Cross Her Heart: The gripping new psychological thriller from the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author
WARNING: This book may cause severe sleep deprivation‘A pacy, twisty thriller that will hook you with its first few pages’ StylistLisa. Ava. Marilyn. Three women, three secrets and a hidden past that could destroy them all.‘Once the first reveal hits you in the face, you’ll be lucky if you can put the book down’ IndependentOne of these women is living a lie…but who?‘A dark and compulsive read’ Woman & Home‘Brilliantly clever and compelling, I loved it!’ B. A. Paris‘The author’s storytelling is as sure-footed as ever’ Guardian
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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Copyright © Sarah Pinborough 2018
Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Figures © Silas Manhood, Cross © Shutterstock.com
Sarah Pinborough asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008132019
Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008132033
Version: 2018-09-21
Table of Contents
For Irvine, thank you for having the faith!
HIM
Bitch.
He grips the edge of the paper so tightly the neat lines of carefully written words twist into odd zigzags that crunch some sentences but highlight others, taunting him.
I can’t cope.
You’re too angry.
You frighten me when you hurt me.
I don’t love you any more.
The world is shaking and his breath comes heavily as he scans to the end.
Don’t come after me. Don’t try and find me. Don’t try and find us.
He reads the letter three times before it sinks in. She’s gone. They’re gone. He knows it’s true – he can feel the fresh emptiness in the house – but still he rushes through the rooms, pulling open hollow cupboards and drawers. There is no trace of her, however; no passport or driving licence, none of those important things that frame her life.
Don’t try and find us.
He returns to the kitchen table and crumples the letter, suffocating her words in his clenched fist. She’s right. He is angry. More than angry. He’s raging. It’s a white heat inside him. He stares out through the window, the battered ball of paper damp in his sweating palm. Vodka. He needs vodka.
As he drinks, a seed of a plan takes hold in the dark soil of his mind and starts to grow.
She has no right to do this to him. Not after everything they’ve been through.
He will destroy her for it.
LISA
‘Happy birthday, darling,’ I say, from the doorway. It’s only six thirty and I’m still bleary from sleep, but my kitchen hums with teenage life. It’s like a surging wave hitting me. I don’t remember ever having this much energy. It’s a good feeling. Full of hope and confidence.
‘You didn’t have to get up, Mum. We’re just leaving anyway.’ She’s smiling as she comes to kiss me on the cheek, a cloud of apple shampoo and pink deodorant, but she looks tired. Maybe she’s doing too much. Her GCSEs are coming up and between morning and evening swimming training several times a week, spending time with these girls, and going to school, I barely see her any more. Which is, as I keep telling myself, how it should be. She’s growing up. Growing out from me. I have to learn to let go. But it’s hard. For so long it was us two against the world. Now the world is nearly hers to grasp for herself.
‘It’s not every day my little girl turns sixteen,’ I say as I fill the kettle and wink at her. She rolls her eyes at Angela and Lizzie, but I know she’s happy I still get up to see her off to school. She’s at once grown up and still my baby. ‘And anyway,’ I add. ‘I’ve got my big presentation at work today so I need an early start.’
