Claire Allan - Her Name Was Rose - The gripping psychological thriller you need to read this year

Published by Avon, an imprint of

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street,

London, SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2018

Copyright © Claire Allan 2018

Woman with Rose © Michelle Mackie / Arcangel 2018

Condensation © Henry Steadman

Cover layout design © Avon 2018, design by Henry Steadman

Claire Allan 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: 9780008275051

Ebook Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 9780008275068

Version 2018-11-05

‘Amazing. I read it in one go.’

Marian Keyes

‘Utterly addictive! Literally couldn’t put it down all day! Compulsive, twisty, tense. And LOVED the ending.’

Claire Douglas

‘A powerful and emotional psychological thriller that will keep you guessing and leave you breathless.’

C.L. Taylor

‘SUCH a good read! It made me feel so uncomfortable, but I still kept gobbling up the pages.’

Lisa Hall

‘ Her Name Was Rose is heck of a read! It’s a psychological thriller with a heart; it’s taut, emotionally challenging and, unlike so many thrillers, each twist and turn is here because it deserves to be and not for the sake of it.’

John Marrs

‘An exciting debut that I couldn’t put down, Her Name Was Rose got under my skin in a way I wasn’t expecting. An intriguing and menacing page turner.’

Mel Sherratt

‘The depth of characterisation and its fast pace is what makes Her Name Was Rose stand out as a thriller. It had me hooked until the end.’

Elisabeth Carpenter

‘A tight and twisted tale with a set of seriously complex characters – kept me guessing right ’til the end. This is going to be one of 2018’s smash hits.’

Cat Hogan

‘All I can say is wow! Such a great concept, expertly delivered to keep you turning the pages. This book toys with the reader until the last page. Trust me, this will be THE book of 2018!’

Caroline Finnerty

‘Mesmerizing to the point of complete distraction. I was totally engrossed in this book.’

Amanda Robson

To my parents,

Peter and Karen Davidson,

for all that you are, all that you do and all that you have taught me.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for Claire Allan:

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty–Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Book Club Questions

About the Author

Keep Reading …

About the Publisher

It should have been me. I should have been the one who was tossed in the air by the impact of a car that didn’t stop. ‘Like a ragdoll,’ the papers said.

I had seen it. She wasn’t like a ragdoll. A ragdoll is soft, malleable even. This impact was not soft. There were no cushions. No graceful flight through the air. No softness.

There was a scream of ‘look out!’ followed by the crunch of metal on flesh, on muscle, on bone, the squeal of tyres on tarmac, the screams of onlookers – disjointed words, tumbling together. The thump of my heart. A crying baby. At least the baby was crying. At least the baby was okay. The roar of the engine, screaming in too low a gear as the car sped off. Footsteps, thundering, running into the road. Cars screeching to a halt as they came across the scene.

But it was the silence – amid all the noise – that was the loudest. Not a scream. Not a cry. Not a last gasp of breath. Just silence and stillness, and I swore she was looking at me. Accusing me. Blaming me.

I couldn’t tear my gaze away. I stood there as people around me swarmed to help her, not realising or accepting that she was beyond help. To lift the baby. To comfort him. To call an ambulance. To look in the direction in which the car sped off. Was it black? Not navy? Not dark grey? It was dirty. Tinted windows. Southern reg, maybe. It was hard to tell – muddied as it was so that the letters and numbers were obscured. No one got a picture of the car – but one man was filming the woman bleeding onto the street. He’d try and sell it to the newspapers later, or post it on Facebook. Because people would ‘like’ it. A child, perhaps eight years old, was screaming. Her cries piercing through all else. Her mother bundled her into her arms, hiding her eyes from the scene. But it was too late. What has been seen cannot be unseen. People around me did what needed to be done. But I just stood there – staring at her while she stared at me.

Because it should have been me. I should be the one lying on the road, clouds of scarlet spreading around me on the tarmac.

*

I stood there for a few minutes – maybe less. It’s hard to tell. Everything went so slowly and so quickly and in my mind it all jumps around until I’m not sure what happened when and first and to whom.

I moved when someone covered her – put a brown duffle coat over her head. I remember thinking it looked awful. It looked wrong. The coat looked like it had seen better days. She deserved better. But it broke our stare and an older lady with artificially blonde brassy hair gently took my arm and led me away from the footpath.

‘Are you okay, dear?’ she asked. ‘You saw it, didn’t you?’

‘I was just behind her,’ I muttered, still trying to see my way through the crowds. Sure that if I did, the coat would be lifted in a flourish of magic trickery and the lady would be gone. Someone would appear and shout it was an elaborate trick and the lovely woman – who just minutes before had been singing ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ to the cooing baby boy in the pram as we travelled down in the lift together – would appear and bow.