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

‘Yes, the girl I met a couple of weeks ago for lunch in Browbury, the one that I met at the party Rachel took me to.’

‘What?’ Matthew looks shocked. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, Rachel phoned to tell me it was someone who worked for her company. I asked what her name was and she said Jane Walters. Susie’s cancelling her party because she knew her too.’

‘I’m so sorry, Cass,’ he says, putting his arms around me and holding me tight. ‘I can’t imagine how you must be feeling.’

‘I just can’t believe it’s her. It doesn’t seem possible. Maybe there’s been a mistake, maybe it’s another Jane Walters.’

I sense him hesitate. ‘They’ve released a picture of her,’ he says. ‘I saw it on my phone. I don’t know if…’ His voice trails off.

I shake my head because I don’t want to look, I don’t want to have to face the truth if it is Jane in the photo. But at least I would know.

‘Show me,’ I say, my voice trembling.

Matthew moves his arms from around me and we go upstairs so he can get on the Internet on his phone. While he searches for the latest news update, I close my eyes and pray: Please, God, please, God, don’t let it be Jane.

‘Here.’ Matthew’s voice is low. My heart thumps with dread but I open my eyes and find myself looking at a photo of the murdered woman. Her blonde hair is shorter than when we met for lunch and her eyes seem less blue. But it is definitely Jane.

‘It’s her,’ I whisper. ‘It’s her. Who would do such a thing? Who would do such a terrible thing?’

‘A madman,’ Matthew says grimly.

I turn and bury my face in his chest, trying not to cry again because he’ll wonder why I’m so upset when in his eyes I barely knew Jane.

‘He’s still out there somewhere,’ I say, suddenly scared. ‘We need an alarm.’

‘Why don’t you phone a couple of firms tomorrow and get them to come round and give us a quote? But don’t commit to anything before we’ve gone through everything with a fine-tooth comb. You know what these people are like – they’ll get you to sign up for things you don’t even need.’

‘All right,’ I say. But for the rest of the afternoon and evening, I’m desolate. All I can think of is Jane, sitting in her car, waiting for me to rescue her. ‘I’m sorry, Jane,’ I whisper. ‘I’m so sorry.’

FRIDAY, JULY 24TH (#ulink_56ed9f72-ccd0-52b5-a240-abeca87ed5bf)

Jane haunts me. It’s a week since her murder and I can’t imagine there ever being a day when she isn’t foremost in my mind. The guilt I feel hasn’t lessened with time. If anything, it has increased. It doesn’t help that her murder is still very much in the news, with non-stop speculation by the media as to why she chose to stop on such an isolated road in the middle of a storm. Tests show that nothing was wrong with her car but because it was a fairly old model with wipers that barely functioned, the theory put forward is that she was having trouble seeing through her windscreen and was waiting for the storm to pass before continuing her journey.

Gradually, a picture begins to emerge. Just before eleven she left a voicemail message on her husband’s mobile, saying she was leaving one of the bars in Castle Wells, where she’d been at a friend’s hen night, and would be home soon. According to the staff at the restaurant, Jane had left the restaurant with her friends but had returned five minutes later to use the phone there because she’d realised she’d left her mobile at home. Her husband had fallen asleep on the sofa and hadn’t heard the call come in, so he had no idea that she hadn’t turned up until the police knocked on his door and told him the terrible news. Three people have come forward to say that although they drove down Blackwater Lane on Friday night, none of them saw her car, parked or otherwise. This allows the police to narrow the time of the murder down to somewhere between eleven-twenty – as it would have taken her around fifteen minutes to reach the lay-by from Castle Wells – and five to one, when the passing motorist found her.

There’s a voice in my head urging me to contact the police, to tell them she was still alive when I passed her car at around eleven-thirty, but the other voice, the one telling me that they’ll be disgusted that I didn’t do anything to help her, is louder. And surely, narrowing the time down by such a small margin won’t make any real difference to the murder inquiry. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

In the afternoon, a man from Superior Security Systems arrives to give a quote for an alarm system. He immediately gets my back up by arriving twenty minutes early and asking if my husband is in.

‘No, he’s not,’ I tell him, trying not to get distracted by the flakes of dandruff on the shoulders of his dark suit. ‘But if you run through the sort of system you think this house needs to make it secure, I’m sure I’ll be able to understand. As long as you speak slowly.’

The sarcasm is lost on him. Without waiting to be invited in he comes into the hall. ‘Are you often in the house on your own?’ he asks.

‘No, not really.’ His question makes me uneasy. ‘My husband will be home soon, actually,’ I add.

‘Well, looking at your house from the outside, I’d say it’s a prime target for burglars, being stuck as it is at the end of the road. You need sensor alarms on your windows, on your doors, in the garage, in the garden.’ He looks around the hall. ‘On the stairs too – you don’t want anyone creeping up on you in the middle of the night, do you? I’ll just take a look over the house, shall I?’

Turning on his heels, he heads for the stairs, taking them two at a time. I follow him up and see him making a quick check of the window at the end of the landing. He disappears into our bedroom and I hover outside the door, uneasy about him being in there on his own. It suddenly occurs to me that I never asked him for proof of identity and I’m appalled that, in the light of Jane’s murder, I wasn’t more careful about letting him in. When I think about it, he hadn’t said he was from the alarm company, I had just assumed he was, even though he was early. He could be anybody.

The thought lodges itself so firmly in my brain that the unease I’m already feeling at him being in the house grows into something akin to panic. My heart misses a beat and then speeds up furiously, playing catch-up, leaving me shaky. Keeping one eye fixed firmly on the bedroom door, I creep into the spare room and call Matthew from my mobile, glad that I can at least get a signal from here. He doesn’t pick up but, a moment later, I get a text from him:

Sorry, in meeting. Everything OK?

I text back, my fingers clumsy on the keys:

Don’t like look of alarm man

Then get rid of him.

I leave the bedroom and collide with the alarm man. Jumping back with a cry of alarm, I open my mouth, about to tell him that I’ve changed my mind about having an alarm, but he gets there first.

‘I just need to check this room and the bathroom and then I’ll take a look downstairs,’ he says, squashing past me.

Instead of waiting for him, I hurry down to the hall and stand near the front door, telling myself that I’m being stupid, that I’m panicking for nothing. But when he comes down, I stay where I am, leaving him to walk around the rest of the house by himself. It’s a long ten minutes before he appears in the hall again.

‘Right, shall we go and sit down?’ he asks.

‘I don’t think that’s necessary,’ I say. ‘I’m not sure we need an alarm after all.’

‘I don’t like to bring it up but after the murder of that young woman not far from here, I’d say you’re making a mistake. Don’t forget that the murderer is still out there somewhere.’

This virtual stranger mentioning Jane’s death unbalances me and I desperately want him out of the house. ‘Have you got contact details? From your firm?’

‘Sure.’ He reaches inside his jacket and I take a step back, half expecting him to draw out a knife. But all he brandishes is a card. I take it from him and study it for a moment. It says his name is Edward Garvey. Does he look like an Edward? My suspicion is addictive.

‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘But it might be an idea if you come back when my husband is here.’

‘I could, I suppose. Not sure when it’ll be though. I know I shouldn’t say it but murder is good for business, if you know what I mean? So, if you just give me ten more minutes of your time, I’ll run through everything quickly and you can tell your husband all about it when he gets home.’

He walks towards the kitchen and stands in the doorway, his hand outstretched, inviting me in. I want to remind him that it’s my house but I find myself walking into the kitchen anyway. Is this how it works…? is this how people let themselves be led into potentially dangerous situations, like lambs to the slaughter? My anxiety increases when, instead of sitting down opposite me at the table, he sits down next to me, cornering me in. He opens the brochure but I’m so on edge that I can’t concentrate on anything he’s saying. I nod my head at appropriate moments and try to look interested in the figures he’s totting up but sweat is trickling down my back and the only thing that stops me leaping to my feet and ordering him out of the house is my middle-class upbringing. Was it manners that prevented Jane from closing her window hurriedly and driving off when she realised she didn’t want to give her killer a lift after all?

‘Right, that’s that then,’ he concludes, and I stare at him, bemused, as he stuffs the papers into his briefcase and pushes a brochure towards me. ‘You show that to your husband tonight. He’ll be impressed, take my word for it.’

I only relax once I’ve closed the door behind him but the realisation that, once again, I did something stupid by not asking for proof of identity before letting him in, especially when a woman has just been murdered nearby, makes me question my lack of judgement. Feeling suddenly cold, I run upstairs to fetch a jumper and, as I go into the bedroom, I see that the window is open. I stare at it for a moment, wondering what it means, wondering if it means anything at all. You’re being neurotic, I tell myself sternly, taking a cardigan from the back of a chair and shrugging it on. Even if the man from Superior Security Systems did open it – which he probably did, to see where the sensors could be fitted – it doesn’t mean that he left it open so that he could come back and murder you.

I close the window and as I’m on my way back downstairs, the phone starts ringing. I expect it to be Matthew but it’s Rachel.

‘I don’t suppose you want to meet for a drink, do you?’ she asks.

‘Yes!’ I say, glad of an excuse to get out of the house. ‘Are you OK?’ I add, detecting that she isn’t her usually bubbly self.

‘Yes, I just feel like a glass of wine. Is six all right for you? I can come to Browbury.’

‘Great. In the Sour Grapes?’

‘Perfect. See you there.’