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

‘Oh Christ,’ Anna said, the memories crashing over her now.

The floorboards creaked and her gran Florence appeared at the door.

‘You look predictably exhausted, poppet,’ Florence said, wrapping her soft fleece dressing gown around her plump frame as she sat on the bed, the early morning sun highlighting the creases around her blue eyes.

Anna blinked in disbelief. ‘It really happened, didn’t it?’

‘I’m afraid it did, Anna.’

Anna peered out at the sea through a gap in the curtains. A fisherman wandered down the shore, his nets trailing out behind him, a boat bobbing up and down nearby. Seagulls squawked, a child shrieking in happiness as his mother chased him in and out of the tide, probably one of the many tourists that visited at this time of year. The pebbles were still wet from the storm the day before but the sky was bright blue, promising yet another blisteringly hot day.

Florence followed Anna’s gaze as she watched the mother and son outside. ‘You did what any mother would do,’ she said gently.

Anna looked down at Joni. ‘Like the boy’s mother? Does she want to kill me like I killed her son?’

‘Don’t let guilt eat you up. If you hadn’t done what you did…’ Florence shuddered. ‘I can’t even contemplate it.’

Joni stirred, stretching her tiny arms above her head and yawning. Anna gently lifted Joni, placing her against her shoulder. Anna didn’t usually let Joni sleep in bed with her unless she was ill, she’d not wanted to get into the habit. But she hadn’t been able to bear having Joni out of sight the night before. She wondered if she’d ever let Joni sleep alone after what happened.

Then she thought of the boy again. He’d been a baby once. Had his mother slept with him beside her when he was ill, stroked his head and dreamed of his future like Anna did with Joni?

Anna felt nausea work its way up her body. She quickly handed Joni over to Florence and ran to the bathroom, retching into the toilet.

‘Anna?’ she heard Florence say.

‘I’m fine,’ she choked back. She pulled the toilet lid down and leaned on it, trying to compose herself as she looked at the montage of family photos hanging on the wall: Anna and Joni by the beach a few months ago; an old one of her father smoking a cigarette as he looked out to sea from the lighthouse; another of her mother, her long dark hair clouding around her head as she drew on her easel.

Anna and Florence had agreed not to disturb Anna’s mother. No news had been leaked yet linking Anna to the murder, and the last thing Anna needed right now was to be worrying about her mother’s fragile state. So they’d agreed they’d go over later to tell her face-to-face then Florence would call Anna’s brother, Leo, to tell him. She knew how her brother would react and didn’t need it that day.

As for Guy, luckily he was on a business trip in New York, one of the many places his job as an architect took him. She’d called him not long after arriving at her gran’s the night before. They’d barely spoken on the phone since he’d left, mainly communicating over text to arrange drop-offs and pick-ups for Joni. So it had been strange to hear his voice over the phone line. After the initial relief that Joni was safe, Guy couldn’t seem to wrap his head around the fact the schoolboy had died…and Anna had killed him.

It had made her feel even worse.

And that was just Guy’s reaction. She dreaded to think about how her mother would react.

She stared at the photo of her father and imagined him peering up from the Dictaphone he used for all his news interviews, a sad smile on his handsome face. ‘You did what you had to do, my beautiful girl,’ she imagined him saying.

She had, hadn’t she? It was like Florence had said to her the night before, it was an instinctive reaction, a reflex, like the way a leg flings up when knocked on the knee. And anyway, what was the alternative? Anna dead right now? Or worse, Anna lying in an empty bed, grieving the loss of her precious child?

She wrapped her arms around herself. The fact was, no matter how much she tried to dress things up, she had taken a life.

She was a killer.

Anna moved the rake through the sand, slowly surely, until she heard the clink of metal on shell. She knelt down, wet sand on her knees, and plucked the cockle from the sand, rubbing the grains off its ribbed back with her thumb. It was clamped shut, its fleshy insides protected by the white-brown shell. Anna imagined herself curled up in that shell, Joni against her belly, safe.

She reached up to the gauze on her cheek and suddenly saw the boy’s eyes again, felt his blood on her hands.

She grabbed her rake and stood again, searching the sand for the tell-tale circular impressions the cockles left.

Above her, the sun shone bright. The sea was calm after its outburst the night before. Anna noticed Florence watching from her garden, Joni napping on a blanket beside her in the shade. She lifted her gloved hand to wave at Anna, and Anna smiled, waving back. She was grateful to be here, at her gran’s, on a secluded part of the sandiest bit of Ridgmont Waters’ beach. She’d always loved this place. It was one of three houses built by a local architect in the twenties to replicate an American-style white beach hut with solid enough materials to withstand the regular battering of the British sea. Anna still remembered the first time she visited it when she was a child. They rarely visited their gran’s house despite the fact Florence was desperate to see her grandchildren. Anna’s mother had always had a strained relationship with her mother and if they did meet up, it would usually be for a quick tense coffee in town or during brief visits from Florence for birthdays and at Christmas. Anna quickly gave up asking why they couldn’t see her gran more when her mother always replied with a terse ‘you wouldn’t understand’ each time.

The spring just before Anna’s father died, her mother had surprised her by taking her and her brother to visit their gran. Florence had met someone new after spending years alone since Anna’s grandfather had passed away, and she’d invited them all over for lunch to meet him. It was the first time Anna had visited her gran’s house. Anna remembered feeling completely at home as soon as she’d got there, its big comfy sofas and thick woollen rugs, reclaimed wooden shelves littered with family photos, the smell of baking bread and lavender making Anna yearn for that in her own home. The apartment she’d grown up in with her parents wasn’t small; it adorned the top floor of a block of apartments and overlooked the sea. But it had never felt homely with its dark walls and modern furniture. Florence’s house felt like a proper home with two large windows looking right out onto a wooden veranda leading down to the sea. Her gran had seemed so happy, her new partner a tall, handsome older man called Alistair with sparking green eyes who made Anna giggle by pretending to pull magic shells from behind her ears.

Her parents had sat tense and quiet throughout the lunch, and had made excuses to leave not long after, despite protests from their children. Anna still remembered how sad Florence had looked as she’d watched them all walk from the house and Anna had promised herself she’d see more of her gran, even if it meant sneaking out of the apartment to see her.

It wasn’t until Anna’s father died a few months later that she did just that, finding herself walking towards Florence’s house one day. Her gran hadn’t been there, so Anna had curled up on her veranda and fallen asleep. She’d woken to the sound of Florence’s gasp and seen her and Alistair looking down at her.

‘Oh, poppet,’ Florence had said. ‘Come in before you catch your death.’ Anna was there every day from then on, her mother barely noticing, so wrapped up in her grief and depression. Anna grew close to her gran, and Alistair too. He’d never had children and Anna found herself becoming something of a surrogate daughter for him. She was devastated when he too passed away a few months later after a short battle with cancer. It made Anna and Florence even closer, joined in their grief over his death.

Florence had been a godsend for Anna, bringing her out of her shell, even funding her journalism course. There had been no turning back after that. Anna blossomed from an introverted quiet girl into a talented student with an army of local friends she still met with almost every week.

And it had all started in this house. Anna ought to feel a sense of comfort there now, especially as she searched for cockles, something that usually brought her a measure of calm. But as she dragged her rake back and forth through the sand, she felt anything but comforted.

Joni let out a cry. Anna looked up, heart pounding. But she was fine, Florence was lifting her from her blanket, rocking her. Anna picked the bucket up and put the rake over her shoulder, carrying her findings towards her gran.

‘I think she’s getting too hot,’ Florence said when Anna got to them. ‘Not known morning heat like this for a long time. Good haul?’ she asked Anna, looking at the bucket.

‘Not bad,’ Anna said as Florence took her rake from her. ‘Enough to go with the sole you got. I’ll put some aside for Mum too. I’ll prepare them while Joni naps.’

‘Lovely. I’ll just finish here then come help you,’ she said, gesturing to the garden. ‘Got to get my daily exercise.’

Anna picked Joni up and walked into the house, the sound of the waves disappearing as she closed the door. She placed Joni on Florence’s comfy blue sofa, bunched up by several colourful scatter cushions so she didn’t fall off, her blue teddy clutched close to her. The sun peeked through the vast windows making light bounce off her gran’s TV screen. Anna had purposely avoided the News. She knew her name hadn’t got out yet, otherwise she’d be getting calls. It would happen eventually though, she ought to ready herself. That’s what Florence had told her over breakfast that morning.

‘Game face,’ she’d said. ‘Better get it ready.’

What would the headlines be when her name was leaked?

Radio presenter kills schoolboy

Schoolboy tries to murder radio presenter’s baby daughter

Before she knew what she was doing, she was reaching for the remote controls and switching on the TV. She’d usually go for the radio first, but she needed to see the boy again. She switched the channel from CBeebies, which Joni had been watching that morning, to BBC News 24, and there the boy was right away, eyes staring out at Anna from the screen.

Her legs seemed to crumble beneath her and she sank onto the sofa.

He looked so young. That neat dark hair of his, rosy cheeks, distinctive blue eyes. And in his school uniform too.

She caught sight of the words racing along the bottom of the screen.

‘…notorious family.’

‘…deprived docklands area…’

‘…known to police…’

‘…mother released with no charge…’

So it was ‘Schoolboy tries to murder mother and baby’. Not just schoolboy but poor schoolboy, criminal schoolboy, schoolboy from troubled family.