Read That Night online | BooksBarbecue

Contents ( 166)

Besides, she’s got the knife, shoved right into the back of their cupboard. He can’t use it. And maybe, maybe, maybe it was something else, she thinks. Some art project. Or just a mistake.

At ten to two, she goes to the middle landing. She can hear Kelly snoring softly above her.

She watches, not blinking, her eyes burning, standing at the window. This time, she has no mug. No pumpkin. This time, she thinks, it will be different. She has her shoes on. She is ready.

01:59 becomes 01:00. 01:01.01:02. She relaxes completely.

Until 01:11. And then he arrives, loping up the street exactly as before, only eleven minutes later.

She runs out on to the drive just as Todd reaches the stranger. He’s already got it out, is holding the knife in his right hand, ready.

He reaches the man and draws the blade back, and then it plays out exactly as before. The three stabs, the wound. The blood.

He drops the knife, which strikes a high note on the pavement. She looks at Todd, then at the knife, kneeling down to touch it. It’s different. It still has the white plastic tag on the end which she holds in her hand. She stares at it while the death plays out, which Jen is already less affected by than yesterday. The tag says it is an Asda chef’s knife. Bought earlier today, she assumes, because she took the first knife. It probably took eleven minutes.

Jen blinks again, and then she is gone. When she wakes up, it isn’t day Zero, but Day Minus One. The day before the day before.

THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING

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PENGUIN BOOKS

Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

First published by Penguin Books in 2021

The moral right of the author has been asserted

ISBN: 978-1-405-94245-4

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