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
On the landing outside, there was a click. A switch on a wall.
She handed him the next biscuit, thought that she had imagined the noise outside her baby’s room.
She heard the creak of the door at her back and saw the deepening band of light fall into her baby’s room from the landing outside.
‘Well, well, well, what’s going on around here?’
Day Two
Thursday, 2nd December 2021
Oneirophobia
Fear of dreams
27
3.03 am
Eve Clay sat at the table in her dining room, haunted by a dream that had propelled her from a troubled sleep. The only light in the room came from the screen of her laptop. She muted the sound and watched a clear and gentle tide washing over a gathering of colourful pebbles lodged in clean sand.
Words appeared on the screen.
Pebbles On The Beach.
Her body shivered in the cold of the early hours and the fresh memory of a vivid dream.
She climbed over the metal railings, a precarious barrier between the promenade at Otterspool and the River Mersey below. Tall arc lamps threw light on to the mud and, as she negotiated the concrete steps down to the riverbed, the sky was full of red light and dark contours of menacing clouds.
She opened the fake profile she had posted, masquerading as twenty-something Natasha Jones.
Clay recognised the weight of Thomas’ footsteps as he walked down the stairs, and saw that two of the three men she had winked at had winked back at her.
She wrote, Hi, Alan, how yah doing? And then, Hi, Stu, how’s it going? as her dream came crashing inside her head.
She walked across the mud towards the dead woman with the sky shifting and the wind howling at her back, her protective suit sticking against her clothes. The waters of the River Mersey disappeared like giant bathwater down a plughole nearby, a vortex in the mud. Clay turned and the line of supporting officers on the promenade weren’t there. The light continued pouring above the railings and when she turned to continue her journey to the dead woman, she froze.
‘Eve? Are you all right?’ asked Thomas from the bottom of the stairs.
‘I’m fine. Thank you.’
She heard him moving from the hall in her direction and said, ‘In here, the dining room.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Do me a favour, Thomas. Keep the light off.’
‘Can’t sleep?’ he asked.
‘Bad dreams,’ she replied.
The dead woman pulled herself up from the mud, pushing down into the sludge with both hands, her facial skin missing but the muscles on her cheeks twitching into life. With each step Clay took towards her, the woman grew taller and stronger under the shimmering sky.