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Back Ask No Questions
Chapters (69)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. Prologue
  5. Chapter One
  6. Chapter Two
  7. Chapter Three
  8. Chapter Four
  9. Chapter Five
  10. Chapter Six
  11. Chapter Seven
  12. Chapter Eight
  13. Chapter Nine
  14. Chapter Ten
  15. Chapter Eleven
  16. Chapter Twelve
  17. Chapter Thirteen
  18. Chapter Fourteen
  19. Chapter Fifteen
  20. Chapter Sixteen
  21. Chapter Seventeen
  22. Chapter Eighteen
  23. Chapter Nineteen
  24. Chapter Twenty
  25. Chapter Twenty-One
  26. Chapter Twenty-Two
  27. Chapter Twenty-Three
  28. Chapter Twenty-Four
  29. Chapter Twenty-Five
  30. Chapter Twenty-Six
  31. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  32. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  33. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  34. Chapter Thirty
  35. Chapter Thirty-One
  36. Chapter Thirty-Two
  37. Chapter Thirty-Three
  38. Chapter Thirty-Four
  39. Chapter Thirty-Five
  40. Chapter Thirty-Six
  41. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  42. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  43. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  44. Chapter Forty
  45. Chapter Forty-One
  46. Chapter Forty-Two
  47. Chapter Forty-Three
  48. Chapter Forty-Four
  49. Chapter Forty-Five
  50. Chapter Forty-Six
  51. Chapter Forty-Seven
  52. Chapter Forty-Eight
  53. Chapter Forty-Nine
  54. Chapter Fifty
  55. Chapter Fifty-One
  56. Chapter Fifty-Two
  57. Chapter Fifty-Three
  58. Chapter Fifty-Four
  59. Chapter Fifty-Five
  60. Chapter Fifty-Six
  61. Epilogue
  62. Prologue
  63. Chapter One
  64. Acknowledgements
  65. Credits
  66. More from Claire Allan …
  67. About the Author
  68. Also by Claire Allan
  69. About the Publisher

The train is cold as it trundles along the north coast, through Castlerock, past Benone. There aren’t many people on the beaches today. Just a few tourists, by the look of it. Hunting out the Game of Thrones locations, no doubt.

I wrap my scarf a little tighter around my neck and wish that I’d put on my thermal tights instead of ordinary opaques. I also wish my car wasn’t in the garage so that I could have driven up to meet Jamesy Harte instead of having to rely on the fairly archaic rail system that exists outside Belfast.

I’ve been told I’m a control freak. I like to do things my way. I don’t see that there’s anything wrong with that. My way hasn’t let me down too often in the past, but the upshot of it is that I feel out of sorts when things can’t happen the way I would like. When I have to rely on other people instead of doing everything under my own steam.

I sigh, look down at my laptop again, read over the old newspaper stories that I’d scanned and saved. I glance at the old picture of Jamesy as he was then. I didn’t realise he had been so young when it had happened. Just twenty-two. My hazy childhood memory had him as a grown-up, therefore an ‘old person’ in my head. He isn’t even old now. He’ll be in his late forties, with still a lot of life left to live. But he’s lost so much.

I study his picture from 1994. I wonder how he’ll look now. Older, obviously. More serious. The picture from the paper shows him as I remember him. There was a softness to him. A gullible air. In those non-PC days, he was referred to as ‘a bit slow’ by those who knew him. ‘Not the sharpest knife in the drawer’ by others.

Maybe that made it all the easier to pin the blame on him for what happened to Kelly. Or maybe he actually did kill her.

I’ve met murderers before. I’ve been charmed by them. Mostly I know how to keep my distance, not to believe all they say. But in my experience, the most dangerous people of all are those who can lie so convincingly, with such emotion, that they can pull the wool over your eyes.

I’m not sure that Jamesy Harte has the wherewithal to be so manipulative. But no other murderer has had the impact on my life that he has. He was the near miss. The scary figure. The proof that it’s not just strangers who are dangerous. He became a man to be feared. And I did fear him. For years.