BooksBarbecue
Back Before You Were Gone
Chapters (58)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-one
  24. Twenty-two
  25. Twenty-three
  26. Twenty-four
  27. Twenty-five
  28. Twenty-six
  29. Twenty-seven
  30. Twenty-eight
  31. Twenty-nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-one
  34. Thirty-two
  35. Thirty-three
  36. Thirty-four
  37. Thirty-five
  38. Thirty-six
  39. Thirty-seven
  40. Thirty-eight
  41. Thirty-nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-one
  44. Forty-two
  45. Forty-three
  46. Forty-four
  47. Forty-five
  48. Forty-six
  49. Forty-seven
  50. Forty-eight
  51. Forty-nine
  52. Fifty
  53. Fifty-one
  54. Acknowledgements
  55. An Eastbourne Murder Mystery
  56. Canelo Crime
  57. About the Author
  58. Also by Sheila Bugler

By the time she reached the sixth floor, she was sweating and out of breath. At this time of the year, the stairwell was like an oven – sun streaming through the dirty glass, baking the steps and the metal handrail. Each time she’d put her hand on the handrail to steady herself, she’d pulled back with a yelp as her skin connected with the hot metal.

Pushing through the door at the top, she stepped out of the heat into a long, dark corridor. The doors to the flats were all numbered. As she looked along the line, she again had that sense that someone was behind her, watching. When she swung around, she saw a shadow behind the glass door to the stairwell, as if someone was quickly stepping back, out of sight. She waited a moment, but no one came through the door and the shadow had disappeared, so she continued along the corridor.

It didn’t take long to find the flat she was looking for. Pressing her ear against the door, she heard the faint sound of a TV or radio, the shuffle of footsteps and a man’s phlegmy cough.

She pulled back, her heart racing. He was in there. Her father. Memories slammed into her, image after image from the first few years of her childhood. Sunny afternoons on the beach in summer; Christmas Day, her father asleep in the armchair in the sitting room, mouth open as he snored; her parents shouting at each other while Emer and Kitty lay in bed, sheets pulled over their heads to block out the noise.

And the last time she saw him. A sunny afternoon, three weeks after Kitty had drowned. Emer was sitting in the back garden, seeing how many stones she could balance on top of each other. Doing anything not to think about what had happened. Her father had come out and sat beside her. For once in his life, he was clean-shaven and his breath, when he leaned in to kiss her, didn’t stink.

‘I’m not a bad man, Emer. Remember that, won’t you? I always tried to do my best for you girls.’

She didn’t know why, but his words made her angry. She’d pulled away from him, screamed that his best hadn’t been good enough. Kitty was dead and they all knew it was his fault because he hadn’t loved them enough to come on holiday with them. If he’d been with them, she’d screamed, Kitty would never have drowned. She ran back into the house, and when she came back outside later, her father was gone.