Cuckoo: A haunting psychological thriller you need to read this Christmas. Sophie Draper

Cuckoo: A haunting psychological thriller you need to read this Christmas - Sophie Draper


Скачать книгу

       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

      

       Chapter 50

      

       Chapter 51

      

       Chapter 52

      

       Chapter 53

      

       Chapter 54

      

       Chapter 55

      

       Author Note

      

       Acknowledgements

      

       About the Author

      

       About the Publisher

       PROLOGUE

      I am floating between two worlds, the living and the dead. As I lie here in my hospital bed, the faces shimmer above, voices distant and unfamiliar.

      Slowly I return. I cannot move. I am a doll, placed exactly as they choose. They’re quite unaware that I’m awake, that I can see and hear – the machines, the trolleys on their wheels, the tubes wriggling from body to bed, the clicks and beeps that mark each breath, each beat a ticking clock, each sigh discharged as if my last.

      Today I can see the table. Someone places a small painting beside me. It shows a boy. He sits on a grave under a tree, ivy coiled around his feet. He holds a pear drum.

      I know this object. Not a drum, but something else. The shape appals me, a large pear-shaped box, too big for the boy’s lap. The strings that stretch across, the handle at one end, the strange creatures painted on the side. An instrument. It plays the devil’s music. My heart jolts, leaping against my ribs, hammering like a condemned man. The machines fill my lungs with air. I feel my chest expand, stretching until it is so taut I think my body will burst. But no, the machines deflate. Once more I hear their steady beat. I watch the drip, drip of the feed that punctures my arm and my consciousness fades away.

      When I wake, I hear hushed tones, regret. They’re talking about me. My mind is surging, willing myself to move, to make one small sign that I’m alive. But the feeling dissipates like smoke in a chimney. I watch the boy. He winds the handle on the pear drum, round and round …

      The hours turn into days, then weeks, time sliding between each heartbeat. Slowly memory returns. When I see the sky, it’s white or grey, reflections of the room bouncing off the window glass. And black. Sometimes against the grey is the tiniest streak of black, one small bird buffeted by an invisible wind.

      As I lie in this bed, they all think I am as good as dead.

      Except I am not dead – not yet. How disappointed they must be.

       CHAPTER 1

      She was watching me, my golden sister. Her eyes were dark; her hair long. She stood opposite me on the far side of the grave.

      The black earth stained my fingers. I folded them in as if to hide the weight of the clump of soil sitting in my hand, damp and clammy against my skin.

      My sister had come, despite all expectation.

      She held her head upright and her gaze was unwavering. The flaps of her calf-length coat were caught by the wind, revealing a flash of red, her dress, her perfect legs sliding down into perfect shoes, heels sinking into the thick grass. I pressed my lips together and lowered my head. She was like a designer handbag lit up in a shop window on the King’s Road, glossy and beautiful and out of reach.

      My stepmother’s funeral was a quiet affair. The small churchyard clung to a slope on the edge of Larkstone village, gravestones like broken teeth, the surrounding hills of Derbyshire cloaked in a fine drizzle that seeped through the thin cloth of my coat. There were a few neighbours, a bearded man standing on his own and


Скачать книгу