The Breakdown: The gripping thriller from the bestselling author of Behind Closed Doors

‘If you, or anyone you know, were in the vicinity of Blackwater Lane last Friday night, or in the early hours of Saturday morning, and saw Jane Walter’s car, a dark red Renault Clio, parked or otherwise, please call the following number.’

He seems to be looking directly at me as he speaks, and when he adds that people can call the number anonymously, I realise it’s the answer to my dilemma.

The news finishes and Matthew, ready for bed, tries to pull me to my feet.

‘You go ahead, there’s something I want to watch on another channel,’ I say, reaching for the remote.

‘OK,’ he says cheerfully, ‘I’ll see you later.’

I wait until he’s upstairs, then rewind the news until I find the number and jot it down on a piece of paper. I don’t want the police to be able to trace the call back to me so I’ll have to use a payphone, which means I won’t be able to phone until Monday, when Matthew’s back at work. And once I have, hopefully some of my guilt will disappear.

SUNDAY, JULY 26TH

The house phone rings while Matthew is in the kitchen, making breakfast to bring back to bed.

‘Can you get it?’ I call from the bedroom, shifting further down under the covers. ‘If it’s for me, tell whoever it is that I’ll call them back!’

A moment later, I hear him asking Andy how he is, so I guess bumping into Hannah has prompted his call. Remembering how I had suddenly run off to meet Rachel, I can’t help feeling a little guilty.

‘Let me guess – Andy wants you to play tennis this morning,’ I say when Matthew comes back upstairs.

‘No, he wanted to know what time we’re expecting them.’ He looks quizzically at me. ‘I didn’t realise you’d invited them today.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just that you didn’t mention it was today they were coming for a barbecue.’

‘It isn’t.’ Sitting up, I take one of the pillows from his side of the bed and put it behind my back. ‘I said they must come round but I didn’t say when.’

‘Well, Andy seems to think it’s today.’

I smile. ‘He’s having a joke with you.’

‘No, he was deadly serious.’ He pauses. ‘Are you sure you didn’t invite them today?’

‘Of course I am!’

‘It’s just that you did the garden yesterday.’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘Just that Andy asked me if you’d managed to get the place tidied up. Apparently, you told Hannah that if they came for a barbecue, it would be a good excuse to get the garden into shape.’

‘Then why didn’t they know the time? If I’d arranged something with Hannah, I would have said the time. She’s got it wrong, not me.’

Matthew gently shakes his head. The movement is so subtle, I nearly miss it. ‘I managed to hide the fact that I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about and said twelve-thirty.’

I look at him, appalled. ‘What, so they’re all coming? The children too?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘But I didn’t invite them! Could you phone Andy back and tell him there’s been a mistake?’

‘I could, I suppose.’ Another pause. ‘As long as you’re sure you didn’t tell them to come today.’

I stare at him, trying not to let him see how unsure I suddenly feel. Even though I can’t actually remember inviting Hannah and Andy today, what I do remember is Hannah saying, just as we parted, something about Andy looking forward to seeing Matthew. My heart sinks.

‘Look, don’t worry,’ Matthew says, watching me. ‘It’s no big deal. I can always pop out and buy a few steaks to throw on the barbecue. And some sausages for the children.’

‘We’ll need to make a couple of salads as well,’ I say, feeling near to tears because I really don’t feel up to having them round, not with my mind full of Jane. ‘And what about dessert?’

‘I’ll buy some ice cream from the farm shop when I go for the meat. And Andy said that Hannah’s bringing a birthday cake – apparently, it’s his birthday tomorrow – so there’ll be plenty.’

‘What time is it now?’

‘Just gone ten. Why don’t you have your shower while I make some breakfast? We won’t be able to have it in bed though.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say, trying to hide how depressed I feel.

‘And then I’ll do the shopping while you make the salads.’

‘Thank you,’ I mumble gratefully. ‘I’m sorry.’

His arms come around me. ‘Hey, you’ve got nothing to apologise for. I know how tired you are at the moment.’

I’m glad to be able to hide behind the excuse but how long is it going to be before he says something to me, because coming on top of having forgotten he was going away on Monday, this fiasco over the barbecue is one thing too many. I go through to the bathroom, trying to ignore the voice in my head: You’re going mad, you’re going mad, you’re going mad. It would be so much easier to pretend that Hannah, wanting to come round for a barbecue, had decided to manipulate an invitation. But that’s not something she’d ever do and I’d be mad to even think it. Anyway, what about my obsession to get the garden looking perfect? I’d been so sure that it was just a way of distracting myself, of keeping myself busy but, maybe, somewhere in my brain, I knew that I’d invited them.

Thinking back, I can guess what happened. I’d been so distracted by the talk of Jane, I’d only been half listening to what Hannah was saying by the end of our chat. Maybe it was then, during those lost minutes, that I’d invited Hannah and Andy to come today.

It used to happen to Mum all the time. She’d be there, nodding away at things I was saying, offering her opinion, even making suggestions, but a few minutes later she couldn’t remember anything that we’d said at all. ‘I must have been away with the fairies’, she’d say. ‘Periodic amnesia’ the nurse who came to check on her called it. Was that where I’d been, away with the fairies? For the first time in my life, fairies seem like evil creatures.

*

Hannah and Andy arrive a little after twelve-thirty, and it’s not long before the conversation inevitably turns to Jane’s murder.

‘Did you see that the police are appealing for people to come forward in relation to that young woman’s death?’ Hannah says as she passes a plate to Matthew. ‘Don’t you think it strange that nobody has?’

‘Maybe, but I don’t suppose many people take that road late at night,’ Matthew says. ‘Especially when there’s a storm going on.’

‘If I’m coming back from Castle Wells, I take it all the time,’ says Andy cheerfully. ‘Day or night, storm or no storm.’

‘So where were you last Friday night?’ Matthew asks and, when they all start laughing, I want to scream at them to stop.

Matthew catches sight of my face. ‘Sorry,’ he says quietly. He turns to Hannah and Andy. ‘Did Cass tell you she knew her?’

They stare at me.

‘Not very well,’ I say quickly, cursing Matthew for mentioning it. ‘We had lunch together once, that’s all.’ I close my mind to the image of Jane shaking her head reproachfully at my quick dismissal of our friendship.

‘I’m so sorry, Cass, you must feel terrible,’ Hannah says.

‘Yes, I do.’ There’s a short silence where nobody seems to know quite what to say.

‘Well, I’m sure they’ll catch whoever’s responsible soon,’ Andy says. ‘Somebody somewhere must know something.’

I manage to get through the rest of the afternoon but as soon as they’ve gone I wish they’d come back. Their constant stream of chatter may have been exhausting but it’s preferable to the silence that leaves me too much time to think about the things tumbling around in my mind.

I clear the table and carry the plates into the kitchen and, as I walk in through the door, I stop in my tracks, staring at the window I hadn’t remembered closing yesterday, before I’d gone up for my bath. Because now, when I think about it, when I’d been making the curry, the back door had been open – but not the window.

MONDAY, JULY 27TH

After Matthew leaves for the rig, I’m unnerved by the sense of abandonment I feel, but I can finally make the phone call I’ve been dreading. I find the piece of paper where I jotted the number down and, as I’m looking for my bag, the phone starts ringing.

‘Hello?’

There’s no reply so I presume whoever it is has lost their signal. I hold on for another ten seconds, then hang up. If it’s Matthew, I know he’ll phone again if he needs to.

I run upstairs to fetch my purse, push my feet into some shoes and leave the house. I had thought about driving into Browbury or Castle Wells and using one of the payphones there but it seems a bit extreme when there’s one five minutes up the road, near the bus shelter.

As I approach the payphone, I feel as if someone is watching me. I look to the right and left, then turn and look surreptitiously behind me. But there’s no one around, just a cat sunning itself on a low stone wall. A car drives past; lost in her own thoughts, the woman driver doesn’t even look my way.

In front of the phone, I read the instructions – because it’s years since I used one – fish for a coin in my purse and with shaking fingers push a pound into the slot. I take out the piece of paper where I jotted down the number to call and punch it into the phone, my heart racing, wondering if I’m doing the right thing. But before I can change my mind, my call is answered.

‘It’s about Jane Walters,’ I say breathlessly. ‘I passed her car in Blackwater Lane at eleven-thirty and she was still alive.’

‘Thank you for coming forward.’ The woman’s voice is calm. ‘Could I—’ But I’ve already put the phone down.

I leave quickly, hurrying down the road towards the house, the same uneasy feeling that I’m being watched following me as I go. Once inside, I make myself calm down. There wasn’t anybody watching me, it was only my guilty conscience at doing something secretive that made me think that there was. And because I’ve done what I should have done at the beginning, I begin to feel better about everything.

After all my hard work on Saturday, there’s nothing left to do in the garden but there’s plenty of housework waiting. With the radio on for company, I drag the hoover upstairs and, armed with polish and cleaning materials, I make a start on the bedrooms. I work methodically, focusing on the task in hand, steering my mind away from Jane. And it works – until the news bulletin comes on at midday:

‘Police are appealing to the person who contacted them earlier today with information relating to the murder of Jane Walters to get back in contact with them. Jane Walters was found murdered in her car in the early hours of the eighteenth of July and…’

I don’t hear any more over the hammering of my heart. It reverberates in my eardrums, making me deaf. I sit down on the bed and take deep, shaky breaths. Why do the police want to speak to me again? I had told them everything I know. I try to squash down the panic rising inside me but it just keeps on coming. Even though nobody knows it was me who made that phone call, the fact the police have made it public means I no longer feel anonymous. Instead, I feel horribly exposed. The police had said something about the person who called them having information in relation to Jane’s murder. It makes it sound as if I told them something important, something vital. If Jane’s killer was listening to the news, he’s bound to feel threatened by my existence. What if he thinks I saw him lurking around Jane’s car that night?

Horribly agitated, I get to my feet and pace the bedroom, wondering what I should do. As I pass in front of the window, I glance distractedly outside and find myself freezing. There’s a man, a man I haven’t seen before, walking away from our house. Nothing to worry about, except that he must have come from the woods. Nothing to worry about, except that it’s rare to see anybody walking past our house. Driving, yes, walking, no. To go for a walk in the woods, no one would go down Blackwater Lane on foot, not unless they wanted to get run over. The path that leads to the woods starts in the field opposite our house and is well signposted. I watch him until he’s out of sight. He doesn’t hurry, he doesn’t turn around but it does nothing to calm my heart’s furious racing.

*

‘Is Rachel staying with you tonight?’ Matthew asks when he phones me later from the rig. Before leaving this morning, he had suggested I invite her over. I haven’t told him about the man I saw earlier because there’s nothing really to say. Besides, he might call the police, and what would I tell them?

‘I saw a man walking away from our house.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Average height, average build. I only saw him from behind.’

‘Where were you?’

‘In the bedroom.’

‘What did he do?’

‘Nothing.’

‘So you didn’t see him do anything suspicious?’

‘No. But I think he might have been looking up at the house.’

‘You think?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you didn’t actually see him looking at the house.’

‘No.’

‘No,’ I tell Matthew. ‘I decided not to bother her.’

‘That’s a pity.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s just that I don’t like the thought of you being on your own.’

His worry increases mine. ‘I wish you’d told me that before.’

‘You’ll be fine. Just make sure that the doors are locked before you go to bed.’

‘They’re already locked. I wish we had an alarm.’

‘I’ll have a look at the brochure when I get back,’ he promises.

I hang up and phone Rachel.

‘Are you doing anything tonight?’

‘Sleeping,’ she replies. ‘I’m already in bed.’

‘At nine in the evening?’

‘If you’d had the weekend I had, you’d have been in bed long ago. So if you’re phoning to ask me to go out, I’m afraid it’s a no.’

‘I was going to ask you to come round and share a bottle of wine with me.’

I hear a yawn on the other end of the phone. ‘Why, are you on your own?’

‘Yes, Matthew’s got an inspection at one of the rigs. He’s away all week.’

‘How about if I come and keep you company on Wednesday?’

My heart sinks. ‘What about tomorrow?’

‘I can’t, sorry, I already have something on.’

‘Wednesday it is, then.’ I can’t keep the disappointment from my voice.

‘Is everything OK?’ she asks, picking up on it.

‘Yes, everything’s fine. Go on, go to sleep.’

‘See you Wednesday,’ she promises.

I wander into the sitting room. If I’d told her that I’m nervous about being on my own, she’d have come straight round. I turn on the television and watch an episode of a series I’ve never seen before. Then, feeling tired, I go up to bed, hoping I’ll sleep straight through until the morning.

But I can’t relax. The house is too dark, the night too silent. I reach out and turn the light on, but sleep eludes me. I put my headphones on to listen to music but take them off again when I realise they’d mask the sound of someone creeping up the stairs. The two windows I found open, the one in the bedroom after the alarm man left on Friday and the one in the kitchen on Saturday play on my mind, as does the man I saw outside the house this morning. When the sun begins to rise and I find myself falling asleep, I don’t bother fighting it, telling myself that I’m less likely to be murdered in daylight than at night.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 29TH

I’m woken by the phone ringing in the hall. I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling, hoping the caller will give up. Yesterday morning the phone had rung insistently at half-past eight but when I’d answered it there’d been no one there. I look at the clock: it’s nearly nine so it’s probably Matthew, phoning before he starts work for the day. Leaping out of bed, I run downstairs and snatch it up before the answering machine kicks in.

‘Hello?’ I say breathlessly. There’s no answering hello, so I wait, because the connection is often bad from the rig.

‘Matthew?’ I try. There’s still no answer so I hang up and dial his number.

‘Did you just call?’ I ask when he picks up.

‘Good morning, darling,’ he says pointedly, but with laughter in his voice. ‘How are you today?’

‘Sorry,’ I say hastily. ‘I’ll start again. Hello, darling, how are you?’

‘That’s better. I’m fine, it’s cold up here, though.’

‘Did you call me a moment ago?’

‘No.’

I frown. ‘Oh.’

‘Why?’

‘The phone rang but there was no one there so I thought it was a bad connection from the rig.’

‘No, I was going to call you at lunchtime. I’m afraid I have to go, sweetheart, let’s speak later.’

I hang up, annoyed at having been got out of bed. There should be a rule against cold-callers calling so early. The day stretches in front of me and I realise I don’t want to spend another night on my own. During the night, when I’d got up to go to the loo, I’d looked out of the window and, for a second, I thought there was someone there. There wasn’t, of course, but after that I couldn’t get back to sleep until the early hours.

‘Then go away for a couple of days,’ Matthew says when he phones and I tell him I’ve hardly slept for the last two nights.

‘I could, I suppose,’ I say. ‘Maybe the hotel I went to a couple of years ago, after Mum died. It has a pool and spa. I’m not sure they’ll have any room though.’

‘Why don’t you phone them and find out? If they do, you could go today and I’ll join you on Friday.’

My spirits lift immediately. ‘That’s a great idea! You really are the best husband in the world,’ I say gratefully.

I phone the hotel and while I wait for them to pick up, I take the calendar from the wall, just to make sure of the dates I need to book. I’m just calculating that I’ll need to book it for four nights if we’re to stay until Sunday when the words ‘Matthew to rig’ jump accusingly out at me from Monday’s square. I close my eyes, hoping they won’t be there when I open them again. But they are, as are the words ‘Matthew back’, written on the square for the 31st – Friday – followed by a smiley face. My heart drops and worry begins its familiar gnawing in my stomach, so that when the hotel finally answers and the receptionist tells me they’re fully booked apart from a suite, I don’t even ask him how much it costs, I just go ahead and reserve it.

I hang the calendar back on the wall, turning the page over to August, ready for when we come back from the hotel – and so that Matthew won’t see he was right when he said he’d told me he was going to the rig.

*

It’s only once I’m at the hotel, waiting to check in, that I begin to feel better. The suite is fabulous, with the biggest bed I’ve ever seen and once I’ve unpacked, I text Matthew to let him know where I am, then change into a swimsuit and make my way down to the pool. I’m just pushing my belongings into a locker when a text arrives, but from Rachel:

Hi, just to let you know I’ve arranged to leave early tonight so will be with you around 6. Are you cooking or shall we go out?

My heart plummets so fast I feel as if I’ve stepped off a cliff. How could I have forgotten that Rachel was coming to stay tonight when we’d only arranged it on Monday? I think of Mum and a hot-sick fear claws my stomach. I can’t believe I forgot. Jane’s murder and the guilt I feel have distracted me, yes, but to forget about Rachel coming to stay? I fumble with my phone and press the Call button, desperate to confide my growing fears in someone.

Despite Rachel only just sending the message, she doesn’t pick up. The changing room is empty so I sit down on a damp wooden bench. Now that I’ve made the decision to tell Rachel I’m worried about my short-term memory, I’m desperate to act on it in case I dissuade myself later. I call Rachel again and this time she answers.

‘I don’t suppose you’d like to spend the night in a luxury hotel instead of at the house,’ I say.

There’s a pause. ‘Depends where it is.’

‘Westbrook Park.’

‘The one with the fantastic spa?’ She’s whispering, so I guess she’s in the middle of a meeting or something.

‘That’s the one. Actually, I’m already there. I felt like having a bit of a break.’

‘It’s all right for some,’ she sighs.

‘So will you join me?’

‘It’s a bit far to come for one night – I have to work tomorrow, remember. How about I join you on Friday?’

‘You could,’ I say, ‘Matthew’s coming here straight from the rig, so it’d be the three of us.’

She gives a quiet laugh. ‘Awkward.’

‘Sorry for standing you up tonight.’

‘Don’t worry about it. See you next week?’

‘Hang on, Rachel, there’s something else…’

But she’s already gone.

FRIDAY, JULY 31ST

By the time the afternoon comes, I’m desperate to see Matthew. The weather isn’t brilliant so I hang around in our room, waiting for his call to tell me what time he’ll be arriving. I watch a bit of television, relieved that there’s nothing on the news about Jane’s murder, yet strangely annoyed that two weeks on from her violent death, she’s already been forgotten.

The phone rings and I snatch it up.

‘I’m at the house,’ Matthew says.

‘Good,’ I say happily. ‘You’ll be here in time for dinner.’

‘The thing is, when I arrived, there was a man here from that alarm company, practically sitting on the doorstep.’ He pauses. ‘I didn’t realise you’d actually gone ahead with it.’

‘Gone ahead with what?’

‘Well, the alarm.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘The guy said he agreed with you that someone would fit the alarm this morning but when the technician turned up there was nobody in. They’ve been phoning every half an hour, apparently.’

‘I didn’t agree to anything at all,’ I say, annoyed. ‘All I said was that we’d get back to him.’

‘But you signed a contract,’ Matthew says, sounding puzzled.

‘I did no such thing! Be careful, Matthew, he’s trying it on, pretending I agreed to something when I didn’t. It’s a scam, that’s all.’

‘That’s what I thought. But when I said that as far as I was concerned we hadn’t decided anything yet, he showed me a copy of the contract with your signature on it.’

‘Then he must have forged it.’ There’s a silence. ‘You think I went ahead and ordered it, don’t you?’ I say, realising.

‘No, of course not! It’s just that the signature looked a lot like yours.’ I sense him hesitate. ‘After I got rid of him I had a look at the brochure you left in the kitchen and, inside, there’s a client copy of the contract. Shall I bring it to the hotel so that you can see it? Then if it’s not above board, we can do something about it.’

‘Sue the pants off him, you mean,’ I say, trying to lighten things, trying not to let any doubt cloud my mind. ‘What time will you be here?’

‘By the time I’ve showered and changed – about six-thirty?’

‘I’ll wait in the bar for you.’

I hang up, momentarily annoyed that he could think I’d order an alarm without telling him. But a little voice is mocking me: Are you sure, Cass, are you really sure? Yes, I tell it firmly, I am sure. Besides, the man from the alarm company had seemed like the type of person who would do anything to get a contract, even if it meant lying and cheating. I’m so confident I’m right that when I go down to the bar, I order a bottle of champagne.

It’s waiting in an ice bucket when Matthew arrives.

‘Tough week?’ I ask, because he looks horribly tired.

‘You could say that,’ he says, kissing me. He eyes the champagne. ‘That looks good.’

The waiter comes to open the bottle and serves us.

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