Page 22 of The Last One to See Him

Kate’s eyes snap open as she’s woken by a noise, something that doesn’t belong in their house. She sits up in bed and glances at the time on her Echo Dot. Two fifty-seven. It must have been the cat, but when she turns on the torch on her phone, she sees Lula curled up at the end of her bed.

Kate slips out of bed and steps into the hall, where she can see the light from Thomas’s room seeping through the gap in his door. She rushes over and opens it wider, relieved to find him sleeping soundly.

She makes her way downstairs, checking everything’s as it should be. There’s nothing out of the ordinary until she approaches the kitchen and hears a tap running. ‘Thomas?’ she calls, though she knows there’s no way he could have come down without her noticing.

Holding her breath, she makes her way into the kitchen, and sees the tap on full, water cascading into the sink. Kate rushes over to it and turns it off, scanning the room. She is alone. The windows and doors are locked.

Rushing upstairs, she opens Thomas’s door; he’s fast asleep, snoring gently. Kate nudges him awake. ‘Thomas?’

He mumbles and turns over, but his eyes stay closed.

‘Sorry to wake you. Did you leave the tap running in the kitchen? Did you get up for water?’ Even as she asks this, she knows it’s not likely. Once Thomas is asleep nothing stirs him, and Kate always has to force him up in the morning.

Thomas rubs his eyes. ‘No. I’ve been sleeping.’

‘And you didn’t get up for anything at all?’

‘No. Why?’

‘Don’t worry. Go back to sleep.’

Back downstairs, Kate checks the front door again and the windows. She’d left her keys in Jamie’s flat, and now someone has been in her house.

Someone is sending her a message. And Kate’s sure this is only just the beginning.

TEN

SATURDAY 25 JANUARY

The moment dawn breaks, Kate is up, checking every room in the house again, making sure nothing else has been disturbed.

‘What are you doing, Mum?’ Thomas stands on the stairs, watching her.

‘Nothing. Just tidying,’ Kate says, affecting a casual tone, determined to hide her fear and anxiety. She will do whatever it takes to protect her son. But how long will she be able to do that when someone’s been in their house?

He shrugs and doesn’t question her, heading to the kitchen for breakfast.

They sit together at the table, even though Kate can’t stomach any food, and has to force herself to drink the coffee she’d normally relish in the morning. If she didn’t know before, then now it’s clear: someone knows she was with Jamie the night he died. And the fact that they’re not going to the police means there’s something worse they want for her.

Changing the locks is the first thing she needs to do.

The doorbell rings when Kate’s loading the dishwasher after breakfast. Cold fear slivers through her body; after the dead lilies and the tap left running, Kate knows there will be more. Plus it’s been exactly a week since she found Jamie’s body – is this the day the police will come for her?

She rushes to the living room window, but it’s Ellis’s car in the drive, not a police vehicle. With a mixture of relief and confusion, and dread because surely it’s only a matter of time, she heads to the door.

‘Hey,’ Ellis says. Dressed casually in jeans and a dark green hooded top, he leans in as if he’s about to hug her but Kate pulls back. She’s not going there. Any kind of physical contact with Ellis would be dangerous. ‘Everything okay?’ he asks.

‘You’re early.’

‘Is that a problem? I thought you appreciated my punctuality?’

But these are not normal times, and Kate doesn’t have the patience for this. ‘Have you got any keys to this house?’

Ellis frowns. ‘Only the ones I gave back to you. Why?’

‘And you never got another set cut? For Thomas?’

‘No, I’d have told you. What’s going on, Kate?’

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