopped bouncing up and down, she began to relax.

Until there was a strange ding. ‘What was that?’ It came out as a whisper and Laura was surprised she’d been heard over the noise of the plane.

‘It’s to let you know you can take your seatbelt off,’ Ava said, pointing at the sign above their heads.

‘Why would I want to do that? I’ll never get it back on again.’

Ava laughed. ‘You can go for a wander.’

‘Wander where?’

‘Well, the toilet, for example.’ In a more serious tone, Ava added, ‘You know what your problem is?’

An unbidden image of her mother’s face flashed before Laura’s eyes. That was a question Noreen asked Laura often, and there were various possible answers to it. You’ve no self-confidence / dress sense / common sense or you’re always gurning / talking / thinking about yourself.

Declan had recently asked Laura the same thing. ‘Do you know what your problem is?’ She’d shaken her head and waited for him to enlighten her. ‘Your mother,’ he’d said.

‘You need to get out more,’ Ava finished, folding her cardigan to use as a makeshift pillow.

Laura forced herself to chuckle. ‘Yeah, I know. I’m not very good with people, though.’

‘What on earth makes you think that?’ asked Claire, who had been listening in on the conversation. Laura shrugged. ‘That’s so not true,’ Claire said. ‘You’re brilliant with those kids when you do Rhythm and Rhyme at the library. You were really patient with that old man the other day, even though he was very rude, and a lot of our regular readers specifically want you to recommend books for them.’

Laura didn’t know what to say to that and the three of them were silent for a while. She glanced at Sarah, who was asleep. After a few minutes, Laura could hear Ava snoring. She suddenly felt tired herself. She’d got up early this morning and now her anxiety was dispersing, it was taking her energy with it. As the plane began its descent, Laura nodded off, only to wake up a few minutes later with a jump as it landed.

As soon as the four of them stepped off the plane, the heat hit them. They walked towards the terminal building, wheeling their suitcases. The pilot had told them there was a slight breeze in Lyon, and Laura had assumed this would feel refreshing, but she felt as if she were surrounded by people, all aiming hairdryers on full blast at her.

‘Oh my God. My clothes are sticking to me already,’ said Sarah, flapping her T-shirt away from her with her free hand.

Once inside, they followed the signs for the Douanes – passport control – and soon stepped outside into the intense heat again.

‘Shall we get a taxi?’ Sarah suggested. They’d been planning to take the tram into Lyon. ‘It won’t cost much if we split it four ways and there’ll be air conditioning in the car.’

‘Good idea,’ Claire said.

Laura heaved a sigh of relief. The journey had been a total nightmare so far. There had been no end of obstacles along the way – Claire had almost missed the bus; they’d all nearly missed the plane. The bus ride and the flight had both been horribly stressful. But here they were. They’d arrived safely in Lyon, all four of them.

As she got into the cab, she felt anticipation and excitement flow through her body, even though it was sweating profusely. The worst bit was over. Or at least, Laura hoped it was.

Chapter 8
THE DAY BEFORE THEY DIED
Laura

Laura lay wide awake, her earplugs not quite blocking out the snores coming from the other twin bed. She’d always been a light sleeper and she couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t spent the night in her own bed. She’d not slept well and she didn’t feel particularly energized. She did, however, feel hungry.

A tempting smell of coffee was drifting its way towards her from the kitchen of the aparthotel. Or perhaps it was her imagination. Laura threw off the sheet and tiptoed out of the room so as not to wake Ava.

Claire and Sarah were both up already. Claire was sitting on a bar stool, dressed in denim shorts and a grey tank top. Sarah, who was still in her nightie, was fiddling with a coffee machine.

‘Morning. Come and have some brekkie,’ Claire said. ‘I’ve been to the bakery and bought some croissants and pains au chocolat. And some of these bright pink praline brioches. Some sort of local speciality, apparently. Hopefully they taste better than they look. The lady in the bakery spoke a bit of English, luckily, although she didn’t seem to understand a word I was saying.’

‘Oh? Did you try out your GCSE French on her?’

‘No.’ Claire chuckled. ‘I just repeated everything more loudly in English. I think it was the Norn Iron accent that threw her.’

Laura laughed.

‘I’m making coffee,’ Sarah announced unnecessarily, without turning round. ‘Milk’s that UHT stuff. Bloody disgusting. So we’re having black coffee instead of tea. When in Lyon and all that.’

By the time Ava emerged, Claire and Laura were poring over a map of the city of Lyon and the guidebook, planning their day’s sightseeing. Sarah was checking bus, tram and tube routes on the Internet on her phone.

‘The basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière is a must-see,’ Claire said.

‘We could take the funicular,’ Sarah suggested.

‘Why don’t we walk?’ Claire said. ‘You can go through the Rosary Gardens, it says here. It would be nice to go for a wee dander after all that travelling yesterday.’

Laura thought if it was going to be as hot as yesterday, they’d be better off taking the funicular, but she kept that to herself.

‘Sounds good,’ Ava said, her mouth full of croissant.

Sarah googled La Voie Lactée, the arena in the seventh arrondissement where The Naturals were performing their gig the following evening. ‘La Voie Lactée means the Milky Way,’ she said, reading from her phone. ‘It has a capacity of fifteen thousand – that’s massive! It opened as a concert hall in 1985, but it was previously used as a hospital during the Second World War and an armoury in the 1920s. The original building opened in 1910 as a cattle and pig market and a slaughterhouse.’

‘Yuk!’ Ava exclaimed.

Laura’s imagination created a graphic scene of row upon row of pig carcasses hanging upside down on huge metal hooks and dead cows lying on a bloodstained concrete floor. She shuddered, dispersing the image.

The walk up to the basilica turned out to be less of a “wee dander” and more of an uphill hike. Thankfully, it was in the shade, but it was hot even so, and they were all sweating liberally by the time they were halfway up. Laura’s right knee was throbbing, although she put on a brave face and said nothing of her discomfort to her friends.

The panoramic view from the top made the climb well worth it. They could see for miles – as far as Mont Blanc. And inside the basilica, it was cool. Laura was struck by how sumptuous and ornate everything was. The walls with their mosaics and gold leaf, the colourful stained-glass windows. You could probably enter this building every day for the rest of your life and still notice a detail you’d never picked out before.

Ava dipped her fingers in the font and crossed herself with the holy water. No one said anything. Laura had known Ava was Catholic. Her name was Irish for a start and she wore a gold necklace with a crucifix pendant. Sarah was a Protestant. Laura didn’t know what Claire was – she didn’t know which part of Belfast she lived in or which school she’d gone to. Her surname – Quinn – didn’t give anything away. Laura didn’t care either way. Here she was, on holiday with her friends, and religion had never been an issue between them. In fact, they’d never discussed it. But it had mattered a lot more when Laura’s parents were her age.

When Laura’s father had announced to his parents that he was going to marry Noreen, they’d disowned him, and so Laura had never met her paternal grandparents. She wasn’t even sure if they knew she existed. They’d never forgiven her father for marrying a “Taig” – a Catholic.

Laura’s mummy had taken her to mass when she was younger; her daddy had taken her to Orangemen marches. Northern Ireland was a very different place when Laura was a small child. The two religions could coexist now, but they’d caused a lot of damage to many Northern Irish families during the Troubles, including Laura’s. A lot of damage and a lot of death.

Laura couldn’t go there. She dismissed her thoughts before they got too dark, before she upset herself thinking about her father’s untimely death. Instead, she forced herself to listen to Sarah who was reading aloud from an online guidebook she’d brought up on her phone as the four of them walked around the basilica.

Afterwards, they visited the Roman amphitheatre, then walked down the hill to Le Vieux Lyon, the old quarter, to get a beer before going back to their aparthotel. They’d had a lovely day. The only thing that marred their enjoyment was the heat. They drank litres of water and walked in the shade, but the heat was oppressive. It was like being in a sauna, except you couldn’t come out and jump into a cool pool or dive under a cold shower. They didn’t walk all that far, but Laura felt drained.

It was as they were sitting at a table in the shade in a charming cobbled square that Laura heard it. A Northern Irish accent. And then another. She turned round and looked behind her. And then she saw them. The four men were sitting at the table behind her. She gestured over her shoulder.

‘Oh my God. It’s The Naturals,’ Ava exclaimed, loud enough for the members of the band to hear. Sarah spluttered on her beer.

‘I’m Ava,’ she said, getting up and reaching across the table to shake their hands.

Claire coughed.

‘Oh, and these are my friends Claire, Sarah and Laura.’

‘I’m Niall, the lead singer.’

Ava rolled her eyes, which made Laura giggle. It might be obvious to Ava, but Laura didn’t know the names of the members of the band. Apart from Connor.

‘This is Rich, our guitarist and my backing vocalist,’ Niall continued. Laura looked at Rich, who had tight blond curls and tanned arms. ‘This is Tom. He’s our drummer.’ Tom was tall with a receding hairline and a nice smile. ‘And last but not least our bass guitarist and my best mate, Connor.’

Having dispensed with the introductions, they pushed their tables together. Laura ended up next to Connor. As he sat down again, she got a whiff of his aftershave – a pleasant citrusy, musky scent. Thinking she was probably giving off a rank smell by now, Laura tried not to sit too close to him.

Niall did most of the talking, and he was the main topic of conversation. Ava acted like an overexcited groupie, taking photos of them with her phone, asking them for their autographs and trying to wangle backstage passes, all of which amused Laura and seemed to please Niall no end.

‘So, yous have come all the way over to Lyon to see our gig, then?’ Connor asked Laura.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We got here yesterday. We’re staying for a week. I’ve seen you play before, actually. A long time ago. In The Dirty Onion. I was with my cousin, Declan.’

‘Declan. Of course. I remember now. I knew I’d seen you before! I didn’t dare say it in case it sounded like a cheesy chat-up line!’

They laughed at that. Connor was easy to talk to and as they chatted together, Laura tuned out the others and almost forgot they were there. She no longer felt the heat, either.

Niall paid for another round of beers.

‘So, are you nervous about tomorrow?’ Laura asked.

Connor, who had been upbeat until then, didn’t answer for a few seconds. A cloud passed over his face. ‘I’m terrified,’ he said.

‘Well, I suppose it’s normal to get nervous before you go on stage,’ Laura said. ‘And it’s a big arena.’

‘Aye, I do get stage fright – we all do,’ he said. ‘There’s always a lot of adrenaline and it’s not such a bad feeling. But this time, I feel like … I don’t know … it’s daft … It’s more than that this time.’

‘How so?’

‘Och, it’s pathetic. I think I’ve got myself worked up or perhaps the heat has gone to my head. I just don’t feel good about this concert.’ He shrugged. ‘I can’t explain it.’

‘I think I know what you mean,’ Laura said. ‘I felt like that on the plane. It was the first time I’d flown, and I imagined all sorts of things going wrong – the plane crashing, hijackers on board, you name it, it went through my mind. But all my worries turned out to be unfounded. We landed safely. It will be fine, you’ll see. I’m sure you’ll be grand.’

‘Thank you,’ Connor said, sounding sincere. ‘You’re right. I’m panicking over nothing.’ He smiled at Laura, but it didn’t reach his lovely blue eyes.

Chapter 9
THE NIGHT THEY DIED
Laura

They all agreed that the musicians playing for the opening act were pretty “meh”, as Claire put it. Whenever the lead singer of the French band sang into the mic, high-pitched feedback filled the auditorium. To his credit, he carried on regardless.

‘I hope they get the sound system sorted out before The Naturals come on,’ Sarah shouted over the music.

Laura was more concerned about going for a pee before The Naturals came on. Sarah had wanted to be as near to the stage as possible and had insisted on them all arriving at the arena an hour and a half before the doors opened. They’d waited at the front of the queue in the still-blazing evening sun, taking it in turns to sit in pairs in the shade of the plane trees along the boulevard. Laura must have drunk nearly a litre of water and they’d bought a plastic beaker of beer each when they’d got in.

‘I’ll come with you,’ Ava said during the interval.

‘You’ll lose your place,’ Sarah warned.

‘We can push through the crowd,’ Ava replied. Then, turning to Laura, ‘How’s your leg?’

Laura’s knee was sore, and a little swollen, from all the walking they’d done. She hadn’t wanted to say anything to her friends because she didn’t want to slow them down or complain, but she was hobbling noticeably by the end of their first day here.

‘Holding up,’ she lied. She was in agony. She’d take a painkiller when they went to the loos.

There were loads of people waiting for the toilet and Laura and Ava were at the back of the queue this time.

‘There’s no one waiting in line for the men’s bogs,’ Ava said. ‘Let’s go in there.’

‘Hé! Qu-est-ce que vous faites?’ a man yelled as they passed the urinals. Ava darted into the only free toilet cubicle and the man continued to shout at Laura.

Laura muttered an apology: ‘Je suis désolée.’ Then she ran out of the men’s and took her place at the back of the queue for the ladies’, which had grown a little longer.

‘You head on back,’ she said when Ava returned. ‘You’ll miss the start of the concert.’

‘You sure? I’m happy to wait for you.’

‘No, you’re all right,’ Laura said. ‘I’ll find you no bother.’

‘If you’re sure,’ Ava said.

Laura wasn’t, but Ava had already gone.

When Laura eventually came out of her toilet cubicle, she heard squeals of delight and applause. The Naturals must have come on stage. She took a packet of paracetamol out of her handbag and stuck her head under the tap so she could swallow down a couple of tablets.

As she was washing her hands, a man entered the toilets. Laura was about to point out that the men’s was opposite, but before she could come up with the words in French, she caught his eye in the mirror. There was something about the way he stared at her through his insistent dark eyes, something unsettling, and Laura’s half-formed sentence died on her lips.

She felt nervous suddenly. She was on her own now, alone with this stranger. She gave him a taut smile, but his expression didn’t change. He wiped his forehead with his bare arm and Laura realized he was sweating profusely. Laura, too, had sweated outside while they’d waited to get in, but in the toilets the air conditioning was on full blast and it was almost too cool.

His gaze did not waver and Laura wanted to run, but she was frozen to the spot for some reason, as this man’s reflection held her eyes. She noticed his arms were tanned, but his face was deathly white. He had a short, scraggly beard, but his hair was neat as if he’d recently had it cut. He was younger than her, of average height and build, wearing dark clothes. She watched, trembling now, as he walked purposefully to the cubicle at the end. She saw him struggle with the door, which was apparently locked. But he got it open somehow and entered, banging the door behind him. Laura heard him lock it from the inside.

Stuck to the toilet door with tape was a sign, a piece of white paper. Two words had been written on it by hand with a black marker pen, but in the mirror, the letters were back to front. Laura turned around, taking in the words. HORS SERVICE. Out of order. Without drying her hands, she hurried out of the toilets as fast as she could on her dodgy knee.

The band had kicked off with one of their most popular songs, “Always & Anyway”, and the audience was jumping up and down. Laura had difficulty weaving her way through the crowd towards the stage. She certainly wouldn’t be jumping up and down; her knee was killing her. The closer she got to the stage, the hotter it seemed to get. The lights had dimmed and she couldn’t see her friends. Where were they?

The Naturals finished playing “Always & Anyway” and suddenly Laura was swamped by a fog of dry ice. She stood still, waiting for it to disperse, hearing the opening chords strike up to her favourite song, “Don’t let this be the end”. She sang along and relaxed a little, even though she was still separated from her friends. They couldn’t be far away. There were only two or three rows of people between her and the stage now.

Then, as a strobe light flashed, she caught sight of Ava, her head above those around her thanks to her vertiginous heels, and next to her, a good few inches lower, Sarah’s blond ponytail swinging from side to side as she swayed in time to the music. She heaved a sigh of relief and trod on some toes as she elbowed her way towards them.

A hand tapped her shoulder. Whirling round, she found herself face to face with Claire.

‘I was coming to find you,’ Claire shouted in her ear. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ Laura said. ‘Thank you.’

‘I was … worried. I thought maybe … lost or something.’ Laura couldn’t hear Claire properly over the music.

‘What? No. Long queue, that’s all.’

Just then there was a loud bang. Laura froze.

‘What was that?’ she shouted near Claire’s ear.

Claire shouted back. Laura caught two words. “Firecracker” and “percussion”.

Claire didn’t seem worried, so Laura tried not to be. But it had seemed a bit loud to be a firecracker. And it didn’t sound like the drums. It had sounded more like a pneumatic drill starting up and stopping abruptly. Or a detonation. But that was ridiculous.

There was another loud bang with a white flash somewhere to their right, followed by a screeching sound through the loudspeakers as Niall fell to the floor of the stage, clutching his mic in his hand. On one of the giant screens, Laura saw him fall. The whole crowd had witnessed it, too. People started running in all directions, pushing and shouting.

Laura wanted to run as well, but she was paralysed by fear, like a deer caught in headlights. She looked at Claire, whose hand was clapped to her mouth, wide eyes glued to the stage. The music had stopped abruptly, replaced by loud dissonant screams from the crowd. Glancing at the big screen again, she saw Connor kneeling beside Niall, his hands on the frontman’s chest. The other musicians – Tom and Rich – had fled. Was that blood? Was Niall bleeding?

Another bang – a gunshot. Then a salvo of shots. Four or five people fell to the ground, a few feet away from them.

‘Oh God! Oh fuck! Laura! Ava’s been hit!’

As hordes of people stampeded away from the danger, Claire pushed her way towards Ava and Sarah. Without thinking, Laura followed, oblivious now to the pain in her knee. Her head was ringing with the sound of gunfire even as the next burst broke out, momentarily drowning out the screams, Laura’s among them. Suddenly the lights went out. They came on again a few seconds later, but Laura could no longer see Claire.

But she saw them. Three of them. All wearing dark clothes. All armed. They were making sweeping movements from left to right, then from right to left, with their automatic weapons – Kalashnikovs? – shooting aimlessly. She watched, helplessly, as rows of human dominoes collapsed in front of her.

They want to kill as many people as possible, Laura thought, terror ripping through her like wildfire. She barely registered the deafening volley of bullets flying close to her before she went down. She would never know what made her drop to the ground. Shock? Survival instinct? She did know she wouldn’t have made it far if she’d tried to run. She wasn’t much of a runner, even without her bad knee.

Where was Claire? Where were Ava and Sarah? Claire’s voice came back to her: Ava’s been hit! Was she injured or dead?

Making herself as small as possible on the floor, Laura tried desperately to think of something nice. It could be her last thought. But her mind was blank with terror.

This time the firing was relentless. She had no idea how long it lasted, but it seemed interminable. Fifteen seconds? Twenty seconds? Bullets raining, hailing, all around.

Laura couldn’t be sure because she could still hear the shots resounding in her head, but she thought it had stopped. There were far fewer people now. Had some of them escaped? Had they all been shot?

‘Maintenant! Cours!’ She heard shouts and was conscious of people in the pit getting to their feet and running. She didn’t dare to move. Was it over?

No sooner had that thought entered her head than it started up again. They must have been reloading. That’s why it had stopped. Suddenly someone fell on top of her, someone who had been gunned down while trying to escape. She half-pushed, half-kicked the deadweight off her, her screams blotted out by the noise of the automatic weapons. But she’d reacted without thinking and she instantly regretted it. The dead body would have shielded her, acted as a camouflage as she herself played dead underneath it, and now she was exposed. She didn’t even know if the victim was a man or a woman.

When they finally stopped firing again, there was an eerie silence. No screaming, no crying. Or maybe Laura’s ears were no longer working. She was overwhelmed by a strong stench – sweat mixed with a pungent odour of powder from the weapons and something metallic, which Laura recognized as blood. The smell of fear; the smell of death.

Opening her eyes, through streaming tears she saw one of the armed men kick a body lying in a pool of blood on the floor near her. There was no movement, no sound. He moved on to the next person. Another kick with his black boot. This time a groan. More shots rang out and the body jerked suddenly. The man had shot him dead.

Oh God. He’s killing the ones who aren’t dead. He’s finishing them off, she thought. A whimper escaped as she willed herself not to scream. The shots continued to echo in her ears.

‘Bien joué, Zak,’ one of the other two called out, laughing.

These men – these gunmen – were having fun. Laura felt bile rise into her throat and it was all she could do not to retch.

Pretend to be dead. Don’t move if he kicks you. The thoughts in Laura’s head were loud and frantic. Even as she willed herself to stay still, she could feel herself shaking uncontrollably, as if she were cold in this stuffy place. She was sure her body trembling would give her away. She closed her mouth to stop her teeth chattering, but she kept her eyes open. One of the gunmen was pointing his weapon at a man and a woman. He shouted something Laura didn’t catch and the couple dropped to their knees. The man was pleading; the woman was crying hysterically.

‘Am. Stram. Gram …’ With each word, he moved the weapon, aiming it first at one, then at the other. He was playing Eeny Meeny Miny Moe! He would shoot one of them! Laura was horrified.

‘… Ce sera toi!’ And with that, he took aim at the woman and shot her. She fell with a thud, face down onto the ground. The man threw himself on top of her, crying as hysterically as the woman had just seconds earlier. The gunman shot him, too, in the back.

A sharp kick to her side. Laura was unprepared for it and cried out. The game was up. She curled into a tight ball, her arms over her head in a futile attempt to protect herself. But instead of shooting her, the gunman hauled her to her feet. Her legs were too weak to hold her up and she fell back to the floor, but he picked her up again.

That’s when she recognized him. The one they’d called Zak. It was the man who had gone into the ladies’ toilets as she was coming out. He had an amused expression on his face. He recognized her, too. A thought dawned on her then. Had he hidden his weapon in the ladies’ loos? Is that what he was doing? Getting his gun?

‘Laura!’ It was Claire’s voice. Laura turned her head to the left, then to the right, but she couldn’t see her friend.

‘Ah! Vous vous connaissez.’

Now she saw her. She was walking towards them, followed by one of the gunmen, who was pressing his weapon into the middle of her back.

‘Tu choisis,’ Zak said into her ear.

Laura sobbed. No translation came to her. The sentence was easy, but its meaning was way too difficult to grasp. She couldn’t even find the words in French to say she didn’t understand. What did he want her to do? ‘Oi … Irish,’ she stammered. ‘English.’

‘A toi de choisir,’ Zak said, loud enough for only Laura to hear. ‘You choose.’

Laura’s heart stopped as she grasped his meaning now.

‘Who should live? Who must die? You or your friend?’ Zak said. He pointed his gun at her, then at Claire, who was whimpering. ‘Toi ou elle, bordel! Choisis!’

Chapter 10
THE NIGHT THEY DIED
Laura

Laura shook her head frantically then covered her face with her hands.

It happened so fast. Zak swung the Kalashnikov to his right and fired two rounds. Peeping through her fingers, Laura saw Claire fall to the ground and lie, crumpled in a heap. Laura sank to her knees. The only noise now was her wailing.

Claire, oh God. He’s shot Claire. Claire’s dead. What has he done? What have I done?

Zak jerked his weapon upwards to indicate Laura should get to her feet. Laura noticed the two other gunmen had rounded up six or seven other people and were making them walk towards the stage. Zak pushed his machine gun into Laura’s shoulder, forcing her to turn round, away from him.

‘Move!’ he growled, pushing his weapon into her back now. ‘Walk!’

She had to step over – even step on – dead bodies as she did what Zak ordered. She told herself not to look around her, but she couldn’t help it. Death was everywhere. This was a massacre. Carnage. Mounds of dead bodies. She could only have looked for a second or two, but she knew these images would be etched on her brain for the rest of her life.

If she could get out of here alive.

She allowed herself a faint glimmer of hope when, backstage, she spotted an illuminated sign for an emergency exit. But the gunmen – the terrorists – made them go up a winding staircase, then through a door that led to the balconies.

They heard subdued crying as they came through the door. There were more spectators – more survivors here. Three of them. They’d been hiding behind the chairs, probably too terrified to take the stairs to the ground floor in case they found themselves face to face with one of the assailants. They, too, were forced to join the group.

Hostages. That’s what they were. They were hostages being held by terrorists.

‘Tu as le sac?’ Zak asked one of the other gunmen.

‘Quel sac?’

‘Le sac avec la munition, idiot!’

‘Ah, non. Merde! Je l’ai oublié en bas.’

‘Vas-le chercher, tête de con!’

Another tiny flicker of optimism as Laura understood they’d left the ammunition in a bag on the lower level.

They all waited while one of the gunmen went back down. They saw him, from the balcony, as he emerged onto the stage, then leapt off it into the pit where he jumped over bodies like he was playing hopscotch in a playground. He looked up at them all and laughed. Laura felt sick and looked away.

Suddenly more shots rang out and then a bigger bang. The commotion had come from below. Laura hadn’t seen what happened, but she did see the look of shock on Zak’s face. He recovered quickly.

‘Avancez! Pas un bruit!’ he hissed, and to Laura, ‘Move! Keep quiet!’

‘Putain! Ils l’ont eu!’ This from the other terrorist.

‘Oh, God. What’s going on?’

Laura didn’t realize she had spoken her thoughts aloud until the hostage standing next to her, a woman about her age, whispered to her in English, ‘It’s the police. They’ve killed the other one. The one who went to fetch the ammunition.’

They went through a door behind the balcony area and found themselves in a corridor, dimly lit by emergency lighting and the faint glimmer of a streetlamp through a small, dirty window. There was a staircase to the end of the corridor. Laura supposed it led to the wings. She was in shock, but her mind was surprisingly lucid. She was desperately trying to come up with a plan to escape. Could they make a run for it? If all of them ran, would some of them make it? The terrorists had no more ammunition. Except what was already in the magazines of their rifles. What could that be? Thirty bullets each, maybe? Two terrorists. About ten hostages. Laura’s chances were slim to non-existent.

‘Assis! Dos contre la porte!’ Zak shouted, indicating with his rifle that he was giving this order to Laura, the woman who had whispered to her and an older man. Laura didn’t move. She’d understood perfectly, but her body refused to obey. ‘Sit down, your back against the door,’ Zak translated when Laura didn’t move. ‘Do what I tell you,’ Zak said, locking his eyes onto hers, as he’d done in the toilets earlier that evening. He had a dangerous gleam in his dark gaze. ‘Do what I say and I won’t kill you.’

Laura grabbed on to that promise as if she was drowning and he was throwing her a lifeline. He had just slaughtered dozens of people, including Claire, but she had no choice but to trust that he would let her live. She sat down, her back against the door, as Zak had instructed.

But then the hostage next to her shattered any brief illusion she’d created in her head. ‘When the police begin their assault, they will come through this door.’ She had whispered, but Laura could still make out the panic in her voice. She took the woman’s hand and squeezed it.

One of the men issued another order. She didn’t understand, but the other hostages, who were sitting against the walls of the corridor were taking out their mobiles and sliding them across the floor towards the gunman. The women were handing over their handbags, too. Laura followed suit.

She tried hard despite her alarm to concentrate on what they were saying. Her life might depend on it. She understood they were looking among the hostages for a married couple. Two hands went up. They made the man stand up, asked him his name.

‘Henri,’ he said, his voice quavering.

Then he had to retrieve his phone from the pile. Zak asked Henri’s wife her name. The first time it came out as a sob and she had to repeat it.

‘Elodie,’ she said. ‘Je m’appelle Elodie.’

Laura listened as Zak told Henri what to do. She got the gist of what he was saying. She looked at Elodie, whose tear-streaked face was ashen. Laura knew her own face must look like that, too.

Unless Laura was mistaken, Zak had told Henri to take his mobile phone to the police inside the building. It occurred to Laura that the police probably didn’t know exactly where they were for the moment, and that their hiding place in the corridor would no longer be a secret. But that didn’t concern the terrorists. They wanted to negotiate. They told Henri if he didn’t come back, they would kill Elodie and throw her body out of the window.

‘Et Henri,’ the other terrorist added, ‘N’oublie pas de leur dire que nous avons onze otages ici!’

So there were eleven of them. Eleven hostages at the mercy of two terrorists. The terrorists were using them as a human shield.

Laura, the man sitting next to her and the woman whose hand Laura was still holding had to move away from the door to let Henri out. Elodie didn’t make a sound, but her wide eyes and open mouth reflected sheer terror.

While Henri was gone, two or three of the mobile phones on the heap in the middle of the floor started ringing at more or less the same time. The two terrorists looked at each other, then at each of the hostages in turn.

‘Ça y est! On doit passer aux infos!’

‘He thinks they must be on the news,’ her neighbour whispered, confirming what Laura had understood.

There were relatives and friends at home who must have seen or heard the news about the terrorist attack and now they wanted news of their loved ones. Tears sprang to Laura’s eyes. Another mobile began to ring as Henri knocked on the door and gave the terrorists some kind of prearranged password.

Laura looked at Henri’s wife as he came back into the corridor. Her face showed no relief. Did she and Henri have children? Maybe Elodie had thought if one of them could get away, that would be better than neither of them.

Zak ordered Elodie to find her mobile. She crawled over to her handbag, unzipped her bag and pulled out her mobile. She handed it to Zak and returned to her place, sitting against the wall. Henri wrapped his arms around her. Then Zak told the other gunman – Laura caught his name: Ali – to turn off the other phones. At least four were still ringing. One of the ringtones was the same as Declan’s. The tears spilled down Laura’s cheeks.

Ali stomped over the bags and mobiles and then bounced up and down on them like he was on a trampoline. He continued to jump, giggling all the while, even after the phones were all silent.

‘Arrête, Ali!’

Ali did what he was told and stopped jumping. He unzipped his cardigan, clearly hot after exerting himself. Underneath he was wearing a black T-shirt and, to Laura’s horror, a suicide vest.

Oh God. No one is going to get out of here alive, Laura thought. We’re all going to die. Them. Us. Everyone.

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