href="#litres_trial_promo">Chapter 21: Saturday 10.00 a.m.
Chapter 22: Saturday 11.30 a.m.
Chapter 30: Thursday 4.30 p.m.
Chapter 31: Thursday 5.30 p.m.
Chapter 32: Thursday 7.30 p.m.
Chapter 33: Thursday 8.00 p.m.
Chapter 35: Saturday 7.00 a.m.
Chapter 36: Saturday 8.00 a.m.
Chapter 37: Saturday 2.15 p.m.
Chapter 41: Thursday 3.00 p.m.
Chapter 46: Saturday 11.00 a.m.
I crawl back into bed and stare blindly up into the darkness. I won’t sleep; not tonight, not for many nights to come. I doubt I’ll ever sleep soundly again.
I start to shake. The adrenalin that brought me this far suddenly drains away and I begin to shiver so violently my muscles cramp. I press my fist against my mouth to still the chatter of my teeth. If I had anything left in my stomach, I would be sick again.
I’ve always thought of myself as a fundamentally good person. I’m not perfect, but I’ve spent a lifetime trying to do the right thing. I rescue spiders from the bath; I stop traffic to let a mother lead her row of ducklings across the road. I literally wouldn’t hurt a fly. A month ago, I’d never have believed myself capable of killing a mouse, never mind murdering another human being in cold blood.
But human nature has an infinite capacity to surprise.
We teach our children to fear dark alleys and strangers, but the real danger is much closer to home. You’re more than twice as likely to be murdered by someone you love than by someone you’ve never met. If you’re a child, it’s nearer three times. If you want a reason to be scared, look in the mirror.
Evil doesn’t have two horns and a tail. It’s ordinary, just like me.
Those jealous husbands who bludgeon their wives to death, the women who smother their babies, the estranged fathers who lock their children in the car and connect the exhaust. Ordinary men and women, all of them.
Just like me.
Maddie opened her eyes. It was dark; she struggled to orient herself as her vision adjusted to the gloom. She was in the nursery: she could just make out the silhouette of Noah’s cot. She had no idea how she’d got here. When she groped for the memory, it’d been wiped clean.
Her throat felt raw and hoarse, as if she’d been screaming. She moistened her lips, and tasted blood. Shocked, she touched her mouth, then looked down to see a dark smear on her fingertips. Had she fallen? She and Lucas had been arguing, she remembered that, though she couldn’t remember what the row was about. Had she stormed out of the room? Walked into a door?
She closed her eyes again and thought back to the last thing she could remember. She and Lucas had been upstairs, in their bedroom; her husband had just come out of the shower, spraying her with water as he towelled his thick, dark hair. Her heart had skipped a beat, as it always did when she saw him naked, even after six years of marriage, the intensity of her craving for him almost frightening her as she’d pulled him hungrily onto the bed.
She suddenly remembered: with perfect timing, the baby monitor on the bedside table had flared into life, an arc of furious red lights illuminating the bedroom. Not that the alarm had been necessary; Noah’s screams had echoed from the adjoining nursery, loud enough to wake everyone in the house, and probably everyone on the street, too.
Lucas had told her to let the baby cry. That’s why they had been arguing. Lucas had told her to leave