Chapter 40

Julia Kerner pushed the grand front door shut behind Sharon, who took a moment as she stepped back out into the bright sunshine. The sound of the gurgling stream in the grounds of the Abbey was still there to greet her, as was the warmth from weak sunshine on her face. She felt a little better than an hour earlier when the sun had been on her back to push her into the house. She hadn’t said much more, it had mostly been crying into the shoulders of people she barely knew, who had, in turn, whispered in her ear about how she was so strong. She didn’t feel it. Far from it. Just the thought of Jamie coming home from school was almost enough to floor her. She knew he would come straight in and ask after his sister, his expression one of hope that a normal family life was getting closer every day. She was going to have to be the one to snatch that hope away for ever.

She tried not to think about it now. She wanted to go home. She was ready to be alone again, to be somewhere she could close the door. Still she couldn’t accept that Danny would take his own life, and the more she considered it, the less likely it seemed. But it was worse than that: the police had said he had taken the life of someone else. That wasn’t possible. That wasn’t Danny.

She checked her phone for the umpteenth time that day and got the same result. She hadn’t missed a call from the police; they hadn’t tried calling her to tell her it was all a big mistake. Danny hadn’t called either, apologising that he had lost his phone while out on a bender. The silence was deafening. She only hoped that the group she was leaving behind would be as silent. She had begged them not to share, at least until she had spoken to her son.

When she pulled up outside her home four minutes later, her phone was ringing. She dropped it in the footwell in her haste to answer.

‘Dammit!’ The seatbelt caught her as she tried to jerk forward. She had to slow her movements down. The caller showed as withheld.

‘Hello?’

‘Sharon Evans?’ A man’s voice, deep and assured.

‘Who is this?’

‘One down, Sharon. You will lose everything you hold dear. No more lies. I told you that bef—’ Sharon cut the call. Her hand shook as she held down the button to turn it off and instantly regretted it. Maybe she should use it to call the police? To tell them that the calls were happening again.