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
Francesca heard him disconnect before she could say goodbye. She looked up at the television at a picture of a blonde teenager in a formal black dress. As she turned the television off, she was struck by her own physical likeness to the girl.
‘Francesca! It’s coming on to the table now…’
‘Coming.’
She picked up the roses by the stems and wanted to embrace them as she headed towards the kitchen sink.
‘That’s quite a bunch of flowers you’ve got there, Francesca.’
Steam billowed from the plate as her mother served spaghetti carbonara on to Francesca’s plate.
‘So you’re not going to tell me who they’re from.’
‘Mum, leave it, please.’ She held her free hand up to stop her mother ladling more pasta on to her plate. ‘Thank you, that’ll do,’ said Francesca, looking at the portion of pasta and thinking of what she’d look like in the mirror when she next stepped out of the bath, what he would make of her if things ever went that far.
As her mother carried two plates of pasta to the kitchen table, Francesca placed the roses in the sink.
‘This was one of your dad’s favourites.’
‘I remember.’
Francesca sat across the table from her mother, her appetite gone.
‘What’s happened to your hand, Francesca?’
She looked at her right hand and saw a spreading pattern of blood from a tiny wound on her index finger.
‘Clumsy me,’ said Francesca. She looked across the kitchen at the roses in the sink. ‘One of the thorns…’ She smiled, wrapped a piece of tissue around the wound and pressed down, her normally heavy heart lifting with happiness and excitement at what lay ahead, and she made a big decision that she had been playing with since her earliest days at Maguire Holdings.
It was time to move on and away from Norma Maguire.
24
6.31 pm
For the fifth time, Detective Chief Inspector Eve Clay read Annie Boyd’s online dating profile on Pebbles On The Beach and was astonished at what constituted a poor advertisement for self.
In her profile photograph, Annie looked pretty and good-natured and it made Clay feel deeply sorry for her. It was a cropped head and shoulders shot of the picture she’d had taken on holiday, the one from which she had been identified through her mole and the bluebird tattoo on her arm.
The door of the incident room opened and Clay looked up from her laptop.
‘You wanted to see me, Eve?’ asked Riley, walking towards Clay.
‘Grab a seat and sit with me please, Gina.’
As Riley sat next to her, Clay said, ‘This is Annie Boyd’s dating profile. What do you know about internet dating sites?’
‘Quite a bit. When my sister got divorced, she spent half her life online looking for a man and the other half dragging me through the process, each painful step of the way.’