Chapters (78)
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Sixty-Six
- Sixty-Seven
- Sixty-Eight
- Sixty-Nine
- Seventy
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Remarkable Praise for Nicci French
- Also by Nicci French
- About the Publisher
A few days after her last exam, a friend introduced her to him at a party. She waited for him to say, “Hey, Jude,” and laugh at his own wit, but he didn’t. She waited for him to turn away and go back to his gang, but he didn’t do that either. He told her about a baby fox he had run over that day, how he’d thought at first it was a little child who’d run into the road. The fox was still alive and squealing piteously and passersby had quickly gathered to watch. He’d had to kill it, he said, smashing a stone from the curbside against its head, and then take the body and dump it in the woods. He had carried it for almost half an hour, hot and rank in his arms. He was a bit stoned. His pupils were large; his eyes dark, almost black, in the dim light. Jude was surprised by how friendly he seemed, and how young. Almost—well, almost ordinary. Just a handsome boy.
For the first few weeks, it had been a gorgeous secret that she hugged to herself. She didn’t tell her friends, because she didn’t want them rolling their eyes or saying anything that would make it seem unimportant or too important or too surprising. She didn’t want to hear that one of them had been with him, or knew of someone who had, or had heard something about him, about his recklessness and his sudden inexplicable bursts of anger. She didn’t want anyone to say: “You need to watch out for that one.” Even now, she was reticent about telling people. Every so often they went to parties together, like tonight, and only yesterday they had spent the day by the river with a group of friends. She had talked about him to Rosie, lying in the long grass by the river and speaking to the blue sky. But she hadn’t told her parents: she knew they would be alarmed by Liam, who smoked weed, took pills, sometimes looked a bit unwashed, and wouldn’t be going to university. Maybe that was the attraction: he was someone her parents wouldn’t approve of. In any case she was leaving for Bristol in September. He was her in-between time, her summer, her escape.
“I feel a bit sick,” said Yolanda, half-waking in the back of the car.
“Wind down the window,” Liam said.
“I might be sick.”
“Not in my car, you won’t.”
“It won’t be long till we’re at your house,” said Jude. “Tell us if we should pull over though.”
But Yolanda didn’t answer because she had fallen back to sleep. A gurgling snore came from her, then a grunt.