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- Herausgeber: Orenda Books
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
A reclusive musician's hiding place is discovered, forcing her to confront her traumatic past … and someone is seeking vengeance. A dark and riveting psychological thriller from number-one bestselling author Louise Voss 'Superb, like an episode of Midsomer Murders written by Gillian Flynn' Mark Edwards 'Such a great concept. Enthrallingly gripping – and those twists! A must read' Angela Clarke 'I've been a fan of Louise Voss for years and I honestly think The Last Stage is her best yet. A superb read' Cass Green ____________________ At the peak of her career as lead singer of a legendary 1980s indie band, Meredith Vincent was driven off the international stage by a horrific incident. Now living a quiet existence in a cottage on the grounds of an old stately home, she has put her past behind her and come to terms with her new life. When a body is found in the manicured gardens of her home, and a series of inexplicable and unsettling events begins to occur, it becomes clear that someone is watching, someone who knows who she is … Someone who wants vengeance. And this is only the beginning… A dark, riveting and chilling psychological thriller, The Last Stage is also a study of secrets and obsessions, where innocent acts can have the most terrifying consequences. ____________________ 'The slow reveals and hints at the darkness to come make it impossible to put down' Sarah Pinborough 'Twists, turns and stabs you in the heart. It deserves to be huge' Martyn Waites 'An expert piece of contrivance' Publishers Weekly 'Brilliantly unsettling' Jane Casey 'Cleverly plotted and beautifully executed' Susi Holliday 'Ingeniously plotted and totally addictive' Paddy Magrane 'I was guessing right to the end' Katarina Diamond 'A compelling descent into darkness' Ed James 'A cracking page-turner that sucks you straight into the dark heart of human behaviour. I couldn't put it down!' Marnie Riches 'A tense, super-twisty, well-written page-turner … Fab read' Amanda Jennings 'Poignant, clever and terrifically tense' William Shaw, author of The Birdwatcher 'A highly entertaining, thoroughly enjoyable and gripping read' LoveReading 'Gripping and twisty' Mel McGrath 'An expert piece of contrivance' Publishers Weekly 'Ingeniously plotted and totally addictive' Paddy Magrane
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Seitenzahl: 507
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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PRAISE FOR THE LAST STAGE
‘Such a great concept. Enthrallingly gripping – and those twists! A must read’ Angela Clarke
‘Superb, like an episode of Midsomer Murders written by Gillian Flynn’ Mark Edwards
‘Her best yet. A superb read’ Cass Green
‘A compelling descent into darkness’ Ed James
‘A captivating mystery that kept me guessing right up to the end. Beautifully written and refreshingly different for the genre, this is another fantastic read from a masterful writer’ SJI Holliday
‘A rollercoaster ride of twists and turns. Highly recommended’ Jane Isaac
‘Voss knows how to create a dark atmosphere and build tension, which makes this an exciting read … gripping and perfect for the beach’ New Books Magazine
‘The Last Stage confirms Louise Voss is the queen of the psychological thriller and I cannot recommend it enough!’ From Belgium with Love
‘A taut progressive thriller with sharp edges! Fantastic. Brilliant. Unpredictable. Clever’ Book Obsessed
‘Twisty thriller plot and quaint British setting … It’s funny, smart and highly entertaining!’ Off-the-Shelf Books
‘Grippingly taut read that captivated me until the very last page … and even afterwards, the writing is superb, gritty and absorbing from page one!’ The Reading Closet
PRAISE FOR THE OLD YOU
‘I loved the subtlety and style of Louise Voss’s writing; the slow reveals and hints at the darkness to come … impossible to put down!’ Sarah Pinborough
‘A cracking page-turner that sucks you straight into the dark heart of human behaviour. I couldn’t put it down!’ Marnie Riches
‘A twisty, thrilling read with engaging and complex characters!’ Sarah Ward
‘There are plenty of twists, lots of emotional insights and enough tension to please even the most demanding reader. A superior slice of domestic noir. I loved it’ Paul Burston
‘The Old You is a tense, super-twisty, well-written page-turner … Fab read’ Amanda Jennings
‘The way the plot unfolds, unfolds – and unfolds again – is brilliant. Poignant, clever and terrifically tense’ William Shaw
‘A top-notch thriller, with seams of doubt and illusion sewn through the plot with total skill. I love books where you wonder who to trust, and keep changing your mind’ Hayley Webster
‘If I’m looking a bit sleep-deprived right now it’s because this one is keeping me up way past my bedtime. A really original and compelling story from Louise Voss that will keep you turning the pages’ Howard Linskey
‘A disturbing, brilliant tale of lies and psychological manipulation, with a gutsy, believable heroine’ Kate Rhodes
‘Brilliantly unsettling, a gripping, clever novel where nothing can be taken at face value’ Jane Casey
‘This novel was so creepy it kept me awake. I was guessing right to the end’ Katerina Diamond
‘Grippy and twisty, this one will keep you guessing’ Mel McGrath
‘A unique vibe that makes it stand out, and also a truly twisty yet believable tale with memorable characters and a cleverly woven atmospheric narrative’ Liz Loves Books
‘Filled with jaw-dropping revelations, I had no idea where the book was heading and I was certainly surprised as I followed this twisty rollercoaster journey’ Off-the-Shelf Books
‘Throughout much of the story, readers will feel like Lynn, off balance as certainties evaporate, but they’ll be relieved when she finally stops being a victim and goes on the attack … an expert piece of contrivance’ Publishers Weekly
‘An addictive thriller with a damaged and relatable heroine at its centre, The Old You is an original novel that is both shocking and touching’ Foreword Reviews
‘Tantalising, irresistible and extremely satisfying novel. I loved it and will be shouting about it for a long long time!’ Random Things through My Letterbox
‘Compelling. Dark. Mysterious’ Ronnie Turner
‘A tale of manipulation, deception, secrets and lies … it’s a total triumph’ Short Book and Scribes
‘Domestic Noir with a little je ne sais quoi! Sit back and enjoy the read folks, this one is a cracker!’ Chapter in My Life
‘It’s an intriguing account of a marriage full of secrets and lies but with a sinister undertone that slowly drags you under until you’re completely immersed in the menacing atmosphere’ My Chestnut Reading Tree
‘An excellent psychological thriller and one of the best books I have read so far this year’ Donna’s Book Blog
‘Filled with anxiety, understated danger, and delivered with well-timed surprises and finesse. Fans of Clare Macintosh and B.A. Paris should add to their must-read list’ Murder and Moore
‘Fantastically clever and has certainly raised the game in the world of domestic noir’ My Bookish Blogspot
‘Intensely suspenseful and gripping tale that kept me guessing until the end’ Novel Deelights
‘A real page-turner; the characterisation is stunning and there are some really ingenious and original twists’ Hooked from Page One
‘The plot is compelling and keeps the readers on their toes. It’s a psychological thriller that will leave your mind reeling and your heart craving for more from the author’ Book Worldliness
‘This is such a wondrous blend of poignant reflection, dark-rooted secrets and cunning deception with a tense and twisted heart-thumping conclusion’ Jen Meds Book Reviews
‘Vivid characters, cleverly plotted’ Where the Reader Grows
‘An absolute cracker’ Me and My Books
‘Original and compelling’ The Shelf of Unread Books
‘A truly excellent and well-written story that will leave you gasping and desperate to read everything Louise Voss has ever written!’ Broadbean’s Books
‘A gripping story full of twists and turns. It will grab you by the neck and won’t let you go until the very end’ A Lover of Books
‘Louise has crafted a completely different but intriguing read that really got under my skin. An absolutely incredible read’ Katie’s Book Cave
‘A skilfully crafted masterclass in writing and I loved being so confidently led through the beautifully woven and elaborate plot’ Hair Past a Freckle
‘A superb read and seriously the best domestic thriller I have read this year. Unnerving, compelling and just phenomenal’ Crime Book Junkie
‘Tense, chilling and cleverly plotted’ Bloomin’ Brilliant Books
‘Gripping plot, well-rounded (and unreliable) characters, twists, turns and revelations – all along the way rather than just at the end’ Crime Squad
‘Haunting, intense, and riveting’ Book after Blog
‘Voss has written a page-turner with strong character development and compelling emotional resonance’ Crime by the Book
‘Tense, propulsive, compelling, Louise Voss has created a spellbinding tale of deceit, lies and betrayal that had my brain whirling and my attention focussed throughout’ Live and Deadly
PRAISE FOR LOUISE VOSS
‘Storytelling at its best’ Now
‘Compelling stuff’ Heat
‘It is Louise Voss’s voice that you remember at the end: contemporary, female, authentic’ Independent
‘An exhilarating ride’ New Woman
‘Strong characters, a meaty plot and a satisfyingly unexpected twist’ Woman and Home
‘It’s brilliant … Funny, smart, believable, honest, moving … a lovely book’ Phill Jupitus
‘My favourite book this year. A beautifully written story which I didn’t want to end’ Cerys Matthews
The Last Stage
Louise Voss
This one’s for Adrian, with love.
Contents
Prologue
1995
At first, you think you’re imagining it. An old house, but new to you, one whose soft grunts and shifts you’re still becoming acclimatised to; of course there’ll be the occasional rumble in the radiators or protest from a floorboard. It’s a big house, a proud Georgian beast of a house, bought with the collective pocket money of more than a million teenagers.
But why would a floorboard creak, without a foot putting pressure on it, at three in the morning, and loud enough to wake you from a deep sleep?
Wide awake now, everything tensed, listening so hard it hurts. Nothing. You switch on the bedside lamp, leap out of bed and lunge for the key in the lock, turn it silently. Thank God for the lock on the door.
Then a soft noise on the other side of the door: half swallow, half gulp.
Then the sight of the slow dip of the door handle as someone turns it…
1
2017 Meredith
‘Meredith Vincent, you’re a hard woman to track down,’ said an accented voice Meredith vaguely recognised as belonging to someone she disliked.
‘Who is this?’
A laugh. A smoker’s cough. She thought, Ah no, not him. Please say it’s not him.
His next words confirmed it: ‘It’s Iain McKinnon from Big World.’
Meredith couldn’t speak. ‘The Pointless I’, she and her fellow band-members used to call him, a play on the unnecessary vowel in his first name as well as his capabilities as a marketing manager.
‘Merry, are you there?’
‘Don’t call me that. It’s not my name,’ she managed.
‘Sorry, Meredith. Long time, no speak, hey?’
She had forgotten how affected his South African accent sounded. Why did he even still have an accent? He’d lived here since before apartheid was abolished.
‘How did you get my number?’
He laughed again. ‘It wasn’t easy, hey. I had to get a private detective on the case!’
He pronounced it ditictive.
‘You did what?’
‘Yah. It took him a good few weeks. Hiding in plain sight, you are. We thought you’d left the country! In a million years I’d never have thought you, of all people, would end up working in a shop. I mean, it’s not like you need the money!’
‘I’m the manager,’ Meredith said, immediately hating herself for it. She did not have to justify herself to Iain McKinnon, the lecherous creep. He represented everything that she had eventually come to loathe and detest about the music industry, with his fake, smarmy smiles and assumption that every woman wanted to rip off his clothes … And when he discovered that she didn’t, he’d threatened her.
‘You know where I work?’ She felt as if the walls of her living room were folding in on her, one at a time, bang, bang, bang, bang, squashing her beneath them.
‘I know where you work, I know your address and home phone number, I know where you buy your groceries, where your brother lives … the detective guy was top notch. Cost an arm and a leg,’ he said proudly, as if she should be congratulating him instead of feeling that it wasn’t just her room that had collapsed, but her whole world.
She had been found, by a man she wouldn’t trust further than she could throw.
He seemed to read her mind: ‘Merry, I’m not the guy I was back then, I swear. Obviously you know I never had anything to do with … what happened to you … I was just a pushy bastard who wouldn’t take no for an answer.’
‘You blackmailed me, Iain.’ Nausea bubbled in her gut.
He coughed. ‘Well, I think that’s too strong a word … I just suggested that it might not be a good thing for it to be made public knowledge…’
She noted that he knew exactly what she was referring to.
‘It’s sad,’ she said, her hands shaking, ‘when I think how worried I was back then. I thought I had to do what you said. But I was naïve if I thought you had my best interests at heart. Because if it had been this big scandal – which I don’t think it would’ve been anyway; so what if I was sleeping with a woman? – you thought it would have harmed you as well. You were our label manager. If Big World hadn’t re-signed us because I was in a relationship with a woman, you’d have lost your most successful act.’
She was trying to act blasé, but in truth she was worried – more than worried. Not about him, not anymore, but because she’d been unearthed. Dug up like a hibernating mole, blinking and afraid. Neither she nor the police had ever been able to prove that what had happened to her back then was connected to him – to his blackmailing her – but it would forever be linked with him in her memory.
‘Actually, no biggie,’ he said airily. ‘It wasn’t like I was on commission. They’d have just assigned me to another band. But that’s not the point. I shouldn’t have got involved in that way. I was … wrong.’
The last word was extruded with difficulty, as if he had speech constipation.
‘Is that why you’re ringing me now? What do you want?’
She would have to move. Leave the country, start again.
‘Right, so, I have something amazing to tell you! You gonna be so psyched. Are you still in touch with the other guys?’
‘If you mean Cohen, then no. They hate me, if you remember.’
Meredith had read enough bitter interviews with her former band members over the years to know this was true. After her sudden and inexplicable defection in ninety-five they had laid low for a while, then employed a short-lived series of alternate female lead singers, none of whom had set the charts alight for them. They’d eventually disbanded a couple of years later. She knew she’d hurt them, personally as well as professionally – they had been such good friends – but she hadn’t ever dared contact any of them again, or even try to explain, for fear of discovery.
He made a ‘pffft’ noise. ‘Ah, that’s all in the past!’
The man was unbelievable.
‘Iain, it’s all in the past. I don’t know what you want from me, but if it’s anything to do with the band, the answer is a definite “no way”. I don’t care what it is.’
‘We should meet for a drink, so I can explain it better.’
‘Not happening.’
‘Don’t be like that! Don’t you want to make half a million quid this year?’
‘No.’
He laughed. ‘Come off it! I don’t believe you. That’s what you’d get for a reunion. Only has to be three weeks, headlining one of those retro eighties tours. The promoters are desperate to have Cohen top the bill, how about that! You don’t even have to leave the UK.’
‘Iain, I’m hanging up now, and if you ever contact me again, I’m going to report you to the police for harassing me.’
‘Wait! You can’t. I mean, you can’t want to say no to that, surely?’ He tried another tack. ‘Even if you don’t need the money, you must have charities you support. Think what they could do with five hundred grand!’
He found me, he found me, he found me. The panicky voice inside her head swelled, drowning out his words, and she only heard ‘charities you support’. It took all her effort to keep her tone low and calm.
‘So, you’re suggesting I quit the job I love, get in a tour bus with a load of blokes who hate me for ruining their careers, stand on a stage in black PVC – when I’m over fifty – and not even keep the money? Plus, have the world’s press looking for all the skeletons in my cupboards, demanding to know why I quit in the first place. Are you off your head? I mean, you of all people should know why I’d never in a million years contemplate it, not for all the money in the world.’
‘What do you mean, me of all people?’
She tried not to snap at him. ‘You know, Iain. You know what happened to me: why I left the band the first time. You talked to me right before—’
‘Yah, and the police talked to me! Grilled me for hours, they did. Where was I? Who was I with? What was I doing? Yadda yadda.’
She maintained a stony silence. She couldn’t just hang up and block him, it was too risky. He knew where she lived now, and he didn’t give up easily. Everything was ruined.
‘What do you want, Meredith?’
Perhaps it was because his voice suddenly softened, or perhaps it was the directness of the question – one she asked herself a lot but that nobody else ever had, not even Pete – but her throat tightened, and for a moment she couldn’t speak.
She tried to deflect it: ‘Right now, I want you to go away and swear you won’t tell anybody where I live or what I do.’
‘No … I mean, what do you want out of your life? You don’t have a husband – or wife – or kids. How do you want people to remember you?’
‘Well, it’s sure as hell not by having a comeback on some shitty eighties reunion tour.’
Iain sighed, and she could tell he’d lost patience. ‘Right. I’m trying to help, Meredith. I thought you’d be interested, hey. It could change your life for the better. But never mind. I’ll text you my number in case you have a change of heart.’
I’ll delete it straight away, she thought. And then change my own number. ‘Swear you won’t tell anyone where I am,’ she begged.
He promised, but she didn’t believe him.
When the call was finally over, Meredith sat down slowly in the big wingback chair overlooking the garden. Two blackbirds pecked at the early blackcurrants beginning to ripen on the bush outside the window. She watched the cat, Gavin, unsuccessfully stalking them, weaving around the budding canes.
She believed she had – eventually – got what she wanted from her life. A home, a job she liked, friends, and over the years a gradual lessening of the excruciating fear and paranoia. But Iain’s call made her realise that in an instant she could be right back to where she’d been, twenty-two years ago, and it was a place she never, ever wanted to revisit.
2
One Year Later Meredith
The security camera’s lens had been poked out, and it had been twisted off its perch above the till, leaving it hanging limply, a useless appendage. But it was a while before Meredith noticed it, her horrified gaze being first drawn to the shelf of Minstead House-branded pottery, now at a forty-five-degree angle, its contents in a smashed pile on the shop floor. Plates, mugs, tea sets, each with its own delicate line-drawn silhouette of Minstead House, now all in a jumble of shards. Who would do this?
She scanned the rest of the shelves, taking a hasty mental inventory of the shop’s stock, but nothing actually seemed to be missing, not even the more expensive jewellery in the glass display case. No money had been taken. They always cashed up and put it in the safe when they closed the shop at night; the safe, hidden behind a painting, was still locked and untampered-with. So strange that there was no sign of a break-in. Someone must have had access to the keys.
Footsteps coming up the stairs. The door handle slowly turning. A heavy black boot through the locked bedroom door. Warm urine tickling my thigh as the panel splinters and shatters and I wait, paralysed.
Stop. Focus. Call security.
‘George, it’s me, Meredith. The shop’s been broken into, but nothing seems to have been taken, just some stuff smashed and the security camera broken.’
‘Hey, love, don’t sound so upset … I’ll call the police and check the exterior CCTV. Leonard didn’t mention anything, useless old bugger. Get the kettle on and I’ll be over in two minutes.’
Leonard was night security at the house, and was older than some of the antique furniture. He and George had a decade-long simmering feud as to which of them was the more efficient – or as everyone else had long ago decided, the least useless. Nobody could understand why the Earl kept them on. He must have promised them both jobs for life, preferring for his own reasons to update the security technology rather than the technicians themselves. Ralph, as estates manager, was always grumbling about both of them.
Meredith sat down behind the counter, still feeling shaken and a bit nauseous. She gulped in air, then picked up the internal phone again.
‘Hi, Ralph. Some shit’s broken into the shop and smashed it up a bit, but nothing seems to be missing. George is calling the police.’
‘What? Good grief. I’ll be right down,’ he said immediately, and she felt a tiny bit better. There were people who cared, about her and the shop. People she could ring and who would come, even though they didn’t know what had happened to her before.
There’d been nobody I could ring that night and nobody to come.
Ralph arrived before George, panting slightly from sprinting down the stairs in the main house and across the wide cobbled courtyard. Through the plate-glass window, Meredith saw him just about avoid crashing into the iron racks of pot plants for sale outside the shop door, such was his haste. He came in and walked straight over to the counter, almost knocking down a hat stand draped with hand-dyed silk scarves, and gave Meredith a huge avuncular hug, wrapping his arms around her and pressing her face into his barrel chest so she could barely breathe.
‘Well, this is all a bit shit, isn’t it? Who the hell would do this and not even bother to nick anything? Are you sure nothing’s gone?’
He sounded jovial, but Meredith, once she’d extricated herself from his embrace, could see from his eyes that he was worried. Despite the combined age of its security guards, Minstead House had never been burgled before.
‘I’ll have to have a word with the Earl,’ he said, his voice now sombre, and she knew he meant about Leonard.
‘Maybe Horace is back,’ she said, turning her back to him as she went to make tea. Horace was the house’s once-active poltergeist. She wasn’t joking – she did hope it was him. The thought of a ghost was a lot less unnerving than a human intruder.
Horace had been a regular spectral visitor in the chapel a few years before. Leonard would lock up at night with the only key then come in the following morning to find the furniture rearranged and candles laid out in serried rows on the flagstone floor. The Earl had eventually had an exorcism conducted, which had got rid of the entity. They’d christened it Horace, after the spurned lover of the house’s original owner, Lady Wilmington – the most likely candidate to want to hang around, causing trouble.
‘No sign of a break-in, stuff randomly smashed,’ Meredith said. ‘Sounds like Horace’s MO, doesn’t it?’
‘Mmm,’ said Ralph, who had always been convinced that there was no Horace, that Leonard had done it himself for the attention. Meredith disagreed though. Leonard could be a bit of an old drama queen, but he wasn’t a fantasist, as far as she could tell. And she’d heard enough stories about ghosts from reliable sources to believe in them, even without first-hand experience. ‘Well, the CCTV should show who came in out of hours, so I don’t think we’re going to need Sherlock Holmes’s expertise to figure out who the culprit is.’
George arrived next, knocking a pile of hairy blankets crooked with his hip as he bustled in. Meredith had to sit on her hands to stop herself immediately going over to the shelf to straighten them. She couldn’t even look at the broken china.
‘Police are on their way,’ he said, self-importantly.
‘Nothing’s been taken,’ she told him. ‘Maybe we should tell them not to even bother. What if the shelf just collapsed?’
‘Oh no,’ George said, looking shocked. ‘It can’t have done. That bracket’s clearly been tampered with. And the camera! That’s not an accident. I mean, look.’
She didn’t want to look. She didn’t want to talk to the police. Police made her itchy with panic. Police brought back memories she didn’t want to think about. She’d had enough of police to last a lifetime.
But in the end, though, it was OK. A slope-shouldered PC who couldn’t pronounce his R’s turned up and took some photos and notes. Scratched his head about how the intruder got in, and why they’d bother. Asked her if anything else ‘unusual’ had happened.
Meredith looked at Ralph and raised her eyebrows. He was the only one who knew about the flowers. She hadn’t told him; he’d seen them. He nodded, briefly.
‘Well … I didn’t think anything of it, but there have been a few things. Last week, for example…’
‘Yes?’ The PC poised his pencil over his pad.
In fact, there had been more than a few things, on and off, in the year since Iain’s call, but they were so small, Meredith hadn’t bothered to mention them. If she did, she’d need to admit why they worried her. And anyway, it was all just tiny stuff: far easier to dismiss as nothing – as her own paranoia: the unopened can of green paint left in her front garden – a visitor could have dumped it there. The bathtub full of cold water she came home from work to find one day – she must have run it herself that morning and forgotten. Things moved around in her living room – must have been her. The fact that she woke up every night screaming and covered in sweat was nothing to do with it, she insisted to herself.
Nothing to worry about. Nobody else apart from Pete had keys to her house. Everything else, apart from her anxiety levels, had remained the same, at least for the next few months. She had kept her head down, carried on working in the shop.
The eighties revival tour happened, without Cohen. Nobody came for her. To her knowledge there had been nothing in the papers, and no reporters had come to the shop.
‘I live on the estate, in a cottage just past the greenhouses. It’s about five minutes’ walk from here. Last week, when I arrived home I saw that … it’s probably nothing … but someone had cut the heads off all my dahlias. I’ve got my own little fenced-off garden in front of the house, but anybody could walk in – to the garden, obviously, not the house. Visitors pass it all the time when they’re walking round the grounds. I just thought it was weird. They were definitely beheaded intentionally; clean cuts, with scissors or secateurs, and the heads were just left lying in the flowerbed, about twenty of them. Every single flower had been cut.’
She felt sick, as if it was only real now that she had admitted it.
‘I see. That is a bit weird,’ agreed the PC, scribbling furiously.
George bristled. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? You should have reported it!’
‘Because, like I said, I just assumed it was a visitor with anger issues, or one of the gardeners having a bad day. Or even a kid, messing around.’
‘That’s vandalism, that is!’
‘Well, in the grand scheme of things I didn’t think it was a major crime.’
Not a major crime, no … but another of those little things that were probably just coincidence. They had to be.
It had been well over twenty years since she’d left the band, and during that time – until Iain’s phone call the year before – Meredith’s paranoia had subsided to a dull roar; most days, anyway. Sometimes, though, she was almost puzzled why nobody ever recognised her, but simultaneously relieved. As Pete always said, though, it was about the context. When she’d been in the band, she’d had black backcombed hair and jumped around stages in black PVC, shrieking into microphones. Now she had short blondish hair, wore Boden dresses and sold beribboned packs of honeycomb brittle and overpriced Minstead House merchandise to Japanese tourists, most of whom were far too young to remember her.
The day of the break-in dragged by without further incident, but Meredith couldn’t settle to anything. It was a big relief when the time came to flip the sign on the door to ‘closed’, and set off through the grounds towards her cottage.
On the far side of the ha-ha, she felt calmed by the sight of the Surrey Hills rising up in the distance, stolid layers of hazy shadow thickening as the sun slid down behind them. It was a balmy June evening and the rolling lawns, a vibrant green after a week of rain, smelled fresh and new as she headed past Lady Wilmington’s grave, planted in solitary state in the middle of a separate grassed area, flanked at the back by box hedges with marble statues in front of them. Lady W had planned it all herself before her death, leaving sketches showing exactly where in the shadow of the house she wanted to be buried, and which statues would be her marble guardians for eternity.
Coming through the archway from the vegetable garden, the sight of her little Victorian cottage’s bottle-green shutters, turreted gables, Gothic-arched front door and barley-sugar-twist chimney pots reassured her even more.
It had just been an accident. No sign of a break-in, nothing stolen. One of the cleaners had probably done it and been too embarrassed to admit it.
She opened the wooden gate and walked up the path. Coming home always felt like she was meeting a friend, she loved her cottage so much. Built in 1879, at the same time as the house, gatehouse and other outbuildings (including the stables, which now housed the shop), historically it had been the residence of generations of gardeners – she was the first non-gardener resident. The Earl had let her rent it since the current head gardener started having children, and his wife wanted to live somewhere less isolated.
Pete always questioned the logic behind living in such a secluded place. ‘You’re lonely,’ he’d say, bluntly, and she always denied it – because, when she was with him, she never did feel lonely. And the rest of the time, it wasn’t loneliness as such; it was paranoia. She only really felt safe once she was sequestered away in her cottage.
As she put the key in the door, she glanced at the bare dahlia plants, their severed heads now brown and rotting into the earth underneath. She had a momentary wobble, then dismissed it again.
Beheaded dahlias and some smashed china didn’t have anything to do with what had gone on before. She was sure of it.
3
Graeme
‘How’s your week been? I brought you some Marlboros…’
Silence. As Graeme slides the cigarettes towards her, he looks nervously across the table at his beloved, whose arms are folded and brows knitted. The black circles beneath her eyes are spreading, the puffy darkness like dual bruises. Catherine ignores the gift.
‘Have I done something to upset you … angel?’
The ‘angel’ is rushed out on fast, feathery breaths, fearing it will be swatted away. A nerve ticks in Catherine’s doughy cheek, pulsing irritation.
‘You look sad,’ says Graeme, trying again, when what he really wants to say is, How can you be sad when we’re together? You are the love of my life, the apple of my eye, the yin to my yang.
He has no idea what yins or yangs actually are. Something to do with seesaws perhaps?
The expression on Catherine’s face is not so much sadness – it’s more bitterness, but all the same, Graeme supposes, it must be hard for his love, watching him walking in and out each week when Catherine herself isn’t allowed to walk anywhere outside of the perimeter fences. Yet. Surely the fact that he visits religiously counts for something? Maybe Catherine doesn’t love him. Maybe these decades of devotion are all a waste of time; maybe their plans and dreams will never come to fruition.
But … they’re getting closer. Catherine’s been good as gold for years – not a foot wrong. And she knows that Graeme would do anything for her.
Anything.
So why can’t she be a bit nicer to him?
Just when Graeme is starting to feel the prickly heat of rejection and paranoia, Catherine raises her head, the effort visible. She reaches across the table and takes his calloused hand.
‘Tell me about our house.’ Finally, she gazes into Graeme’s eyes, and he feels relief flood through him.
He smiles. ‘It’s going to be a cottage, with so much whitewash on the walls that when the sun comes out, it blinds you. We’ll have yellow roses growing up the front walls on either side of the porch – it’ll have one of them little pointy porches with its own roof. We won’t have thatch though – the roofs will be all tiles. I looked into it. You have to renew thatch about every ten years and it costs thousands. Fifteen thou at least, and then you have to get extra insurance and that.’
‘Not thatched then,’ Catherine agrees, staring intently. Her eyes are brown, with a hazel rim to the irises that Graeme finds hypnotic. Catherine’s thumb begins stroking the web of skin between Graeme’s own thumb and forefinger, and his voice trembles.
‘Veg patch in the back garden with everything in it – not just the boring stuff like carrots and tomatoes. We’ll have rhubarb and parsnips and that posh, pointy green stuff, what’s it called?’
Catherine looks blank.
‘You know. It sticks up through the ground, all of a sudden.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ She looks bored and Graeme panics. He’s lost her, which in his experience can be disastrous.
The word comes to him: ‘Asparagus! You have it in fancy restaurants with butter and that.’
‘Right.’
‘And … and there’ll be dark wood floorboards all through the upstairs. One of them baths with the metal feet that look like animal paws.’
Graeme has an interior-design magazine that he nicked from the doctor’s waiting room. It’s from two years ago and the front cover is missing, but he reads it religiously, holding it like a comfort blanket whenever it seems impossible to think that he and Catherine will ever be together again, that Catherine will ever be released. God knows where they are going to get the money to afford this cottage with its flowers and veg patch and polished floors. Even Graeme realises it’s a far cry from the grim shared flat he’s been living in since his own release. He tucks the magazine in the middle of a pile of bodybuilding magazines by his bed, because every time he gets back from visiting Catherine, something else has been nicked by either the dead-eyed smack addict or the malodorous shoplifter he has to share with. He’s never even set foot in a place like the dream home of his imagination.
‘Claw-foot tub.’
‘That’s the fella. And a big white sink. Fresh flowers in every room.’
‘From our own garden.’
‘Yeah, definitely.’
‘Gym in a shed outside so me doing weights don’t bother you.’
‘Too right. And … nice, non-nosy neighbours.’
Graeme laughs. ‘We can’t arrange that beforehand!’
‘Yes we can,’ Catherine argues. ‘We’ll just be careful. But what if we see our dream house but the neighbours are horrible?’
Graeme frowns, giving this some thought. ‘We’ll vet them first. We won’t let anybody horrible stand in the way of our happiness. And if they do … then they’ll regret it, won’t they?’
Catherine laughs again, looks at her watch then stands up. ‘You’d better go. It’s Cash In the Attic soon and I want to watch it. See you next week. Ta for the fags.’
Graeme feels stricken. He opens his arms for a hug, but Catherine is already waddling away.
4
Meredith
It was after the third mug of Jack Daniels that it all went weird. A moment of sheer madness, the sort when you’re thinking, Oh no, what am I doing? I need to stop right now, but are unable to stop, driven by an almost ghoulish compulsion to see it through to the bitter end, despite the background awareness of the potential consequences.
Ralph was just there, kneeling in front of her in his office. Pissed as a fart, but still a very sexy man – tall and broad and reassuring. More than that, he was sympathetic and – unexpectedly – so flattering and comforting that, in that moment, her body completely disobeyed her brain and conscience, and she was overcome with a great wave of pheromones and whisky-fuelled lust and emotion.
Ralph, her friend and boss. Worse: Ralph, her friend’s husband.
For the first hour everything had been on solid ground. She would have laughed derisively if someone had told her what was about to happen. At work, she was just Meredith From the Shop – solid, reliable Meredith.
At first they had discussed work stuff, albeit in slightly slurred voices. Ralph was rambling on about a newly hired gardener who had apparently lied at interview and therefore got the job under false pretences. Meredith wasn’t really paying attention. She still felt horribly disturbed by the break-in at the shop the day before, and by having to talk to the police.
If only Ralph hadn’t changed the subject and asked what was bothering her. If they hadn’t veered into personal problems territory, it would never have happened.
It wasn’t unusual for Ralph to take an interest in her private life, although they had previously only discussed it when Paula was there too. Meredith’s hapless love life was a well-worn topic that, both Ralph and Paula laughed, they enjoyed vicariously. So she pretended this was what was bothering her now. She couldn’t risk articulating her fears; it would have made her sound paranoid.
‘That bloke Gary dumped me at the weekend, after three weeks. I just have no luck with men at all,’ she pronounced weakly. She’d gone on a few dates with Gary off Tinder, and yes, as dates went, she thought he had potentially been someone she could possibly stand to look at in the morning, maybe even more than once; but Gary had clearly thought otherwise. Perhaps her ambivalence about the whole mating business had slowly leached through her carefully cultivated persona, like armpit sweat through silk.
‘Gary’s an idiot, then. You’re a huge catch,’ Ralph had said staunchly, propelling himself across the room on his office chair and grabbing the bottle of Jack from the top of the filing cabinet. He scooted back with it and replenished his mug. It smelled so good as he poured.
‘Yeah, right.’ She drained her own mug – her second, at that point; she remembered wondering how many he’d had – and Ralph immediately topped her up.
‘Do you know what he said to me? He said, “I’m just not attracted to you enough.”’ She gave a hollow laugh. When she thought about it, though, she had already forgotten what Gary’s face looked like.
‘Then he tried to make it better by saying “It’s not that I don’t fancy you at all, because I kind of do. Just not enough. I’m sorry.”’
‘What a bastard.’ Ralph’s words were slurring a lot more than Meredith’s.
It had stung a bit, if she was honest, that particular rejection. Perhaps it was because she had felt that Gary and she actually did have the chance at a connection. Once or twice, in more optimistic moments, she had let herself think that he might even be ‘the one’. He’d seemed OK – kind, funny, solvent, age-appropriate, sensible, liberal. Nice house, cute dog, matching socks. Four dates, lots of laughs and kisses that started off enthusiastically but – and she hadn’t noticed it at the time – lost commitment as time went on, like a hurricane that gradually blows itself out. Then, finally, his sad words of realisation.
‘He’s not a bastard. That was the problem,’ she said. ‘I’m obviously a terrible kisser. Or I’m just too old and ugly.’
Ralph had laughed, thinking she was joking. ‘Obviously!’ he chuckled drunkenly. ‘I mean, look at you!’
‘I’m serious, Ralph.’ Unexpectedly, she got the tingling in her nostrils that preceded tears and inwardly berated herself. It was almost certainly Jack Daniels-induced. She really didn’t give a shit about Gary, only what he had briefly represented: the chance of a partner, someone to cuddle up on the sofa with, plan holidays with.
Always look at what you have, she reminded herself, not what you’re missing. Although that was more difficult after three mugs of whisky.
Two decades ago, when her band won a BRIT Award for their third million-selling single, she’d have been as horrified as Iain had sounded in that phone call last year to know that this was where she would end up. And now she had talked herself into teariness over a rejection, after four dates, by a guy in his fifties who wore bicycle clips and played bridge.
But she knew that Gary wasn’t the real reason for her distress.
‘You aren’t remotely ugly,’ Ralph finally said, about two minutes past appropriate.
‘I mean, I think I’ve lost my looks since I was younger, but I’d never have said I was ugly.’ Meredith forgot that Gary actually hadn’t ever used that word. ‘My eyes are too close together, I’m too old and I have too many crow’s feet, but really?’
‘I’m sure it’s nothing to do with that. You’re a stunner, even for a woman your age. Especially for a woman your age. Maybe you’ve got bad breath? Paula’s always telling me that I have.’
‘That’s not particularly helpful,’ she said grumpily.
‘Come here, I’ll check. I’m your friend. I’m allowed to tell you these things.’
She started to laugh as Ralph hauled himself out of his chair and lumbered towards her, steadying himself on the edge of his desk on the way.
‘No! Go away!’
He crouched down with difficulty and gently took her chin in his hand, laughing too. ‘Breathe!’ he commanded.
‘Stop it!’ She wriggled away, feeling that moment of euphoric drunkenness where life seems suspended in happiness, like an insect in amber.
Ralph always cheered her up. When the three of them got together on the wine, horseplay and a lot of giggling weren’t unusual. Ralph and Paula’s son, Jackson, now twenty, had witnessed this a couple of times, much to his disgust and opprobrium. This, however, was the first time it had happened without Paula there to be the third corner of the triangle.
Ralph was still squatting at her feet. She had always thought what nice eyes he had – kind, green, and surprisingly clear for a man of his age and prodigious alcohol intake. And despite the undertone of JD, he smelled amazing.
He stopped chuckling and put his palm heavily on her knee as if to haul himself back up. Then he paused. ‘For what it’s worth, Meredith, I think you’re gorgeous. Honestly. I always have.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, smiling. It was the tender affection in Ralph’s voice that made her lean slowly towards him and rest her cheek on the side of his striped shirt. His shoulder felt reassuringly meaty and warm, and she felt his arms encircle her, his chin digging gently into her neck. At that moment he felt like a dad, and her instant response wasn’t remotely sexual.
‘You smell fantastic,’ she muttered, just stating a fact, but he must have construed it in a different way because he pulled away and kissed her on the lips, so lightly at first that she saw it only as a gesture of affection. She responded…
… And that was the point of no return.
There was always a point of no return.
A minute later they were kissing, properly, and it was lovely. He no longer remotely felt like her dad. He was a really good kisser, just the right amount of pressure and tongue action, and his hands began to roam around her body, rubbing her back at first, then along her thighs, and up over her breasts, where they stayed, squeezing gently until she felt a corresponding thrill between her legs. She wanted to stop but found herself pressing closer to him, sliding out of the chair and onto her knees so that their torsos were pressed tightly together.
‘I want you,’ he murmured, and in the heat of the moment it didn’t seem ridiculous or at all inappropriate. She just nodded, kissing him again. ‘I always have. Can we go back to the cottage?’
Meredith hesitated, reality creeping in for a moment. She didn’t want to sleep with Ralph in her bed or on her sofa. Somehow that felt worse than anything that happened here. Like calories in food not counting when it was eaten from someone else’s plate.
‘I can’t wait that long. And someone might see us walking over there,’ she said. ‘One of the gardeners might be working late.’
‘Do you want to?’ His hand was inside her bra, rolling her nipple between his fingers.
She nodded again.
‘You know what else I’ve always wanted to do,’ he whispered.
‘What?’
‘Have sex in the Gilt Room.’
‘Ralph! You dirty bugger. With me, or just anybody?’ She couldn’t help laughing. The Gilt Room was as it sounded – the house’s formal drawing room on the ground floor, a chandelier the size of a baby elephant in the centre and the walls and ceilings entirely covered in ornate gold leaf. ‘There’s CCTV in there; we can’t.’
‘Let’s go and have a look,’ he said, dragging her to her feet and handing her the bottle of Jack. ‘With you, of course, in answer to your question,’ he added, as Meredith took a swig, grinning at his answer. They had dispensed with the formality of mugs.
‘Surely you know where all the CCTV is? You’re estates manager!’ she reminded him, feeling naughty and rebellious. ‘And if there is a camera in there, deal’s off.’
Meredith was fairly sure there would be a camera. The room was stuffed with valuable vases, oil paintings and objets d’art. But as Ralph said, they didn’t have CCTV in every room. She started visualising where they might do it. On the rug? Best not on the rickety old brocade sofa; that was an original piece from when Lady Wilmington lived here. That would be hard to explain, if they broke it.
They adjusted their clothing and Ralph finished the bottle, putting it back in his desk drawer, and then they walked down the back stairs together from the converted servants’ quarters. He squeezed Meredith’s arse on the way. ‘No cameras down here,’ he said cheerfully.
She thought later that it was strange she hadn’t come to her senses in the brief hiatus, while they tried, like teenagers, to find somewhere exciting and forbidden to shag. But, she supposed, she was so aroused by then that not doing it didn’t feel like an option anymore.
They reached the ground floor and cautiously emerged through the Staff Only door into the public areas of the house. It was still and quiet.
‘Where’s Leonard?’ she whispered.
‘His shift doesn’t start till nine-thirty,’ Ralph whispered back. ‘And George is over at the stables this evening. He told me earlier he was going to go and change all the lightbulbs in there because Fred’s on holiday. I think we’re alone.’
Had he planned this? Meredith doubted it. He was too pissed. But he was right about Fred the handyman being on holiday.
He did seem very aware of the timings … but she soon stopped thinking about it. They were in the long, dark corridor leading to the Gilt Room, four vast six-foot-tall Chinese vases acting as sentries as they passed by.
‘Dammit, look,’ Ralph said, jerking his head up towards the doorway. The small shiny black dome was affixed to the ornate ceiling just inside the room; a CCTV camera. ‘Kind of spoils it, doesn’t it?’
Meredith didn’t know if he was talking about the architecture or the moment.
‘Follow me,’ he added. ‘I have a plan B.’ She laughed and did as he said. This was crazy, but it was fun.
Why had she not been thinking of Paula? she later thought. It wouldn’t have seemed so much like fun then. But she felt possessed, overtaken, wild with abandon.
She followed him through the public areas of the house towards the back entrance. At the last moment he dragged her in through a wide door.
‘Ralph, oh no, not the disabled loo!’ she protested, but he pushed her up against the mirror and kissed her again as he reached over and flipped up the handle to lock them in.
Her fingers went to his zip as if they were obeying someone else’s command.
5
Meredith
Dear God, thought Meredith. Why did I do that? Why? What the hell was I thinking? And with Ralph?
She was regretting this even before Ralph withdrew from her with a sticky swoosh. He turned, yanked up his trousers and leaned over the sink, his shoulders heaving. For a moment she thought he was being sick. She felt the same, wondering how she would ever be able to face Paula again. But then she realised he was just getting his breath back. In the mirror his reflected face looked a dull purple, like liver.
‘Let’s go for a walk,’ he panted as Meredith retrieved her knickers from the floor. ‘Spot of fresh air in order, I think.’
They slipped out of the side door of the house, and Meredith gulped down lungfuls of the summer-evening air. It always felt incredible after the musty scent of the house – furniture polish and decades of visitors’ discarded skin cells. Outside smelled of lilac and roses.
Ralph was giggling like a schoolboy, giddy with the thrill of their naughtiness, but Meredith already felt numb and horrified. She’d never even thought about kissing Ralph!
She liked him enormously, of course – it was impossible not to – but it had come as a complete surprise when he’d told her he’d always wanted her. That had probably been the whisky talking, though. He’d likely have said the same thing to Mumblin’ Mo or Ceri, if they’d been sitting in front of him half an hour ago.
Ralph was singing to himself as they strolled across the primrose-studded lawn. He tried to take Meredith’s hand, but she politely pulled away. ‘Someone might see,’ she said. ‘One of the gardeners, or someone.’
Ralph laughed drunkenly. ‘Little Miss Worried!’
She tried to turn in the direction of the rose gardens, so she could head back to her cottage and have a shower, but Ralph had other ideas. He suddenly took her hand again, and pulled her through a copse of lilac bushes. ‘Have you ever been in the ice house?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
He was already dragging her down the steps to the abandoned Victorian cellar standing alone and half buried in the grounds, which used to cater for the house’s refrigeration needs.
‘Why isn’t it locked?’ Meredith was sure it was usually padlocked; visitors weren’t allowed inside. But there was no padlock tonight; the wooden arch-shaped door cut into the small hillock was ajar. She was curious. She had always wondered what it was like in there. From the outside it resembled a hobbit house.
‘It ought to be. The surveyor was in earlier. We’re planning some renovations, making sure it’s sound, then perhaps we’ll open it up to the public – or at least reconstruct it with some plastic blocks of ice, and the punters can peer in. He’ll get the report back to me next week. Don’t want to do it if it costs a bomb, though.’
He took out his phone and switched on the torch function, pulling the door fully open. ‘Not a whole lot to see, but interesting, isn’t it?’
‘Um…’ Meredith stepped cautiously inside. It was cold and dank, and smelled of damp stone and raw earth – how she imagined the depths of a well would be. Gooseflesh swept up over her arms and shoulders and back down her chest as the door swung shut behind them. He was right, there wasn’t a lot to see, just gracefully curved brickwork, like in a wine cellar. It went much further back than she would have thought, though.
‘Room for a lot of ice in here,’ she commented.
Ralph wrapped his arms affectionately round her neck from behind, blinding her with his torch. Meredith pushed his hand away, mostly to deflect the torch beam. ‘Gerroff!’ she said, trying to pretend they were back to normal, that he hadn’t just had his penis inside her. Sparring buddies, mates.
He turned her round and tried to kiss her again. She responded, but half-heartedly this time. ‘Ralph,’ she said, wriggling free. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings. ‘We should never have done this. I feel terrible about Paula. She’s my friend. Your wife!’
A flash of guilt passed over his features, but then he gave an airy wave of the hand, the one holding his phone, making the torch’s white light strobe round the cellar. ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘She’ll never know. And she’s no saint herself, so you don’t need to feel all that bad.’
‘Really? She’s never mentioned any indiscretions to me.’ Meredith was genuinely surprised. Paula didn’t seem the straying sort, any more than Ralph did.
But then Ralph had just fucked her.
‘Anyway,’ she said decisively. ‘I’m going to go home now, and we will never speak of this again. OK?’
‘OK dear heart. One more kiss first … please?’
She did kiss him again. One for the road, as it were. It was a tender, lingering kiss that, weirdly, spoke more of their friendship than of their illicit sexual congress. She was very fond of Ralph, she realised afresh.
‘I don’t want this to ruin our friendship,’ she said, breaking off the kiss and raising her hand to stroke his face with her fingers. But he sneezed, suddenly and explosively, and as they both turned their heads away, the sharp edge of her ring caught him under the eye and she felt it drag down the flesh of his cheek.
‘Ow! Shit!’
‘Oh no. I’m so sorry. Did I get you? Is it bleeding?’
Ralph dropped the phone, torch down, and they were plunged into darkness, bar a sheet of white light at ground level. They both lunged down to get it, banging heads on the way, and started to laugh. Meredith got to it first, shining it towards him.
‘Let me see.’ There was a crimson teardrop sliding down his face. She pulled a tissue out of her skirt pocket and dabbed his cheek with it. ‘You’ll live,’ she said. ‘Now can we please get out of here? It’s horrible!’
They emerged, blinking like moles, into the welcomingly fresh evening air. Meredith could see the twisted barley-sugar chimney pots of her cottage in the distance and had a fierce yearning to be home, running a scented bath that she could lie in with a book and a glass of wine and try to forget that she’d just been hideously disloyal to a mate.
‘Right. I’m off. See you tomorrow. Don’t drive home, will you? You’re way over the limit. Are you going to get a cab?’
Ralph nodded, still holding the tissue to his face. ‘I promise. I’m just going back in to take a few photos of the big damp patch in the cellar while it’s unlocked, and those loose bricks at the back. I’m sure the surveyor did it when he was here, but it’ll be good to have a few for our records.’
‘OK. Have a good evening. Hope the hangover’s not too bad in the morning. And that you’re not scarred for life.’
Meredith set off towards her cottage as Ralph laughed and went back inside the ice house.
Walking back through the rose garden, she tried to analyse her emotions. The guilt was the worst – and she had a feeling that it hadn’t yet properly sunk in. It had been so long since she’d had sex – three years? four? – that there was also, she had to admit, a whiff of relief in the mix, if only to remind her that sex wasn’t all that. Not when it was with someone else’s husband, anyway. It would never happen with Ralph again, she was quite sure of that. A moment of madness.
She walked through the arched gateway separating the rose garden from the kitchen gardens and felt in her pocket for her front door key.
It wasn’t there. Dammit! It must have fallen out in the ice house when she pulled out that tissue for Ralph. Oh well. It was a beautiful evening, no hardship whatsoever to retrace her steps and stroll back. The bath could be postponed for ten minutes.
The sun was beginning to set over the layers of hill when she arrived back at the little grassy ramp leading down to the subterranean ice house. The hobbity door was still slightly ajar. Good, Meredith thought, as she’d had a sudden fear that Leonard on night security might have seen it flapping open and found a padlock to lock it up again; not that there was anything to steal in there. She took out her phone and activated the torch, pushing open the door ready to search the earthen floor.
Something impeded the door’s smooth opening. Weird, she thought. It had been fine just now. She pushed harder. It yielded a little way, just enough for her to squeeze through, but it felt as though an object had been placed behind to block it.
It was only when she got inside that Meredith realised. It wasn’t an object.
It was Ralph, lying face up on the cold, damp floor. When her torch beam, shaking wildly, found his face, he was purple and distended-looking, popped blood vessels in his cheeks forming tributaries around the scratch her ring had inflicted; his staring eyes bulging with death’s outrage. She had only been gone for ten minutes at the most. How could this possibly have happened?
‘Ralph!’ She crouched next to him, ripping at his tie and shirt, squishing two fingers into the underside of his wrist to try and find a pulse. Nothing. ‘Fuck! Ralph! Wake up!’
Meredith lifted his wrist and tried again. Still nothing. She pulled his shirt out of his trousers and ripped it open from the bottom up – he was wearing a tie and it seemed too difficult to try and loosen it from the top. Buttons bounced all over the floor as she commenced CPR, her shaking fingers interlocked as she pounded his chest and breathed into his whisky-sour mouth, pounded and breathed. She needed to call an ambulance but didn’t dare stop. Oh God, this is a nightmare
