The Couple Across The Street

Anita Waller

Description

The BRAND NEW psychological thriller from the #2 bestselling author of The Family at No. 12!

A darkness settles on this supposedly quiet street...

When Clare becomes a widow, her response is something that shocks her – relief. All she wants to do is move on and figure out how to continue her life, alone, no matter the guilt that brings.

So when Vic, her closest friend, comes to her, showing the signs of trouble in her own marriage, she is more than supportive in helping her leave Rob.

But Vic doesn’t get the chance to do that. Because as they go over to Vic's house to collect her things, they find a body. Rob’s.

It appears someone else had an axe to grind. But for Clare, already reeling from secrets from her own late husband’s dark past, she’s about to find out this murder isn’t as straightforward as it may appear…

‘Talk about red herrings! This book kept me guessing… Intrigue and mystery. Murder! This talented and gifted author has written a cannot put down novel.’ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ netgalley review

‘This book is everything!... I want to read ten more like it.’ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ netgalley review

‘…family secrets, complex emotions and dark deeds from the past… delightful.’ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ netgalley review

‘This is a one-sitting read, it will have you glued!... This story had all of the great ingredients murder, revenge, mystery to name a few - a page turner at its best.’ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ netgalley review

‘This book once again demonstrates why Waller is one of my all time favourite authors… its twists and turns were fabulous… very gripping and entertaining.’ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ netgalley review

‘Oh my gosh I literally was up all night reading this. It was so worth the lack of sleep.’ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ netgalley review

‘This book had a bit of everything! It had suspense, intrigue, murder, mystery and revenge. This book had lots of crazy twists and turns. Definitely recommend reading this book.’ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ netgalley review

‘I read all in one sitting. Would strongly recommend for readers of domestic noir and relationship thrillers.’ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ netgalley review

‘It kept me hooked from start to finish… A much deserved 5 star from me and one I highly recommend.’ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ netgalley review

‘This was an addictive read. Highly recommend.’ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ netgalley review

Sujets

• Policier & Thriller
• Policier
• Thriller
• Mashups
• Psychological
• Women Sleuths
• Hard-Boiled
• Thrillers
• Suspenso
• Domestic violence
• 21st century
• Psychological thriller
• Domestic
• Psychology
• Crime
• Family Life
• Suspense
• Noir
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Boldwood Books
• Date de parution: 20 juin 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781804153291
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE COUPLE ACROSS THE STREET


ANITA WALLER
CONTENTS



Previously published works


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

Epilogue


Acknowledgments

More from Anita Waller

About the Author

About Boldwood Books

The Murder List
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED WORKS



Psychological thrillers


Beautiful published August 2015
Angel published May 2016
34 Days published October 2016
Strategy published August 2017
Captor published February 2018
Game Players published May 2018
Malignant published October 2018
Liars published May 2020, co-written with Patricia Dixon
Gamble published May 2020
Nine Lives published April 2021
One Hot Summer published August 2022
The Family at No.12 published November 2022


Supernatural


Winterscroft published February 2017


Kat and Mouse series


Murder Undeniable published December 2018
Murder Unexpected published February 2019
Murder Unearthed published July 2019
Murder Untimely published October 2019
Epitaph published August 2020
Murder Unjoyful published November 2020


The Connection Trilogy


Blood Red published August 2021
Code Blue published November 2021
Mortal Green published March 2022
For our little collection of great-grandchildren,
Lily Grace Taylor, Elle Isla Taylor, William Louis Kitchen.
We love you so much.
Murder is always a mistake. One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.
OSCAR WILDE, 1854 – 1900


Through violence, you may murder the hater, but you do not murder the hate.
MARTIN LUTHER KING JNR, 1929 – 1968
PROLOGUE
JULY 2003

There was a silence in the hospital side room that was like no other. It was marred occasionally by the slight snuffle from Eloise Grantham as she had, despite wanting to stay awake, slipped into a troubled sleep; she needed the child in the bed to open his eyes, to begin his journey back to health, to prove that the awful car smash wouldn’t take his life.
Both the nurse and the grandmother missed the first visible signs of awakening from the young boy. Josiah Grantham’s eyes twitched before opening, then flickered, then closed again. It was enough for the moment.



* * *
Eloise’s head dropped to one side and she woke with a start, guilt enveloping her as she realised she had slept. Her eyes travelled instantly to her grandson, this most precious child, and saw that she had missed nothing. He was still, but today, hopefully today, he would start to exit the awful tunnel he seemed to be in. Eloise needed him to come back to her, to show her that she hadn’t lost a very precious part of her.
She reached to the foot of the bed and unhooked the medical chart. Josiah John Grantham, date of birth 25 December 1999, parent Kirsty Grantham. She gently stroked her fingers across his name. It had been a difficult Christmas, that one six years earlier, but the tiny baby placed in her arms at the end of Christmas Day had made the half-cooked turkey worth all the effort.
How she and Kirsty had laughed as they had tried to lift the turkey, now surrounded by potatoes as they began their journey of being roasted, but the extra weight had proved their undoing. As Kirsty had bent to help slide the roasting tin back into the oven, her waters had broken. And this wonderful boy lying in the bed had arrived with ten minutes of Christmas Day still to enjoy.
No daddy to share the joy of the moment; in fact, no daddy ever admitted to exist. And in that moment of Eloise holding her grandchild for the first time, it hadn’t mattered. She and Kirsty would be enough for this wondrous being.
And now there was currently no Kirsty to hold her boy, lost inside a coma that everyone hoped would end. Eloise clung to the hope extended by the doctors that this child would surface when his body was ready, just as his mother hopefully would, but she was so scared. Scared she would lose both of them.
She reached out to grasp his hand, the one that didn’t have a cannula inserted in it, and she prayed. As she had prayed ever since the police had called to tell her of the accident on the M1.
Kirsty, unconscious in the Northern General Hospital, her child in a similar condition in the children’s hospital, and all because Kirsty had wanted to take him to Meadowhall to see a movie.
Between visits to her daughter in one hospital and her vigils at Jed’s bedside in the children’s hospital, the details of the smash had slowly emerged. A tyre blow-out in a Jeep that had been overtaking Kirsty’s car at ninety miles an hour had caused the Jeep to veer towards her, flip her own much smaller Fiesta over for it to be hit by a white van that simply couldn’t stop in time to avoid the car – the car carrying everything that Eloise loved in the world. Kirsty had died at the scene but had been resuscitated by skilled paramedics; six-year-old Jed had been strapped into the back seat. He’d suffered a head injury, some spectacular bruising and a broken arm, all mendable if he would only wake up and begin his climb back to being the wonderful child she had loved from the moment of his birth.



* * *
The second time he opened his eyes she whispered his name, and gently squeezed his fingers. He squeezed back but didn’t speak, just closed his eyes once more, hiding away the bright blue that was so dear to his grandmother. Half an hour later he opened his eyes again, and the nurse held a sippy cup to his lips. After the drink that moistened his lips and throat, he spoke.
‘Granny,’ he said.
Jed’s climb back to health had begun.
1
SEPTEMBER 2022

Clare Staines was feeling muddled. Her mind was struggling to cope with this unusual (for her) feeling, and really it had been mainly caused by Aunty Freda. Aunty Freda had lost her husband some fifteen years earlier and he was all she talked about, all Freda thought about; she loved him still and would quite obviously grieve for him for the rest of her life. Now a reluctant and doddery seventy years of age, she had been fifty-three when he’d died – Clare’s age now. And Clare was pretty sure Aunty Freda had never felt any sort of muddlement about her love for the late Uncle Joe. She had been steadfast, dusted his photograph frames every two days, and went to simply sit and chat to him at his graveside at least once every week. She had loved him then, and she loved him still.
Clare had lost John, her own much-loved husband, eight months earlier, in January of 2022, to cancer. The muddle in her mind was caused by the fact that she thought she was over it. Her life had changed and she had welcomed the alterations to her routine. In fact, she didn’t appear to have any routine; that had gone by the wayside.
She shouldn’t feel like this. She should be visiting his grave every week and plying him with roses, talking to him, telling him what was going on in their lives, hers and the lives of their two daughters. Saying over and over again how much she loved and missed him. In other words, she felt she should be emulating Aunty Freda.
She did for the first couple of months. She grieved; she coped sporadically, not wholly. It had been a month since she last took John some flowers, and they weren’t exactly roses, just a hurriedly picked bunch of assorted blooms from the garden; whatever looked quite fresh, really. Did she tell him she had started a yoga class? She didn’t think she had. Or had made tentative enquiries about the creative writing group that met at the village hall every month? She didn’t think she’d actually told him anything.
She had intended to talk to him about the progress of the purchase of Grace and Megan's new home, cementing their affiliation even further, but knowing how she hadn’t really been able to discuss the relationship between the two women while he’d been alive caused her to think twice about mentioning it now, at his graveside.
She remembered taking his old flowers to the rubbish container, filling the metal vase with fresh water and carrying it back to the grave, then arranging the fresh flowers so they looked nice – but she couldn’t remember speaking about anything at all.
Not a word of conversation had left her mouth. Did she say goodbye as she left? Did she make her usual promise to see him soon? Did she, at any point, say ‘I love you’? Did she finger kiss the very new, white marble headstone, as she always did? The questions rattled around her brain as she realised she remembered very little about her last visit; it had felt almost as if it was expected of her to turn up routinely with flowers and say all the right things. Except, she had said nothing.
This couldn’t be right. She couldn’t be over him as quickly as this. They’d known each other since infant school, been married for thirty-three years – Clare felt she simply couldn’t have got over his cruel death so soon. Wasn’t he the love of her life? And why did these feelings of guilt keep washing over her every time she thought about doing something she knew she would enjoy doing? John had always been a little controlling, and now suddenly the chains seemed to have been removed, and she was feeling guilty because of that? Surely not.
Sara and Grace would be horrified if they knew how her mind was working. They adored their father, as did Clare, which made it all the more peculiar that she was having these feelings now – or not having feelings, if Clare really thought about it with any depth. She really was muddled.
S