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Chapters (44)
  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. COPYRIGHT PAGE
  3. CONTENTS
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. Chapter One
  6. Chapter Two
  7. Chapter Three
  8. Chapter Four
  9. Chapter Five
  10. Chapter Six
  11. Chapter Seven
  12. Chapter Eight
  13. Chapter Nine
  14. Chapter Ten
  15. Chapter Eleven
  16. Chapter Twelve
  17. Chapter Thirteen
  18. Chapter Fourteen
  19. Chapter Fifteen
  20. Chapter Sixteen
  21. Chapter Seventeen
  22. Chapter Eighteen
  23. Chapter Nineteen
  24. Chapter Twenty
  25. Chapter Twenty-One
  26. Chapter Twenty-Two
  27. Chapter Twenty-Three
  28. Chapter Twenty-Four
  29. Chapter Twenty-Five
  30. Chapter Twenty-Six
  31. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  32. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  33. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  34. Chapter Thirty
  35. Chapter Thirty-One
  36. Chapter Thirty-Two
  37. Chapter Thirty-Three
  38. Chapter Thirty-Four
  39. Chapter Thirty-Five
  40. Chapter Thirty-Six
  41. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  42. Epilogue
  43. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  44. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

‘Don’t be silly, I like you both equally.’ His voice was neutral. Karen might have been drunk enough to share all her secrets, but he wasn’t. Not yet, anyway. Instead, he went up to his bed in Benji’s room, and stared at the glowing stars stuck to the ceiling, and thought of Astrid, and also of Ali in the next room, just metres away, and some time later he woke up to all hell breaking loose.

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

I ran. When she said Mike, it was Mike, I ran straight out the door and through the grass in my short summer pyjamas and bare feet. I just had to find him, talk to him, and this would all be sorted out. What Karen said was insane. It couldn’t. He wouldn’t. I just had to find him. Afterwards, I’d have stinging welts all over my feet from the tiny sharp plants that lived in the lawn. I couldn’t see Mike at first, it was so dark, the light from the kitchen spilling out but failing against the blackness of the countryside. People were starting to emerge – Jake must have still been in the room over the garage, and he was coming out now, hair sticking up like a grouchy badger, to see why I was shouting. I saw Cassie from the corner of my eye, near the side of the house. She was in her skimpy pyjamas with flip-flops and a long cardigan. I didn’t understand why I was seeing that but I hadn’t time to think because I had to find Mike. There was Bill, in a T-shirt and pyjama bottoms, coming down the stairs into the kitchen, and Jodi was standing on the decking in her pyjamas, still with the cafetière in one hand. Where was Mike? This was crazy. This was a nightmare.

I found him on the swing seat, the one where Cassie and Jake had sat earlier. He was out cold, his hair sticking up, a sloppy drunk expression on his sleeping face. I remember thinking it looked swollen, as if he was allergic to something. ‘Mike.’ It was all I could do not to shake him.

He came awake slowly, his face screwed up as if he was in pain. ‘Oh God. Did I fall asleep?’

‘What the hell’s going on?’

He wiped his hands over his face. ‘Christ, Ali, don’t shout. My head.’

‘Mike! Karen’s saying that you . . . Someone’s attacked Karen!’

And haven’t I asked myself a hundred times since if I saw anything on his face? And I did. I know I did. A flicker of guilt. ‘What?’

‘She . . . she . . .’

‘You bastard!’ Jake was coming at him, across the lawn, and Bill was there, grabbing him by the elbows, murmuring something. ‘What did you do to her? What did you do?’ Jake kept saying it over and over.