I'm thrilled to be sharing this edited (by the author) extract from Chapter 2, where we find main character Jenny on the Caledonian Sleeper.
Excerpt:
Jenny looked up at the plastic cup of water that the guard was holding in front of her face.
She shrugged and took a sip. At least it was cold, unlike the bottle of water in her room. Christ, that had been ten minutes ago, it seemed like ten years. Talk about waking up in a different place.
Everything had been a blur since the moment she had opened the door to the neighbouring room on the sleeper. Trying to rouse the woman, checking for a pulse, before turning and running along the corridor; almost colliding with the staff member coming in the opposite direction.
Every time she closed her eyes she saw the face of the dead woman.
Jenny hadn’t seen many dead bodies in her time, only her grandmother, but she knew the woman was gone before she felt for a pulse. She tried not to look at the belt around the arm, the spent needle lying by her right hand. The track marks. Her skin hadn’t been all the way cold yet.
“Police are on their way,” the guard said, adding a strained smile as an afterthought. Jenny supposed it was a comforting thought for him. Right now, he was in charge of the situation, like it or not. The sooner he could hand it over to someone else, the better. “I’m Colin, by the way.”
“Jenny,” she replied automatically.
They were in a small room at the end of the carriage. The door was open, so she could hear hushed voices outside as the other guards asked passengers to stay behind their own doors.
The sky was getting lighter. Through the window, she could see a stretch of open ground before a thick forest, a shroud of mist lingering above the ground, mountains on the horizon.
She started to speak and had to clear her throat first.
“Where are we?”
“Five miles south of Rannoch,” Colin answered immediately. On more confident territory now.
“Why are we stopped?”
“Scheduled. We always stop here for a few minutes.” He consulted his watch. “Longer today, now. The passengers will be starting to wonder.” He shook his head. “What a waste, eh?”
Jenny nodded.
“What makes someone do that? Put that . . . rubbish in their arm?” He looked somewhere between bewildered and angry.
“I don’t know. A lot of things, I suppose.” She thought about the desperate look she’d seen in the woman’s eyes last night.
Colin shook his head again. “Silly girl.”
Girl. The word sparked a memory. The woman hadn’t been alone last night. Jenny felt an almost physical jolt at the realisation that the little girl with the brown hair and the stuffed rabbit was now an orphan.
But the girl hadn’t been in the room with the body. Had she gone to get help?
“Is her kid all right?” Jenny asked, the shock starting to settle into a dull ache in her stomach. “I mean, someone else is with her, right?”
Colin’s brow creased, and he studied Jenny’s face.
“What?”
“The girl in her room. Six or seven, dark hair.”
Her question hung in the air for a long moment. Before he spoke the three words, Jenny knew exactly what he was going to say.
“What little girl?”
What about that then? I bet you're all dying to know what's going on! I certainly was.
You can find the full book details and the guest post from Mason here, and a fab wee Q&A with him here. My review will be up on Thursday, publication day!
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