In a Cottage In a Wood: The gripping new psychological thriller from the bestselling author of The Woman Next Door
I know you have.’
A few minutes later he folds her into a taxi with assurances to the sceptical driver that she isn’t going to be sick. Neve manages to pass on Lou and Steve’s address. But when they reach the junction of Camden Road and Kentish Town Road, Neve leans over and gives new instructions, filled with a sudden second wind.
The driver eyes her warily, then changes direction.
A few minutes later, the car pulls up outside Daniel’s flat. The flat that was once hers and Daniel’s.
She pays the driver with the money Bick had insisted she take and stands on the pavement, staring woozily up at the top floor. A fox appears from the alleyway next to the house and regards her brazenly before slinking away. There’s a car alarm going off on the next road along.
Swaying slightly on her feet, she wishes fervently now that she hadn’t thrown the keys back at him during a fight. All she wants is to creep in and go to bed. She wouldn’t even bother him; she’d only sleep on the sofa. It seems so reasonable that she could do this. Who could possibly object to her sleeping on their sofa?
But there is no option other than to wake him up, now she’s here.
She wobbles up the steps and peers at the row of buzzers. Funny how unfamiliar it looks in such a short time. Focusing hard on not missing the target, she presses her finger squarely onto the buzzer and keeps it there. Then she removes it and does it again.
‘Hello?’ Daniel’s sleepy voice crackles from the intercom. She feels a happy rush that he is so near and she will see him within mere moments.
‘S’me!’ she says.
‘Who?’
Neve pauses, frowning.
‘S’Neve,’ she says a bit less cheerfully.
There’s a silence.
‘What do you want?’
Neve sways and tries to concentrate on what’s happening. This isn’t working out as she had expected.
‘To go to sleep,’ she says honestly and pushes the door, confident that it will have been released.
Nothing happens so she buzzes again and, a few seconds later, it opens and reveals a stony-faced Daniel.
He’s wearing an old T-shirt she has always loved, which says Revolution is Just a T-Shirt Away in white letters on black, faded to soft grey now, and pyjama bottoms. His hair is tousled and hangs over his eyes and he’s grown a small beard since she saw him last. He’s never looked more attractive and desire floods her entire body, hot and quick.
‘Neve? What the fuck?’ he says as she moves quickly and snakes her arms around his back. She breathes in the familiar smell of him and feels her groin squeeze in anticipation.
‘I’ve missed you,’ she says and starts to nibble and kiss his neck. ‘Let’s just forget about all of it. I have a cottage now.’
‘What?’ Daniel tries to step back. ‘What the hell are you talking about? And get off me, Neve, you’re completely wrecked.’
Neve slides her hands around his waist and over his firm buttocks, looking at him impishly through her lashes. She can feel the beginnings of a hard-on against her stomach as she pulls him closer and he makes a small sound in his throat. She’s not sure whether it’s a sound of being turned on, or a disgusted ‘tut’.
‘Not too wrecked,’ she says in a low voice. ‘We were always good together like this, weren’t we? Remember, I know what you like.’ She tries to peel his pyjama bottoms down and is suddenly thrust backwards so hard she almost falls down the steps.
‘Stop it!’ yells Daniel. ‘Just fucking stop this!’
‘Danny? What’s happening?’
A sleepy high-pitched voice seeps from the staircase and Neve stares over his shoulder to see a girl she recognizes from the pub, standing behind Daniel. She’s wearing one of his T-shirts and coils of blonde hair spill over her shoulders. Yawning like a cat, she then blinks hard at Neve.
‘What’s going on?’ she says, awake now. ‘What’s going on, Danny?’
‘Danny! No one calls him Danny! Who the fuck are you to be standing there like that and calling him fucking Danny?’
And with that she bursts into violent sobs.
Danny regards her with a look that makes her actually clench her toes inside her shoes.
‘Just go home, Neve,’ he says. ‘You’re only embarrassing yourself. You need to accept things and move on, alright?’
Neve remembers several things as her alarm clock, which by some miracle she managed to set last night, goes off with the intensity of a road drill next to her.
1. She was given a cottage yesterday.
2. She went to Daniel’s and humiliated herself.
3. When she got back to Lou’s she threw up in the bathroom.
4. Then she cleaned it up.
She definitely cleaned it up. Didn’t she?
Scrambling out of bed, she smashes her knee into the frame in her haste, and swears. She pulls on a hoodie with shaking hands and, thrusting open the study door, heads down the landing to the bathroom.
Lou is just emerging through the door. She is wearing rubber gloves and holds a bucket filled with cleaning products.
‘Lou, I’m so sorry, I swear I meant to sort that out.’
Lou regards her younger sister. She doesn’t look angry. She looks exhausted. Her nostrils are inflamed and red, her skin porridge-coloured.
‘You didn’t do a very good job,’ she says in a flat monotone. ‘Luckily I went in there first. Steve’s having a lie-in.’
‘Lou, I really am—’
Maisie begins to wail.
‘Forget it,’ says Lou and her voice is sharp now. ‘Just forget it, Neve.’ A surge of shamed affection for her sister washes over her and she goes to touch her arm but Lou pushes past and goes down the stairs.
It takes two paracetamols, a double strength ibuprofen and a triple espresso to give Neve the physical means to be able to walk into the office just before nine. The pounding in her head is more muted now, but her stomach occasionally shivers with nausea and her hands are shaky.
She vows to belatedly sign up to whatever the Dry January thing is on Facebook later. Dry half-of-January has to be better than not doing it at all.
The morning creaks by a second at a time and she tries to bury herself in admin jobs that have built up since the start of the week.
Mid-morning, Fraser and a couple of the other editors sweep into the office, and the sleepy energy instantly changes. This is partly because they are all wearing suits; even Fraser looks quite dapper in a dark blue pinstripe, despite the cut being a good fifteen years out of fashion.
Neve weakly turns on her smile of greeting, which slips when she sees the mean shine in Fraser’s eyes and notices the man he is showing into reception. Small and bespectacled with close-cropped grey hair, it’s his companion from Waterloo yesterday.
‘Miss Carey,’ says Fraser brightly. He has never called her this before. He somehow manages to make it less respectful than if he had used her Christian name. ‘Can you please organize for some coffee in the conference room?’
‘Yes, sure,’ she says, even though she isn’t supposed to leave reception. The party of five men sweep past her and she notices the stranger frown at her, in obvious recognition