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Back The Family Next Door Save as PDF
Chapters (117)
  1. Also by
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Epigraph
  5. PROLOGUE
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
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  114. 109
  115. 110
  116. Teaser chapter
  117. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

All those memories, all those choices, buried deep in the earth of their lives. Both of them carrying the scars, not on their skins but beneath the neighborly smiles and the warmth of their welcome, Audrina-and-Cooper from number twenty-seven.

Audrina dragged a finger along the sill, searching for nonexistent dust.

“I’d better get back to the greenhouse,” Cooper said, dabbing at his watery eyes with a tissue.

She didn’t try to stop him.

But as soon as she heard the back door click, Audrina lay down on her son’s bed and closed her eyes. If she listened carefully, she could hear the low thrum of the Matchbox car engines, the march of a thousand tin soldiers, the clink of marbles on the drain covers.

The shouts of her son and his best friend playing in her garden all those years ago.

50

50

Tuesday 31st July 2018, 12:11 P.M.

The Avenue

“You look like you could do with a drink.”

Nine words that would change both their lives. He had passed a weary hand across his eyes and rested his elbows on the bar. The woman with the long dark hair had poured him a whisky and when he’d downed it, she’d poured him another. The music was loud. The club throbbed with it.

He had held out his hand, ready to shake. “I’m—”

“I know exactly who you are.”

Chilled by her reply, he had thrown a glance over his shoulder, half expecting to find his exit blocked by security. But it turned out she hadn’t known who he was. Not then. That came much later and it cost them everything.

A car door slammed, and the postman was back in The Avenue, sun on his neck, still on his delivery round. He mustn’t allow himself to be distracted. He walked up and down the driveways and garden paths, letters gathered in his hand like gifts.

Even now, fourteen months after that night in the club, the postman could pinpoint the moment a line had been crossed. As they had dangled their legs over the seawall near Southend, a few weeks after they had met, she had lifted her lit cigarette to his lips, and he had taken a drag. Their eyes had held each other’s through the smoke, and they had both known. But she wasn’t his to love.

And trusting him had killed her.

51

51

Tuesday 31st July 2018, 1:12 P.M.

Hanningfield Reservoir

The sound of beating wings startled Wildeve and she watched the flock of geese land with grace on the sparkling skin of the reservoir.

From her perch on the deck of the cafeteria, she could see knots of families, spreading out rugs and unpacking their picnics and cricket sets, the drift of merry voices through the air.