‘Hello?’ Christine peers round the door at the bed. ‘Oh my God,’ she cries, grabbing her chest, her legs going from under her.

Leon reaches to catch her, sees what she’s seen.

‘Stay there,’ he yells at Alice, raising his hand. ‘Don’t come in.’

But it’s too late, Alice is in the room, has seen the awful sight. Retching she staggers towards the chair. ‘Who did this?’ she manages, her voice hoarse, thick. ‘What sick bastard did this?’

But however much Leon wants to; he can’t support her, his mind and body frozen by the horrific scene, and the terrifying knowledge they are sharing the island with a killer.

Chapter 23

1989

Verity

Mikolaj let Verity down – told her their relationship was claustrophobic, that she was obsessive. Said he couldn’t live with her constantly checking up on him, asking him where he’d been, what he was doing, who he’d been with. He said she was suffocating him.

After he broke things off back in early January, she fell apart. Spent days waiting outside his work, his lodgings, begging him to come back to her. She would resort to screaming, sobbing. He called her a stalker – threatened to report her. A stalker? Verity wasn’t a stalker – she loved him – every part of him. She loved him with all her heart.

And then he was gone, left his job, his lodgings. Nobody would tell Verity where he was. She searched endlessly, showing his photo in all the places they’d frequented. She’d lost him. He was untraceable.

*

She stayed in Poland, facing things alone, until, in early August she couldn’t cope any longer, and returned to England, to Flynn House. Her trip to Europe smashed, broken into tiny pieces, her dream of a new beginning gone. Hope shattered.

*

She’d been back at Flynn House a day, when she grabbed her front door keys, the Cher cassette she’d bought in Poland for Hugh, and the tin of fairy cakes she’d made earlier. She stepped into the blisteringly hot day, closing the front door behind her. She wouldn’t be gone from the house long. Just long enough to let her brother know she was back.

She knew Pippa’s heart would sink at the sight of her turning up unannounced at the cottage, after so long away. She couldn’t wait to see her face. Pippa wanted Hugh to herself. Well that was too bad. Verity wanted him back.

She walked round the side of Flynn House and across the lawn towards the wood, pulling on her floppy raffia sun hat over her dark hair.

The wood was gloomy, towering trees blocking out the light. She kept up a quick pace as she pushed through the brambles, excited that she would soon see Hugh for the first time in over a year.