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

Her mother never gave permission for Claire to go to the Coldplay concert. She never gave permission for anything else ever again.

Heroin, her dad told her a few days later. Her mum had overdosed, an addiction from her twenties that she’d managed to beat down had come roaring back in her forties and burned her out.

It snuffed out Claire, too. Left her hollow. When she looked at herself in the mirror she saw someone else. Someone lost, unsmiling, changed. There was a gap at the centre of her, a gap that was only filled when she met Alfie. She remembered getting home after their first date, a date that had begun as an afternoon coffee and grown into dinner and drinks and a night-time walk through central London. She’d glimpsed herself in the mirror. Something about her reflection had caught her eye and she’d paused, and looked again, and seen a new woman. Seen herself again.

And she knew she had changed in the space of that night, had started to emerge from the hole her mum’s death had left her in.

Started. Even after three years of marriage – three happy years – there was still something missing. And hopefully that final piece of the puzzle would be in place any minute. If it went as she hoped, she’d look in the mirror and see, once again, a new person.

A mother.

At least, a mother-to-be.

A mother who would not overdose on heroin and leave her daughter alone. A mother who would love and cherish her child, her children. A mother who would heal her own wounds by making sure she didn’t inflict them on her children.

And then she’d go and wake up her husband, the man who had made her feel warm and safe and whole from the moment they’d met and every moment since, and tell him that she was pregnant. After all these months trying, finally, they were going to be parents, going to have new titles, new roles.

Claire and Alfie, daughter and son, wife and husband.

Mum and dad.

She blinked, and opened the bathroom cabinet. She took out a pregnancy test. It was the first of a packet of two. She’d bought them nine months earlier in anticipation of needing them sooner, but her period had come, on time, month after month. She and Alfie did everything right: they had sex constantly when she was ovulating, and plenty besides, but it didn’t matter. Inevitably at the appointed time she started to feel bloated and lethargic and then her period arrived.

But not this month. This month she was two days late. Two whole days. She knew there could be many reasons why, but she didn’t care.

She was pregnant. She felt it.

And it was her birthday this weekend. She had drinks planned after work – it was a Friday – and then a party at her dad’s house on Saturday. It was the perfect present. It all hung together. It was too right not to be true.

She took the test from the cardboard and sat on the toilet. She positioned it between her legs and a few seconds later a stream of warm urine ran over the white plastic. She left it there until the stream stopped and then placed it by the sink. She didn’t look at it; the line she craved could take a minute or so to show up and she wanted to give it every opportunity.

She washed her hands, her heart racing and her stomach tight. She pictured herself walking into their bedroom and shaking Alfie awake. Telling him the news. Watching him smile. No – she stopped herself. She shouldn’t get carried away. Her dad called it the commentators’ curse: just when a commentator was saying how some football team was about to score or some player was playing well, something bad would happen.

But this was it; she was sure of it. There’d be a line and she’d be pregnant and even if it didn’t work out, if there was a problem of some sort, she’d know she could get pregnant, and even that would be enough, would be better than the doubt and worry and anguish of wondering if it would ever happen.

She picked up the pregnancy test. Turned it around. Let her eyes travel to the end where the little window contained—

Nothing.

No line. Not the faintest imprint of a line.

She shook it. She put it down next to the sink and waited a minute or two. Then she picked it up again.

No line.

She pressed the pedal at the base of the bin and flipped the lid open. She looked one last time – to be sure – and then threw the test, the negative test, into the trash. She’d ask Alfie to take it out later. She didn’t want to. She didn’t want any reminder of her failure.

Alfie (#ulink_fdd16ff1-f313-5480-a078-0cb99c4edf87)

Alfie Daniels lay in bed listening to his wife move around in the bathroom. He knew what she was doing, despite the fact she’d said nothing. He knew when her period was due and he knew it hadn’t come because Claire had not walked into the living room with tears in her eyes or sent him a text message with sad emojis saying she had her period.

For nine months he had hugged her each time and promised her it would happen eventually, only to watch her hope build through the month and be dashed again.

And now she was late and he could tell she was convinced that this was it. For the last two days he had watched her move from a state of quiet introspection to nervous excitement. She thought she was pregnant.

If she’d told him, he would have suggested not getting her hopes up, but it was too late for that now. Her hopes were flying high and turning into dreams of the future and there was only one thing that would bring them down.

Which, from the sound of things, had just happened. There was no cry of excitement or rush of steps to come and tell him the good news. Only the thud of the bathroom door closing and a slow, heavy tread towards the bedroom.

The door opened and she came in. She stood by their bed, her face set and unsmiling.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘My period was late. I took a test.’

Alfie sat up on his elbows. ‘And?’

Tears formed in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She shook her head.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and held out his arms. ‘Come here.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I want to be alone. I’m going to have a shower.’

‘I don’t think so. Not before a hug.’

‘I’m OK.’

‘It’s not for you. It’s for me. I’m disappointed too.’

It was clearly the wrong thing to say. Her lips quivered and tears welled in her eyes. She let out a loud, wracking sob then slumped on the edge of the bed and buried her face in his neck.

‘I tried not to hope,’ she said. ‘I told myself not to get my hopes up, but it’s impossible. I want this so much.’

‘Me too,’ he said. ‘And it’ll happen. It takes time for lots of people.’

I know,’ she replied. ‘But what if we’re the ones who it never happens for? What then?’

‘We’re a long way from that,’ Alfie said. ‘A long way.’

‘But what if?’ Claire said. ‘What if we can’t have kids?’

‘Don’t think like that.’

She nodded. ‘I won’t. I’m going to have a shower.’

When she came back her eyes were red.

‘You not feeling too good?’ Alfie said.