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PROLOGUE
Carrie would always remember the song playing on the radio.
Turn it up, she’d said.
Her sister had refused.The weather’s terrible. I can’t see through this rain.
I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you, but your ears don’t affect your ability to see, Carrie had replied, twisting the dial so that the music filled the car. How she regretted that flippancy now.
Smartass,her sister had snapped.It affects my perception. We’ll never get to this bloody wedding at this rate.
And when you need me in the dead of night,she’d sung, turning to perform to her sister, as if she held a microphone,I’m just a minute away… ooh, ooh.
Carrie. Turn it off. I need to concentrate.Her sister had frowned, leaning forward to peer out of the rain-lashed windscreen.The air con isn’t working. The screen’s fogging up.
Don’t be scared of the night…Carrie had sung along, making a face at Claire.
They were already dressed for their friends’ wedding in Devon, though Claire was driving in her bare feet instead of the heels she’d brought to wear. It wasn’t night-time, it was early afternoon, but the sky was black and the rain was torrential.
Lovely day for it, Carrie had said when she’d got into her sister’s Mini that morning.
By the time they’d got to Devon, the roads had become narrower and narrower, and now they were on a single-width road with hedges on each side that totally hid the fields beyond them. The road twisted, on and on, with no crossroads or junctions.
Please stop singing. If someone comes the other way, I’d have to reverse for about a mile,Claire had grumbled, just before the road widened out.Ah, thank god. More room to manoeuvre.
And when you need me in the dead of night, ooh, ooh,Carrie had repeated. She was bored. It had been a long drive from London.
The rain lashed down, impervious to anything but itself.
Carrie, I’m serious.
Whatever.Carrie had rolled her eyes. It was hard to think about that now. All of it was excruciating to remember, but especially that moment. Because it had been the last thing she had ever said to her sister.
Claire had said something indecipherable, panic on her face, and swerved.
Carrie remembered the sound of squealing tyres, and then the impact.
There was a huge, ear-splitting crash. That was all that Carrie remembered, that and a sense of the car being spun around like a fairground ride.
Afterwards, she learnt that a local lad had been driving at fifty miles an hour without his lights on and gone straight into them. It was the kind of road that was often quiet and the locals knew it so well that they didn’t think anything of bombing along it at speeds usually meant for A roads.
She woke up in hospital, alone. Her ribs were cracked and she’d fractured her collarbone, but apart from that, she was all right.
Claire wasn’t.
Carrie wasn’t even fully conscious when Claire passed away. When she’d come to, pain slicing her in half, she’d asked for Claire, but it wasn’t until later when a nurse administering her pain medication told her what had happened.I’m sorry for your loss, she’d said, her eyes sad.Is there anyone we can contact? There wasn’t anything we could see in your sister’s things.
No, it’s just me. Carrie had looked out at the rain in shock, not knowing what to do or how to react.There’s no one else.
The boy was charged, but the case would probably take forever to go to court. Carrie had felt for him: he was just eighteen. Just beginning life. Yes, he’d been stupid. But everyone was stupid at eighteen.
Despite that, he’d taken Claire’s life with his stupidity. He’d probably get a prison sentence and by the time he’d completed it, still have his life ahead of him, but she wouldn’t.
And when you need me in the dead of night,I’m just a minute away… ooh, ooh.
If she’d turned the radio down like Claire had asked, her sister might still be alive. She should have listened to Claire. She should have considered her feelings, but now, it was too late.
Carrie knew she hadn’t been a good sister to Claire for years. It had been stupid of her – just as stupid as that eighteen-year-old boy in the car he’d probably owned for less than a year – to be holding a grudge against her sister: the one family member she had left.
