Sarah Pinborough - Cross Her Heart - The gripping new psychological thriller from the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2018

Copyright © Sarah Pinborough 2018

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2018

Figures © Silas Manhood, Cross © Shutterstock.com

Sarah Pinborough 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: 9780008132019

Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008132033

Version: 2018-09-21

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1: After

Part One

Chapter 2: Now

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Part Two

Chapter 25: After

Chapter 26

Chapter 27: Now

Chapter 28

Chapter 29: After

Chapter 30: Now

Chapter 31: After

Chapter 32: Now

Chapter 33

Chapter 34: After

Chapter 35: Now

Chapter 36

Chapter 37: After

Chapter 38: Now

Chapter 39: After

Chapter 40: Now

Chapter 41: Before

Chapter 42: Now

Chapter 43

Chapter 44: Before

Chapter 45: Now

Chapter 46

Part Three

Chapter 47

Chapter 48: Before

Chapter 49: Now

Chapter 50

Chapter 51: Before

Chapter 52: Now

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55: Before

Chapter 56: Now

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61: Before

Chapter 62: Now

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72: Then

Chapter 73: Now

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Also by Sarah Pinborough

About the Author

Keep Reading…

About the Publisher

For Irvine, thank you for having the faith!

HIM

Bitch.

He grips the edge of the paper so tightly the neat lines of carefully written words twist into odd zigzags that crunch some sentences but highlight others, taunting him.

I can’t cope.

You’re too angry.

You frighten me when you hurt me.

I don’t love you any more.

The world is shaking and his breath comes heavily as he scans to the end.

Don’t come after me. Don’t try and find me. Don’t try and find us.

He reads the letter three times before it sinks in. She’s gone. They’re gone. He knows it’s true – he can feel the fresh emptiness in the house – but still he rushes through the rooms, pulling open hollow cupboards and drawers. There is no trace of her, however; no passport or driving licence, none of those important things that frame her life.

Don’t try and find us.

He returns to the kitchen table and crumples the letter, suffocating her words in his clenched fist. She’s right. He is angry. More than angry. He’s raging. It’s a white heat inside him. He stares out through the window, the battered ball of paper damp in his sweating palm. Vodka. He needs vodka.

As he drinks, a seed of a plan takes hold in the dark soil of his mind and starts to grow.

She has no right to do this to him. Not after everything they’ve been through.

He will destroy her for it.

LISA

‘Happy birthday, darling,’ I say, from the doorway. It’s only six thirty and I’m still bleary from sleep, but my kitchen hums with teenage life. It’s like a surging wave hitting me. I don’t remember ever having this much energy. It’s a good feeling. Full of hope and confidence.

‘You didn’t have to get up, Mum. We’re just leaving anyway.’ She’s smiling as she comes to kiss me on the cheek, a cloud of apple shampoo and pink deodorant, but she looks tired. Maybe she’s doing too much. Her GCSEs are coming up and between morning and evening swimming training several times a week, spending time with these girls, and going to school, I barely see her any more. Which is, as I keep telling myself, how it should be. She’s growing up. Growing out from me. I have to learn to let go. But it’s hard. For so long it was us two against the world. Now the world is nearly hers to grasp for herself.

‘It’s not every day my little girl turns sixteen,’ I say as I fill the kettle and wink at her. She rolls her eyes at Angela and Lizzie, but I know she’s happy I still get up to see her off to school. She’s at once grown up and still my baby. ‘And anyway,’ I add. ‘I’ve got my big presentation at work today so I need an early start.’

A phone buzzes. All three heads drop to screens and I turn back to the kettle. I know there’s a boy called Courtney in Ava’s life. She hasn’t told me about him yet, but I saw a message come in when she left her phone on the kitchen table last week, a rarity in itself. I used to check her phone occasionally, when I could, but now she uses a passcode, and as much as it pains me to admit it, she deserves her privacy. I have to learn to trust in my bright daughter’s sensible mind to keep her safe.

‘Do you want your presents now or tonight at Pizza Express?’ I ask.

Ava’s clutching little gift bags with coloured tissue poking out the top, but she doesn’t share with me what her friends have bought her. Later, perhaps she will. A few years ago she would have run to show me. Not any more. Time flies. Somehow I’m nearly forty and Ava is sixteen. Soon she’ll be flying my nest.

‘Jodie’s outside,’ Angela says, glancing up from her iPhone. ‘We should go.’

‘Tonight’s fine,’ Ava says. ‘I haven’t got time now.’ She smiles at me and I think that one day, she’ll be quite beautiful. For a moment, I have a sudden pang of loss in my chest, so I focus on stirring my tea and then check my presentation printouts are still on the kitchen table while the girls gather up their coats, swimming kits, and school and college bags.