Her best friend.
Ottilie had drugged her and left her to die, that was the commonly held belief. Yet the doctors had told her the amount of the drug in her body was only enough to knock her out, not to kill her.
Some stories deserve to be told. Does this one?
Emilia sighs, tearing Ottilie’s story into tiny shreds, then goes to join her family in the kitchen.
Acknowledgements
This has been a very special year for me professionally, and I owe it all to the wonderful team at Penguin Michael Joseph, who really have gone above and beyond. A HUGE thank you to the wonderful Maxine Hitchcock and Clare Bowron, who make my books so much better than they would have been, and whose edits, comments, notes and encouragement on The Woman Who Lied have been invaluable. Also to the rest of the amazing team: Emma Plater, Ellie Morley, Vicky Photiou, Ella Watkins, Beatrix McIntyre, Deirdre O’Connell, Hannah Padgham and Katie Corcoran. To Lee Motley, for the beautiful and striking book jackets, to Stella Newing and the audio team, who do such a fantastic job on the audio books, and to Hazel Orme, for her meticulous copyedits as well as her enthusiasm and kind words. I’m so grateful to you all.
To Juliet Mushens, the most talented, hardworking, kind and supportive agent in the world. It’s been ten years now that we’ve worked together and she has taken my career from strength to strength. She really is the agent of dreams! I’m also indebted to Liza DeBlock, Kiya Evans, Rachel Neely and Catriona Fida – the rest of the brilliant team at Mushens Entertainment.
To my foreign publishers, in particular to Eva Schubert and Duygu Maus at Penguin Verlag in Germany and Sarah Stein at Harper US and HarperCollins Canada.
To my West Country pals, Tim Weaver, Gilly Macmillan, C. L. Taylor and Cate Ray for all the laughs, support, texts and lunches. I couldn’t be without you, guys! And to the lovely L. V. Matthews and Kate Gray for all the word races and encouragement.
To all the authors who have given their time so generously to read and quote for my books over the years.
To the booksellers and librarians for getting my books into readers’ hands, and to book bloggers for the reviews, cover reveals, and so much more. I’m so grateful.
To the readers who have bought copies of my books, for the kind messages and reviews. I couldn’t do this job without you!
Thank you as always to my mum, dad and sister, Samantha, and to my in-laws and step-family.
To my children, Claudia and Isaac, who make me so proud every day.
And to my husband, Ty, on our twentieth year married. This book is for you.
THE WRONG SISTER
THE NEXT SUSPENSE-FILLED
CLAIRE DOUGLAS NOVEL
COMING SPRING 2024
AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW
EXCLUSIVE FIRST CHAPTER OVERLEAF
Prologue
I’ve been watching you for a while now. Days, weeks, months. I see you come and go from your blue-painted house with the broken aerial on the roof and the tiles that have gone mossy. You’re always in such a hurry, always rushing, rushing, rushing, in your own little world, clutching the handles of that cumbersome double buggy. You stand out with your red hair that sometimes shines like polished copper, but mostly looks as dull and uninteresting as you. You leave the house every weekday at exactly the same time with that harassed look on your face, stopping briefly to dump your kids at nursery before marching on to that dental surgery you work at. I bet you don’t appreciate your life, do you? Or your handsome husband, or your kids, or your house with the rose bush in the front garden that I’ve watched bloom and die? I bet you’re too busy thinking about what you haven’t got and taking for granted what you have.
That’s where I come in. Oh, I’m going to make you wish you’d cherished everything in your life. Treasured it.
Because I’m about to take it all away.
1
Tasha
Early September 2019
At the sound of a car I rush to the bay window that overlooks our street, but it’s not them. I stare with dismay at the sky. Everything always looks so much nicer in the sunshine but today the row of colourful terrace houses opposite are in shadow, making them look dingy. I wonder what Kyle will think of the area. There is graffiti on the wall around the corner, which is definitely no Banksy, and Eric, the man who likes to camp out in the entrance to the local park, is shouting obscenities. I resist the urge to dust the windowsill again. Instead I shake the cat’s hairs off the cushion on the armchair.
‘Tasha?’ I hear Aaron behind me and turn to see him standing in the middle of the room with a mug in each hand, still wearing his work overalls that smell of turps. ‘Relax. You’d think it was royalty coming to stay.’
‘Hardly,’ I say, taking one of the mugs. It’s too-strong coffee. You’d think, after being together for nearly eighteen years, he’d remember that I like it weak and milky.
‘Alice has been here loads of times.’
Yes, but Kyle hasn’t, I think, but I don’t say. Aaron will only take the piss out of me for wanting to impress Alice’s husband.
‘She grew up here,’ reasons Aaron. ‘Your childhood home wasn’t much bigger than this one.’
‘Yeah. In Clifton.’ Which is a lot posher than around here.
He shrugs and moves towards the sofa and sits down and I try not to wince at the indents he’s making in my freshly plumped cushions. ‘I don’t get why you’re so jittery about it. This was your idea.’
‘It was Alice’s actually.’
‘You didn’t have to say yes.’ He slurps his coffee. I can’t face mine and put the mug down on the coffee table. My feelings oscillate between dread at them arriving and excitement about seeing them.
‘Don’t you want to spend a week in their fancy Venetian apartment overlooking the Grand Canal?’ I tease.
‘Ah, well now, I didn’t say that, did I?’ He crosses his ankles like he’s settled in for the afternoon. No concept of time. His mother, Viv, always chuckles at this as though it’s something to be proud of. Yet the longer we’ve been together, the less funny it is. ‘Who wouldn’t want a slice of your sister’s lifestyle? And we’ve never been to Venice.’
When my sister had first proposed the idea that Aaron and I get away from it all on our wedding anniversary by staying in their holiday home for a week, while they came and looked after our twins, Aaron had jumped at the chance. Not least because it won’t cost him a penny and my husband likes a bargain. And I found myself thinking that, yes, I could be the type of person who whiles away hours in bijou pavement cafes, quaffing cocktails, or wandering carefree and childfree through high-ceilinged galleries marvelling over the sculptures. I pictured myself and Aaron, tanned and relaxed, kissing on the Rialto bridge, the years peeled back to reveal the people we were when we first fell in love as teenagers: rebellious, fun and besotted with each other. And even though the thought of walking in Alice and Kyle’s glamorous footsteps for a week massively appealed, now that it’s actually time to go I’m having doubts. For one thing I’ve never left the twins for longer than a night. And another, I just can’t imagine Alice and Kyle living our provincial life for a week. Will they judge us, snigger to each other as they slide between our bobbled sheets? No. I’m being unfair. Despite my sister’s success and wealth, she’s still the same Alice.