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FOLLOW ME Samantha Thornson

FOLLOW ME

FOLLOW ME A Novel

Samantha Thorson

Scorned BATH

gr0 0 0 0 0 Scorned is an imprint of Vintage, 90 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1W 9SA Scorned is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

Copyright © 2018 by Samantha Thornson Samantha Thornson has asserted her rights to be identified as the authour of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 First published by Scorned in 2019 This novel is a work of fiction. names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prioir consent. in any form of binding or cover other than in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CHP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library 0000000000 (Trade paperback ISBN) Printed and bound by St Davids Ltd, Oxford Penguin Random House is committed to a sustainable future for our business, our readers and our planet. This book is made from Forest Stewardship Council© certified paper

FOLLOW ME

10

GRIND Perhaps it’s stereotypical, but the office always smells like coffee. Gorgeous, bitter, earthy coffee. We have a saying that there is a point in everyone’s career, that one case, that will put you on black coffee. Very rarely do people go back. Harry and I are some the few black sippers this morning. Only a couple of cases open thus far in the week. Neither of us are proud of the dark liquid we pour in to our cups, day in and day out. A badge of a case unsolved.

I feel that familiar mix of resentment, anger and unease. I so badly want to solve this. There is part of me that hopes everyday before I walk in the door, that everyone will rush and tell me he slipped up or even that he handed himself in! But that is too easy. It’s too easy for a person that is barely human anymore to be empathetic, guilty, sorry.

But I’m distracting myself, away with the fairies again my mother would complain, Harry is still telling me about his date that he knows I don’t really want to hear about but damned if he’s not going to gush to someone about it.

“So she said ‘We should do this again’ that’s a good sign right. I mean the kiss was good but not phenomenal, like 11

I could tell she was holding back but it’s a first date, you don’t want a girl to stick her tongue right the way down there and grope you because that’s not a first date, that’s just a one-night-stand or the first of many dubious hookup situations, which I also wouldn’t mind but I think it went well for a first date?” he finally stops for breath and looks at me a little apprehensively.

“Well DI Gibson, I think we can all safely say you’re over analysing” Peters booms across the meeting room. Harry blooms in a flush maroon nearly immediately and I try so hard to suppress laughter, the blackness spills out of my cup on to my hands. Harry apologises profusely and Peters continues with the meeting. “Aside from Gibson’s puzzling date, what have we done this week? Updates, everyone, updates please …”

The meeting goes the same as usual, every case has at least a little progress but ours. Carey sent some DNA off from victim’s clothing and the analysis should be in today or tomorrow, Steven caught that mugger but is still appealing for statements from witnesses to strengthen the case, there’s been a couple of assaults around a park that someone can cover. And us? Once again Chief, a bit juicy, steaming pile of absolutely nothing. I have noticed the look in his eyes more and more in the past months, whether it’s disappointment or annoyance I can’t tell, but it makes me think that there is some truth in what Isaac has been saying. I love this case and I can’t leave it, but another year would kill my career. Even now, my prospects for promotion are looking very very pale next to someone like Steven but if we do crack it. My God, if we crack it, we might go down in history.

12

Luckily, the meeting is over by 10 and we all go off to our respective huddled corners or spacious offices.

Unlucky in the sense that once again Harry and I are stuck combing through every detail, interview and piece of evidence we can get our hands on. Oh joy of joys. I’ve only done it, what? Oh yes, twenty million times now. But I try to find something new, something I haven’t noted.

Although I am apprehensive that the Chief might dismiss it as me/us reading too much in to it again, as he has done the last time the two of us went to him with the way someone’s voice hitched in the audio-record interview.

I only have enough time to sit down at my desk and plug in my headphones, before Gibson is chatting away again.

“Firstly, we are supposed to tell each other before time, when Chief is walking in so why would ...”

“Harold my love, as much as I would love to run over your face turning the same shade as Leticia’s very brave choice of blouse, I didn’t see him.”

“Bullcrap did you not see him” he frowns.

I feel myself raise an eyebrow and say flippantly “Sometimes people do this thing where they’re listening attentively that they aren’t focused on everything else going in the room at the same time. You should try it on that second date”.

He waves his finger at me, suddenly extremely interested in the conversation. “So you do think I’ll get a second date?”

13

I wish I could say that ‘before I knew it, it was 6’o’clock and I got to go straight home’ but it is only 4 when we finish our respective combing. “Anything?” I ask Harry. He shakes his head and asks me with a light “You?”.

“Sweet F. A.”.

We are past the point of being frustrated by now. Not angry, just starting to become a bit destitute. If I wasn’t fed up with putting my head in my hands I probably would right now.

“Would it be awful to just give up, do you think?” I ask.

Gibson answers me without skipping a beat “Yes it would, more coffee and a 2-hour map-staring session ought to do us right.” I’m so tempted to moan a very long no and let my head hit the table and maybe nap for two hours. But I am 26, it has been a long time since I’ve been a student.

And Harry is already getting me coffee, which he now remembers to make decaf after I rang him at 2 o’clock once because I had a theory I couldn’t stop thinking about. So I settle for letting my head hit the desk.

Sat staring at a map of London, even with crime scene pictures, the mug of warm coffee clasped in both my hands is making my eyes droop. I am thankful that at 6.05 Gibson looks at the clock and we agree to swap what we’ve noted down again in the morning. We are often in the habit of taking things home and thinking about them a bit longer, trying to see some link we haven’t already.

Now for the commute.

14

I always find it easier on the way home than I do towards work. I have the same audiobook or podcast as the morning but it’s usually because I’m thinking about getting in to my lovely house and wrapping my arms around Isaac. Every married couple at the wedding told us to enjoy the first years, the honeymoon newlywed bliss. And for once in my life, I have followed their advice, almost as embarrassingly, schoolgirlishly, in love with my husband as I was in the first years of our relationship.

15

Everything becomes a blur of colour and sound. I can hear him speaking to me softly, how he’s sorry, he doesn’t want to do it but he has to, it’s what we were always heading towards.

I can see the light coming in through the back doors that we tried so hard to get perfect with 4 different designers.

Our kitchen still looks the way I imagined it when we first bought the house – the pans over the oven, the fruit on the side, the knives neatly standing up. The light hits the missing one in his hand, making it smile and glint.

I wonder later whether it was training, adrenaline or pure anima instinct, but I kick him and the knife goes flying.

16

SWIM 8 years ago, I switched off the impulse to fight. Today, as my husband walks towards me, I let myself go. As he grabs me, I stab him between the ribs with a kitchenknife. I am close enough to see his pupils dilate with the shock. I hope with all my heart I have punctured a lung.

He doesn’t collapse, just wheezes a little and keeps looking at me with his mouth slightly agape. His nails dig in to my arms, keeping us in this state of suspended animation. I am shocked too, my face mirroring his with wide eyes and open mouth. The warmth of the blood creeping along my hand is what makes me move. I tear myself away, fly down the hallway and with shaking slippery hands open my front door and run. Evidently, I did not stab Isaac hard enough, as I here him roar my name while I rush down the front steps in to the street; “REBECCA”.

To him I am a disobedient pet, a housecat that wants to play outside. But the game is over now. I caught him. I win.

17

My workplace are quick to respond, but I suppose it isn’t everyday that a 86 year-old woman calls to say that nice lady next door is standing outside her door with wild eyes and bloody hands. Selfishly, I hope they recognised my address, and that’s why Gibson steps out of some of the many cars. They do a lot of psychological tests at the hospital, I think partly because of the trauma but also partly because they found me hiding in a bush lest Isaac should still have enough energy to make it out of the house. The looks are even worse than when Carrie died. You would think I had Benjamin Button style aged down to some infantile little girl. All I hear is “It’s gonna be okay sweetie”, “you’re doing so well”, “can I get you another cup of tea or another blanket?”. Tea might solve a lot of problems John, but two attacks on your life by your significant other of 10 years might just be out of that reach. They say I’m not well enough to give a statement yet, they’ll wait till tomorrow (as if the sun rising will turn back the clock). Gibson tries to level with me, saying “If it was your case, you’d want to interview the victim when they’re in the clearest state of mind.”

“If it was my case I’d let the victim make a statement when they wanted to. Maybe when it’s freshest in their mind.”

“Becca, you need to get over the shock first. You know that” “I’m not in shock!”

“No, you don’t feel like you’re in shock right now because of the adrenaline.

18

“That may be, but I need to write it down Gibson, I don’t want to forget the details.”

He looks hesitant while he hands me one of those weak, journalist style notepad. “It might be useless, but you should try and turn off the investigative side of your brain.

You need to deal with the trauma properly. Otherwise it will eat you.” Even he is not completely immune from molly-coddling me, he trips over the word trauma and his eyes plead with me to deal with it ‘normally’. “I will deal with it, the way I need to deal with it.” I don’t mean to hiss the words out or snatch the pad away but I’m so angry with everyone. I don’t need to be treated like just another victim, I know what the processes are. I don’t want to ‘feel’ my pain, or ‘process’ this properly, I want to put him behind bars and close this.

I know underneath it all that if I stop and process this. I’m going to go down a hole, that I likely won’t make it out of. So, I need the distance. I am still barely able to think about like without Carrie, now I have to live a life without Isaac. But the Isaac I knew didn’t really exist, did he? No, Becca don’t go down that hole. I refuse to ask myself if it was all a lie and he is wholey evil, or if my Isaac and the murderer co-exist within one body. Instead, I separate myself, drift up and away from the emotions and drama.

I take the pen and begin to write the hard facts. I am now “white female, 20’s”, he is “white, male aggressor, early 30’s”. It’s so much easier to report than experience.

I can’t tell how long I have been writing for, but I’ve filled up at least 7 pages of the notepad by the time my mother arrives. How odd it is to realise, that I still expect Isaac to be my next of kin, to rescue me from himself. Neither 19

“We can help you sell it, if you’d like” “I don’t know what I’m going to do with it yet. Where would I go if I sell it? Another part of London or another part of the country? Another country? What do I even do Mum? How do I even start to deal with the details?”

Reacting to trauma is not a good time to hate crying. The thought of trying to rebuild my life not just without Isaac, but without my home or anything from the last 9 years is so overwhelming. I get to close the case but the nearly every good memory my life is becoming tainted by who my future husband claimed to be. Like a drop of ink in a glass of water, I can feel it filtering down, giving mundane actions a cruel shadow from chopping vegetables for dinner last week, how his hands were a little too firm on my back at his office party months ago, walking down dark alleys in Amsterdam last year.

I am again grateful my mum is not melodramatic. She doesn’t crush me to her chest and start weeping with my, instead just holds my hand and let’s my body get it out.

I’m trying not to go down that hole, I’m trying so damn hard but that hole is rushing up to meet me.

No. I refuse that hole. I have work to do and a job to finish.

Not that my tears will listen at this point, the surrounding sadness of the whole situation must be responded to, but I must not respond to the damsel in distress thoughts. The hole WILL stay out of my reach, I will make it. This man, this case, this job has taken enough already from me, 20

they will have to wait for when I let them take any more.

But they still refuse to see me, so I ask for some water and I sit and wait.

Credit where credit is due, I’ve seen it take longer than 6 hours to be interviewed. Of course, they wanted to wait somewhere between 12-24 hours but I have basically written down a crystal clear witness statement before being asked and I won’t do anything else. Shock isn’t always bad I think, everything is quiet in my mind and my path is clear. I just mustn’t think about what I’ll do after the interview, all that is important now is giving the information. I want to get out of the hospital bed, stand at the window and shout “I have all the answers! Why aren’t you talking to me!”. I am determined to prove that I didn’t know either. Of course they are my colleagues, my friends, they like me but I know the niggling thoughts that must be getting to them, and I can’t risk someone way up, that I don’t know, sweeping in to give their verdict.

Because I would have said exactly the same; “She must have known … you can’t have something of that scale without some suspicion … what if she helped keep it secret? … What if she helped ….”. But I am not some murderess corrupt heinous She-Devil without a spec of humanity. I could give a million descriptions of him, but they all end with the same thought.

My husband.

My husband did this.

21

Why us?

Why me?

Rebecca lies awake at night, in her perfect house and perfect life, questioning. 8 years ago she was nearly murdered, at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Now she is haunted by the past and the growing list of victims, spiralling further down the rabbit-hole, as she attempts to catch her killer.

One thing connects all the victims, each murder so similar to the rest.

After years of working the case, Rebecca is now the head of the investigation and every murder is bringing her closer to her killer.

Every crime scene is an invitation to her; FOLLOW ME. But who can catch whom first?

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