Obsession: The bestselling psychological thriller with a shocking ending
One evening, a wife asks her husband a question: who else would you go for, if you could?It is a simple question – a little game – that will destroy her life.Carly and Rob are a perfect couple. They share happy lives with their children and their close friends Craig and Jenny. They’re lucky. But beneath the surface, no relationship is simple: can another woman’s husband and another man’s wife ever just be good friends?Little by little, Carly’s question sends her life spiralling out of control, as she begins to doubt everything she thought was true. Who can she trust? The man she has promised to stick by forever, or the best friend she has known for years? And is Carly being entirely honest with either of them?Obsession is a dark, twisting thriller about how quickly our lives can fall apart when we act on our desires.Perfect for fans of B A Paris and Paula Hawkins.‘This is one highly addictive novel!” WENDY WALKER, AUTHOR OF ALL IS NOT FORGOTTEN"A compelling page-turner on the dark underbelly of marriage, friendship & lust. (If you're considering an affair, you might want a rethink)." FIONA CUMMINS, AUTHOR OF RATTLE
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AMANDA ROBSON
OBSESSION
Avon
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street,
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2017
Copyright © Amanda Robson 2017
Amanda Robson 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.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008212216
Ebook Edition © May 2017 ISBN: 9780008212223
Version: 2017-03-07
To my close family.
To my husband, Richard Gillis. My sons, Peter and Mark Gillis. My parents Shirley and Peter Robson, and my brother and his wife, Chris and Carol Robson.
There is a sharp intake of breath as the jurors are shown a photograph of the crime scene. Oh, the strange, strange fascination of death. The acrid smell of death that will never go away.
Table of Contents
I am drunk; liquid-limbed, mind-pumping drunk, and so is my husband, Rob. Craggy features, softened by shadows, move towards me across the mosquito candle placed in the middle of the camping table, as he smiles at me and tops up my glass. I shiver a little and zip up my jacket. The low sky of this Breton night has brought the sort of chill that predicates frost. But although frost won’t happen in July in the south of Brittany, during this camping holiday, I have not felt warm enough. Not once. Not at night, curled up beneath my inadequate blanket, or in the day when I’m supervising our children around the unheated swimming pool. The extra layer of body fat, cultivated after the arrival of our third child, is not protecting me from the cold.
Our children are asleep in the tent behind us. I feel their silence and the exhalation of their breath, deep rooted and satisfying. At least I don’t have to watch their every movement until morning, as I do during the days. Holidays aren’t holidays any more. We just take our children to a different place to look after them. A place that is harder work.
Everything about this camping holiday is exhausting. Standing by the pool for hour after hour, checking that they’re not drowning. The boredom of watching and waiting for the occasional sight of a familiar head coming out from behind a plastic palm tree or poolside dolphin. Holding giggling toddlers as we are tossed down knotted plastic tubes, sliding along until we’re spewed out into the water, the movement almost breaking our backs. The endless cooking of barbecues – washing burnt gunk off the griddle. As far as I am concerned this is the best part of the day; the children are in bed and I have Rob to myself.
For this is what I like. Rob to myself. We married just over ten years ago, so we were alone for several years before our children were born. We met at the training hospital when I was a trainee nurse and he was a junior doctor. I will never forget the sight of him walking down the ward towards me, that first cracked smile. No doubt someone looking in would consider our relationship argumentative. Some of our friends say that they never have a cross word. How do they achieve that? Why do we argue? My mother says it is because we care. Whatever. It isn’t really a satisfactory day without the rumblings of a discussion.
