Blind date, p.1
Blind Date, page 1
Blind Date
A completely gripping and heart-pounding psychological thriller
Wendy Clarke
Books by Wendy Clarke
Blind Date
His Hidden Wife
The Bride
We Were Sisters
What She Saw
Available in audio
His Hidden Wife (Available in the UK and the US)
The Bride (Available in the UK and the US)
We Were Sisters (Available in the UK and the US)
What She Saw (Available in the UK and the US)
Contents
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
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
What She Saw
Hear More from Wendy
Books by Wendy Clarke
A Letter from Wendy
We Were Sisters
The Bride
His Hidden Wife
Acknowledgements
*
For Tracy
Prologue
I know your secret, but you don’t know mine.
That’s my confession.
You’ve gone silent, Melanie… Why’s that? Is it because you’re afraid of what I’ll say? That this call will no longer be about me but about you? What would be the fun in that? It’s enough that you know I know.
But that’s not my only confession. What I want to tell you tonight is that I hurt. Right deep inside my chest, the way it would feel if a knife was thrust into my heart to the hilt. Then further still. And all this because I’ve experienced the most perfect love.
The purest love.
Can you understand that?
When you feel love like that, passion like that, madness like that, you will do anything to keep it. Anything to make sure that no one will ever stand between you and that perfect state.
But what if that love is taken from you? Maybe you’ll seek that person out or perhaps you’ll seek out another. Always chasing. Always searching. And when you have them, you will make them understand they are yours, that you won’t let them leave you as the other one did. You will cling to that love with fingers capable of tenderness but also capable of much worse.
And yet, even though you have someone new, you will never forget that first perfect love. How they left you empty. How can you forget when the space they left in your heart has become filled with something harder? Darker. When that darkness threatens to turn you into a monster you don’t recognise, it’s hard not to wonder if it really was your fault.
What do you think, Melanie? Now you’ve heard my confession, my secret, does it surprise you that I might not be who people think I am? That I’m worse… so much worse. Maybe it does or maybe you knew all the time because, perhaps, we’re not so different.
And yet, something still bothers me. Something I wanted to ask. It’s a question that comes to me when I walk the dark streets at night or see the cold moonlight reflected in the canal.
I’ve made my confession, Melanie.
When will you make yours?
One
It’s funny how sometimes you know change is coming. You have an inkling. A small nudge. Maybe just the ghost of a feeling. That hadn’t happened today. When I’d woken at 4.15 a.m., my back-up alarm shrill in my ear, there had been nothing. Just bleary-eyed, crushing tiredness and the need for strong coffee.
It’s five now, still dark, the sky not yet showing even a hint of pink or peach, but there’s something in the air that tells me it’s no longer night. A softer tone that’s more like a bruise than solid blackness. A certain expectation to the silence, as if it’s waiting to be broken by something: the first note of birdsong, the soft rumble as a bin is wheeled out for collection, the bark of a dog as it’s let out into a garden. In my case, it’s the slam of my car door before I lock it and hurry across the car park to the rather uninteresting-looking red-brick building in front of me.
Reaching up a hand, I punch at the buttons on the keypad, my fingers numb with cold, glad that I’m not the first one here even if it means that I’m late. I let myself in and the door clicks shut behind me, shutting out the security light that illuminates the puddles that have formed in the potholes of the car park overnight.
Once, when I was new and enthusiastic, I would have taken the time to pause before pushing open the door. With the flat of my hand pressed to its cold face, I’d have taken in the blue lettering on the panel attached to the wall beside it… the one spelling out the name of my place of work. Lock Radio. For most of my first year of working here, although I’ve never admitted this to anybody – not even my husband, Niall – I’d whisper the name to myself. Wondering as I did how I’d managed to bag my dream job against such stiff competition. Asking myself what good-luck fairy had been looking down on me when I’d arrived on the doorstep that first day. Giving thanks for the lucky series of events that had led me from an internship all those years ago to the prestigious post I now have on breakfast radio.
But now I’m older and wiser, I know it wasn’t luck at all. I’ve watched other young hopefuls come through the doors. Seen who’s made it and who hasn’t. It’s their hunger and enthusiasm that keeps the successful ones here… along with hard graft. Nowadays a lot don’t get in the same way I did – three years of media studies at university, followed by a stint on hospital radio, broadcasting from a tiny room with no windows – but by other efforts. Vlogs and podcasts done in their spare time, making them current. On the pulse. Accessible to the younger members of our audience.
I smile to myself as I shrug off my jacket, thinking about my first few months here. Remembering how happy I’d been when after months of making tea and running around after everyone, I’d been taken on as part of the promotion team at events. Even though it had only been handing out flyers, it had been a foot in the door. The highlight, though, had been when Simon had suggested I sit in on the Breakfast Show. From my stool at the back, I’d scribbled frantic notes, taking in everything he and his co-hosts, Chris and Nadine, did and said, longing to be one of them.
Now, of course, I am.
The reception is brightly lit even though Dawn, the receptionist, won’t be in for a few hours yet. I lay my jacket on the desk, next to the sheaf of fliers and other promotional material and dig in my bag for a mirror. Holding it up to each ear to make sure I’ve not put in mismatching studs – a distinct possibility after managing to sleep through my alarm. If it hadn’t been for my back-up alarm waking me, I’d still be tucked under my duvet.
Tipping my head to the light, I wipe a smudge of black from under my bottom lashes then put the mirror back in my bag. Applying mascara when your eyes are glazed with tiredness is no mean feat. Still, at least with Niall sleeping in the spare bedroom, I no longer have to worry about waking him.
On the wall, a large flat-screen TV is showing a demonstration that happened in Manchester yesterday. Although the sound is muted, subtitles chase each other across the bottom of the screen. As I watch, the picture changes. A newsreader sits behind a desk, and on the screen behind, I recognise the wide-open mouth of the tunnel that burrows through the hillside a little way down the canal from where the radio station is situated. The subtitles tell me what I already know. It’s the place where two years ago, a young woman, a prostitute, disappeared… presumed dead. Today the police are going to do an anniversary appeal.
That poor woman.
I turn away not wanting to see, even though it will be something to add to today’s schedule, along with anything else of interest my co-presenters and I find in the papers. Speaking of which, where are they?
As if in answer to my unspoken thoughts, a burst of laughter comes from the kitchen area on the other side of reception. It’s Chris, probably responding to one of Dan, the producer’s, filthy jokes. They’re going to love the fact that I’m late as it’s well known at the radio station that I take pride in my punctuality. I sigh.
Picking up my coat, I’m about to join them when the board with our photos on catches my eye. Under the heading Breakfast Team, Simon, Chris and I smile out from behind the glass. I pause and press a finger to my face; the picture was taken a few years ago when I was younger and more fresh-faced.
Before the godawful hours had started to take their toll.
Before my home life had fallen apart and divorce had become no longer something that happened to other people.
Before I knew the misery of betrayal.
I look at the happy young girl in the photo, her shiny, dark hair falling to her shoulders, the one who believed her marriage would last forever, and wonder what happened to her. The photos are long overdue an update, and a few weeks ago, someone came in to take some new ones. When he’d turned his camera round to show me what he’d taken, I couldn’t help thinking that although my smile was the same, it had lost some of its sparkle, the hair some of its shine.
I lift my hand to it, surprised, as I always am when my fingertips touch nothing but the soft skin at the back of my neck. My straighteners still sit on my chest of drawers next to the mirror in my bedroom, but they’re no longer needed. After years of getting up at the crack of dawn, I decided a pixie cut would be simpler to manage. I just hadn’t realised how long it would take for me to get used to it.
The boys’ photos are either side of mine, flanking me like bodyguards. Theirs need changing too, though neither will admit it. Chris’s hair was shorter than it is now when the photographs were taken, and Simon was clean-shaven and boyish, without the stubble he’s recently started sporting. He looks out at me now, his expression calm and reassuring. At least he won’t join in with the ribbing I’ll get when I open that kitchen door. He’s not like that.
Suddenly I feel weary. I used to laugh at all Chris’s jokes, but now the thought of responding to whatever he’s going to say feels like too much of an effort. I push the door open with my shoulder and sling my coat and bag onto an empty chair before heading to the coffee machine.
‘Morning, gang.’
Normally, there’d be chat and joshing or a companionable silence as each member of the team gets ready for the show. This morning though, I can already tell that the hush has a different quality to it.
I get myself a black coffee, tearing a corner from a sugar packet and adding it to the dark liquid. Needing the energy. I wait for either Dan or Chris to get their first joke in at my expense. When it doesn’t happen, I turn my head and look from one to the other.
‘What’s up?’
Chris has been looking at his phone, his large fingers tapping at the screen. He raises his head, a frown on his face. ‘Eh?’
I point at the digital clock on the wall. ‘It’s five-fifteen. I’m late. You should be taking the piss out of me. That’s what you do, Chris.’
Chris breathes in sharply but just as quickly he rallies. ‘Were you catching up on your beauty sleep, Mel? You certainly need it.’
I laugh but there’s something about his quip that feels forced. Maybe I’m imagining it. ‘I slept through my first alarm. Anyway, are you all right? When you’re this quiet, you make me nervous.’
‘Of course I’m all right. More than all right.’ There’s a lag in his response that worries me, but when his face creases into a smile I relax again. I’m probably just imagining things. Chris cups his round face in his hands and strikes a pose. ‘Just look at this face. With good looks like this I’m every girl’s dream.’
‘Nightmare more like,’ Simon says, throwing Chris a disapproving look. But I catch the warmth in his voice. The boys have, after all, been friends for years. He looks back at me. ‘Anyway, don’t fret about the time, Mel. You won’t be the first to miss an alarm and you won’t be the last. It happens.’
‘Not to me it doesn’t.’ I take my coffee over and sit down on the settee next to him. ‘I never oversleep.’
‘It could be your body telling you something – that you need to take things a bit easier. You have been quite anxious lately. Not surprising with everything that’s been going on at home. No wonder you’re tired.’
I frown. ‘I thought it was the other way round… that anxiety keeps you awake.’
‘Yes, usually but sometimes your body just gives in to it. I remember last year after Anne lost the baby…’
He stops and looks away. I want to say something to make it better, but I can’t. I’ve never been good at that sort of thing. Instead, I say something mundane. Less emotive.
‘Yes, you’re probably right. I think I might have read something similar or maybe it was one of our callers who mentioned it. Anyway, I’ll be fine with a shot of caffeine inside me.’ I glance up, wondering if the others are listening in to our conversation but they don’t seem to be. ‘Niall and I are doing okay, as it happens. We’ve been grown up about the divorce thing.’
I pick up my mug, hoping it will be the end of the conversation, but he hasn’t taken the hint.
‘I’m glad.’ He turns in his seat to look at me with concerned eyes. ‘It must be hard still living under the same roof, now you’re not married.’
The mouthful of coffee I take is too hot, burning my throat as I swallow it. I put the mug down again, annoyed with myself.
‘It’s fine,’ I say. Recently, fine seems to have become my default word. I don’t know what’s got into me today. It’s not as if Simon means anything by it. ‘Ignore me.’
Simon leans across and gives my hand a squeeze. ‘Sorry, I should never have brought it up.’
‘Stop being so bloody nice. Mr Bloody Nice Guy.’
Chris picks up a pen from the coffee table and throws it at him. It misses and rolls to the edge of the desk. So, he had been listening. ‘Say it like it is. That’s what I do. I’m sure Mel doesn’t mind sharing a bathroom with a guy she can’t stand the sight of.’
‘That’s not true. I—’
He cuts me off. ‘Any more than she minds being late. Or looking like a tired sparrow that’s been plucked.’
‘Fuck off, Chris,’ I say, my hand rising to my head, smoothing the wisps at the nape. ‘At least I don’t look like an ageing hippie.’
Chris has his feet on the coffee table, one crossed over the other, and I lean forward, whacking at the one nearest to me. I immediately regret it as the side of his trainer is covered in mud.
I look at my hand. ‘Jesus, Chris. You didn’t walk here, did you?’
Now I think about it, I hadn’t seen his car in the car park.
He shrugs. ‘I like it. It helps me to wake up.’
‘Sober up, more like.’ Producer Dan closes the lid of his laptop and scratches at his ginger beard. He gets up and takes his mug over to the sink, rinsing it under the tap before hanging it on the cup stand.
‘None of you bloody lot touch this mug or you’re dead,’ he says, pointing a finger at us all.
‘As if we’d want to catch what you’ve got,’ Chris fires back, bullet fast.
Dan looks at the clock. ‘Come on, slackers. Let’s get this show on the road. We’ve only thirty minutes until we go live and we’ve a lot to talk about. It’s the anniversary appeal for the woman who disappeared in the canal tunnel. The police are hoping to refresh the public’s memory and maybe pull up more witnesses. They want us to mention it on the show.’
My eyes move to the window although there’s nothing to see but darkness. ‘Crazy that it was so close to here. Her poor family.’
Dan nods. ‘Crazier still that they never got anyone for it. Hopefully, the appeal will jog someone’s memory. I’ll see you all in the meeting room. Get your arses into gear, you lot, or we’ll have Di on our backs.’ He looks meaningfully at me. ‘You know how she hates tardiness.’
Di, our programme controller, is a dour woman with little sense of humour, and she and I have little in common other than our commitment to Lock Radio, but she knows what she’s doing. I’ve also learnt that it’s wise to keep on the right side of her, as she’s the one who puts the programme schedule together and keeps the station running smoothly.
