No Turning Back: The can’t-put-it-down thriller of the year

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Joni gave her a sweet smile and Anna leaned down in front of the pushchair. ‘You said mama. Oh darling, you said mama!’

‘Mama!’ Joni said again, giggling in delight.

Anna thought about how Guy would react when she told him later. Then she remembered: he was gone and soon the house they’d worked so hard to make their own would belong to someone else. She felt the tears come again and squeezed her face into Joni’s chubby neck. This wasn’t how she’d envisaged things panning out, a single mum living in a downsized property, ruled over by some upstart at work. But she was managing, wasn’t she? And Joni was happy. That was what was most important.

‘Right, we better go say goodnight to your granddad before you start wanting your dinner.’

She headed towards the small patch of beach that lay in the lighthouse’s shadow, leaving the chatter from the busier part of the beach behind. It was empty here, apart from the odd seagull or two, due to the lack of sunlight. She used the large wheels on Joni’s buggy to negotiate the pebbles before stopping right at the sea’s edge, the soft waves lapping at the pram’s wheels, making Joni giggle. Anna sat on one of the steps leading to the concrete platform where the lighthouse stood, the craggy rocks behind it. She could smell the new varnish from the lighthouse’s glossy red door at its front. Her gran must have got someone to repaint it. A crab skittered out of view at the sight of Anna, and a seagull landed on one of the lighthouse’s windows above.

Joni clapped her hands as she looked up at the lighthouse. Anna smiled and quietly sang the song her gran said her father used to sing to Anna when he’d brought her here as a baby:

Goodnight to the sea, goodnight goodnight

Let it tickle our toes all mermaid-like,

Goodnight to the sea, goodnight goodnight

Seaweed and cockles to tuck us up tight

‘I did okay today, Dad,’ she whispered as she looked up at the lighthouse’s highest window. ‘It was tough going back, leaving your granddaughter behind. But I did it.’ She took a deep breath, trying not to look at the hint of the rocks behind the lighthouse. ‘Night night, Dad,’ she whispered.

She’d been doing this ever since her father died when she was eleven, walking along the beach and wrapping his old blanket around her shoulders as she stared up at the lighthouse, yearning to turn back time. Her mother never asked where she’d been when she slipped back home after dark, just continued staring out into the distance, her brother barely looking up from his homework.

A cloud crept across the sun, the air cooling slightly. For the first time, Anna noticed black clouds hovering out to sea. Looked like a storm was coming. Time to head home for a seafood pasta before wrapping herself up in Joni’s bedtime routine. It could be a chore sometimes, especially today, when she would be exhausted from work, desperate to put her feet up instead of being soaked by bath bubbles and protests when Joni didn’t want to get out of her bath. But ever since splitting up from Guy, her time with Joni felt even more precious. They tried to split the days they each had their daughter evenly, but Anna missed her desperately when she didn’t have her. She liked knowing Joni was upstairs asleep when the night drew in.

That night, she’d have to do some prep work for the show the next day, feet curled under her on her Chesterfield sofa, maybe some Joni Mitchell, Joni’s namesake, playing from the old record player her dad had left her. If she had time, she could prepare dinner for the next day. She liked to cook the food she foraged from the sea: cockles and limpets, bladderwrack and sweetoar weed. She’d immerse herself in the routine of twisting and prying the meat from the shells, cleaning the seaweed then adding it all to stews or imbuing them in all sorts of delicious flavours. She’d become famous for her foraged meals among the village community, the regular dinner parties she threw with Guy were a popular feature among their friends.

What now? Would she continue with those dinner parties, all alone?

‘Oh pull yourself together, Anna,’ she said to herself.

She stood and went to push the buggy back up towards the path but noticed there were now three teenagers sitting on it cross-legged a few metres up, passing a cigarette between them.

Or maybe it was a joint?

Anna thought of the radio show that morning, and one particular caller who spoke about how her once mild-mannered son had turned into a violent thug after years of drug abuse.

She paused a moment. The teenagers looked scruffy, different from the kids she usually saw around the village. They looked more like the kids who haunted the rundown dockyard area of Ridgmont Waters just beyond the lighthouse, known by locals as The Docks. She helped her gran with some community work there sometimes. Generally, the kids were decent enough, troubled backgrounds but just kids at the end of the day. But there had been some trouble lately with a particular gang of teenagers – robberies mainly, one or two that had even turned ugly. It had been all Anna’s friends had been able to talk about at their last get-together a couple of weeks before. Usually it was easy to forget about The Docks, which was separated from the village by the lighthouse and a large expanse of green. But the fact was, The Docks was just a five-minute walk from the heart of the village, the recent thefts ramming that home for villagers.

One of the teenagers looked up, a kid of about sixteen or seventeen with lank black hair and an ill-fitting leather jacket on, despite the heat. His eyes fell to Joni, and Anna felt a quiver of fear.

Before she’d had Joni, she’d think ‘screw them’ and bowl past. Not now though.

‘Let’s go another way,’ Anna said, pushing Joni’s buggy up the pebbles towards the field that divided the village and The Docks. There was a path that led from it right into the heart of the village and its cobbled streets. She could walk through the village then back down to her new estate. It might add another five minutes onto her journey but she didn’t want to risk it.

The teenagers stood up and started heading towards her.

Anna quickened her step towards the field, heart ricocheting against her chest. Joni squirmed to get out of her pushchair, something she’d taken to doing lately.

Anna peered over her shoulder, saw the teenagers were getting closer.

All the scenarios she’d imagined of Joni being hurt seemed to cram inside her mind. She started jogging, the pushchair juddering over the pebbles as she dashed towards the green.

Suddenly, another teenager appeared over a brow in the green, this one dressed in a school uniform.

He looked frantic, eyes wild…and he was running towards her.

Anna stopped, glancing back at the teenagers. She was trapped between them. Was this some kind of set-up, a chance to rob her?

She reached into her bag, wrapping her fingers around the sharp end of her red tail comb.

The schoolboy drew closer, his pale face slick with sweat, his blue eyes confused.

He slowed down and blinked as he looked at Anna, body swaying slightly as he shook his head. He was clearly out of it. ‘I won’t let you hurt me,’ he hissed. Then he started striding towards her again.

Anna backed away, confused. ‘I don’t know you.’

‘Hey, lady!’ one of the teenagers behind Anna shouted.

She swivelled around, frantically looking between the three teenagers and the schoolboy.

What were they going to do?

When she turned back, the schoolboy was running at her, nearly within reach of Joni! Anna scrambled around in her bag for her purse and held it out to him. ‘Just take it!’ she said, shoving it into his chest.

‘Leave me alone!’ he screamed. He pulled out a small knife.

Anna’s senses immediately heightened, honing in on the knife, the glint of its silver blade filling her sight; the screech of the nearby seagulls invading her ears like metal scraping against bone. She imagined she could smell the rusty stench of it, its acrid taste on the tip of her tongue.

Anna pulled her comb out of her bag and yanked the pushchair so Joni was behind her, protected.

‘Get away!’ Anna screamed, jutting the end of the comb at the schoolboy, the handles of Joni’s pram digging into her back.

The schoolboy lifted his arm, the knife poised in his hand.

Adrenalin rushed through Anna. She lunged at him, trying to grab the knife off him. He swiped it towards her, and Anna felt a searing pain in her cheek as the blade sliced through her skin like butter. She put her fingers to her skin, felt warm blood spill over them.

It shocked her into submission. She staggered backwards but he followed her, swiping the knife at her again.

Joni screamed out and the pushchair toppled over.

The schoolboy darted towards it.

Horror filled Anna to the brim, made her head buzz, made her whole body tingle. She ran towards the schoolboy and raised the sharp end of the comb.

He twisted around to look at her then suddenly lost his footing, falling against her.

Against the comb.

She felt blood slick against her hand, heard a gurgling sound.

The schoolboy fell to the ground, knees thudding onto the pebbles as he clutched at the comb protruding from his neck.

Anna stared at him, eyes blinking. Then she heard Joni cry.

She ran to her daughter, yanking the pushchair up so she could release Joni from it with trembling fingers. Joni reached out for her mother and Anna could see she was fine, she was okay.

‘Oh man, he’s gonna die,’ the lank-haired teenager said, dropping a teddy from his hands – Joni’s favourite teddy, a tiny blue bear. Anna realised then she must have dropped it. That’s why the three teenagers had followed her, to return it.

Anna turned back to the schoolboy. He was lying on the pebbles now, clawing at the comb in his neck.

‘No, no he won’t die,’ Anna said, running to him and kneeling beside him.

The boy looked at her, eyes wide with fear. He looked so young.

He suddenly yanked the comb out of his neck.

Blood spurted over Anna’s face.

‘Oh God, oh Jesus,’ Anna said, using her free hand to press it against the blood. But it wouldn’t stop, it was going everywhere, the pebbles turning red with it, the warmth of it seeping under Anna’s nails.

‘Call an ambulance,’ she screamed at the teenage boys behind her, yanking off her thin yellow cardigan and pressing it against the wound as the boy choked on his own blood.

The cardigan turned instantly red, everything was red, it was even getting into Anna’s eyes, Joni’s hair as it spurted out from the boy’s neck. ‘Oh God, don’t die, don’t die,’ she screamed.

The boy suddenly went still. He looked up towards the gathering clouds, eyes softening.

Then he was gone.