The Doctor's Wife

THE DOCTOR’S WIFE AN ABSOLUTELY GRIPPING AND UNPUTDOWNABLE PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER WITH A SHOCKING TWIST DANIEL HURST BOOKS BY DANIEL HURST The Holiday Home The Doctor’s Wife The Couple in the Cabin The Intruder What My Family Saw The Accident We Tell No One The Couple at Table Six We Used to Live Here The Wrong Woman He Was a Liar The Woman at the Door The Passenger Til Death Do Us Part Available in Audio The Couple in the Cabin (Available in the UK and the US) CONTENTS Prologue TWO WEEKS EARLIER Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Epilogue The Holiday Home Hear More from Daniel Books by Daniel Hurst A Letter from Daniel PROLOGUE As the woman at the window watched the activity on the beach, she knew the body on the sand was going to be the event that turned this quiet seaside village into a hive of activity for several days to come. This isolated place was usually only frequented by local residents, delivery drivers from the nearby towns and the occasional tourist passing in and out of Scotland. Now it would be teaming with forensic experts, journalists and bystanders harbouring a morbid curiosity. That was the thing about the appearance of a body in an unexpected place. It demanded attention. And it always got it. That was never more evident than on the day that the body of Drew Devlin was discovered sprawled out on the stretch of sand that lined this picturesque piece of coastline in the North of England. The wet, white T-shirt that clung to the twisted torso was the same colour as the cloud-filled sky above, and the temperature of the corpse was as cold as the weather in this rainswept, wind-battered part of the country. The black shorts covering the pale, lifeless thighs were almost as dark as the sky on the horizon, another storm incoming for a village that had already endured so much and had even more trying challenges to come. And one grey trainer on the left foot, slowly losing its pristine condition as specks of dirt and sand were flicked onto it by the rolling tide that washed against the body in a weary fashion, and what could be considered a disrespectful one too. The shoe that should have been on the right foot was missing, but if anybody looked for it then they would surely see it bobbing around in the sea several feet away, like a ship without a sailor, drifting aimlessly, most likely to come back to land with a bump at some point but, for now, completely at the mercy of the ice-cold current. But nobody was looking at the shoe. Everybody was looking at the person it belonged to and that included the woman at the window. She kept watching as the emergency services came to carry out their grim tasks, and she continued to watch as the sun began to set on this terrible day. That was because the body TWO WEEKS EARLIER ONE FERN As the car I’m a passenger in comes to a stop on the sweeping driveway of my idyllic new home, a million thoughts are running through my mind. For me, the day an adult moves to a new house is not too dissimilar to the day a child starts at a new school. There’s an air of nervousness that accompanies the worry of whether the right thing is being done. There is the dull ache of anxiety in the pit of the stomach caused by the regret of leaving old friends behind and the possibility that new friends might be harder to come by in this fresh setting. And, most of all, there is the unmistakable realisation that no matter what happens next, life is never going to be the same again. How could I describe this new place? For starters, I’d say it’s very different to the house I’m moving from, although that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, who can ever complain about upsizing, right? But there’s more to life than size, as any woman likes to remind a man, so I have always been smart enough to look beyond that and get into the details. Technically, this property is a beautiful structure, a two-floor whitewashed building consisting of four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen I once only dreamed about and the type of dining room that would be perfect for entertaining guests. That’s before even mentioning the spacious lounge area and the gorgeous back garden that seems to go on forever. But as good as all that is, it’s more about what’s at the front of the location of the house, which is even more stunning than what’s inside or behind it. That’s because the property couldn’t be located in a more idyllic spot. Built just across the road from sand and water, the house overlooks the Solway Firth, a stretch of water between England and Scotland that forms part of the border between the two nations. And what a pretty border it is. On a day with fine weather, much like today, and the previous day I came here to inspect the property, the views are incredible, you can see for miles both along the water’s edge and also straight across, meaning a person can