Am I Guilty?: The gripping, emotional domestic thriller debut filled with suspense, mystery and surprises!

‘Brilliant. Thanks, Flora. OK, well I’m going to go and make sure Jenny is all right and just check everything’s looking good downstairs. Back in a mo. Oh – could you just make sure there’s a glass of water for Ailsa on her table? And one for the interviewer?’

‘Sure, no problem.’

She headed for the stairs and vanished, and I crossed the room, manoeuvring between the long rows of chairs, heading for the drinks table. We were on the first floor of Waterstones in Cheltenham, where the stage was now set for Ailsa Levi’s book launch party.

The glamorous, Gloucestershire-born author had topped the Sunday Times bestseller list with both of her previous gory crime novels, and tonight’s event would launch her third book, a thriller set in 1940’s London.

We were expecting about a hundred people, and Annabelle had been on edge all week, knowing there’d be extensive coverage of the evening not only in the trade press but also in a number of celebrity magazines – the photographer hired for the evening was providing stills to Hello and Heat, among others. Ailsa, unusually for a crime writer, was also a bit of a party girl and tabloid darling, and the gossip mags loved her.

I didn’t think Annabelle had anything to worry about though. We’d worked hard on this event, and the place looked fantastic, with piles of Ailsa’s novel artfully arranged on side tables, ready for signing later, and delicious looking canapés and cupcakes decorated with edible, miniature replicas of the new book’s cover ready to be served. Even the two waitresses looked great, dressed in forties-style uniforms of simple black dresses with neat white collars and cuffs, finished with crisp, snowy aprons and little frilly caps.

There had been a slight blip earlier on – one of the waitresses had called me in a panic at five o’clock, saying that her childcare had let her down and that she would have to pull out of the job unless she could bring her young baby with her. Unwilling to add to Annabelle’s stress by asking her if it would be possible to find somebody else to step in at such short notice, I’d taken a gamble and told the woman to bring the child with her and that we would find a quiet spot to put it in, promising that I’d personally go and check on the baby every ten minutes or so while her mum was working. As I filled two crystal tumblers with mineral water, I wondered where exactly Jenny, the bookshop manager, had hidden the child, whose mum was now poised by the food table, ready to begin serving. I needed to start baby watch, so I put the drinks on the table at the front of the room where Ailsa would soon be interviewed and host a Q and A session for her guests, and did a quick tour of the first floor, peering behind bookcases.

‘Seen a baby anywhere, Gerry?’ I grinned at the photographer, who was snapping a few shots of a poster of Ailsa. He was a short, stocky man of about fifty, dressed in a black leather bomber jacket. He nodded and smiled back at me, showing nicotine-stained teeth.

‘Over there. Behind Sci-Fi,’ he said. ‘It’s fine, don’t worry – Mark just popped it out of sight for a minute, don’t want it in the shots. It’s sound asleep, for now … hope it stays that way, eh?’

‘Hope so!’

Mark was the videographer I’d hired for the evening, to get footage for the TV chat show at Isla Laird’s request. Thankfully, I hadn’t needed to speak to her to sort it out – her instructions to Annabelle about what she needed and how to get the footage to her afterwards had been pretty clear, which had been a relief, so all I’d had to do was drop her an email to confirm that all was fine. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Isla or anything – actually, I liked her quite a lot. She was a good laugh, interesting to talk to, and had always been a great friend to Thea, and after a bit of a shaky start, we’d ended up getting on really well. It was just that, at the moment certainly, I really couldn’t face talking to her, or to anyone who reminded me of last year. It was just too recent, too raw …

‘Oh God! Oh God!’

As I peered round the science-fiction bookshelf I gasped, my heart suddenly pounding, my legs wobbly. I grabbed onto a shelf for support and stared at the pram for a moment, then looked away and took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. For goodness’ sake, Flora, get a grip. It was only a pram. And, now that I’d seen it properly, I could see that it wasn’t even the same pram. It looked a bit like Thea’s though. Same make, Silver Cross. It had the same chrome chassis and herringbone fabric, but this one was in a deep berry shade, and Zander’s had been grey. Zander. I leaned forward and peered into the pram, gently pulling the soft fleece blanket back to get a better view. The baby, clearly a little girl in a pink dress with a polka dot collar, was indeed sound asleep, making a tiny snuffling noise with each breath. I tucked the blanket back into place and edged away slowly, back into the brightly lit central area of the bookshop, but suddenly in my head I was back at Thea’s, in her lovely Regency townhouse on Montpellier Terrace.

She’d started taking the empty pram out about two weeks after Zander died, back in September. I’d been on the phone in the dining room, where we often sat and worked, a gorgeous space with huge windows, Montpellier Gardens just across the road, the sound of children’s shrieks and laughter drifting in through the open window from the park’s play area. I’d just finished checking that a big delivery had been sent out, when I suddenly saw her, wheeling the pram past the door and down the hallway, leaning over it as she walked, talking quietly. I’d dropped the phone, run out into the hall and grabbed her arm.

‘Thea! Thea, what are you doing? Where are you going?’

She’d straightened up and looked at me for a moment, a peculiar expression on her face, the face that was still so beautiful, but so pale today, dark circles like painful bruises under her eyes. Then she dropped her gaze again, back down to the empty pram.

‘I’m just going for a walk. To the park. I need some fresh air. I’ve been in this house almost twenty-four hours a day for the past two weeks, Flora, and it’s driving me mad.’

Her voice was flat and expressionless, her soft Somerset accent barely discernible. She’d begun to move away but I grabbed her again, my hand moving down her arm to cover her hand as it gripped the pram handle.

‘I get that but … but why are you taking the pram, Thea? He’s … he’s gone. Zander’s gone, you know that, don’t you? Why … why are you pushing an empty pram?’

She took a little gasping breath, her eyes fixed on the vacant space under the pram cover.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know, Flora. I know it looks a bit mental but … I just … I just need to feel close to him, and … well … it sort of brings me comfort, I don’t know why. I did it yesterday too, when you were off? Just for a few minutes, down the road and back. It’s something to hold onto, and when I’m walking with the pram I don’t feel … I don’t feel so alone, I suppose.’

Tears had started to roll down her cheeks. She’d been drinking, I suddenly realized, a whiff of alcohol on her breath, even though it was barely midday. I stared at her for a moment, my heart twisting, unsure what to do, then I reached into my pocket and pulled out a tissue, pushing it into her hand.

‘OK. I’m sorry, Thea, I understand. If that’s what you need to do …’

She nodded, dabbed at her cheeks with the tissue and smiled a small, wobbly smile.

‘I’ll see you later. Thanks, Flora, I don’t know how I’d have got through the last couple of weeks without you.’

And so it had continued. She’d carried on taking that pram, that unbearably sad, empty pram, out with her, time after time. It was as if she’d lost the ability to walk without it, as if it supported her, as if the day she left it at home she would simply crumble. We were all horrified, mortified for her – me, Isla, Rupert, even Nell – but no matter what anyone said, whether we cajoled or shouted or begged, she would simply nod, tell us quietly that yes, she understood, and she knew it was weird and mad, but that she couldn’t stop, she couldn’t leave it at home, she needed that pram, that comfort. She didn’t even stop when somebody put a picture of her with the damn empty thing on Twitter, sneering at her, calling her all sorts of names, and it got retweeted and retweeted and practically went viral …

‘Flora! Everything all right?’

Annabelle had returned from downstairs, waving at me from across the floor. I waved back.

‘Fine! Just checking everything’s shipshape!’

I took a deep breath. It was, wasn’t it? Everything was shipshape. The past was the past. No looking back, I told myself. Onwards. Let’s get this party started.

8 (#ulink_de8e2cf5-8e2d-5fbf-92dd-e197dbf9c316)

THEA (#ulink_de8e2cf5-8e2d-5fbf-92dd-e197dbf9c316)

I opened my eyes and instantly closed them again, wincing as even that tiny movement, just that miniscule eyelid flutter, caused a fresh wave of pain inside my skull. Why the hell was the room so bright? What time was it? My clock was right there on the bedside table, inches from my face. Could I risk it? Oh, for God’s sake, Thea. I opened just one eye this time, squinting to minimize the damage. Twenty past eleven. Eleven in the morning? It must be, yes, and I clearly hadn’t managed to close the curtains when I’d passed out last night, the sun flooding in as if it were June and not January. I winced again as a passing car honked its horn on the road outside, sending a spasm of pain through my head, then moved my right hand slowly under the duvet, running it cautiously down my body. I was wearing a jumper, jeans … and oh, great. Shoes. Yes, definitely trainers, still on my feet.

My stomach lurched suddenly, and I knew I was going to be sick. Moaning, I pushed the duvet aside and stumbled to the ensuite, the room swaying and swirling around me, and crashed painfully to my knees beside the toilet, my hands shaking uncontrollably as I pushed the lid up and leaned over the bowl.

When I’d finished, I slumped to the floor, the tiles cool against my burning forehead, traces of vomit still on my cracked lips. Why did I do this to myself? Why? What was the point? Because I hated myself, that’s why. Because I was constantly filled with shame and self-disgust and pain, and alcohol helped to numb it, to sedate me, just for a while. But I’d clearly gone too far, yet again. Did I really think that drinking myself into oblivion would help? I must have yet again last night, mustn’t I? I didn’t even remember what I’d drunk, or what I’d done … and what about Nell? Oh shit, where was Nell?

I sat up so suddenly that the room started spinning again, my head throbbing violently, black flashes strobing in front of my eyes. I took a few gasping breaths, trying to calm myself, trying to stop the nausea taking a grip again. Then slowly, I remembered. Isla. Isla had been here last night, hadn’t she? And Nell wasn’t here. Yesterday had been Friday, and she was with her father. With him until Monday, after school. With him for two more days. That was assuming that today was still Saturday, and that I hadn’t been so wasted I’d actually lost a whole day …

I crawled, like a baby, on hands and knees, off the tiles and back onto the soft bedroom carpet, then collapsed again, my eyes shut tightly against the burning sunlight. A few minutes later, thirst and self-loathing taking over, I dragged myself up into a standing position and slowly peeled my clothes off, leaving them on the floor where they fell. I could tidy up later, when I felt more human, I thought, my hand still trembling as I reached for the bottle of water that somehow, miraculously, was sitting on my bedside table. I drank the entire thing down, then staggered back to the bathroom and stood under a hot shower for a long time.

It was nearly twelve thirty by the time I made it downstairs, wearing a clean pair of navy leggings and an oversized, soft blue sweatshirt, my hair still damp. I suddenly felt ravenous, cramming bread into the toaster and cutting chunks from a block of Cheddar I found in the fridge, ramming it into my mouth, the events of last night slowly coming back to me.

Isla had arrived not long after seven, escaping London for the weekend as she almost always did. She was based there during the week, working as a producer on the Thursday night chat show Yak Yak Yak, the one which interviewed all the most controversial guests – the ex-cons, the kiss and tellers, the unapologetic racists who wanted to close Britain’s doors to immigrants. Isla worked long hours during the week, but once the live show had gone out on Thursday night and the Friday debrief was over, she liked to leave the city for a day or two before the madness started again on Monday. And to see me, of course. We talked on the phone pretty much every day, but it wasn’t the same as being together in the same room.

We’d met in a backstreet pub in Soho about fifteen years before, not long after I’d left university and moved to London; me, a skinny, quiet country girl from Somerset, trying to make my way in the big city’s fashion industry, her a loud, funny Edinburgh lass, all spiky red hair and dark lipstick, already a runner for a daytime TV show and determined to hustle her way to the top.

I’d been in the pub with a couple of people from work, and had only started talking to Isla because I’d somehow managed to trip and spill my cider all down her black T-shirt on my way back from the bar. When I, mortified, had offered this now very damp stranger a tissue to clean up the mess, she’d simply laughed, slapped away the hand that was ineffectually dabbing at her, and told me not to worry about it, and just to buy her a drink instead. And then I’d admired her necklace, a chunky gold lizard on a long shimmering chain, and that had been that. We’d ended up chatting for hours, two young women at the beginning of our careers, our London adventure, sharing our hopes and dreams and realizing that despite our very obvious personality differences, we were both so similar, deep down. Not just the lonely only child thing, but our hopes and desires for the future too, both fiercely ambitious, determined to succeed, both wanting many of the same things out of life.

When Rupert and I had moved to Cheltenham, Isla had come to visit and fallen in love with the place. Three weeks later, she’d rented a cute little bedsit near the hospital, just a few minutes’ walk away from our house.

‘My Cotswold retreat!’ she’d announced. And so Isla had remained an important part of my life, to my joy and delight, although Rupert wasn’t quite so keen sometimes. He’d grown to tolerate her, even enjoy her company at times, over the years, despite his initial concerns about our ‘obsessive’ relationship. But … well, Isla was Isla. You either got her, or you didn’t, and Rupert never did, not entirely. For me, though, he put up with her frequent presence, and she in turn gradually thawed towards him too, grudgingly accepting that, for me, my husband was a non-negotiable extra now.

‘He’s OK, your Rupert,’ she’d finally admitted, about a year after we got married. Not exactly gushing, but I’d hugged her anyway.

And so they rubbed along all right, the two of them. Most of the time, anyway. Rupert’s biggest issue with Isla was … well, her perennial singleness, really. She had boyfriends, of course she did, but few of them lasted more than a few dates, many – the frequent married ones – just one-night flings. While I enjoyed living the wild single life vicariously through my friend, Rupert disapproved.

‘She’s just so … well, she acts like a twenty-year-old,’ he would say. ‘She leads you astray. She drinks too much, way too much, and so do you, when she’s around. And she hates kids. How can you be friends with someone who hates kids?’

She didn’t hate kids though, not exactly. She’d been brought up in a tough part of Edinburgh by an abusive, single mother, walked out on by a violent father when she’d been just five years old. And she’d vowed, vowed from a very young age, she’d always told me, that motherhood was not for her. She didn’t have a strong maternal instinct anyway (‘Kids are just so boring, Thea’), but her big fear was, she said, that she might cause another child to be hurt the way she’d been hurt. Not because she herself had any violent tendencies, far from it. But she was scared that she’d pick the wrong man, and that the child would suffer because of that.

‘You know me, I always go for the bad boys, Thea. I’d get it wrong, I know I would. It’s not worth the risk. And it’s not for me, anyway, being a mum. I really don’t like them very much, which isn’t exactly ideal. And Christ, I’d be terrible at the whole caring thing. I can barely remember to feed myself most of the time … can you imagine? I can’t even keep a house plant alive.’

And so her decision had been made. As a result, she wished that, like her, I’d chosen to stay child-free, as she put it, too – she didn’t like how they ‘cramped my style’. The children took up so much of my time, time that I would have normally spent with her, and she definitely hated that, hated that I was often tired and distracted, hated my lack of energy when I was pregnant, and my inability to be spontaneous once I became a mother. She couldn’t just whisk me off for an impromptu drunken night on the town anymore, not after Nell arrived, and she’d been pretty horrified when I’d told her I was pregnant again with Zander.

‘Christ, Thea, two? Wasn’t one enough? Are you seriously going to have it?’ she’d said, clearly exasperated. It sounded horribly selfish, when I thought back to it now, the way she behaved, the things she said – it sounded like it was all about her, that my wants and needs and feelings didn’t enter into it at all. But I knew she wasn’t selfish, not really. She was, on the contrary, one of the most generous women I knew, always turning up with gifts for Nell and, later, Zander, even though she didn’t have much interest in them, not really; always there on the end of the phone when I’d had a bad day and needed to talk, always ready to drop everything for me.