No Turning Back: The can’t-put-it-down thriller of the year

She felt blood slick against her hand, heard a gurgling sound.

The schoolboy fell to the ground, knees thudding onto the pebbles as he clutched at the comb protruding from his neck.

Anna stared at him, eyes blinking. Then she heard Joni cry.

She ran to her daughter, yanking the pushchair up so she could release Joni from it with trembling fingers. Joni reached out for her mother and Anna could see she was fine, she was okay.

‘Oh man, he’s gonna die,’ the lank-haired teenager said, dropping a teddy from his hands – Joni’s favourite teddy, a tiny blue bear. Anna realised then she must have dropped it. That’s why the three teenagers had followed her, to return it.

Anna turned back to the schoolboy. He was lying on the pebbles now, clawing at the comb in his neck.

‘No, no he won’t die,’ Anna said, running to him and kneeling beside him.

The boy looked at her, eyes wide with fear. He looked so young.

He suddenly yanked the comb out of his neck.

Blood spurted over Anna’s face.

‘Oh God, oh Jesus,’ Anna said, using her free hand to press it against the blood. But it wouldn’t stop, it was going everywhere, the pebbles turning red with it, the warmth of it seeping under Anna’s nails.

‘Call an ambulance,’ she screamed at the teenage boys behind her, yanking off her thin yellow cardigan and pressing it against the wound as the boy choked on his own blood.

The cardigan turned instantly red, everything was red, it was even getting into Anna’s eyes, Joni’s hair as it spurted out from the boy’s neck. ‘Oh God, don’t die, don’t die,’ she screamed.

The boy suddenly went still. He looked up towards the gathering clouds, eyes softening.

Then he was gone.

Chapter Two (#u1a85ea4c-c549-58f0-9c40-1b962efa5b77)

Anna woke with a gasp. She checked for Joni, felt her small warm body against her. Then she looked at her own hands in the darkness. Only moments before, they’d been covered with the boy’s blood.

But that had just been a dream.

The day before hadn’t been a dream though. The day before, it had been real. She knew because she could still smell his blood, the sickly metallic tang of it. Still see the way his eyes had looked into nothingness as he took his last shuddering breath. It wasn’t as bad as when she’d seen her father dead, his long body twisted on the rocks, the sea a violent thunder of grey behind. But it came close. The schoolboy was sprawled on the ground, blue eyes staring up, comb glistening with his blood as it lay by his side.

Anna hardly remembered what happened after that, it came in a flash of images, sounds and tastes. Shrill sirens getting closer and closer. People appearing on the beach like ants from the village and The Docks, news already spreading so fast. Then police officers running along the pebbles from all directions, the whine of a distant helicopter. Anna’s own desperate screams when a female police officer tried to take Joni away. The feel of the handcuffs against her wrists, a police officer softly grasping her elbow. She found comfort in that, the gentle way he’d handled her. Did that mean they understood she had only been protecting herself, most of all her daughter?

They weren’t so gentle when she was questioned in the stiflingly hot police station later, the storm that had been threatening earlier was now in full force outside, thunder and lightning making Anna jump. Anna could even hear the sea, the waves were so ferocious, despite the police station being one of the most inland buildings of the village.

Detective Morgan, a middle-aged man with a bulbous red nose and piercing blue eyes, was assigned to her case. He sat with his arms crossed, eyes hard, skin glistening with sweat from the unbearable heat. Next to Anna was the only solicitor she knew, a small bald man called Jeremy from the firm of local solicitors in the village she’d been using for the house move.

Did she know the boy, the detective asked? Did she carry the comb in self-defence? Had she intended to kill him?

No, no, no, she answered before asking over and over when she could see her daughter. The detective had reassured her she was in the safe hands of Anna’s gran now, that she’d had a check-up and was fine. But that didn’t stop Anna needing to see Joni.

Then she was left alone in the room with her solicitor for what seemed like an eternity. She remembered putting her hand to her own cheek, feeling the large gauze over it and not even remembering how the gauze had got there, how the stitches in her cheek had been etched into her skin either.

After a while, the detective returned.

‘I’m sorry I was hard on you, Anna,’ he said, sitting across from her, face softer now, eyes kinder. ‘But you need to understand the position we’re in.’

‘I just want to see my daughter,’ she said.

‘What’s the charge, Detective Morgan?’ her solicitor asked him, the only fan in the room lifting the few strands of hair he had.

The detective looked Anna in the eye. ‘No charge. We’ll be releasing you pending further investigation, Anna.’

‘But I was arrested.’

‘Yes, but we have decided not to charge you. It was clear self-defence, Anna. You said yourself the boy fell against your comb and we have three witnesses to back that up.’

The relief had been immense. ‘So I can leave?’ she’d asked, incredulous.

‘Yes, everything you’ve said matches up with witness statements. But Anna,’ the detective said, looking her in the eye, ‘tensions are high out there. I recommend you leave via the back entrance.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The boy’s family. Your name isn’t out there yet but people saw you at the scene, someone may recognise you and…’ His voice trailed off.

‘But I didn’t mean to kill him,’ Anna said.

‘We know that. But right now, his family will be wanting a target for their grief, especially the brother.’

The brother.

‘We understand,’ her solicitor, Jeremy, said, nodding. He turned to Anna. ‘Maybe you should stay at Florence’s this evening?’ he said, referring to Anna’s gran. ‘Just to be on the safe side.’

Panic fluttered inside Anna’s chest. ‘But no one knows where I live, do they?’

‘Someone may have recognised you from your estate,’ the detective said. ‘You’re a radio presenter, after all.’

Anna shook her head. ‘Nathan’s the public face of the station, people only know my voice.’

‘I still think Jeremy’s right. Your daughter’s with your grandmother anyway, it would certainly be worth you staying there tonight.’

A few moments later, Jeremy drove Anna away from the station to her gran’s house. As they passed the front, she looked out to see a group of people gathered on the marble steps. A thin dark-haired woman was being comforted by a red-haired man. A red-haired woman was leaning against a pillar, smoking as she scowled up at the station. Two other women, one with a child in a pushchair, were sobbing as they clutched onto each other.

Standing apart from them all was a man with tattooed arms, looking out towards the sea, his back to Anna.

Anna looked at the dark-haired woman again. Was that the boy’s mother? The large red-haired man next to her turned towards Anna, his blue eyes – blue eyes just like the boy’s – sinking into hers.

They were filled with fury.

She quickly looked away.

She’d caused that grief, that anger.