Chapter 1
It started at a funeral. Not many things do.
Particularly not when it was the funeral of a man you had killed, reflected Kate, standing on a spot precisely calculated as far enough away from the mourners to be inconspicuous and yet still close enough to officially Pay Her Respects.
She tucked her hair behind her ears, wondering quite why a tight woollen dress had seemed like such a good idea on a sweltering August day, and tried again to count the number of wailing women. Given that this was Tommy’s funeral, the presence of wailing women wasn’t really a surprise, and if not for the whole murdering thing she’d be wailing herself, it was just that the sheer number of women was a bit of a shock. She had to start the count again, distracted by a brief stutter of breeze that began to cool her flushed cheeks and then gave up, crushed by the heavy heat. There were at least three women to every black suited man, a veritable sea of poker straightened blondes, brunettes so glossy you could practically use them as a mirror and redheads who’d spent too long agonising over ‘Shocking Scarlet’ or ‘Magenta Surprise’. They seemed to be engaged in a ferocious who-can-cry-the-loudest competition, because even at the distance Kate was positioned the sound of over exaggerated grief drowned out the drone of traffic and the occasional thunder of planes overhead.
Sweat prickled on the back of her neck, and she cast a quick sidelong glance at the welcoming shade of the tree to her left. Skulking in the shadows would mean hiding though, to anyone who happened to glance around, and she was determined not to look like she was ashamed. She had just as much right to be at the funeral of her ex-boyfriend as any of the squawking harpies clustered around the grave, still trying to steal a bit of Tommy’s attention when he had no more left to give. She wondered if any of them had ever really loved him, ever really loved him as much as she had, once upon a time. She filed the thought away in a nice neat little box labelled ‘Memories’ exactly as Dr Morris has instructed her to, and shifted her weight to her other foot.
She’d never really liked high heels, but these ones went with the dress, or at least they had when she’d bought it a couple of years ago - wasting nearly a month’s spending money because her mother had told her to always buy the best she could afford, even when she couldn’t afford it. Now she’d washed it so many times it was more grey than black and the shoes were getting painful as her feet swelled in the summer heat. None of the wailing women below, simpering prettily and dabbing heavily mascared eyes with tiny handkerchiefs appeared to have this problem. In fact, none of them looked like they ever had any problems at all – and certainly not problems as mundane as not being able to afford new clothes because the cost of mortgages in London was higher than the highest high heels. And they never, ever had problems with murder. She shifted again and pushed that thought away too.
The vicar sounded like he was winding down, having finally got to the only bit of the service she recognised with ‘ashes to ashes’ and she still hadn’t been noticed. So far, everything was going according to plan. She could salve her conscience by coming to Tommy’s funeral and then get on with the slightly more reprehensible part of the day with slightly less guilt.
The thunk of earth hitting coffin echoed up the slope, despite the press of a hundred odd people and Kate readied herself for a hasty departure. She didn’t have time for grief. Grief belonged to people who could remember what they were grieving for and the last four weeks of her life had been wiped out - along with all of Tommy’s – by a very large tree and an unexpected bend. There would be time for tears as soon as she’d worked out what she’d been doing in a car with a man she hadn’t seen in six years. Maybe she’d end up heartbroken, and maybe she’d just be relieved at a very lucky escape – it was too soon to tell.
Thunk – as another handful of earth went some way towards filling the enormous hole that must exist sight unseen in the midst of the crowd. The only person Kate had recognised, and the only person who had recognised her, was Arabella, but since they hadn’t been on speaking terms for years it hardly made a difference. Besides, the Arabella she’d known at university had been considerably plumper; considerably less elegantly attired and had had a considerably different nose, so maybe it wasn’t her after all.
Tommy hadn’t had any family, or at least no parents and the average age of the immaculately coiffured mourners suggested that these were all more recent acquaintances rather than long standing friends. There wasn’t much danger of being spotted – except by him of course. Running her eyes over the crowd one last time she turned away, and headed back to where Jo-Jo was deliberately tapping her watch, sprawled on her stomach in the shade of the tree.
‘Finally,’ she complained, in that tone that meant she’d forgotten who was the elder sister again. ‘I thought you were going to stand there bawling all day.’
Kate, entirely dry-eyed, watched her sibling scramble awkwardly to her feet, not wasting any time on dignity in the urge to get upright as fast as she could. ‘Your skirt’s caught in your knickers,’ she returned, with as much gravitas as she could muster.
That was typical of Jo-Jo – not the skirt in underwear part, although that wasn’t out of character either, but the desperate rush to get on with the next thing without delay. ‘Joanne’ took far too long to say and Jo-Jo had been bouncing around since the day she’d been born, her nickname the only thing that could keep up with her. Two years younger, ever so slightly shorter and with eyes verging on a greyer shade of blue Jo-Jo was anything but average. Her non-averageness was currently reflected in a shock of bright pink hair, chosen purely for the shock value, as well as being part of the uniform of an aspiring rock journalist.
She smoothed off her miniskirt swiftly and took an assessing glance at her sister. ‘You look terrible,’ she noted happily.
Kate had to admit that this was probably a fair comment. Even with the bruising having nearly faded, the right side of her forehead was still criss crossed with vivid red marks, relics of the crash that she couldn’t remember. Even before the accident she’d still only been average. Averagely pretty, averagely tall, averagely blonde with the sort of average life led by average twenty somethings all across the country. Then one day, she’d woken up in hospital and found all of that comforting normality just ripped away. Worse still, she was about to add burglary to murder on the list of non-average things she was responsible for. Fishing a black band out of her ever so slightly out of fashion handbag she scraped back her hair into an untidy knot and looked to her sister for approval.
Jo-Jo’s attention was already elsewhere, wandered away to some point behind her and another random thought. ‘Who do we know who’s tall, got brown hair, and wants to kill you?’ she mused, still looking away.
Kate thought this must be some kind of obscure joke. ‘I don’t know, who do we know who’s tall…’ she got as far as replying before she was cut off in mid flow.
‘No – I’m serious. Look.’
Jo-Jo pointed at a spot back in the direction of the funeral and Kate turned in painfully slow motion to see that the only other person who might possibly have recognised her, the only person she really wanted to hide from, was on his way up the slope somewhat faster than his legs would carry him. Given that those legs were quite long, and that he was moving at a pace that could nearly be described as a run he was covering the ground between them all too rapidly. The expression in his sharp brown eyes promised if not murder, then at least grievous bodily harm.
‘Shit,’ said Kate, with feeling. Swearing was appropriate, given the circumstances, even if her mother would have used the words ‘common’, ‘fishwife’ and probably ‘mouth out with soap’ if she’d heard.
‘Is that?’ asked Jo-Jo.
‘Tommy’s older brother, yes.’
Ten years older, to be exact; ten years older, ten years wiser, with ten years more experience in how to be angry. The look that twisted his features told her that he was Not Happy, and even the capital letters were an understatement.
‘Didn’t you and he?’ wondered her sister.
‘Yes,’ Kate snapped.
‘And have you seen him since?’
‘No.’
This conversation was taking entirely too long – Tommy’s brother was nearly within shouting range, and was very likely to start shouting very soon. Most of the other mourners were now looking in her direction and some had ventured as far as pointing. She’d lost the ‘in’ from ‘inconspicuous’. Kate knew that she should stand her ground, protest her innocence, claim the whole thing was an accident, and defend her right to say goodbye. Sadly, she also knew she was average, not some feisty heroine in a romantic novel and besides – shouting had never been her style.
She grabbed for her sister’s hand.
‘Shouldn’t we?’ suggested Jo-Jo.
‘Run? Yes. How does now suit you?’
So they did.
It took ten steps for Kate to realise that she couldn’t run in high heels, ten more steps for the things to start sinking into the ground, and ten more steps for her to decide she had never liked these shoes much anyway and leave them embedded in the grass. Together, the Perkins sisters raced for the car park, and escape.


Kate had made it a rule never to believe in clichés, and to take people exactly as she found them, without making snap judgements in advance. When she’d been released from hospital, sent home with a couple of painkillers and some worried looks from the doctors about a month’s worth of amnesia, she’d also been referred to a counsellor. A cognitive-behavioural therapist to be exact, specialising in hypnotism and bereavement, with four cats, an ex-husband and a practice in Kensington. Kate wasn’t surprised by the cats, although the fact that the therapist had bothered to create their own home pages on the internet said slightly more about her than Kate wanted to know.
The choice of counselling suggested the medical staff didn’t quite believe in the enormous blank space in her thoughts where July should be. The fact that she had to see Dr Morris at all rather implied that someone thought she was making up the whole thing, had shut out her memories on purpose rather than – literally – by accident. She couldn’t imagine why she would choose to deliberately forget such a crucial event in an otherwise unremarkable life.
On Friday, walking up the three white painted steps and politely buzzing the intercom, Dr Morris had opened her black shiny door and instantly confirmed every single preconception about therapists Kate had been trying not to have. ‘Ah, Miss Perkins,’ she gushed, the softly permed hair drifting in grey tinged waves around her pouchy face. ‘Do come in.’
For example – there had to be some counsellors in the world who weren’t middle aged, kindly and slightly overweight women who wore the bohemian outfits they’d put on in the 1960s and never taken off. Dr Morris’ long skirts jingled slightly as she led the way down the polished wooden floorboards, through a high ceilinged corridor and into the back of the flat. Kate followed more slowly, pausing to look at the hundred of certificates and diplomas in their neat black frames that adorned the walls. Despite her misgivings, she felt a bit less dubious about this woman’s ability to help her remember.
Because she did want to remember. It was profoundly terrifying to wake up in the morning and not remember what you’d been doing the month before, or part of the month before that. Two weeks after the accident, a week after coming out of hospital and still she had lost her memory.
Her flat was the only constant point in her life, lovingly decorated white walls and carefully positioned furniture all just as it should be. But that first time, after getting out of the taxi and unlocking the front door she’d purchased with all her savings and nearly all her salary, she’d started to notice – well – differences. There was a dead bunch of flowers that she didn’t remember buying, the remains of a microwave meal in the bin that she’d never usually have eaten, a t-shirt or two that seemed new. She’d left her bed ruffled up and two wine glasses unwashed in the sink and more filthy cups dotted in unlikely places around the house. Given that she usually approached tidiness with the enthusiasm that other people brought to shopping the mess was out of character.
It made her want to remember.
Waking up in the morning and having a shower made her want to remember. Slowly dying with boredom in front of daytime TV because she was still signed off sick from work made her want to remember, so she’d picked up the phone and made an appointment with Dr Morris.
‘Sit down please,’ requested the therapist with an airy wave of a be-ringed hand and Kate did as she was asked, although the padded single chair she sank into attempted to swallow her whole.
Dr Morris pushed past sideboards teetering with piles of journals, overflowing bookcases and stacks of randomly assorted papers to the right of the room to open the sash window, and then pulled the heavy purple velvet drapes more tightly closed. The room descended further into darkness. Kate was sure she could smell incense. Dr Morris took up station on a pile of cushions that probably had a chair underneath and consulted her notepad.
‘So – Kathryn. May I call you Kathryn, or would you prefer Kate?’
Kate shrugged. She was Kathryn by birth and consequently Kathryn to her grandparents, Katie to her immediate family and Kate to anyone who wanted to get a proper answer.
‘Why are you here?’
Kate considered this to be a particularly stupid question, since a) in general, nobody except philosophers would ever try to answer it and b) all the specific answers would be on that notepad, but she tried to play along, because her mother had always been very strict about manners. ‘Alright – three weeks ago I had an accident. A bad one. The police found me unconscious at the wheel of my car with the passenger side wrapped around a tree. I don’t remember how I got there, where I was going or why…’ She faltered briefly, feeling the first touches of panic begin to rise in her stomach. ‘Or why I was with my ex-boyfriend.’
She found even mentioning Tommy’s name to this woman difficult, almost like intruding on his privacy, disrespectful to say his name now that he was dead. She was very, very glad, all of a sudden, that she hadn’t woken up in the car to see him, smashed and bloody next to her.
‘Your ex-boyfriend?’ asked Dr Morris, reflecting back like any good counsellor.
‘Ex.’ Kate confirmed tightly. Doubly ex now. ‘We split up six years ago and I hadn’t seen him since. At least, I don’t think so. It’s not just the accident I can’t remember, it’s at least a week leading up to it as well.’ The butterflies in her stomach were trying to get out, making her throat thick with a powdery constriction. She was quite determined not to cry. She leaned forward to disguise how close she was to it. ‘What I want to know is…Why I’m here is…well. He’s dead. I want to remember if it was my fault.’
She knew it was. She’d been driving so of course it was her fault, and every time she thought about Tommy she couldn’t get past all the happy memories she had of him, and the fact that he wouldn’t have any more. Because of her. Because she’d made a mistake, or not paid attention, or done something wrong that had ended up with him dead and her walking away with just a couple of scratches. She wanted to remember, so she could start forgiving herself.
Dr Morris nodded significantly at a handily placed box of tissues, half hidden by detritus on a side table beside her. In the dim light the counsellor looked professionally sympathetic and waited until Kate had found the composure she didn’t normally lose. She resumed after a pause. ‘You want me to help you recover your memories. Your notes tell me there’s nothing medically wrong with you – no damage to your brain, no more concussion. My question is – are you sure you want to remember?’
Kate was sure. Quite sure. Absolutely sure and more than a little annoyed with any medical opinion that said she might be lying. How many people survived a write-off car crash with just a bang on the head after all? Tommy was dead and there had to be a reason. She nodded determinedly, and searched for a handy couch to lie on. Surely the next step was to look at some regularly swaying watch and get asked about her father. That was what therapy was all about, after all.
Dr Morris interrupted her thoughts with: ‘We have six sessions over the next two weeks. It will be an intensive programme. Between each appointment I’m going to give you some mental exercises to try which might help. But for today – why don’t you relax and tell me about the first memory that comes to mind. Don’t analyse it – just describe what you see when you close your eyes.’
Kate blinked, recognising the easy way out offered by discussing work, or her family or the toast she’d had for breakfast. The first thing she usually saw when she closed her eyes these days was Tommy after the accident – in the car, in the morgue, in the coffin, in the ground. She decided she didn’t want to talk about all the imaginary ghosts her mind kept throwing her way and tried to pick something happier instead. She breathed deeply, and began: ‘The first day I met him, I was eighteen, and standing in a kitchen.’
She remembered this part clearly – the first day at university and full of the excitement and utter terror of being away from home for the first time. She’d been putting eggs in the communal fridge, carefully marking them up with her name and wondering how you went about making friends.
A man’s voice behind her, teasing. ‘Hi – are you Delilah?’
She turned and straightened in an easy movement and found herself straightening some more as the height of the person in front of her registered. Long legs, long, clearly fit body showing through the figure hugging white t-shirt he wore, shoulders so broad he almost looked overbalanced, with a knowing, slightly crooked smile revealing perfectly white teeth and fashionably long, floppy dark hair falling in his eyes. As soon as she saw him Kate felt nervous. He wasn’t the sort of boy who ever looked too closely in her direction. He practically shone with popularity, although he was standing on his own in a kitchen with a loaf of bread under one arm.
She held out her hand as bravely as possible. ‘No, sorry, I’m Kathryn Perkins. Pleased to meet you.’
He frowned at her. ‘Not Delilah then? Shame.’ He put down the bread on the counter and shook her hand. ‘My name’s Thomas Jones. Tom Jones. I’m always looking for my Delilah.’
And that was Tommy. Confident, sparklingly attractive, full of appalling lines and totally out of reach. She’d disliked him on sight, of course. He paused, waiting for the laugh she refused to deliver.
‘Is that supposed to be funny?’ she asked, finding any residual fear disappearing behind mild exasperation.
He shrugged. ‘Usually. Breaks the ice though. My mother has a lot to answer for. She’s Welsh, of course.’ He opened a couple of drawers and peered in. ‘Do you fancy scrambled egg on toast then, or are you keeping all those for yourself?’ He nodded at the marker pen in her hand. ‘And call me Tommy, everyone else will.’
His self assurance was hard to stay angry at for very long, so she found a frying pan and scrambled eggs while he burnt bread and smiled winningly at her, flicking his hair back out of his eyes at regular intervals. For the next ten minutes she got a crash course in what it was like to be Mr T. Jones Esq. He’d been born in Wiltshire (nothing to do but talk about horses to women who looked like horses), lived in a very large house (courtesy of a City banker father killed in the sort of private helicopter crash only the very rich could afford). One (half) brother (older), one public school education (everything you’ve heard is true) and absolutely no desire to do any work whatsoever over the next three years. He was the sort of person equipped by life to become impossibly successful, and he knew it.
Kate barely got a word in edgeways. Half a dozen eggs later he dumped his plate in the sink – presumably for her to wash – and gave another crooked grin. ‘Well, thanks for breakfast. Would have been better in bed, but I’ve only just met you – something to look forward to though, yes?’ He was out of the door with a cheery wave, leaving her standing and hoping wholeheartedly that she’d never see him again. About two seconds later, he popped his head back round the frame. ‘Kathryn Perkins?’
She nodded dumbly and he looked thoughtful, as well as even more attractive.
‘Hmmm, Kath, Kathy, Katie, Kate, K.’ He tried out the words for size, and then brightened, his brown eyes raking her body and coming to rest insolently on her chest. ‘Got it – ‘Perky’. See you round, Perky.’
And of course, she saw him round a lot. He was the sort of person you couldn’t avoid – she’d hear his laugh echoing across the canteen, have to step over his long legs sprawled over chairs in the common room, dodge round his cliquey friends to get to the bar. He belted out ‘It’s Not Unusual’ on the karaoke at any given opportunity. Then he started playing for the university rugby team and his name appeared in the student paper at regular intervals, along with being posted on notice boards in connection with a series of increasingly stupid stunts and hefty punishments. Tommy Jones everywhere she looked. She tried her best not to see. She had to pretend to be deaf nearly every day because every time he saw her he’d stop what he was doing and yell ‘Perky’ at the top of his lungs to the amusement of his mates and her complete embarrassment. He also developed an unerring sense for whenever she was in the kitchen, stumbling out of his room every Sunday morning looking beautifully dishevelled to pinch bits of toast, beg for bacon and complain about the lack of ketchup.
Although he was annoying, brash, loud, self centred and, she suspected, frequently left other women in his bed to have breakfast with her, she still found herself buying and cooking enough for two. He told her stories, he made her laugh and though she was only one among the multitude of his friends, she felt special.
Her friends were smitten too – particularly Arabella. Decent, shy, overweight, insecure Arabella, who had become an instant soul mate when they’d both got lost and ended up in a chemistry lecture instead of the history one next door and been too afraid to walk out.
‘Perky,’ Tommy had roared. ‘When’s the threesome?’
Kate rolled her eyes. ‘Arabella Minton – Tommy Jones. And don’t you dare use the Delilah gag.’
‘Ah ha! ‘Arabella’ – I like a challenge. How about it Bella? Bells? Harry? Belly?’
Arabella visibly winced at the last one until Tommy leaned down and kissed her squarely on the lips, pulling back and licking his appreciatively. ‘Thought so – Minty.’
Arabella talked of nothing else for at least three weeks.
Then, at the ball at the end of the second term, something changed. Kate was drunk by the end of the evening, drunk and dancing more energetically than usual, when she tripped and Tommy caught her. His eyes reflected the flickering neon from the disco, transmuted and refracted the glare of the light into some mesmerising fireworks display from which she couldn’t look away. He caught her, his hands around her waist, tighter and closer than he’d ever been, and at this distance, he was impossible to refuse.
He leaned down and kissed her, pressed his lips to hers in the midst of a crowd of his jeering, whooping friends and for that flash of a minute, Kate knew she wasn’t average. That night, and then for nearly three years at university and a year out the other side he became her third boyfriend, second lover, and the only man to run away with her heart.
‘Thank you Kathryn,’ said Dr Morris, quietly, and, Kate noted, after precisely forty-five minutes.
She’d found the story telling cathartic, but the darting glance the therapist threw at her watch left Kate slightly embarrassed that someone had to be paid before they’d listen to her problems. Plus, nothing she’d said had been in any way relevant, she couldn’t remember any better and if anything, felt slightly more like crying than when she’d walked in the door. Nor was she any closer to finding out why she’d killed Tommy Jones, although not talking about the accident was bizarrely soothing.
‘I’m going to give you some homework.’ Dr Morris completely ignored the fact that it had been ten long years since Kate had left school, and since anyone had dared say the dreaded ‘H’ word to her. ‘I want you to go home and find anything you’ve got that reminds you of university – music, photographs, clothes. Anything, as long as it acts as a trigger. Anytime you find a memory coming back I want you to imagine yourself storing it away in a big filing cabinet, so that when you want to retrieve it, all you have to do is think of opening a drawer. I’ll see you again in a few days and you can tell me how you’ve got on.’
There was more too, about confidentiality, and breathing exercises and stress management techniques, but Kate barely heard it. She was too busy remembering where all her souvenirs from university actually were, and wondering how on earth she was ever going to get them back.