Chapter 1
I’m jolted awake by a noise I can’t identify. Birdsong? The cat? I can’t tell, because the minute I try to focus, everything is quiet again. The only sounds are a familiar thrumming in my head and a pounding in my chest.
I grasp my phone from the bedside table and stare blearily at the screen.
My heart sinks. There are four missed calls from Miles.
I open the call log to see when he made them.
The first at midnight, then every fifteen minutes until one o’clock, when it appears he gave up trying.
Miles hates it when I don’t answer my phone.
He’s such a worrier. And now he’ll be going out of his mind.
How the hell didn’t I hear the bloody thing ringing?
I wriggle to a sitting position, wincing at the resulting stab of pain, and call Miles, the phone pressed close to my ear as it rings.
It’s moments like these I’m glad my husband hates FaceTime.
He’d take one look at my pale face and assume I was sick.
Even though I know he can’t see me, I still tug my pyjama top straight and paste a smile on my face.
But the smile fades as his voicemail kicks in.
I consider leaving a message, but am momentarily tongue-tied, so I end the call.
He’ll know I’ve tried phoning him, which is the main thing. He’ll call me when he can.
And what will I tell him when he asks where I was last night, when I can’t even remember myself?
I check the calendar on my phone for clues.
There is only one entry for yesterday. Dentist 11.
40 a.m. That’s right, I remember now. I drove into Canterbury, leaving my Mini in the multi-storey car park because I was running late.
After the dentist, I bought a sandwich and a drink and took them down to the Westgate Gardens so I could sit and eat on the banks of the Stour.
The gentle burble of the river must have made me sleepy as I recall waking up to raised voices and the sound of a baby crying. And then nothing until this morning.
Nothing.
Dread squeezes my intestines. I swing my legs out of bed and hobble over to the window. The space where I normally park is empty.
How the hell did I get home?
I turn back to the bed and scrabble through the odds and sods on my bedside cabinet, finding a crumpled business card for a local cab company in my purse.
One mystery solved, at least.
I long to climb back into bed and sleep away the morning, but sunlight is flooding this long, narrow room in the eaves of my grandfather’s house.
It’s a beautiful day and I won’t waste it.
Anyway, the cat needs feeding, the fridge is empty, and I promised myself I’d pick the redcurrants and raspberries before the blackbirds eat the lot.
After a shower, the violent thumping at the base of my skull eases to a dull ache behind my eyes. A pint of water and a couple of ibuprofen will help. Let’s face it, I’ve felt worse.
Percy pads across the landing towards me, winding himself around my ankles and mewing piteously.
‘I know. I’m sorry,’ I tell him, bending down to tickle his chin. Too late, I realise my mistake. My head swims, and for a second, I lose my sense of what is up and what is down, and I can feel myself pitching forwards.
‘Christ.’ I shoot a hand out to grip the banister. It is only once the dizziness has passed that I trust myself to follow Percy down the stairs to the kitchen.
I inherited the ginger tom when Grandad died. Along with Grandad’s house: a two-bedroomed cottage surrounded by an acre of garden on the outskirts of Chilham, a pretty village on the Kent Downs.
Percy miaows again, but when I reach into the cupboard for his food, I realise I must have used the last pouch yesterday. A memory drifts to the surface, like oil in water. I had planned to drop in to the supermarket on my way home from the dentist. Obviously, that never happened.
‘I’m sorry, Perce.’ I drag my hands down my cheeks. Thirty-two, and I can’t be trusted to look after a cat, let alone myself.
I find a solitary tin of tuna at the back of a cupboard. The expiry date reads 2018 but Percy doesn’t care. He wolfs the lot in seconds, then disappears through the cat flap with a swish of his ginger tail.
I run a glass of water, and down it in one. I run another glass, pop a couple of ibuprofen from their blister pack and swallow. The kitchen is a mess. Clutter on every surface; an overflowing bin. Tea first, then I’ll tackle it. I can’t face breakfast, not this morning.
I flick the kettle on and gaze out of the window while I wait for it to boil.
Even though I can see Percy stretched out in the sun by the greenhouse, I could swear I’m not alone.
I get that feeling every so often. It’s almost as if Grandad’s spirit is sandwiched between the plasterboard and the brickwork, like insulation.
Sometimes I feel his presence so keenly it’s as if he is standing beside me, just out of sight.
But today it’s more than that. I can hear something.
A rustling noise, coming from the living room.
Not rustling. More like snuffling. I stiffen, my hand gripping the worktop, my head cocked to one side.
Hoping to God Percy hasn’t brought in a rabbit – I can’t deal with that, not today – I make my way along the hallway to the front of the house.
At the door to the living room I stop in my tracks.
The bottom drawer of Grandad’s old oak bureau, the one with the barley twist legs, has been tipped onto the floor.
Diaries and birthday cards, envelopes and notebooks, old seed packets and pens, sticky tape and gardening twine have all been upended on the carpet in a jumble.
But this is incidental. Because it’s what’s lying in the upturned drawer that’s holding my attention.
Tiny fists waving in the air. Chubby legs encased in a white sleepsuit. A fuzz of dark hair.
A baby.
And this makes no sense, no sense at all. Because I, Lucy Quinn, might well have a husband called Miles and a cat called Percy and a cottage that once belonged to my grandad.
But the one thing I don’t have, the one thing I’ve never had, is a baby.