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
It was easy enough for Jude to find the article: she just put Liam’s name and her own into Google search and there it was on a news website she had never heard of called The Pulse. Jude read it rapidly, feeling sick. It was all there: Liam’s murder, her mysterious involvement, the cottage in Norfolk, the clear implication of their secret affair. A photograph of Liam looking sleepy and amused sat alongside an old one of her, tired and unsmiling, in her hospital scrubs.
Nat didn’t come back that night. Jude slept fitfully and each time she woke she put out a hand to feel for him. She called him and she sent him messages but there was no reply. She didn’t know what else to do except wait, and she hated waiting.
At six, she got up and went for a short, damp run, came home and showered, dressed, then ate a poached egg on a crumpet for breakfast.
At work, she realized that as the day went on a few people were giving her sidelong looks. They must have read the story, she thought, and felt shivery with shame and a kind of itchy misery. But she knew that the way to deal with humiliation was to confront it and, at last, as her shift was ending, she made herself do exactly that, stopping a colleague outside the ward. He rubbed his face, smiled nervously.
“Just say it.”
Piers was a very thin, very pale young man and Jude watched as a flush spread up his neck and into his face.
“You’ve read the story about me. Say something!”
“I did,” he admitted, not looking at her. “But only after someone sent me the picture of you.”
“Picture?”
“On Instagram.”
“Someone posted a photo?”
“It was from years ago,” said Piers.
She hurried to her locker, not meeting the eyes of anyone in case they too knew something about her that she didn’t, trying to look as if nothing was wrong.
It was only when she was out of the hospital grounds, sheltering from the driving rain under a sycamore tree whose fallen leaves were spread in a circle around her, that she took out her phone.
The photograph had been posted by someone called Flo Duncker. Jude couldn’t immediately place her, but then she remembered. Hair in a thick braid, played the saxophone, had glandular fever in her GCSE year. She’d been on the fringes of Jude’s friendship group, but they hadn’t kept in touch. And now Flo Duncker had posted a photograph of her. Jude’s fingers were clumsy as she pulled up the image.