The Librarian

THE LIBRARIAN VALERIE KEOGH For my niece Sarah Hudson, with love CONTENTS 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 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Acknowledgments More from Valerie Keogh About the Author The Murder List About Boldwood Books 1 Ava Warrington checked her watch and swore softly. ‘Eleven, and not a minute later.’ That’s what her sister, Judy, had said, as she and her husband, Harris, had headed off earlier. She’d been right there. It wasn’t a minute later; it was over an hour and still no sign of them. Babysitting for her niece and nephew was a regular occurrence for Ava. It wasn’t the first time Judy and Harris were late back either, but even if they’d gone for a drink afterwards, they should have been home by now. Ava checked her mobile. No messages, and when she rang her sister’s number, it went straight to voicemail. Rather than leaving a message, she hung up, tossed the phone onto the seat beside her and picked up the remote to switch the TV to a news channel. When there were no reports of any disasters or terrorist attacks, she turned back to the music she’d been listening to on YouTube, then shook her head and switched the TV off altogether. Anxiety made her restless. She crossed barefooted to the window and peered out. Her Fiat was parked on the road, Harris’s Volvo parked in the driveway. The nearest streetlight wasn’t working, light from one further along doing a poor job of illuminating the street. Instead, it cast strange shadows. In the slight breeze that rolled along the street, they seemed to sway to a beat of their own. She tried to look away, but as they danced, they caught her up and dragged her back to a time when her life was filled with shade. Ten years before. During the freedom of those first few months in university, when she’d been stupidly naïve, she’d soaked up every new experience, desperate to prove she could belong. She’d almost wrecked her life in the process… and had destroyed someone else’s. Simon Loder. His name was tattooed into her brain, his smile on the face of every young man she met, anywhere, forcing her to do a double take even when she knew it couldn’t possibly be him. Ten years… almost to the day. Every year was bad, but this anniversary seemed more significant somehow. Perhaps it was why she’d felt so out of sorts recently… restless, snappy, easily distracted. A noise brought her spinning around. When it came again, she went out to the hall and listened. She knew every creak and squeak in her smaller, older house, but although she’d stayed in Judy’s several times over the years, she’d never concerned herself with the sounds this house made. If she’d given it any thought, she’d have said it didn’t make any. Judy had bought it off plan almost ten years before with money given to her by their parents. A four-bedroomed, detached house, it was the first step in the future she’d wanted… house, husband, children. Ava admired her sister’s single-minded determination to have her life work out as she’d planned. Admired it, but didn’t fully understand. Shame Judy’s plan to be home at eleven hadn’t worked out so well. Ava allowed annoyance to come to a simmer and turned to go back into the living room when the sound she’d heard came again. It brought her to a halt. She held her breath and cocked her head to listen. Clink, clink, clink. It was coming from upstairs. She’d been up and down a few times that evening to check on the children and hadn’t heard anything unusual. One hand on the banisters, she took the stairs a step at a time, stopping to listen before moving up again. Annoyance had been washed away by a wave of anxiety… she refused to call it fear. Whatever she called it, she had no choice but to go up. Until their parents deigned to return, Cody and Melissa were in Ava’s care. At the top of the stairway, the bedrooms of her nephew and niece were to each side. Their doors were slightly ajar and in the glow from the landing light, she could see both were asleep, the soft hush of their breathing slow and even. Clink, clink. The other three doors – to the main bedroom, a spare room, and the bathroom – were shut tight. Both bedrooms were to the back of the house, the main having a small balcony overlooking the rear garden and the open fields behind. These doors were alarmed, the alarm switched on when the family were out or heading to bed. But they weren’t on now. Had someone broken in? Ava strained to listen. Nothing. She lifted her mobile. Perhaps she should do the sensible thing and ring the police. It’s what Judy would have advised… as she had done all those years before, urging Ava to do the right thing, when she wasn’t sure what that was. ‘You must,’ Judy had said. So Ava had, and spent the last ten years in regret. She sighed and pushed the memory deeper. No, she wasn’t going to ring the police to tell them she’d heard a noise. How pathetic that would sound; she could almost picture their eyebrows raising. She wasn’t a child, nor was she a naïve university student any more; she needed