After Anna
No.1 EBOOK BESTSELLER. A SUNDAY TIMES TOP 10 PAPERBACK BESTSELLER. A USA TODAY PAPERBACK BESTSELLER.The real nightmare starts when her daughter is returned…A bone-chilling psychological thriller that will suit fans of Gone Girl, The Couple Next Door and The Girl on the Train.A girl is missing. Five years old, taken from outside her school. She has vanished, traceless.The police are at a loss; her parents are beyond grief. Their daughter is lost forever, perhaps dead, perhaps enslaved.But the biggest mystery is yet to come: one week after she was abducted, their daughter is returned.She has no memory of where she has been. And this, for her mother, is just the beginning of the nightmare.
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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers
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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Copyright © Alex Lake 2015
Alex Lake asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com (sky); Cherie Chapman (girl on swing)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © JULY 2015 ISBN: 9780008150907
Version 2018-11-09
To my three musketeers: O, F and A
It was easier than you had expected. The girl came without complaint. You spotted her as she left the school, alone, looking around, clearly bereft of a parent to pick her up. Who would do that? Who would be so negligent as to leave a five-year-old in such a vulnerable position? It was appalling, it really was.
But it was good for you.
Not so good for her, and definitely not so good for her poor, soon-to-be grief-stricken, self-hating parents, but good for you.
No one saw you. You were sure of that. You’d been watching them closely. Watching them mill around the school gates, waiting for their spoiled progeny to emerge so they could pepper them with inane questions.
How was your day? What did you learn? Were you a good girl, my princess? Were you a brave boy?
They were raising a generation of precious, weak children, who thought the world revolved around them, that it would adapt itself to their whims, would always allow them to win and never force them to struggle. It was a silent disaster, and it was creeping into every corner of society and no one was doing anything about it.
Except you. You are going to do your part to stop it, however small that part is.
And it starts with the girl.
She is yours now. Now, and forever. You like things to be yours. You have never been good at sharing. You would rather destroy something than share it. You know it is not your most attractive trait, but you don’t fight it. There is no point. It has always been that way.
And you will not share her. She is yours. Vanished into your car; traceless.
It has gone very, very well. As well as could have been expected.
You have to admit to being a little bit pleased.
You have to admit that you allowed yourself a pat on the back.
Have you been lucky, even? Maybe. You need luck. Everyone does. You are no different, at least not in that regard. In some others, yes. In some other ways, you are very different. Better. More clear-sighted. More decisive.
So maybe it wasn’t luck, after all. No, you don’t think it was. It was down to good planning. Yes, you prefer that. It was down to good planning. And ability, of course. Nerve and skill. It was you who’d done it, you who’d made it happen. Luck was not part of it.
Not that you are becoming complacent. That would not do. That way, disaster lies. Complacency is the path to failure. And you did not take the girl, did not get this far, to fail at the last.
So now she sleeps, the girl, dark-haired and beautiful and young, she sleeps in the back seat of your car. She is drugged, hidden away from prying eyes until the time comes for you to use her for the purpose for which you took her. For the purpose that meant you had to take her. It is a shame she has to be involved in this; a shame that she will pay the price for what others have done. It isn’t fair, you know that, but then the world isn’t fair. Life isn’t fair. You know
