Cover

Also by Valerie Keogh

Psychological thrillers

The Three Women

The Dublin Murder Mysteries

No Simple Death

No Obvious Cause

No Past Forgiven

No Memory Lost

Dedication

For my sister, Joyce Doyle. With thanks for so many happy memories over the years and for sharing your wonderful family with me.

Epigraph

The Perfect Life – it’s an illusion, a fantasy, a lie we happily live in until someone switches a bright light on outside our make-believe world and we see the cracks, holes and huge gaps. In panicked disbelief, we try to fix it by smoothing over the gaps, patching the holes, filling in the cracks, and when the light goes out and it all looks perfect again, we think we’ve done it.

Anon.

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1

Molly Chatwell woke and slid her hand across the bed to where Jack usually lay flat on his belly with his arms stretched out over his head. Her hand moved across the space without meeting resistance; he was already gone. She wasn’t surprised or concerned. Jack regularly woke at six. He’d slip from the bed without disturbing her, use the main bathroom to shower and shave, and dress in the spare bedroom. As soon as he was ready, he’d leave, buying a takeaway coffee from a café near his office on his way and having it at his desk.

In their early days together, before they were married and for a couple of years afterwards, he’d come in and kiss her goodbye before he left. Sometimes, when the children were younger, they’d wake when they heard him moving about and would come running, jump into their bed and snuggle against her. Jack would come in, wrap his arms around all three of them and kiss them goodbye. Molly’s heart swelled at the memory, a piercing regret for times long gone.

Nowadays, with Freya and Remi off at university, Molly preferred the extra rest and usually slept until her alarm went off at seven. It hadn’t gone off yet. She shut her eyes, hoping for a few more minutes and had almost dozed off when the loud beep beep of a reversing vehicle made her eyes open in surprise. It wasn’t a sound she usually heard so early… unless, of course, it wasn’t… rolling over, she grabbed her phone and looked at the blank screen with dismay. She never forgot to charge her phone… never… and she had to start today?