Read on for an exclusive sample of
The Promise, the new novel from Lucy Diamond,
coming in February 2021

Prologue

It was almost midnight and the Thames was rolling along, black as tar, wrinkling and smoothing itself beneath the starlit sky. The houseboats were shadowy shapes at their moorings as frost scattered icy glitter across rooftops and railings, silvering each trembling blade of grass. High above, a crescent moon gleamed, as lustrous as wedding satin.

A man walked unsteadily down the river path, hands shoved in his pockets, head bowed. His world seemed to have tilted on its axis and he wasn’t sure how to right himself again. First there had been the breathless phone call that afternoon – I’ve got something to tell you – leaving him with the prickling sense that luck was slipping between his fingers, that maybe the charm he’d always relied upon might not be enough to rescue him this time. Then, feeling cornered, he had lashed out needlessly, hurting people he loved with his words. Now he was left with a rising tide of dread that he couldn’t shake off.

What was he going to do? Had he blown everything?

A scouring wind skimmed off the river against his face and somewhere in the distance a fox shrieked, as high-pitched and unnerving as a child’s scream. The man hunched deeper into the collar of his coat, wishing he was already at home, the front door bolted, warm and safe in bed, the heating pipes cooling with their soft clicks and creaks. But did he even deserve to be there any more, after what he had done?

Suddenly there were footsteps scuffling behind him. A shout. ‘Oi! Mate.’

He turned. And then—

Chapter One

It wasn’t as if Dan had been deliberately avoiding Zoe since the funeral. All the same, when he glimpsed her and Bea at the far end of the supermarket aisle, his first thought was to swerve away and hide. Sweat prickled between his shoulder blades. Adrenalin spiked in jags through his blood. Every instinct he possessed told him to get out of there, fast, run – but then he pictured himself fleeing like a criminal, hunched low in the driver’s seat of his car, and knew he would feel even more of a scumbag than usual. Which was saying something.