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Back What I Did Save as PDF
Chapters (87)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  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. Seventy-One
  75. Seventy-Two
  76. Seventy-Three
  77. Seventy-Four
  78. Seventy-Five
  79. Seventy-Six
  80. Seventy-Seven
  81. Seventy-Eight
  82. Seventy-Nine
  83. Eighty
  84. Epilogue
  85. Acknowledgements
  86. Extract from To Keep You Safe
  87. About the Author

Abruptly, I open my eyes. With that, comes clarity in my thinking. Until now I’ve been half-unconscious, but I’m now present. The pain now shines like a lighthouse. I turn my head away from it and see the underside of my kitchen cabinet.

I am Lisa and I am in pain and I am lying on my kitchen floor and I can’t move my body at all and I am scared because something has gone badly, badly wrong but I can’t remember what it is and if I don’t remember, then I will run out of time – is this true? Do I only have a certain amount of time?

Yes.

I have to be quick but maybe it’s too late already.

I hear something: I wait . . . it’s a light, metallic sound. Mournful. I know that sound. It’s a wind chime – my wind chime. I’m home. At the cottage in Hereford.

Now I hear something new. I hear screaming. I think: Yes, this is what I was waiting for. I knew the screaming would start and now it has.

I’m too late to save him.

Jack!

And I remember everything.

Two

two:

– before –

I was careful to arrive before the estate agent. I’d left Jack asleep in the car with all the windows and doors open to give him a breeze. I was so glad to get the chance to explore and make up my own mind before any sales spiel.

I had gradually moved further and further away from the cottage at the top of the hill and had dared to walk down the long drive until I stood beneath the broad oak tree. From here, I could see right up to the cottage, and downwards until the drive swept out of sight behind rhododendrons to where I knew it met the quiet country lane below.

I wanted to be there first so I could get a sense of the place; it was a big decision for me to move somewhere so isolated.

I stood and realised just how absent people were, here. There wasn’t a sound from anyone – not even a child playing or a distant car. Only nature seemed alive here. The end-of-summer leaves muttered above me, caught in the too-light-for-the-heat breeze. Somewhere a cricket lazily clicked its slow dry rasps, oppressed by the swelter. A war mongering wasp interrogated me. But there were no human sounds. The absence of people, to a town girl like me, felt stifling.

I must’ve been standing very still, because a woodpigeon landed heavily in the low branch above me. Listening to the pigeon’s cooing call I told myself firmly that we could live here. That we could be happy here. Here the isolation would give us the peace we so badly needed.