Alex Lake - The Choice

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2020

Copyright © Alex Lake 2020

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2020

Cover photograph © Magdalena Russocka / Trevillion Images

Alex Lake 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: 9780008373542

Ebook Edition © August 2020 ISBN: 9780008373566

Version: 2021-03-16

To my three

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Part One

Saturday, 7 March 2020

Part Two

Late July 2004

September 2004, Birmingham University

Saturday, 7 March 2020, 8.30 p.m.

Birmingham, October 2004

Saturday, 7 March 2020, 10.00 p.m.

Birmingham, November 2004

Sunday, 8 March 2020, 4 a.m.

Sunday, 8 March 2020, 6.03 a.m.

Birmingham, December 2006

Sunday, 8 March 2020, 6.15 a.m.

Grappenhall Library, 2009

Sunday, 8 March 2020, 6.45 a.m.

Chester, 2011

Sunday, 8 March 2020, 2 p.m.

Summer 2012

Sunday, 8 March 2020, 4.55 p.m.

Summer 2012

Late Summer 2012: Wedding Day

Sunday, 8 March 2020, 5.31 p.m.

2013 Christening

Sunday, 8 March 2020, 5.35 p.m.

2013: Christening Party

Sunday, 8 March 2020, 5.41 p.m.

2014

Sunday, 8 March 2020, 5.44 p.m.

Part Three

Sunday, 8 March 2020, 5.50 p.m.

Sunday, 8 March 2020, 6.40 p.m.

Monday, 9 March 2020, 8 a.m.

Tuesday, 10 March 2020, 7 a.m.

Tuesday, 10 March 2020, 6 p.m.

Wednesday, 11 March 2020, 8 a.m.

Read on for a sneak peek of Alex Lake’s new novel, coming 2021 …

Keep Reading …

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Alex Lake

About the Publisher

Look at him. I mean, just look . Baggy, out-of-date jeans with brown leather brogues that have not seen shoe polish in years, shirt untucked over his spreading stomach. It’s pathetic. No effort at all. Shabby. Second rate.

I’m doing nothing wrong. He deserves everything he gets.

Out he climbs, his car – not washed, of course – parked on the road outside under a flickering streetlamp. He pauses, checking over his shoulder that everything is all right.

It’s OK , he thinks, everything’s fine . He looks at the car. The kids are arguing in the back seat. One of them puts the interior light on, then off, then on again.

He hesitates outside the local shop. He’s about to go back and tell them, Stop it, you’ll break the light , but he pushes the door open and steps out of the early spring dark and into the shop.

He can leave them there, for a few minutes. The car’s unlocked – he doesn’t want the alarm to go off – but no harm will come to them. He won’t be in the shop long enough. His three-year-old daughter is buckled into a car seat, so she’s going nowhere. His five-year-old middle son is erratic and wilful, but he won’t get out of the car. He’ll be too scared, and if he tries his big brother – all of seven years old – will stop him. He’s sensible; a typical, rule-following first child.

So they’ll stay in the car. Safe.

Brother, brother, sister.

Daughter, son, son.

The lights of his life, no doubt. Annoying, at times, and hard work, but he loves them. He and his wife are blessed. Their children are the most important things in the world to them.

Yet he leaves them in a car on the road, unattended.

It’s not illegal. He probably knows that. He’s probably checked. The law allows you to leave children in a car provided there is no undue risk.

Which is exactly the point.

He thinks the risk is acceptable, so small as to be easily dismissed. He won’t be long, the kids won’t get out of the car and they can’t start it as he has the keys.

There are other sources of danger, of course – a runaway truck careering into the parked car and crushing it. An earthquake opening up a rift in the road underneath the car. A flash flood washing it and his children away.

All as near to impossible as makes no difference.

So he is right. The risk is small.

It is safe to leave them in the car for a few minutes while he goes into the shop. After all, what’s the alternative? Get them all out, chase them around? And then there’s the virus: it’s hit Italy and Spain hard, and it could be the same here. People are nervous; they don’t want their kids running around in a shop, picking things up and touching door handles and counter tops. He would have to corral them, which would turn a quick stop into an expedition.

At least that’s the excuse he makes. The excuse a lot of parents make. In fact, it would not make it into an expedition. It would just make it take five minutes longer, which, when you think what might happen if you leave them alone and unprotected, is not all that much of a price to pay.

But never mind. It is very improbable anything will happen to them. The odds are vanishingly small.

It’s one in a million that the kids are in danger.

And that’s the thing. It might be a one in a million chance, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

It means it’ll happen one time out of a million.

One time in a million there will be a stranger out there with bad intentions.

But who? Who would it be?

He’ll be asking that question for a long time.

Matt Westbrook stepped into the shop. It was one of the last of its kind – an independent local shop stocking a mixture of groceries, alcohol, newspapers, magazines and basic home cleaning and maintenance supplies – and he was the only customer.

He was only there because it was open and it was on his way home and Annabelle had texted to say they needed milk, coffee, bread, pasta, and beer or wine – and, if they had any, toilet paper and disinfecting wipes – and could he stop and get them on his way home with the kids?

Which was fine. She was recovering from a cold and didn’t need to go out on a chilly night. He could pick up the stuff and do a big shop the next day at the supermarket. He wouldn’t bother with the wine, though – they were trying for another baby, so she was off the booze and he didn’t much feel like drinking alone.