Chapters (156)
- A DATE WITH DEATH
- Also by Mark Roberts
- A Date With Death
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- The Past
- 1977
- Day OneWednesday, 1st December 2021CatoptrophobiaFear of mirrors
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- The Past
- 1979
- Day TwoThursday, 2nd December 2021OneirophobiaFear of dreams
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- The Past
- 1980
- Day ThreeFriday, 3rd December 2021MonophobiaFear of being alone
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- The Past
- 1982
- Day FourSaturday, 4th December 2021ThanatophobiaFear of Death
- 99
- 100
- 101
- 102
- 103
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- 112
- 113
- 114
- 115
- 116
- 117
- 118
- 119
- 120
- 121
- 122
- 123
- 124
- 125
- 126
- 127
- 128
- 129
- 130
- 131
- 132
- 133
- 134
- 135
- 136
- 137
- About the Author
- An Invitation from the Publisher
‘I didn’t commit the murders. I have never committed murder in my life.’
‘Are you referring to the murders of Sandra O’Day, Annie Boyd and Amanda Winton, Mr McKee?’
He nodded.
‘If you didn’t kill those women, who did?’
‘Ask Norma Maguire about it.’
‘You know Norma Maguire?’
He looked at the clock and muttered, ‘Christ.’
‘You know her? Yes or no? It’s not a hard question.’
‘Yes, I know her.’
Edgar McKee looked up at the clock and smiled the smile of a man with a trump card tucked neatly into his sleeve.
132
3.05 pm
The sea.
The edges of waves pushed on to the shore and into the middle reaches of Francesca Christie’s dream. She was in the basement and The Ghoul stood looking at her, wearing Annie Boyd’s face and scalp.
Francesca looked into The Ghoul’s eyes lurking beneath Annie’s skin and she saw the two dots of light that she’d seen reflected in her rear-view mirror as she’d driven at knifepoint down Riverside Drive. The dots exploded into a hailstorm of light, falling from pitch darkness behind which lurked the faces of people she saw every day and the interiors of vendors’ houses she walked around, measuring, describing, writing up, conducting viewings, selling, beneath a surface of white light that made the images dance.
The sound of the waves turned into a shushing noise and she knew she was listening to a sonic memory from before her earliest conscious recall: her mother shushed her as she jigged her on her shoulder, lulling her into sleep when she was little more than a newborn baby.
Tears streamed down her face, tears of happiness at the deep stamp of love that she had known all her life.
‘Shush,’ said the waves. ‘Shush,’ said her mother.
She saw her mother’s face as she placed her down in the cot, the night light picking out her features, her mother yet not her mother, her mother as a much younger woman, her mother as a version of herself.
‘I love you, Francesca Christie.’ The words that followed her from wakefulness into the deep darkness of infant sleep.
Snap.
Francesca Christie woke up and had no idea of whether it was day or night, evening or morning.
‘My mum. My poor mother.’
She speculated at the levels of anxiety her mother had been living through in the time that she had been missing, and her feelings rocketed from sorrow to heights of rage.
Francesca held on to the deepest of breaths, didn’t feel the cold, the hunger or the thirst, just the rage that filled her from her scalp to her toenails.
Hold on to the breath! Hold on to the rage! Hold on, hold on, hold on…
The waves came and she knew she was near a beach.
Der. Der. A train.
The land and the sea.
The air was salty.
The sea.
Shush.