Perfect Strangers: an unputdownable read full of gripping secrets and twists. Erin Knight

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СКАЧАТЬ can, which probably won’t be much, granted. You’re the smart one, but I got the bigger boobs so it’s fine. Just . . . come home, Isobel. Please?’

      She hovered next to the stable door, trying to catch another bar of signal. The sun was dying over the edge of the neighbouring woodland. These sessions are to help you make your way out of the woods, Isobel. Therapy speak. But it had been Sophie who’d led her through at the time, not Jenny and her analogies. If there had been any hint of a silver lining to the nightmare, Sophie had been it. They’d had a lifetime of lukewarm sisterhood, but then the blip, as their dad called it, had brought them together. The constant stream of unrelenting spite, the horrendous trail of filth and hate, it had somehow flowed out to something good right down at the core of them, forging their sisterhood into a solid, iron-like thing. They’d become a team Isobel could trust in, a message Sophie still hammered home at every given opportunity. And it was tempting. Despite everything Isobel knew now, Sophie’s suggestion to go home and pretend was just so achingly tempting.

      ‘I can’t.’

      ‘But what if you dip again, Is? You’re so many miles away from us.’

      ‘I’m not that far.’

      ‘Have you taken anything there with you?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Not even for emergencies?’

      ‘No. That’s what phones are for. I’ll be fine.’

      ‘I have a bad feeling about this.’

      ‘You have a bad feeling about changing brands of shampoo, Soph. I can’t just pop a pill every time I struggle with something. I need a better mechanism than that.’

      ‘But . . .’

      ‘Sophie, relax. Really, it’s quite pleasant having a bit of thinking time. It’s kind of lovely here actually. There’s a sea view and everything. I walked down into the harbour this morning, had breakfast. It was good.’

      ‘So . . . does it feel like you’re kind of on holiday, sort of?’

      Isobel’s eyes followed a darting movement outside, a squirrel skittering up into the branches. Perhaps she should’ve found somewhere less treed. She wouldn’t tell Sophie about the woodland just yet. She would keep that one in her pocket for now. Sophie’s brain already worked overtime thanks to natural sisterly concern and too much Most Evil on Discovery HD. Knowing there was woodland next to the cottage would freak her out entirely. It had been Isobel’s first thought when she’d seen the cottage ad. What would Sophie think? They both believed in big bad wolves.

      Isobel held her cup of tea to her chest and breathed this new and foreign air. ‘I guess it does. It’s weird how quickly you get used to staying somewhere new.’ It was the staying alone bit that felt alien, not the waking up beneath gnarled timber beams or the super-soft mattress or the different brands of cleaning products left for her in the cupboard under the sink. She made a mental note to restock the cottage’s provisions before she left, whenever that would be.

      ‘I don’t want you to get used to it. Spend a few more days down there in Freaksville if you have to, read some books, eat some seaside shit . . . and come home?’

      ‘Everyone’s been fairly normal so far, Soph. No webbed feet or anything.’ Which wouldn’t have been that odd really, given the whole town’s thirst for watersports.

      ‘Who have you met? Where have you been? Male or female?’ There was a lilt of agitation to Sophie’s tone.

      ‘Sophie, relax. Just the old chap who owns this place, and a local coffee shop owner. She seemed quite nice, friendly.’ Isobel felt for the woman in Coast. The spat she’d witnessed hadn’t involved Isobel but her anxiety levels had still spiked. An actual real-life verbal altercation. Where people gesticulated and threw insults face-to-face, not hidden behind a computer keyboard. Or a username. A stupid username, like DEEP_DRILLERZ.

      ‘Did you just say coffee shop?’

      ‘Sophie, it’s fine—’

      ‘You promised you’d keep me in the loop!’

      ‘I am keeping you in the loop.’

      ‘No you aren’t. You went there. You went straight to Coast without telling me!’

      ‘Actually I walked past three times first. What a wimp, huh?’

      Sophie made an exasperated sound. ‘You’re not a wimp, Isobel. Definitely not that. You’re just a bit . . . mental.’

      Sophie had no idea. ‘Jenny thinks mental isn’t constructive terminology, Soph.’

      ‘She thought this little holiday idea of yours was legit, so let’s not kid ourselves that Jenny’s with the programme.’ A silence stretched between them. Across the yard the owner of the cottages loaded his wolf-dog into his battered Land Rover. ‘So you’ve met the owner of Coast. Fine. What about the old chap? The landlord?’

      ‘Arthur? He lives in the smallholding, sort of next door. The two cottages share the track, he lives in the bigger one with his massive dog. You should see it, Soph.’ The dog both scared and reassured Isobel. Anyone coming up that hill was announced by deep warning barks. Anyone who walked through the wrong boundary fence when they got up here was probably going to lose a leg. It wasn’t young kids and dogs Arthur didn’t want, it was a lawsuit.

      ‘So is he an “old chap” as in silver-fox? Or dentures-nextto-the-bed?’

      ‘Because I’m here to pull, Soph?’

      ‘I was only asking.’

      Isobel rolled her eyes. Sophie, always the sucker for a good-looker. Start batting those eyelashes at the nice, decent boys for a change, Sophie Hedley, instead of all the slick-looking wild ones, their mum had yelled up the stairs many, many times. You won’t bring half the trouble back to this house!

      ‘Well?’

      ‘Somewhere between the two, I guess? He has grey bristles, wears a neckerchief and shouts a lot.’

      ‘Who to? The dog?’

      ‘I’m not sure, maybe. “Danny Boy”, he calls. I haven’t seen anyone else up here though. Maybe it is to the dog? Or to himself. Maybe he’s a touch—’

      ‘Mental too?’

      ‘Here’s hoping. It would be nice to be the normal one again.’

      ‘You are normal.’

      ‘Inconspicuous, then.’ Another silence. ‘I like him. He’s old-fashioned. Chops his own logs, mends his own gate . . . slowly . . . bit like dad.’ Arthur probably fed his dog the old-fashioned diet of postmen, too.

      ‘Good he’s just next door then.’ Sophie exhaled, long and slow. ‘So how was it in the café? Were you okay in there by yourself?’

      That first trip into Coast had been a bit of a non-experience other than the eruption about the breast-feeding mother. Isobel had known roughly what to expect though before even setting foot inside СКАЧАТЬ