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Back When I Lost You Save as PDF
Chapters (81)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Author
  3. Dedication
  4. Prologue
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-one
  26. Twenty-two
  27. Twenty-three
  28. Twenty-four
  29. Twenty-five
  30. Twenty-six
  31. Twenty-seven
  32. Twenty-eight
  33. Twenty-nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-one
  36. Thirty-two
  37. Thirty-three
  38. Thirty-four
  39. Thirty-five
  40. Thirty-six
  41. Thirty-seven
  42. Thirty-eight
  43. Thirty-nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-one
  46. Forty-two
  47. Forty-three
  48. Forty-four
  49. Forty-five
  50. Forty-six
  51. Forty-seven
  52. Forty-eight
  53. Forty-nine
  54. Fifty
  55. Fifty-one
  56. Fifty-two
  57. Fifty-three
  58. Fifty-four
  59. Fifty-five
  60. Fifty-six
  61. Fifty-seven
  62. Fifty-eight
  63. Fifty-nine
  64. Sixty
  65. Sixty-one
  66. Sixty-two
  67. Sixty-three
  68. Sixty-four
  69. Sixty-five
  70. Sixty-six
  71. Sixty-seven
  72. Epilogue
  73. Acknowledgments
  74. Read More
  75. Prologue
  76. One
  77. Two
  78. Three
  79. Four
  80. Follow Merilyn online
  81. Dedication

‘Do you think it was Alice who invited us?’ Hannah asked, her voice certain, as though it wasn’t a question at all but a fact.

‘Of course,’ Simon snapped. ‘Who else would? No one but us and Alice was involved.’

There was a pause before Hannah said, ‘Rachel did.’

Even with her back to them, Carla could sense the shift in mood, as if Simon’s anger seemed to radiate.

‘This is nothing to do with Rachel,’ he said. ‘Leave my wife out of it. She’s the one innocent in all this.’

‘If you say so,’ Hannah replied, and Carla could almost see the shrug that accompanied her words.

‘The police are here,’ the second male said, and Carla turned to the door where three uniforms were speaking to staff.

‘What are we going to tell them?’ he asked, the fear back in his voice. ‘What do we say? Do we tell them about the invitation, that we knew Alice?’

The scorn in Simon’s voice was obvious. ‘For a university lecturer, you can be really stupid sometimes, Ash. We’re not going to tell them anything. We’re going to say we were meeting up for a drink after work, that’s all. They’ve sent three plod to confirm a homeless woman has killed herself and, when they have, that will be it, case closed. There are dozens of witnesses to say she jumped, even the police couldn’t mess that up.’

The three officers began to marshal customers, keen to gather statements as quickly as they could, and Carla had to agree with Simon: usually they’d go through the motions, check the facts but do no more than that, and file it away as another sad case of the homeless in Oxford. But Simon didn’t reckon on her. Something wasn’t right: the invitations; the secret about Alice they all shared. No, tomorrow morning she was going to get that case from CID and then she’d damn well give Alice the decent investigation she deserved.

Two

DS Nell Jackson rolled over, propped herself up by her arm, and took in the figure next to her. The woman’s hair – blonde – was strewn across her face, which was pink from sleep. Nell tried to remember the colour of the woman’s eyes, brown? No, green. Or possibly blue. Shit, did she even remember her name? Matilda. That was it. Relieved she lay back down and stared at the ceiling. Man, she needed a can of Coke and a shed-load of carbs if she was to stand any chance of getting her arse into work.

The woman – Matilda – stirred and smiled across at Nell, her eyes … brown. Damn it.

‘Hey you.’

‘Hey.’ Nell turned over and returned the smile, resisting the urge to bolt. She wondered if the woman remembered she was Welsh or if her accent came as a surprise, but if it did, she gave no sign.

‘What you up to today?’