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Back The Favor Save as PDF
Chapters (78)
  1. Title Page
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Forty-Three
  47. Forty-Four
  48. Forty-Five
  49. Forty-Six
  50. Forty-Seven
  51. Forty-Eight
  52. Forty-Nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty-One
  55. Fifty-Two
  56. Fifty-Three
  57. Fifty-Four
  58. Fifty-Five
  59. Fifty-Six
  60. Fifty-Seven
  61. Fifty-Eight
  62. Fifty-Nine
  63. Sixty
  64. Sixty-One
  65. Sixty-Two
  66. Sixty-Three
  67. Sixty-Four
  68. Sixty-Five
  69. Sixty-Six
  70. Sixty-Seven
  71. Sixty-Eight
  72. Sixty-Nine
  73. Seventy
  74. Acknowledgments
  75. About the Author
  76. Remarkable Praise for Nicci French
  77. Also by Nicci French
  78. About the Publisher

“Yes, I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have. I just thought it was a funny little thing that he’d made. It was on the spur of the moment. But does it really matter?”

“There’s something I need to check out,” Leila said. She stood up. “I’ll get back to you.”

Sixty-One

Back at the flat, Jude couldn’t settle to anything. She felt restless, her mind whirring uselessly, until it eventually latched onto an idea.

She changed into shorts and a T-shirt and set off into the darkness. It was seven o’clock and very cold. She ran at full tilt all the way to her old flat in Stratford where, still gasping from the effort, she rang the bell and then hammered on the door. She was just pressing the bell for a second time when the door swung open and Nat stood in front of her, a polite smile dying on his lips.

“Jude? What’s up? You must be freezing.”

Jude was hot to the roots of her hair.

“You cheated on me.”

“What?”

“That’s all I want to say. I don’t want to hear you deny it, I don’t want you to tell me who it was, I don’t want to hear your excuses. I simply needed to say that I know. I know who you are and, boy, did I have a lucky escape.”

Nat stared at her. She could see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed and the muscles in his face working.

“Is that it?” he asked eventually.

“That’s it. The end.”

She turned back the way she had come, trying to run off some of the rage she could feel bubbling through her veins. As she reached the end of the street where her flat was, she tripped on an uneven paving stone and fell heavily, full length under the yellow glow of the streetlamp. She lay there for a moment, feeling in pain and at the same time embarrassed.

“Are you all right?” a voice asked.

Jude pulled herself into a sitting position. A black puppy was sniffing at her interestedly. At the other end of the lead was a middle-aged woman looking down at her.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Jude said, and she pulled herself to her feet and realized she wasn’t exactly fine. She had scraped the side of her right leg from the calf up to the thigh, and it was raw with spots of blood. As she put her weight on her right foot, a wave of pain rippled through her so that she almost cried out.