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  COME A LITTLE CLOSER

  RACHEL ABBOTT

  COME A LITTLE CLOSER

  Published in 2018 by Black Dot Publishing Ltd.

  Copyright © Rachel Abbott 2018.

  Rachel Abbott has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions or locales is completely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author.

  Find out more about the author and her other books at

  http://www.rachel-abbott.com/

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  A LETTER TO MY READERS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY RACHEL ABBOTT

  OTHER NOVELS BY RACHEL ABBOTT

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  READING GROUP QUESTIONS

  PROLOGUE

  I don’t know myself any more. My life is unrecognisable – severed into two distinct periods: before – when I could feel the wind on my skin, watch the sky turn from blue to black, hear the birds singing in the morning, smell the earth, damp with rain; and after – the life I am in now, where I cannot tell if it is night or day and the only sound I hear is the slap, slap of bare feet on a linoleum floor.

  I sit on my narrow bed, staring at the bare wall opposite, wondering how I came to be here. But I can find no answers. All I know for certain is that they are coming. They come every night.

  I didn’t understand how easy it could be to lose a life. To lose myself. But now I am not me any more. I’m someone else. Someone I don’t recognise.

  My name is Judith. And I killed a man.

  Four weeks earlier

  1

  ‘Night, everyone,’ Sharon shouted over her shoulder.

  ‘You going already, Shaz?’ she heard. She didn’t know which of her friends it was, and she didn’t respond. With her back to them all she raised her hand in the air and waved as she reached the exit. She didn’t want them to see her face – to see the guilt in her eyes and the hot flush of her cheeks.

  Sharon was looking forward to being married to Jez – he was the best – but somehow the pressure of it all, the finality, maybe even the predictability, had got to her, and she had persuaded her friends to meet at the club in town. Jez had gone out too, staying with his brother for the night, so there was no one to rush home to.

  She had expected to be dancing until dawn with her friends, but when Sharon went to get a drink there was a good-looking bloke she had never seen before leaning against the bar, watching her, and there was no denying that the attention felt good. Usually she would have told him to get lost, but tonight everything seemed different. The music was loud, the beat making her body throb, and the flashing multicoloured lights made the most mundane seem extraordinary. Maybe it was the thought of doing something that she knew was wrong, but she had felt a pulse of excitement as the man’s hand rested on her lower back, hidden from view, and then slowly started to move south.

  When she turned to face him he had such hot eyes, asking her an unspoken question. It got a bit heavy – and public – as he moved his head towards hers, his hand behind her neck. But instead of kissing her, he whispered in her ear that they should get away from prying eyes, drive somewhere they could be alone, and a thrill shivered up and down her spine. Sharon agreed, suggesting a local beauty spot – Pennington Flash. There would be no one there at this time of night, and if they went separately nobody need ever know.

  There had been weather warnings all day about significant snow overnight followed by a period of sub-zero temperatures. But it hadn’t started yet, so Sharon wasn’t worried as she fumbled around in her bag for her car keys. She had intended to have only a couple of drinks – that was why she had taken the car. Maybe she had gone over a bit, but it would be fine. She felt okay.

  On the third attempt Sharon got her key into the ignition, starting the car with a roar, her foot too hard on the accelerator.

  I’ll drive slowly, she thought.

  Sharon had been on family outings to the Flash throughout her childhood and knew the way backwards, so almost as if on autopilot she managed to negotiate the streets until finally turning off the main road towards the entrance. The first car park would be closed by now, but the main one by the lake didn’t have a gate, and that’s where they had agreed to meet.

  The inky darkness of the car park gave Sharon goosebumps, and she took one hand from the steering wheel to rub her other arm briskly. The place was deserted, and if there was a moon it was hidden behind clouds heavy with the promised snow. The bloke hadn’t arrived, but he had said he would give it five minutes after she left so no one would suspect. It only occurred to her briefly that she didn’t know his name. It wasn’t a relationship she was interested in, though, so it hardly mattered.

  Driving to the far end of the car park where overhanging trees increased the blackness of the night, she turned her car to face the entrance. She wanted to make sure she would see him before he saw her.

  She opened her window a fraction. The night was silent. She closed her eyes and tried to block out images of Jez’s smiling face.

  A sound – a rattling noise – startled her. What was that? She switched on her headlights briefly and let out a long breath of relief. The wind had caught a discarded Coke can and was rolling it across the tarmac. She turned her lights off again, but the icy blast of air on her face and the pump of adrenaline seemed to have knocked some sense into her. What the
hell was she doing? This was madness. She needed to go, to get out of there.

  She reached for the ignition key, but it was too late. There was a new sound – a car engine.

  Shit. It’s him.

  What if she told him it had been a stupid idea? But what if he didn’t take it well? What if he raped her? She’d heard stories of girls being forced when they realised too late that they had made a mistake. She had to get away before he saw her.

  Thanking God that her crappy car had a broken interior light, she quietly opened the door and slithered out, sliding the key into the lock with shaking fingers and turning it quickly. Bending double, Sharon scurried along the path by the edge of the still, black water, out of sight of the approaching car, and crouched behind a low shrub.

  It wasn’t until the car turned into the car park that she realised its headlights weren’t on. Why would he do that?

  The car circled the tarmac as if the driver was looking for someone, and she knew it could only be her. But then she looked again. The guy had told her to look out for his silver Golf. This car was dark, possibly even black, and much bigger than a Golf. It was someone else.

  It didn’t matter who it was. She realised how vulnerable she was – a young woman alone in the early hours of the morning in the middle of nowhere. What an idiot. She had to stay hidden.

  The car pulled to a stop directly in front of her old Toyota, and someone got out. She couldn’t make out much because the person was on the far side. Then she saw the beam from a torch. He was approaching her car, the beam searching its interior.

  Oh God. Was this some kind of a set-up? Had the man in the club lured her to a deserted location for someone else – maybe more than one?

  When he realises the car’s empty, he’s going to come hunting for me.

  The man tried the door – thank God she’d locked it – and flashed the light around a bit more. He went back to the front of the car and shone the torch on the number plate. He was noting down her number! Why would he do that?

  He walked away from the car and she thought he was leaving, but then he stepped onto the path, shining the torch first away from her and then the other way – towards her.

  Sharon crouched as low as she could, dipping her head so her white face wouldn’t show in the beam of light, praying her black coat would keep her hidden. She slipped off her high-heeled shoes and hid them under the bush in case she had to make a run for it.

  She heard the crunch of his feet on the gravel.

  He was coming.

  2

  As I wake up, I wonder for a moment where I am. I didn’t think I would sleep – my internal clock is totally confused by travelling so far east – but maybe it is relief at all I have left behind.

  I nearly didn’t come, and had Ian had his way I would still be at home tending to his every need.

  I’m here because of my grandfather, who for over seventy years had wanted to return to a place that was close to his heart – Burma, or Myanmar as it is now known – where he was stationed during the war. He never made it, but he bought me a ticket and asked me to promise to make the trip for him – to be his eyes and ears.

  Pops died before my trip began, so he was never going to hear about the places I’m visiting, but in those last days as I sat by his sickbed he still begged me to go.

  ‘Take a break, love,’ he said, his voice breathy and faint. ‘Get away from here and give yourself some space to think about your future – the kind of life you deserve. I only want you to be happy, you know that. And I don’t think you are.’

  It was as if he was shining a bright light on my life, especially on my relationship with Ian.

  When Pops died I tried to hide my tears from Ian, but he saw me crying and told me to get over myself and move on. ‘He was an old man, for God’s sake. At least you don’t have to take that ridiculous trip now,’ he said, folding his arms as if to signify the matter was settled.

  I felt a pulse of dread. I knew what was coming. ‘What do you mean?’ I said, hating myself for the quiver in my voice.

  ‘You’re not going all that way on your own. You don’t have to now.’

  He had always hated the thought of me taking the trip. It was, and always had been, a ticket for one.

  Ian tried everything to sway me – from refusing to acknowledge my presence by ignoring every word I said, to blaming me for his inability to get a job. I was making him miserable, dragging him down. He wanted me to cash in the ticket so he could have a share of the refund.

  ‘You only ever think of yourself,’ he repeated over and over again.

  I came close to giving in, as I had done so many times before, but I thought of Pops and how much he had wanted me to go. So I refused to be swayed by Ian’s accusations that I was self-centred, thoughtless, inconsiderate; his threats to somehow hijack the holiday; his almost deranged bouts of anger as he paced the living room.

  The arguments left me weak, exposed and increasingly aware of the number of times I had backed down during the year that Ian and I have been together, feeling I was the one in the wrong, the one who didn’t understand how difficult I made life for the two of us. This time it was different. I saw Pops’ face, his eyes telling me to be brave, to stand up for myself, to break the pattern.

  I waited until the day before I was due to leave. I had been practising my lines for days, but I still stumbled over the words as I told Ian it was over between us. I wanted him to move out of my house while I was away. As I spoke I felt a shiver of fear. I couldn’t meet his eyes, scared of what I would see there, and by the time I boarded the plane I felt battered and bruised by all that had happened.

  I didn’t realise how vulnerable I was. Maybe that was my mistake.

  I need to forget Ian and focus on how lucky I am to be here.

  I’ve never stayed in such a luxurious hotel, and while there is a huge temptation to burrow back under the crisp white sheets, I need to get up and face the day. I’m half excited, half anxious. Travelling alone is a first for me, and I’m in a strange country with different customs, smells, sounds. And my confidence levels aren’t where they should be right now.

  In spite of the constant whisper of anxiety that haunts me, I can’t wait to look out of my bedroom window and see the sights that we missed last night by arriving after dark. The streets of Yangon outside the hotel are crowded, chaotic and colourful. Street vendors have set up their stalls with bright parasols to protect their wares from the sun, and the driver of every bus, car and scooter seems to feel the need to sound his horn.

  It feels odd to be somewhere so hot after leaving a Manchester landscape covered in thick snow. I had worried that the flight would be cancelled and I would have to return home, tail between my legs. Wouldn’t Ian have enjoyed that? But the journey had gone like clockwork, although there had been a strange and slightly uncomfortable moment when we arrived.

  We had all crowded into the lobby for our keys, anxious to get to our rooms after the long flight. I was tired, needed a shower and wasn’t feeling very chatty, so I stood, head bent, staring blindly at my suitcase, listening for my name to be called. I could feel a pair of eyes watching me, burning a hole in my skin – and I lifted my head. Over by the reception desk a man was looking at me. He was on his own, and as my eyes met his I expected his attention to shift – to move on – but he didn’t flinch and showed no embarrassment, continuing to stare straight into my eyes as if asking me a question. Was he single? As I am possibly the only unattached woman under sixty on the trip, did he think I might be a likely bet? I should have looked away, but I raised my eyebrows and tipped my head to one side to show that I wasn’t impressed. Then my name was called, and I took my key and escaped to my room.

  That was last night, and now it is a whole new day with so much to look forward to. Soon we will join the chaos below and make our way by coach to where we will board the boat and begin the journey up the Irrawaddy River.

  For a second I wish I was half of a couple. Having an
other person by my side would be so much more comfortable than having to eat, sleep and travel alone. Then I imagine that the other half is Ian and I shudder. I can hear his voice in my head, moaning about the coach journey, telling me what to wear, mocking our fellow travellers behind their backs and expecting me to laugh with him.

  I thought I needed him once. But I don’t need him now.

  As I board the coach I dive into the first available empty seat. Everyone is smiling and nodding at me. I can hear a lot of American accents as they shout their hellos with that relentless enthusiasm peculiar to their culture, and they all seem to know each other already. Of course. There was the traditional ‘meet and greet’ cocktail party last night, and it seems I was the only one who didn’t go.

  I turn my attention to the view out of the window, to the teeming mass of people going about their daily lives, both men and women wearing the colourful long skirts that I read in my travel guide are called longyi. As we slowly weave our way through the traffic and leave the city, passing roadside stalls showing off their goods – spices, fruit, vegetables – I notice that everyone is smiling. I wonder about their lives, and how different they might be from my own.

  My thoughts are interrupted as someone plonks himself down in the seat beside me. I turn, smiling, before realising it’s the man from the lobby last night.

  ‘Hi, I’m Paul,’ he says. It’s a friendly greeting, but his eyes are blank, expressionless, and I feel he’s weighing me up in some way that I don’t understand.

  I can’t deal with him right now. What does he want? Is he going to hit on me? If so it’s going to be very embarrassing, so I give him an apologetic smile and close my eyes, explaining that the jet lag is getting to me. He stays for a while, then I feel movement and realise he has gone to sit with more amiable people.

  Now that I’m alone, I can open my eyes and start enjoying the view again. I pull out my phone to take a few photographs, grateful that I won’t get a mobile signal while I’m in Myanmar unless I buy a local SIM card. And I have no intention of doing that. I feel safe, protected from Ian’s rancour.

  My phone’s been off since I boarded the plane in Manchester, and as I turn it on I’m horrified to see that I have messages. They must have come through before I left, but the airport was noisy and I didn’t check before switching it off. They’ve been sitting there, waiting to be discovered, ready to spew their malice when I am least expecting it.