Nicola Rayner - The Girl Before You

Published by AVON

A Division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2019

Copyright © Nicola Rayner 2019

Cover design © HarperCollins

Cover photograph © Alexey Karamanov/Getty Images

Nicola Rayner 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 ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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: 9780008332730

Ebook Edition © 2019 ISBN: 9780008332723

Version: 2019-05-20

For my mother and for Jason

For there is no friend like a sister

In calm or stormy weather;

To cheer one on the tedious way,

To fetch one if one goes astray.

Christina Rossetti

Everything in the world is about sex except sex.

Sex is about power.

Oscar Wilde

Anyone looking at a map will struggle to find the university town of St Anthony’s. In truth, the inspiration for this fictional setting comes from an amalgam of places: it is halfway between Durham and St Andrews, and the town’s history also draws on that of Alnmouth in Northumberland – a place shaped by what it lost.

Contents

Cover

Title Page THE GIRL BEFORE YOU Nicola Rayner

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Author’s Note

Prologue

Alice

Naomi

Alice

Kat

Alice

Kat

Naomi

Alice

Kat

Naomi

Alice

Naomi

Kat

Alice

Naomi

Kat

Naomi

Alice

Kat

Naomi

Alice

Naomi

Kat

Naomi

Alice

Naomi

Alice

Kat

Naomi

Alice

Naomi

Kat

Naomi

Kat

Alice

Kat

Alice

Kat

Naomi

Alice

Naomi

Kat

Naomi

Kat

Alice

Kat

Alice

Naomi

Alice

Naomi

Kat

Naomi

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

The last time I saw my sister she was getting ready for a party. She took particular care that night and we were quiet as we prepared, unaware of all those years of silence to come. Ruth used coconut oil, as she always did, to smooth down her unruly red hair. As she closed the hot tongs, the steam from the oil smelled like summer – suntan lotion and Malibu. It should be a happy scent, but every time I come across it now, it takes me back to that night. We had talked our way through her problem and come up with a plan. And I had confided what had been gnawing at me, too. We both knew what we had to do.

I can see her as she pats her pale face with foundation, flicks mascara on her lashes and adds a slash of red lipstick. She pins up her hair and puts on an emerald dress. When she is ready, she grabs her handbag. It holds her cigarettes, a lighter, of course, her wallet, her lipstick and condoms. These were the last things she carried.

Her eyes looked so bright and full of hope. I wish I had said something else, something different, but I just said: ‘Don’t forget your Dorothy slippers.’ And she grinned and slid her feet into the red sequinned shoes.

At the top of the stairs I hugged her and was surprised once again by how little there was of her, as if she’d started disappearing already. I said, ‘Good luck.’ Then, as she left, I called down the stairs, ‘Love you.’ It was an afterthought, a superstition. The words got lost, pinging down the steep wooden staircase, and I couldn’t be sure she’d heard me as she pushed the door open and slipped through.

January 2016

The rattle and hum of trains always make Alice sleepy. She had been up at five to get the six fifteen to Edinburgh from King’s Cross. At the shrill bleep of the alarm, George had groaned and rolled over, burying his face in his pillow as she pulled her clothes on in the dark. His hangovers had got particularly bad since he’d made the move from politics to TV. She’d felt half glad she was out of London for the day.