Prologue
The hillside looms, steep and silent. The damp earth slips beneath your feet, moss and rot thick in the air. Overhead, the light is fading fast, dusk becoming night.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
You keep your gaze pinned on what lies up ahead. That pinnacle of perfection, the ostentatious prize.
The floor-to-ceiling glass windows gleam, a mocking beacon against the fading day. Perched on the hill like a trophy you do not deserve.
The interior is alive with light, every bulb burning as if to banish each and every shadow. The rooms within are impossibly modern and stark. Clean lines, white walls, polished steel. A place without history, without heart, without conscience.
Look at me, look at me and what I stand for!
Greed and excess. A reward for betrayal and lies.
Behind you, Lake Windermere shimmers like a restless serpent. The hillside winds ahead, steep and treacherous, but your steps are steady and your intention is strong.
The air grows colder as you climb, the damp seeping into your skin. Your fingers brush the solid metal in your pocket – its weight cold and familiar. The pulse in your temples is steady, even as the house draws near.
As you get closer, the glass panes reveal more. A figure moves within, a shadow against the light.
Your hand brushes a low branch, slick with rain, the comforting weight in your hand pressing heavier with each step. You reach the door, your breath a faint mist in the chilledair, heart drumming slow and steady beneath the skin. One moment stretches into another, taut as a stretched wire. Your fingers find the door handle, cold and smooth.
One step, two steps, three steps. Four.
The light shifts inside, and there she is. Her head tilts, catching the glow of a pendant light, and for a heartbeat, she looks almost innocent. But you know better. That face – it’s the one that shattered everything.
The memory burns hot, twisting deep in your chest, until your knees threaten to buckle.
But you do not falter. You can’t. Not now.
It’s finally time to put things right.
1
Six Weeks Earlier
Friday
Merri
Dev calls upstairs as he leaves for work, slamming the door behind him. I groan. I’ve been off work sick for three days with a chest infection and I still have the banging headache. Another day of feeling rotten.
‘Make sure you get plenty of rest, keep hydrated and take paracetamol, as directed on the packet, for the symptoms,’ the doctor had said briskly, before moving on to his next patient phone call.
I pop my first two painkillers of the day with a swig of lukewarm water and sink back into my pillows, staring at the ceiling. There was the chance of picking up a few extra hours this week, too, with staff taking their summer holidays. In some ways, I can’t wait to get back on Monday, not least because I can’t afford to take any more days off.
Downstairs on the kitchen worktop, there’s a small pile of unopened late-payment letters, most of them addressed as:URGENT: Mr D. Jain and Ms M. J. Harris.
I don’t usually ignore unpaid bills, but this month has been particularly challenging. After a couple of emailed reminders, companies have started sending hard threats through the letterbox. Final notices that are getting more difficult toignore. Rent, utilities, credit cards – most of them overdue. It sounds dire but we’ve been even worse off than this.
We have our problems, but at least we still have each other. People generally leave us alone and our little routines help me to keep stuff zipped up inside where it belongs.
I know we’ll get on the straight and narrow again. We’ll just have to suffer a while longer first. No meals out, or impulsive purchases. Just more slog and lacklustre weekends when we’ll probably end up bickering about whose fault it is this time.
I pull my cardigan tighter around myself as I sit on the sagging couch looking around at the cramped space that seems to get smaller every day. We had to battle to get this place among stiff competition from three other couples. Two months’ rent up front as a deposit and a monthly amount that stretches us further than we’d originally planned, but the landlord was a Man City fan like Dev and he jokes that’s what swung it for us in the end.
It’s a tiny two-bed semi with a garden view on a fairly new estate at the edge of Colwick, in Nottingham. Dev felt cautious about it at first, but I’d just found my current job as a healthcare assistant, which offered a thousand-pound raise on my last place, the chance of extra hours sometimes and a decent pension. It was a big improvement on the private fertility clinic I worked at before that paid only minimum wage.
