Saving Sophie: A compulsively twisty psychological thriller that will keep you gripped to the very last page. Sam Carrington
call, Rachel’s desperation, the way her words had rushed out of her once the silence had been breached.
‘I don’t understand …’ Sobs, gasping, gulps of air. ‘The description … it was like Amy, not Erin. I hadn’t seen her. Oh, Karen. She’d dyed her hair, had extensions put in at the weekend … I had no idea.’
‘Oh Rach, Rach, love—’ Karen’s contribution to the conversation.
‘Help me, Karen, I can’t do this.’ Wracking sobs, interspersed with more gasping, the sound harrowing, tearing at Karen’s heart.
A deep pain gripped her. How was this happening? Why? And how could she help?
Now, after a few hours of disrupted sleep, she leant awkwardly against the kitchen worktop, while Mike stared at her. Karen cried. Her friend needed her. How was she going to support her when she struggled to even make it outside her own front door?
‘You have to go to her.’ Mike pulled her close, wrapped his arms around her. She allowed the closeness, the comfort, for a few seconds before pushing him away.
‘How can I?’
‘I’ll drive you over there after your counselling session. You’ll be fine.’
Sounded simple. Obvious. The reality was far more complicated.
‘I don’t think I can …’ She took some deep breaths, trying to stop the rising panic.
‘Oh come on, Karen, you’ve been having therapy, or whatever it is, for ever. Surely you can make it out of the house for this?’
The words cut, but there was an uncomfortable truth there. She really should be able to push herself to go to her friend. She looked down, unable to bear to meet the look of disapproval in Mike’s eyes.
‘She’d be here in a flash for you, you know that.’
‘Rach understands how difficult—’
‘She may understand why you can’t make a coffee morning. I hardly think she’s going to understand you failing to be by her side at a time like this.’
Karen could see he’d lost any remaining sympathy he might’ve had for her condition. He’d never understood it, not really. He’d been supportive for the first year, doing everything that required venturing outside, talking to her for hours, making allowances for her erratic behaviour – but he’d lost the ability to be compassionate when she hadn’t recovered as quickly as expected. Everyone had their limits, she guessed, and he’d found his.
‘I said I’d call her again at nine-ish.’ Her breathing shallowed.
Mike shook his head, turned away from her. ‘I’m going to work then. Let me know if you get your shit together, and I’ll take you to your best friend.’ He slammed the kitchen door.
Karen clawed at the top buttons of her cotton shirt, popping a few as she attempted to reduce the restriction around her neck. Her breathing was out of control already, shallow breaths in rapid succession. She was going to choke. Her lips tingled as the carbon dioxide in her blood reduced. She had to act now or she’d faint. With trembling hands and a darkness in front of her eyes, she grappled in the cupboard under the sink.
She put her hand on the bag, withdrew it and began breathing in and out of it, the crinkling of the paper offering its usual reassuring sound.
The memory was fleeting – a sudden image striking her while she was washing her hair in the shower. Black hair extensions. A chair. Erin. The words: What does it matter she wanted to be Amy? Her own words, uttered in what everyone assumed to be a drunken stupor, repeating continually in her head. Was it a real memory? Or some horrible vision her mind had constructed, knowing now the body – the dead, murdered body – was Erin’s? It disappeared as quickly as it came to her. As hard as she tried to go back to it, make sense of it, it had gone. Despite the hot water hammering her body, Sophie shivered. Something was there, nudging right at the edge of her consciousness. Fear wrapped itself around her, crushing her – how had she conjured a memory like this? For now, the flashback, if that’s what it was, was out of reach, she’d lost her grasp on it.
She’d decided to go to work, regardless of the developments, regardless of her lack of sleep. She needed to be around others and keep active to stop the thoughts. Last night’s news had spread through every social network, the majority of her night taken up with messaging, shocked reactions, never-ending questions. The biggest, most asked question: who last saw Erin?
She’d see Amy at work. She craved contact with her. If she arranged her lunch break for the same time, she could go over Saturday night with her, try to unlock some memories. Real, helpful ones.
Avoiding both her parents so far this morning had been a challenge; a deep sigh of relief escaped her upon hearing the door slam as her dad exited. So, only her mother to face before she left. She’d prolong leaving her room until the last minute.
Sophie’s shoulders dipped. What an awful daughter she was. She should really be offering comfort to her mum. It’d been her best friend’s daughter – her godchild – who had been brutally murdered. The news was bound to be full of it today and her mum was going to be alone in the house for most of it. Sophie knew Mondays were bad for her mum. Counselling. Every weekend the build-up began to affect her. It started around Saturday afternoon, like she was tensing up for it; her moods would flare, she’d be unpredictable. The inevitable accumulation of fear usually erupted by Sunday evening. Of course, her mind had been occupied this weekend; the usual effects hadn’t been observable. This morning, though, she’d be in full panic mode. Sophie wondered whether she’d even make this morning’s session. Maybe she would attempt to venture to Rachel’s instead, to be with her?
Sophie’s stomach roiled. Thoughts of how this was going to progress, this awful situation, whizzed through her head. So many people were going to be pulled into it. This was just the beginning, the immediate aftermath of the shock. What was to come was unknown. This sort of thing had never happened before. It was a first. A first no one had seen coming, an unexpected blackness that hadn’t been forecast. The fallout was going to be huge.
A ping. A notification on her laptop. A cold sensation shot through her. A new email. Sophie knew, even before picking it up, what it was. She hesitated. Her breathing uneven. Swallowing rapidly, she opened the mail.
Another one.
No doubt remained now. It was her.
Who was sending these?
The smell was like nothing she knew. Lindsay Wade had arrived at the hospital morgue early – an unfortunate trait at times like this, as now she was being treated to an extra post-mortem, the one prior to her murder victim. She knew she was unlikely ever to get used to them, despite having been present at a fair few. It wasn’t merely the stench. It was the way they manoeuvred the body on the cold, metal gurney. The way the head of the deceased slammed up and down on the block, while they hacked at the chest wall, pulled the tongue out from within, a sickening thud reverberating around the white sterile room with each action.
She shuddered. It was barbaric. A flash of her dad came to her. How she wished she didn’t know about these procedures. Ignorance was preferable to knowledge sometimes. Images of his face the last time she’d seen him alive, his greying skin screaming out for oxygenated blood as his shallow breaths failed to circulate