Annabel Kantaria - I Know You

ANNABEL KANTARIAis a British journalist who now lives in Dubai with her husband and children. She has edited and contributed to women’s magazines and publications throughout the Middle East and returns regularly to the UK.

Also by Annabel Kantaria

Coming Home

The Disappearance

The One That Got Away

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright © Annabel Kantaria 2018

Annabel Kantaria 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 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, 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.

Ebook Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 9780008238698

Praise for Annabel Kantaria

‘Draws you in and doesn’t let you go. Gripping, chilling and twisted.’

Judy Finnigan

‘Twists and turns abound.’

Hello !

‘Compelling…fans of Jodi Picoult and Liane Moriarty will enjoy this.’

Candis

‘A clever, tense thriller.’

Heat

‘A gripping debut. You won’t be able to put this down.’

Bella

‘A compelling tale of marriage, deceit and unfinished business.’

Amanda Brooke

For Sam

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Twenty-six

Twenty-seven

Twenty-eight

Twenty-nine

Thirty

Thirty-one

Thirty-two

Thirty-three

Thirty-four

Thirty-five

Thirty-six

Thirty-seven

Thirty-eight

Thirty-nine

Forty

Forty-one

Forty-two

Forty-three

Forty-four

Forty-five

Forty-six

Forty-seven

Forty-eight

Forty-nine

Fifty

Fifty-one

Fifty-two

Fifty-three

Fifty-four

Fifty-five

Fifty-six

Acknowledgements

About the Publisher

Prologue

I stare at the computer screen, my eyes flicking as they keep up with the feeds rolling down the pages like ticker tape. The only movement in the room comes from my hand clicking on the mouse, and the occasional staccato burst of my fingers on the keyboard ringing out like gunfire in the silence of the house. Everything around me is still, which is exactly how I like it. The curtains are drawn, and just one beam of sunlight escaping through an imperceptible gap illuminates dust motes suspended in the stale air. Not that I notice. My attention is focused entirely on the 24-inch monitor I’ve angled to face me, the iPads on the desk next to me, and the screen of my mobile phone. All show live social-media feeds, internet searches and live chat rooms.

My fingers flick over the keyboards, the key strokes rattling in the silence of the house as I follow the fast-moving feeds. I lean towards the screen, my attention focused 100 per cent as I scroll, click and type, and then the printer whirs into action, spooling out a colour picture. I pick it off the tray and stare at it almost lasciviously: new material. Even though there’s usually something fresh each day, I’m pleased. It’s a good one. I roll my chair over to the filing cabinet and locate the right scrapbook from the top shelf, then I flick through it, smiling to myself as I go through the familiar images. While the other books all show pictures of people, this one has images of things: cars, streets and houses. Some are older now, their corners starting to curl: I didn’t used to laminate.

I run the new image through the laminator, picking it off the machine while it’s still hot, then carefully fix it in the book using corner mounts. Without the images of her blonde hair and his easy smile, this mightn’t be as interesting a scrapbook as the others to a stranger’s eye – but you have to trust me: it’s way more valuable.

One

I remember well the day this story started. It was the day I joined the walking group: the day I met Simon; the day I met Anna. It was a wintry December day – dry and bitterly cold. People had their Christmas trees up and fairy lights hanging in their windows but it wasn’t close enough to Christmas for the real excitement to have begun; for people to have started realizing just how few days they have left to rampage through department stores, grabbing aftershave and perfume, leather gloves, lingerie and watches.

The day I joined the walking group marked the beginning of a cold snap that lasted well into February. December to February. By March, when tiny green buds were starting to form on the trees, and flowers were beginning to push their cheerful colours through the earth, by then it was all over. Three months of brutal cold before spring started. That’s all we’re talking about here. Three months.

So let me begin. My mother always told me to be choosy. She’s not really in this story, though I feel she should be.

‘Be choosy with your clothes, be choosy with your make-up, be choosy with what you put in your mouth and with whom you share your bed,’ she used to say, leaning back against the kitchen counter, her arms consumed by marigold gloves. ‘But most of all,’ she would say, ‘be choosy with whom you make friends.’

It was good advice, and I was thinking about it as I pulled on my socks that December morning. I tied the laces on my walking boots and hunted around for my gloves, my hat and the warmest jacket I owned – the one stuffed with ultra-light down, like everyone seemed to have in those days. In my head, there was nothing more serious than the need to keep warm and the need to make some friends.

‘All very well, Mum,’ I said out loud. I was talking to myself a lot back then. ‘But beggars can’t always be choosers.’ If only Mum could see me now, two months into married life in London with no friends to call my own, she’d tell me to come straight back home, that’s what she’d do. And maybe I should have gone home: for sure, if I had, things would have turned out differently. That’s easy to say now. But that day, I zipped up my jacket, found my purse, and set off for the park, my head full of plans.

I still remember how, despite the jacket, the cold hit me the moment I stepped out of the house, the door slamming shut behind me in a gust of wind that must surely have blown in directly from the Arctic. I paused for a moment, unused to those British winters: unused to those blue-sky days that looked so inviting when you were cosy inside but felt as if they’d strip raw any uncovered flesh the moment you stepped outside. I adjusted my scarf to cover my cheeks, pulled my woollen hat further down onto my head, and took in the bare-limbed trees, the parked cars, the cracked, grey paving slabs, the litter blowing in the gutter, and the cans rattling against the kerb. I took in next-door’s fat tabby cat licking its paws, and the tired-looking, grey-coated people, their faces turned down, hurrying to work. I remember feeling jealous then – of their jobs, their purpose, and of their colleagues; of their silly water-cooler chats, coffee runs and birthday whip-rounds.