Left You Dead

Peter James

Contents (236)

LEFT YOU DEAD

PETER JAMES

100

101

102

103

104

105

106

107

108

109

110

111

112

113

114

GLOSSARY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In memory of our beloved Oscar, and to all pets everywhere, thank you for the unconditional love you bring your humans. And a special shout-out to Spooky, Wally, Willy and Woo, and all the rest of our furry and feathered gang!

1 Sunday 1 September

Most Sundays, at some point, they bickered over something. Mostly about nothing important. And mostly it blew over quickly when they just looked at each other and laughed it off. And this Sunday afternoon, coming up to their fourth wedding anniversary in just a few weeks’ time, was no exception. Today’s bickering had been about cat litter.

Niall’s driving scared Eden at the best of times, although he’d only had the one accident. A few years ago, he was driving them home from a date and had rolled their car. He had been showing off, stupidly, he confessed. They’d just bought a new – well, second-hand – Golf GTI and he was demonstrating how quick it was when, in the murmured words of one of the traffic cops to colleagues attending the scene, he’d run out of talent.

Today they’d been arguing for the past half-hour as they headed home. And, as ever when Niall was annoyed, he drove their BMW faster than normal. They’d already had one near miss as he’d passed a car towing a caravan, pulling in just feet in front of an oncoming Land Rover.

Great, Eden thought, I’m going to die any minute and my last words on earth will have been ‘cat litter’.

‘Look, do we really need to get it now, darling?’ Niall said, calming a little. ‘I want to try to catch the end of the Grand Prix.’

‘You can watch it on catch-up.’

‘Not the same.’ He wound down his window and chucked a tired piece of gum out, fished in his pocket and chewed on a fresh tab.

‘I wish you wouldn’t do that – wrap it up and put it in a bin,’ she tutted. ‘We do need to get it now, you were going to pick it up on Friday and you forgot,’ she reminded him. ‘And you were going to pick it up yesterday and you forgot again.’