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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

“Do you know why he chose you?” said Tara.

“No!”

“It looks to me like a sign of trust.”

Twenty-Three

Jude didn’t look at the documents again until she was safely in her mother’s car. Then she pulled them out of the envelope and gazed down at the top sheet in a daze of bewilderment.

Why would Liam even make a will? The obvious answer was that he had become a father. Parents start thinking of the future in a way that people like her did not. What happens after their own life has ended takes on a new meaning.

But why would he name her—the girl he had been involved with one heady summer but then abandoned after the accident—as executor? It made absolutely no sense.

She chewed the edge of her finger. Three or four months ago, Liam had named her as executor to his will, then a few days ago he had dragged her into the final days of his life and left her tangled up in a murder inquiry.

Was it all some kind of mad joke, a piece of troublemaking mischief? She wouldn’t put it past the Liam she had known as a teenager: capricious, anarchic, with his own dark sense of humor.

She could refuse, she supposed. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more obvious it was that she should do just that. Yet her mind snagged on the fact that this was Liam’s will, the last wishes of someone who had been important to her and who, for whatever bizarre reason, had chosen her for this task.

At first glance, the will looked straightforward enough. It was a format document, with answers typed into boxes: his full name (she had never known he was Liam Craig Birch), date of birth, address. She flicked through the remaining sheets and saw that the last several were handwritten, Liam’s bold script, with its slashed letters and words running into each other, the same as it had been when she knew him.

She pushed the documents back into the envelope. She would look at them later, decide later. She drove back through the growing darkness. Lights were turned on in houses, squares of yellow in the gloom, a few plumes of smoke from chimneys, a small group jostling outside the pub she used to go to, a gaggle of girls with skimpy skirts and goose-pimply legs and brave bright laughs marching down the road arm in arm, the weekend beginning.

Her father was home. Jude knew at once that her mother had told him: he looked awkward, solemn, fond. He held out his arms and hugged her so hard she could feel her cheek creasing against his jacket. He told her that he would always be proud of her and she was his favorite daughter, which was an old joke because, of course, she was his only daughter. She felt her eyes sting.