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While You Sleep: A chilling, unputdownable psychological thriller that will send shivers up your spine!
Stephanie Merritt
A PACY, CHILLING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO STOP READING!‘Intensely atmospheric’ Mail on SundayA house full of secrets…The McBride house lies on a remote Scottish island, isolated and abandoned. A century ago, a young widow and her son died mysteriously there. Last year a local boy, visiting for a dare, disappeared without a trace.A woman alone at night…For Zoe Adams, the house offers an escape from her failing marriage. But when night falls, her peaceful retreat is disrupted—scratches at the door, strange voices—and Zoe is convinced she is being watched.A threat that lurks in the shadows…The locals tell Zoe the incidents are merely echoes of the house’s dark past. Zoe is sure the danger is all too real—but can she uncover the truth before she is silenced?
Copyright (#ub5e9202d-7191-5822-bded-edca3cf7cbc1)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © Stephanie Merritt 2018
Excerpt from A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland © Sara Maitland 2008
Reproduced by kind permission of Granta Books
Cover design Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Cover photograph © Jan Bickerton / Trevillion Images (http://www.trevillion.com/)
Stephanie Merritt asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008248208
Ebook Edition © March 2018 ISBN: 9780008248222
Version: 2018-06-11
Epigraph (#ub5e9202d-7191-5822-bded-edca3cf7cbc1)
‘When those are the very things one is hoping to escape from through silence, it is not at all surprising that one starts to see one’s longings as “works of the devil” and this sense of the demonic is itself intensified by the silence.’
Sara Maitland, A Book of Silence
Table of Contents
Cover (#ud1ced428-c698-5c1b-b546-c00176994a68)
Title Page (#u61090d8e-03d8-5fe1-8e79-bd883c3d0471)
Copyright (#u46d10cc2-e3ed-5006-b73a-c2cefd5cde6a)
Epigraph (#uaa5a2839-74b6-51a3-9bc0-0f2131b4b5a6)
Prologue (#u7a66e72e-417f-5bef-9c05-399dd5291ea0)
Chapter 1 (#u32a8b216-5655-51b1-a4ca-f42e2866a303)
Chapter 2 (#ub2eaab1f-aee8-5411-ad7b-616262491e5a)
Chapter 3 (#ud7258706-dc52-5011-a0a7-cab7778de7e3)
Chapter 4 (#u09eccbe9-f1e1-53b4-9f35-de5b3ff1b82f)
Chapter 5 (#u106d0f3b-59e0-5c7f-a4f3-6147f7e4fc3e)
Chapter 6 (#u92709252-af4e-50fa-9484-580727741f0c)
Chapter 7 (#u65b3dbf0-c286-5e4b-9d44-21eadebe93b4)
Chapter 8 (#u7020333f-cb20-5977-8970-771f05ff8dc7)
Chapter 9 (#udb3b7e71-b5bf-544c-a808-3798c5ba9269)
Chapter 10 (#u03515986-3009-5f0f-b51b-5b13e50cd731)
Chapter 11 (#u1db6e2ee-0219-5635-9a3f-25f6642e693a)
Chapter 12 (#u8a67efbb-2be5-511f-b5c1-59132e74f595)
Chapter 13 (#uad80eff4-d0bc-5744-a68a-e937dc19a7ff)
Chapter 14 (#udbc47fe1-1a25-5564-965c-a6677d144b6e)
Chapter 15 (#uababa53d-2915-5e32-b096-d9ff28521dbb)
Chapter 16 (#u20db89fd-2611-5b2e-9778-59adfd458c69)
Chapter 17 (#ua8b17e15-a2f5-51b2-b02b-8e56953b0b99)
Chapter 18 (#u84d38075-460b-56cf-9585-94059797bd31)
Chapter 19 (#u8aca4762-5aff-50f6-9337-8949ed4c8374)
Chapter 20 (#u95b9f7f6-675b-5338-bd2c-f117a46ca29b)
Chapter 21 (#u643bf615-a189-5c32-9e35-028511895839)
Chapter 22 (#uc3ee695e-7a19-51c3-867d-f3787c03f095)
Chapter 23 (#u3a06673a-388a-512f-bb83-8b72b311f966)
Chapter 24 (#u12f4739c-3894-5c95-9910-396857d26b60)
Chapter 25 (#ub05fb265-cdda-5268-b1b1-b209a259f568)
Chapter 26 (#uf09579ca-2623-5294-b9fe-34bef205934d)
Also by Stephanie Merritt (Writing as S. J. Parris) (#u9610a646-d0d2-5a1b-83ca-fc02ddb485e2)
About the Author (#u7312cc7e-eeb1-5a85-be75-8606fc4aa7e6)
About the Publisher (#u8988c30e-475c-5cb6-b332-b6131fa504f8)
Prologue (#ub5e9202d-7191-5822-bded-edca3cf7cbc1)
It begins, they say, with a woman screaming.
You can’t tell at first if it’s pleasure or pain, or that tricky place where the two meet; you’re almost embarrassed to hear it, but if you listen closer it comes to sound more like anguish, a lament torn from the heart: like an animal cry of loss, or defiance, or fury, carried across the cove from cliff to cliff on the salt wind.
If you stand on the beach with your back to the sea, they’ll tell you, looking up at the McBride house, you might catch, behind tall windows on the first floor, the fleetest shift of a shadow. All the rooms dark through glass; not even the flicker of a candle, only the shape that shivers at that same window and vanishes, quick as breath, under the broken reflections of clouds and moon. They’ll say the woman’s keening grows louder as the gale seeks unprotected corners of the house, swirls around the pointed gables, shakes the weathervane on the turret and rattles the attic windows in their frames. But listen again; when the wind drops, there is nothing but the wild sea, and the occasional drawn-out moans of the seals beyond the headland.
Only on certain nights, the islanders will tell incomers; when the moon is high and the air whipped up like the white-peaked waves in the bay. Be patient and you might hear her. Plenty will swear to it.
The two boys crouch by a ridge of rocks at the foot of the cliff, watching the house. It is still half a ruin; naked beams poke into the moonlit sky like the ribs of some great flayed beast. They hesitate, each waiting for the other to move. They have come this far to test the old stories, they can’t lose face now. The summer night is mild and clear; too balmy for ghosts. They are girding themselves when the screaming starts. They turn to one another in astonishment; fear makes them giggle.
‘Let’s go,’ whispers the nimble, ginger boy. He has his phone in his hand, ready to capture it on film.
But his companion has frozen to the spot, stricken, his eyes stretched wide and fixed on the house.
‘Come on, we’ll miss it.’
The heavier boy retreats a few paces, shaking his head.
The ginger one hesitates, his lip curling with scorn. ‘Pussy.’
He sets off over the sand and marram grass to the half-open door, his phone held out at arm’s length. Left behind on the beach, his friend watches him disappear into the shadows.
The waves break and retreat, over and over, dragging layers of shingle into the restless water. A new scream echoes across the beach, a child’s cry this time. The last traces of light ebb from the sky and behind the windows of the McBride house there is nothing but solid darkness.
1 (#ub5e9202d-7191-5822-bded-edca3cf7cbc1)
The island appeared first as an inky smudge on the horizon, beaded with pinholes of light against the greying sky. As the ferry ploughed on, carving its path through the waves, the land took form and seemed to rise out of the sea like the hump of a great creature yet to raise its head. Bright points arranged themselves into clusters, huddled into the bay at the foot of the cliff, though the intermittent sweep of the lighthouse remained separate at the furthest reach of the harbour wall.
The only passenger on the deck leaned out, gripping the rail tighter with both hands, anchored by the smooth grain of the wood beneath her fingers. Doggedly the ferry rose and fell, hurling up a cascade of spray each time it crested a wave and dropped away. Wind whipped her hair into salt strands that stung her lips; she wore a battered flying jacket and pulled up the collar against the damp as she planted her feet, swaying with the motion of the boat, determined to take it all in from here as they docked and not through the smeared window of the passenger lounge downstairs, with its fug of wet coats and stewed tea. Outside, the wind tasted of petrol and brine. She pushed her fringe out of her face and almost laughed in disbelief when the noise of the engines fell away and the men in orange waterproofs began throwing their coils of rope and shouting orders at one another as the boat nosed a furrow through oily water to bump alongside the pier. Two days of travelling and it was almost over. She tried not to think about the old saying that the journey mattered more than the arrival. She tried not to think about what she had left behind, thousands of miles away.
The ferry terminus hardly warranted the name; there was a car park and one low, pebble-dashed building, the word ‘Café’ flaking off a sign above the door. She edged down the gangplank, pushing her wheeled art case in front of her and yanking the large suitcase behind like two unwilling toddlers, a travel easel in its holder unwieldy under her arm. Each time it hit the rail as she turned to wrestle with one bag or other, she was grateful that now, in mid-October, the ferry was not crowded, so that at least she did not have to worry about how many of her fellow passengers she had maimed in the process of herding her luggage ashore.
At the head of the slipway she saw a man in a leather jacket, its zip straining over a comfortable paunch. He was holding a home-made cardboard sign that read ‘Zoe Adams’; as soon as his eyes locked on to hers and met with recognition, he broke into a broad smile and started waving madly at her, as if he were trying to attract her attention through a crowd, though she was only yards away and the few remaining foot passengers had all dispersed. She smiled back, hesitant. He was around her own age, she thought; early forties, with thinning blond hair and a round, open face, cheeks reddened by island weather or a taste for drink, or perhaps both together. He approached her with an anxious smile.
‘Mrs Adams?’
She hesitated. She could have let it go, but there would only be more questions later on.
‘Uh – actually, it’s Ms.’
‘Eh?’
Zoe tilted her head in apology.
‘I’m not a Mrs.’
‘Oh.’ He looked afraid he had offended. ‘My mistake. You’re no married, then?’
She made a non-committal noise and set down one of her cases so that she could stretch out a hand. ‘You must be Mr Drummond?’
‘Mick, please.’ He beamed again, grasping her fingers and shaking them with a vigour intended to convey the sincerity of his welcome. ‘I’m the one who’s been sending all the emails.’ He released her hand and held up the sign with a self-conscious laugh; the wind almost snatched it from his grip. ‘My wife’s idea. I told her, it’s no as if there’s going to be hundreds of them pouring off the boat, but she said it would spare you feeling lost when you first set foot here.’
Zoe smiled. If only that were all it took.
‘It was very thoughtful of her.’
‘Aye, she’s like that. Kaye. You’ll meet her. Here, let me take those.’ He tucked the sign under his arm and hefted her cases into each hand, nodding across the car park to an old Land Rover, its flanks crusted with mud.
Zoe looked back at the harbour as he loaded her bags into the trunk. Through the lit windows of the ferry she could see the shapes of people cleaning, swinging plastic bags of trash, ready for the return trip, the boat garish in its brightness against the encroaching dark of sea and sky. The gulls shrieked their tireless warnings. Here, the rolling of the waves seemed louder and more insistent, as if the sea wanted to make sure you did not forget its presence. She wondered if she would grow used to that, after a while. A faint wash of reddish light stained the line of the horizon, but it was too overcast for a proper sunset like those in the photographs. Still, there would be time.
‘Hop in, then.’ Mick held the door open for her. For one panicked moment she thought he expected her to drive, before she realised she had made the usual mistake. That perverse habit of driving on the left. Perhaps she would get used to that in time, too. The quick flurry of palpitations subsided.
‘Is it far, to the house?’
‘Five miles, give or take.’ He glanced over his shoulder, shuffled his feet. ‘Look – it’s been a long journey, I know, and you’ll be tired, but we wondered if you’d like to come by the pub for a wee drink before I take you up to the house?’
Zoe began a polite refusal but he cut across her.
‘Thing is, we’ve music on tonight, local band, it’s a thing we do on Thursdays, so there’ll be a lot of folk out and we thought – well, it was Kaye’s idea – she thought it would be nice for you to say hello while they’re all in one place. Since you’re staying a while, you know. Only a wee glass.’ He twisted his hands together and looked at his boots before raising his eyes briefly to hers, as if he were asking for a date. ‘She’s dying to meet you,’ he added. ‘They all are.’
Zoe sucked in her cheeks. Christ. She was far from dying to meet them, whoever they were; quite the opposite. She felt grimy and dishevelled from the overnight flight, the five-hour train journey and two hours on the ferry; she probably didn’t smell too fresh either, under all her layers. And the point was to be anonymous here, to slip quietly into her coastal house and be left alone. She had not come here to make friends. But it had been naïve, she now realised, to imagine that a newcomer to a small community, out of season, would not immediately become a subject of gossip and speculation. If she was going to stay here a few weeks, it would be wise not to offend the locals on day one.
‘I’m not really dressed for going out,’ she said, though the protest was half-hearted.
‘You’re grand,’ Mick said, giving her a cursory glance. ‘It’s no as if they’ll all be in dinner suits.’ He clicked his seatbelt. ‘Just the one. And then I’ll run you up to the house, I promise. We can leave all the bags in the car.’
Zoe leaned her forehead against the window, the cold solidity of the glass reflecting her exhaustion back at her. Without make-up, the jet lag and all the sleepless nights of recent months were etched on her face, like a confession. Was that why she was so reluctant to go to the pub, she wondered – plain old vanity? Was it that she didn’t want to be judged by her new neighbours until she could at least brush her hair and paint some colour into her washed-out face? Of course, it could be a scam; she would blithely go in for one drink and when she came out there would be no sign of Mick or the car, or her bags. But if she was going to think like that, the whole thing could be a scam, as Dan had repeatedly pointed out. All she had seen was a website – an amateurish one at that – and a few emails. Maybe the house didn’t even exist. If that were the case, it was too late to worry about it now; she had already transferred the money.
‘Sure,’ she said, forcing enthusiasm. ‘Why not?’
‘Lovely. I wouldn’t hear the last of it from Kaye if we’d no given you a proper welcome.’ Zoe could hear the relief in his voice as the engine belched into life. ‘You’ll like it – they’re a colourful crowd. I mean – it’s no exactly the nightlife of New York,’ he added, as if fearing he might have created false expectations, ‘but then I suppose you’ve come here to get away from all that.’
