About the Author

Claire Douglas has worked as a journalist for fifteen years writing features for women’s magazines and national newspapers, but she’s dreamed of being a novelist since the age of seven. She finally got her wish after winning the Marie Claire Debut Novel Award, with her first novel, The Sisters, which was followed by Local Girl Missing, Last Seen Alive and Do Not Disturb, all Sunday Times bestsellers. She lives in Bath with her husband and two children.

Dedication

To my dad,
for encouraging me to pursue my dream

Prologue

Prologue

March 2012

I feel calm as I watch the sun rise behind the row of ice-cream-coloured houses. Not as I imagined a person would feel who’s about to commit murder. I’m not nervous, or sweaty-palmed. My heart isn’t even racing. There’s no adrenalin pumping through my veins. Not yet, anyway. Maybe that will come later. But now, in this moment, I’m overcome with a kind of peace. As though everything that has happened in my life so far has led up to this point. There’s no going back.

Now, which house?

They are all Georgian, beautiful, tall and elegant, with their perfectly proportioned windows and arched front doors. They remind me of an illustration in a children’s book, some long and thin, others stocky and square. They face towards the choppy, wind-beaten sea and the small port, with its handful of fishing boats, marooned on the sloping sands now that the tide is out. Perfect holiday homes, even out of season. Even on a cold, gusty March day such as this.

Powder blue, soft peach, pale pink, clotted cream. Which one?

And then I see it. A brilliant white with cobalt-painted window frames, dwarfed by the taller, more graceful houses either side of it. It’s the West Ham sticker nestled into the corner of the top right-hand window that sways me.

That’s the house.

I pick up the shotgun from the footwell, enjoying the weight of it in my hands, the power of it, and for the first time I feel a frisson of … what? Fear? No, not fear. Because I’ve never felt less afraid. What, then? Control? Yes, that’s exactly it. At last I feel totally and utterly in control.

I step out of the car. The wind has picked up and I almost trap the end of my scarf in the door. It’s as if the elements are out to get me. To stop me.