‘Clare, she’s been under a lot of pressure lately,’ he says at last. ‘She’s had a lot on her plate.’
‘In what way?’ probes the detective.
‘She’s had a difficult time adjusting to some changes in her personal life.’ Or, as I guess Luke is thinking, none of your fucking business.
My mind is racing. What does Luke mean by ‘changes in my personal life’? What the hell has happened that has caused me to end up in hospital?
The answer doesn’t come immediately, but in those few moments a feeling of foreboding seeps into the room, creeps towards me and wraps itself around my body. I feel cold and goose bumps prick the skin on my arms. I know something bad has happened. I have done something so terrible my mind is trying to block it out. Something that goes against everything I am.
I, Clare Tennison, am a good woman. I am a successful career woman; a partner in Carr, Tennison & Eggar Solicitors. I am a caring daughter to my mother, Marion. I am a devoted mother to Chloe and Hannah. I am a loving and supportive wife to Luke. I am a school governor, for God’s sake. Clare Tennison doesn’t do bad things.
So why this fear, coated with guilt? What have I done?
I don’t want the next second to come. I try to fight it off, to suspend time, to be ignorant of this knowledge. Living in dread, however awful, is preferable to the alternative – living with the knowledge of what I have done.
Bang!
It’s back. I know, with the clarity of looking through highly polished glass, exactly what I have done.
I can see my hands on the wheel, steering the car, as I navigate the lanes back to the house. The pointer on the speedometer darting up and down, the rev-counter needle rising and falling as I change gear and manipulate the vehicle around the narrow lanes. Hedges blur in my peripheral vision and trees whoosh by in a haze, reminding me of a smudged watercolour painting.
It takes a moment before I register her there. Right in front of my path, as over a tonne of metal bears down on her. How have I not seen her? It’s broad daylight. It’s a clear day. There is no sun ahead to blind me, no rain to fuzz my vision. I have a totally clear view. She appears from nowhere. Stepping right out in front of me. I scream. I hit the brakes. I can hear the squeal of the rubber on tarmac as the tyres bite into the ground. I yank the steering wheel to the left, trying to miss her. It is all too late.
The clear and undeniable memory of the thud makes me feel sick. I think I’m going to vomit. Instead, I let out a sound from deep within me. It comes up from the pit of my stomach, wrenching my heart out along the way. By the time it escapes my throat, it is a roar of undiluted pain. Too vicious for tears. My body involuntarily curls into the foetal position. The plaster cast prevents me from moving my left arm but my other hand covers my bandaged head, as if I am bracing for an emergency landing on a doomed flight. I feel a line tug at my arm and something rip from my hand.
The next thing I am aware of is the scurrying of people around me. Nurses. The first with soothing, but firm, words telling me to calm down; everything will be all right. A second one with sterner words telling me not to struggle. That I am pulling out the drip. That I will hurt myself. And there is Luke’s voice too. Strong yet gentle.
‘Hey, hey, Babe,’ he is saying, using the pet name I haven’t heard him say recently. His tone is like the one he uses with the girls when they are upset, when Chloe has fallen over and cut her knee or like the time when Hannah discovered the tooth fairy wasn’t real. ‘It’s okay. You’re okay. Everything is going to be okay. I promise you.’
I want to believe him. I really do, but how can I when I am responsible for such a terrible crime? My body heaves and another sob erupts.
The last thing I remember is the cool sensation of liquid oozing into the back of my hand, smarting as it travels up my arm. I feel my body relax and then everything around me fades away as my mind drifts back to where this nightmare began.
Chapter 2
Six weeks earlier …
For a moment I think I don’t have to get up for work. It feels as if it should be a lazy, summery Sunday. The late September sun is still clinging onto warmer days and a small refreshing breeze billows the gauze curtain every now and then. I always like sleeping with the window open; it gives me a sense of being free.
But as I rouse further into the conscious world, the heavy weight of reality wraps itself around me. I’m anything but free. Particularly this time of year, as we move closer each day to my sister’s birthday.