Claudia Carroll - Claudia Carroll 3 Book Bundle

She had a younger sister too, Helen, but she’d upped sticks and moved down to Cork a few years back. Besides, it was unspoken between the sisters, but deep down each knew they’d next to nothing in common. They saw each other rarely, spoke even less and even that was just for form’s sake, little more.

In fairness, most of the time, Eloise didn’t particularly miss having friends, mainly because how can you miss what you never really had in the first place? Dating right the way back to primary school, when she continually came top of her class, the other kids, viciously cruel as small kids usually are, would ostracise her and call her a freak, mainly because no one wanted to be pals with the girl who constantly badgered the teacher about their homework load being insufficient and unchallenging.

Eloise read at Junior Cert level by the age of four, was declared a member of Mensa at five and by nine, had composed a violin concerto to accompany the senior school’s production of Romeo and Juliet .

For God’s sake, even the teachers were a bit scared of her.

And so unsurprisingly, she grew up being utterly self-reliant and not really needing other people, thanks very much. Totally married to her job; in fact, she was the job. Youngest senior editor the Post had ever had, by the way, with all the stress ulcers to prove it, and in the space of a few short years she had not only trebled their circulation but completely turned their readership around, a la Tina Brown. First at her desk every morning, last to leave at night; this is not a woman who did down time, friends, family or socialising, ever. Sorry, no time.

Small wonder people didn’t warm to her. She had a clatter of various nicknames behind her back among subordinates at her office, none of which stuck, mainly because the very phrase ‘Eloise Elliot wants to see you in her office, now,’ delivered just like that, unfrilled and straight up, was pretty much enough to terrify any poor unfortunate who worked for her into white-faced, trembling, silence.

And now on this of all nights, Eloise was suddenly seeing the rest of her whole life stretching right out in front of her. Seeing it as vividly as if she’d already lived it. Clear as crystal, she could see herself at forty, then at fifty, then right up all the way to retirement age, still editing the paper, still working eighteen-hour days, and still alone.

Pretending to celebrate a day she didn’t particularly care about, while a handful of strangers looked at her the way everyone seemed to look at her these days; with a mixture of pity and terror.

Sometimes we don’t recognise the most significant moments of our lives till they’ve long passed, but not Eloise. Hard to believe that miserable night would change the whole course of her carefully ordered existence, and yet that’s exactly how it would pan out.

Years later, she’d look back and pinpoint this as the precise moment when heaven whispered in her ear and when she suddenly knew what needed to be done to kill this life, to fix this problem. Because to someone with Eloise’s keen mathematical brain, that was all this was; a problem to be solved, like a simple maths equation.

And make no mistake: solve it, she would.

So with that same dazzling clarity that you only ever get on rare, road-to-Damascus moments in life, Eloise Elliot rubbed sore, red eyes, took a deep breath and made one of the lightning-quick, clear-headed decisions for which she’d become legendary.

It was time to take action.

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