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Back Reluctantly Home Save as PDF
Chapters (55)
  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. COPYRIGHT PAGE
  3. 1
  4. 2
  5. 3
  6. 4
  7. 5
  8. 6
  9. 7
  10. 8
  11. 9
  12. 10
  13. 11
  14. 12
  15. 13
  16. 14
  17. 15
  18. 16
  19. 17
  20. 18
  21. 19
  22. 20
  23. 21
  24. 22
  25. 23
  26. 24
  27. 25
  28. 26
  29. 27
  30. 28
  31. 29
  32. 30
  33. 31
  34. 32
  35. 33
  36. 34
  37. 35
  38. 36
  39. 37
  40. 38
  41. 39
  42. 40
  43. 41
  44. 42
  45. 43
  46. 44
  47. 45
  48. 46
  49. 47
  50. 48
  51. 49
  52. 50
  53. 51
  54. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  55. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Two months and ten days. The days keep ticking by, but I stay still, frozen in time, like my baby. Each morning I wake and know I have to live another day without her. Actually, I’m not really living. I breathe, yes, and go about the bare necessities to stay alive, but that is not the same. This is no way to exist. If I could, I would go to S in a heartbeat. But I can’t, because if I take my own life then J will have won, and I cannot accept that. So I trudge on, making my way through each day in the best way I can. I am broken beyond repair. I can’t imagine a time when I will be anything but entirely destroyed. There is no purpose to my life without my darling Scarlet.

Pip heard her parents going to bed and then the house fell silent, the only sounds the ticking of the cooling pipes and the owls hooting in the trees outside. She read on, still wiping away her tears, until she reached November.

Wednesday 30th November

Joan is dead and I am glad. It serves her right, the bitch.

The stark sentences pulled her up short. She remembered what Jez had told her – ‘The rumour was that one of them had pushed the other down the stairs.’ Could that really be what happened? But the diary entries from that point told her nothing else. They became more and more sporadic, sometimes just a list of seemingly unconnected words. It was as if Evelyn was unravelling, and then finally, halfway through December, the entries stopped entirely.

The story was irritatingly incomplete. She had no idea why Scarlet had been out on her own, why Evelyn seemed to feel so little guilt nor whether she had actually killed Joan. She would have to find out the truth, though, or she was going to drive herself mad with speculation.

For a moment she considered talking to Jez about what she suspected, but then dismissed the idea almost at once. If the entry for 30th November was a confession of sorts, then it wasn’t her secret to tell, and anyway, she might just have got the wrong end of the stick. That was most likely to be the case, she told herself, but at the same time something about the abruptness of the entry made the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention.

One thing was certain, however. There had to be more to all this. What she had gleaned from the diary and her investigations at the library told her part of a story, certainly, but not all of it. She needed to find the missing pieces.

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