Guilt: The Sunday Times best selling psychological thriller that you need to read in 2018

‘Please, Miranda. It’s important we get on – for Zara’s sake.’

I soften. ‘OK, OK, I’ll make time then.’

I get up from my desk and we walk together to the coffee machine area.

‘How’s it going?’ I ask.

‘Never better.’

His voice seems artificially loud. Bombastic. I know that even if he was finding settling in difficult he wouldn’t admit it. I smile a saccharine smile.

‘Good.’

‘I glanced across the office; I saw you sitting there, looking bored. So I thought you needed a breather. A chance to cheer up.’

‘Coffee with you, the perfect mood enhancer?’

His grin widens. ‘Yep,’ he replies.

‘Thanks.’ I pause. ‘Still not missing London?’ I ask, fumbling for something to say.

‘Not at all. Why would I? Bristol is the perfect city.’

Not the sort of person to concede that there are many different ways to live your life.

‘What can I get you?’ he asks.

‘Espresso please.’

He starts to press buttons on the coffee machine. I sit down. The Harrison Goddard relaxation area. A cross between Costa Coffee and John Lewis. Comfortable but sterile. Too much green. He joins me with our coffee fix in two oversized white porcelain cups. Odd-shaped saucers, a little biscuit to the side. They are overfilled and as he places them down the coffee slops.

I take a sip. The coffee is strong, biting my tongue. It leaves an edge on my teeth.

‘What is it with you, Miranda?’ He pauses. ‘Even though you’ve welcomed me into your flat, I can’t help feel that your attitude to me is a little … abrasive.’

I put my coffee cup on the table. I take a deep breath. He has asked so I will tell him the truth.

‘I’m worried about my sister. She’s vulnerable.’

‘Vulnerable? Why?’

‘Didn’t she tell you?’

He raises his eyebrows a little and shakes his head. ‘No.’

‘Well ask her.’ I pause. ‘But please don’t hurt her. She wouldn’t cope with it.’

He sips his coffee, dark eyes watching me, considering. ‘What makes you think I’d do anything to hurt her?’

Silence. Eye contact held too long.

‘The way you behaved when I came to your house.’

He shrugs. ‘You didn’t really think I was flirting with you, did you?’

I flush with embarrassment. ‘I did wonder. Yes.’

He puts his head back and laughs. A resonant braying laugh. ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Miranda, I was only playing. Surely you realised that? I was just sounding you out.’

‘Sounding me out? What am I? A pitchfork?’

Another laugh that eventually morphs into a grin. ‘Sounding you out to see whether Zara could trust you.’

‘But,’ I spluttered, ‘she’s been able to trust me all her life.’

His eyes slither into mine, making me feel uncomfortable.

‘You can trust someone all your life and they can still let you down. I needed to push you outside your comfort zone.’

I pull my eyes away from his and deliberately focus on the wall behind. ‘You flatter yourself to think that someone I don’t even find attractive trying to flirt with me will push me outside my comfort zone.’

‘You’re oversensitive. You flatter yourself to think I was flirting with you. Maybe you’re one of those women who imagine all men are flirts. Anyway, is telling each other how much we don’t fancy each other the best way to make friends?’

‘Under the circumstances, it is. We’re laying down boundaries. Important in any meaningful friendship. Our boundary is platonic.’ I pause. ‘Platonic. Platonic. Platonic.’

‘OK,’ he says now using a contrived but searing smile. ‘Platonic it is. You win.’ He pauses. ‘But for the record, platonic was all I ever meant.’

His eyes coagulate into mine again.

9 (#ulink_0a911539-062e-5cd2-8fd7-362980a461e1)

Zara (#ulink_0a911539-062e-5cd2-8fd7-362980a461e1)

Bristol is a cool city. The perfect city. The smell of salt on the breeze. The craggy squawk of seagulls. The Georgian architecture. Banksy. Quirky bands. Quirky bars. Individual shops that no one outside Bristol has heard of. The soft rolling Bristolian accent that sounds as if people are hiding fudge beneath their tongues.

My photography course is fantastic. What a versatile, intellectual art form photography is. Although I always liked taking photographs, I never realised what an artist I was until I began this course. I have taken four hundred photographs for my extended project, although I haven’t told anyone what it is about yet. It is a special secret that I am looking forward to unleashing.

Miranda, you are fantastic too, with your glamorous shiny flat. My sensible, caring sister, a sister like a second mother. But then you have always been there for me.

Most of all, and I want to shout this from every balcony in Bristol, I am on a high because I’m infatuated with my lover Sebastian. His craggy face. His swarthy complexion. The darkness of his stubble that radiates testosterone. It’s the first time I’ve ever been infatuated with anyone, isn’t it, Miranda? You have always teased me about how I suck men in and spit them out.

And I haven’t had a panic attack since I arrived.

I will never forget my first one. At school. At the start of my first mock A level. Chemistry. I could hardly breathe. The more I looked at the words on the exam paper in front of me, the less I could read them. They became black wavy lines swimming in front of me. When the result came out I had an E. Not a result to shout about. Not like yours always were, Miranda.

This bad experience made future exams even more nerve-racking. Looking back, for me, moving towards exams was like moving towards the guillotine. It was simple. My life was about to end. No life beyond them. This is not how I feel now on my photography course. My photography course at the University of the West of England is so natural, it feels like an extension of me.

After my first panic attack, a barrage of further attacks hit me regularly, assuaged only by cutting. The panic attacks pulled me down. Cutting lifted me up. So many panic attacks. So much cutting.