Lisa Jewell

Awnings flapping in a brisk wind

My cleverness oozed out of me like goo

Silence subsumes the house

Had she woken up every morning suffused with existential joy? No, she had not.

I was nearly eleven when they came, and my sister was nine.

They lived with us for more than five years and they turned everything very, very dark. My sister and I had to learn how to survive.

And when I was sixteen, and my sister was fourteen, the baby came.

To Miss Libby Louise Jones

As trustee of the Henry and Martina Lamb Trust created on 12 July 1977, I propose to make the distribution from it to you described in the attached schedule …

Sixteen Cheyne Walk, SW3.

They’ve left me the house.’

For many months afterwards Rachel was kept informed of updates in the case by the French detective called Avril.

Is there something odd about him, anything a bit off? Is she failing to read warning signs? Is he going to scam her, rape her, abduct her, stalk her? Is he mad? Is he bad?