The Last Lie: The must-read new thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author

He looked at her. Her eyes were beginning to bulge in their sockets. Strangely, he felt nothing. Just a deep calm. He pressed harder, felt the flesh yield.

‘I couldn’t have you wandering around knowing that Henry Bryant and Alfie Daniels are one and the same,’ he said. ‘You understand that, right?’

In her eyes he saw that she knew she was going to die. She grabbed his wrists and tried to pull them away. She was surprisingly strong. He supposed she was desperate.

He focused on putting as much pressure on her throat as he could. Gradually, her attempts to pull away his hands grew weaker – he had some scratches which would need some explanation – until they stopped entirely. Slowly, he relaxed his grip, ready to tighten it at the slightest sign of movement.

There was nothing. He examined her face. She was wide-eyed, her mouth slack and open.

She was, without question, dead.

And Alfie felt great.

Claire (#ulink_ad904900-ae09-5441-849c-e67903d61e6e)

Claire looked at the call log on her phone. She’d tried Alfie eleven times since she’d got home from work. Eleven calls, none of them answered. She’d been expecting him home, expecting a quiet night together as they talked through their options.

She had not been expecting an empty house and eleven unanswered phone calls, or the intense and deepening worry. She imagined everything that could have possibly happened to him: hit by a car, mugged, stuck at work.

Suicide.

It was this that brought her out in cold sweats. He was a sensitive, caring man who had found out he couldn’t have his own children, which was what he wanted more than anything else. He hadn’t ever said much about his childhood, but she got the impression it hadn’t been all that happy even before both his parents had died. She thought that was part of the reason he wanted to be a father so much; like her, he wanted to put right some of what had gone wrong in his own life.

So it was entirely possible he had killed himself. She loved him, but she knew he was not the strongest of men, and that made this situation all the more worrying.

She picked up her phone and glanced at the time. Nearly midnight. That was it. She’d call him one more time, and if he didn’t pick up she was calling the police.

It turned out there was no need to call the police after all. Five minutes later he was back, assuming that it was him stumbling around in the hallway.

The door to the living room opened. She watched Alfie walk in, the top two buttons of his shirt open. His hair was dishevelled and his face was red. The harsh smell of whisky came off him in waves.

He stared at her, his mouth an unhappy line. He looked close to tears. Claire felt her anger – along with the worry – melting away.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ she said, her tone much softer than she’d been imagining it would be for the last few hours.

‘Went for a drink,’ Alfie said. His words were slurred and indistinct. He was not a big drinker and she had never seen him like this.

‘On your own?’

He nodded.

‘Where?’

‘Bunch of places.’

‘Why, Alfie?’

He shrugged. ‘Why do you think?’

‘You should have called. I was worried.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He looked away from her, his gaze unfocused. ‘I couldn’t face you. I feel like I’ve let you down.’

‘Alfie!’ Claire said. ‘That’s the last thing you’ve done! This isn’t your fault. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s just one of those things. It’s sad – of course it is, I mean, I’m devastated – but I don’t blame