Alex Barclay - I Confess

HarperCollins Publishers

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Published by HarperCollins Publishers 2019

Copyright © Alex Barclay 2019

Cover design layout © HarperCollins Publishers 2019

Cover photographs © Hayden Verry/Arcangel Images

Alex Barclay asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This 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 e-books

Source ISBN: 9780008273002

Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2019 ISBN: 9780008273026

Version: 2020-03-25

‘Gripping, stylish, convincing’

Sunday Times

‘The rising star of the hard-boiled crime fiction world, combining wild characters, surprising plots and massive backdrops with a touch of dry humour’

Mirror

‘Tense, no-punches-pulled thriller that will have you on the edge of your deckchair’

Woman and Home

‘Explosive’

Company

‘Compelling’

Glamour

‘Excellent summer reading … Barclay has the confidence to move her story along slowly, and deftly explores the relationships between her characters’

Sunday Telegraph

‘The thriller of the summer’

Irish Independent

‘If you haven’t discovered Alex Barclay, it’s time to jump on the bandwagon’

Image Magazine

To OMGP This is what it feels like to be seen.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for Alex Barclay:

Dedication

Pilgrim Point: Beara Peninsula, Cork, Ireland

Chapter 1: Edie

Chapter 2

Chapter 3: Edie

Chapter 4

Chapter 5: Jessie

Chapter 6

Chapter 7: Murph

Chapter 8

Chapter 9: Patrick

Chapter 10

Chapter 11: Laura

Chapter 12

Chapter 13: Patrick

Chapter 14

Chapter 15: Helen

Chapter 16

Chapter 17: Dylan

Chapter 18

Chapter 19: Johnny

Chapter 20

Chapter 21: Patrick

Chapter 22

Chapter 23: Murph

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37: Edie

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44: Clare

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48: Mrs Lynch

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55: Helen

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59: Sister Consolata

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Ten Months Later

Chapter 63

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Alex Barclay

About the Publisher

Darkness had travelled loyally with Pilgrim Point through all its incarnations, as if passed in the handshake between each fleeing owner and the hopeful successor whose eye he could barely meet. This anvil-shaped promontory on the south-west coast of Ireland had once been a battleground, and at various times in the centuries that followed, had been fought over, lost, regained, or relinquished.

The sufferings of each owner – and there were many – would at first be borne privately, but the anguish of their aggregate would eventually sound like an alarm, travelling east to Castletown, where it would turn to whispers at a retreating back. Pilgrim Point, now empty of life, would release into the silence a siren cry that would always be answered. Deep and discordant, it called to those of a darker persuasion. The greater surprise was the fine gold thread of its lighter melody and how its gleam, though rare, could attract to Pilgrim Point, in equal measures, those of more noble intent.

Perhaps its grounds had swallowed the consequences of so many sins that, under the feet of sinners, it felt like home and under the feet of the righteous, like a summoning. This despite stories of strange apparitions and untimely occurrences. There was also the curious fertility of its grass – stark against the dark stones of the ruins that marked it. This trick of nature kindled even the faintest hope of triumph, when it was doubtless nothing more than a pleasing cover for what lay beneath – the roots of sin itself. From under this vibrant green bed, it released a pale malevolence that rose like smoke to disappear into the late-evening mist.

Were you to pass through the black gates of Pilgrim Point now, you would find yourself on land cloven by a bitter feud between brothers. The path you must take marks the dead centre, its course as unbending as the will of the men who occasioned it. As you follow this path, you will feel as though the landscape is unfurling around you, ahead of you, and for you – in time with the fall of your foot or the galloping hooves of your mount. You will be rewarded, then, at the cliff edge with such astonishing natural beauty; this anvil pointing towards nothing but sky and wild Atlantic. Turn left or right and you will catch glimpses of lesser headlands, like runners that have fallen behind in a race. You have won. Or so you think. You won’t know yet that, in fact, you have been won. Through the powerful sweep of the wind and the steady crash of the waves, you won’t hear the voice of the true winner:

‘I am Pilgrim Point, host of rulers and battles, victors and vanquished, the rich, the poor, the faithful, the lost. Who are you? And what will I make of you?’

For what does an anvil do but allow a thing to be hammered and moulded? And what confusion comes when it plays blacksmith too.

I should know.

I once lived there. And, I now believe, died.

In a Manor of Silence

Lord Henry Rathbrook, 1886

‘If you have a rich imagination you will never be poor.’

Edie’s mother, Madeleine, had heard that from her starving-artist parents throughout her childhood, so although she grew up in a home blessed with the freedom of passionate creativity, it was caged, in her mind, by penury. Madeleine mentally rejected the advice, never realizing that she had, in fact, taken it – she married a rich man, having fallen in love with a version of him she had used her rich imagination to create. Before they married, she had brought Edward home to meet her parents, and Edward, weary of the constraints of his upper-class upbringing, had been charmed by her parents and their ramshackle home. He came alive in their company and expected their daughter would bring out the same spirit in him. It wasn’t long after they married that he realized they were both running towards the life the other wanted to leave behind. Edie’s mother was happy with her beautiful home and her beautiful things, and a husband who travelled for business and left her to enjoy them. When he returned from his trips, she seemed as disappointed by the reality of him as he was by the sense that she might pick him up, look around, and try to find a suitable place to put him.