Sarah Pearse lives by the sea in South Devon with her husband and two daughters. She studied English and Creative Writing at the University of Warwick and worked in Brand PR for a variety of households brands before following her passion for writing. Her experiences living in the Swiss Alps in her early twenties inspired her acclaimed debut novel, The Sanatorium, which was an instant Sunday Times and New York Times Top Ten bestseller in hardback, and a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick. Her eagerly anticipated next thriller, The Retreat, will be published in Spring 2022. You can find Sarah on Twitter @SarahVPearse and Instagram @sarahpearseauthor
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1
January 2020
Day one
The funicular from the valley town of Sierre to Crans-Montana scores a near-perfect vertical line up the mountainside.
Slicing through snow-covered vineyards and the small towns of Venthône, Chermignon, Mollens, Randogne and Bluche, the route, over four kilometres long, takes passengers over 900 metres up the mountain in just twelve minutes.
Off-peak, the funicular is usually half empty. Most people drive up the mountain or take the bus. But today, with the roads almost stationary thanks to heavy traffic, it’s full.
Elin Warner stands on the left of the packed carriage, absorbing it all: the fat flakes of snow collecting on the windows, the slush-covered floor piled high with bags, the lanky teenagers shoving through the doors.
Her shoulders tense. She’s forgotten how kids that age can be: selfish, unaware of anyone but themselves.
A sodden sleeve brushes her cheek. She smells damp, cigarettes, fried food, the musky-citrus tang of cheap aftershave. Then comes a throaty cough. Laughter.
A group of men are jostling through the doorway, talking loudly, bulging North Face sports bags on their backs. They are squeezing the family next to her further into the carriage. Into her. An arm rubs hers, beer-breath hot against her neck.
Panic pushes through her. Her heart is racing, thudding against her ribcage.
Will it ever stop?
It’s been a year since the Hayler case, and she’s still thinking about it, dreaming about it. Waking up in the night, sheets damp with sweat, the dream vivid in her head: the hand around her throat, damp walls contracting, closing in on her.
Then saltwater; frothing, sloshing over her mouth, her nose . . .
Control it, she tells herself, forcing herself to read the graffiti on the wall of the funicular.
Don’t let it control you.
Her eyes dance over the scrawled letters weaving up the metal:
Michel 2010 BISOUSXXX
HELENE & RIC 2016
Following the words up to the window, she startles. Her reflection . . . it pains her to look at it. She’s thin. Too thin.
It’s as if someone’s hollowed her out, carved the very core of her away. Her cheekbones are knife-sharp, her slanted blue-grey eyes wider, more pronounced. Even the choppy mess of pale blonde hair, the blur of the scar on her upper lip, don’t soften her appearance.
She’s been training non-stop since her mother’s death. Ten-K runs. Pilates. Weights. Cycling on the coast road between Torquay and Exeter in the blistering wind and rain.
It’s too much, but she doesn’t know how to stop, even if she should. It’s all she’s got; the only tactic to chase away what’s inside her head.
Elin turns away. Sweat pricks the back of her neck. Looking at Will, she tries to concentrate on his face, the familiar shadow of stubble grazing his chin, the untamable dark blond tufts of his hair. ‘Will, I’m feeling hot . . .’
His features contract. She can see the blueprint of future wrinkles in this anxious face, a starburst of lines around his eyes, light creases running across his forehead.
‘You okay?’
Elin shakes her head, tears pricking her eyes. ‘I don’t feel right.’
Will lowers his voice. ‘About this, or . . .’
She knows what he’s trying to say: Isaac. It’s both; him, the panic . . . they’re intertwined, connected.
‘I don’t know.’ Her throat feels tight. ‘I keep going over it, you know, the invitation, out of the blue. Maybe coming was the wrong decision. I should have thought about it more, or at least spoken to him properly before we let him book.’
‘It’s not too late. We can always go back. Say I had problems with work.’ Smiling, Will nudges his glasses up his nose with his forefinger. ‘This might count as the shortest ever holiday on record, but who cares?’
Elin forces herself to return his smile, a quiet sting of devastation at the contrast between then and now. How easily he’s accepted this: the new normal.
It’s the opposite of when they first met. Back then, she was peaking; that’s how she thinks of it now. At the pinnacle of her early-thirty-something life.
She’d just bought her first flat near the beach, the top floor of an old Victorian villa. Bijou, but high ceilings, views of a tiny square of sea.
Work was going well – she’d been promoted to DS, landed a big case, an important one – and her mother was responding well to the first round of chemo. She thought she was on top of her grief for Sam, dealing with it, but now . . .
Her life has contracted. Closed down to become something that would have been unrecognizable to her a few years ago.
The doors are closing now, thick glass panels sliding together. With a jolt, the funicular lurches upwards, away from the sta tion, accelerating.
Elin closes her eyes, but that only makes it worse. Every sound, every judder, is magnified behind her eyelids.
She opens her eyes to see the landscape flashing by: blurry streaks of snow-covered vineyards, chalets, shops.
Her head swims. ‘I want to get out.’
‘What?’ Will turns. He tries to mask it, but she can hear the frustration in his voice.
‘I need to get out.’
The funicular pulls into a tunnel. They plunge into darkness and a woman whoops.
Elin breathes in, slowly, carefully, but she can feel it coming – that sense of impending doom. All at once, her blood feels sticky moving through her yet also like it’s rushing everywhere at the same time.
More breaths. Slower, as she’d taught herself. In for four, hold, then out for seven.
It’s not enough. Her throat contracts. Her breath is coming shallow now, fast. Her lungs are fighting, desperately trying to drag in oxygen.
‘Your inhaler,’ Will urges. ‘Where is it?’
Scrabbling in her pocket, she pulls it out, pushes down: good. She presses again, feels the rush of gas hit the back of her throat, reach her windpipe.
Within minutes, her breathing regulates.
But when her head clears they’re there, in her mind’s eye.
Her brothers. Isaac. Sam.
Images, on loop.
She sees soft child faces, cheeks smattered with freckles. The same wide-set blue eyes, but while Isaac’s are cold, unnerving in their intensity, Sam’s fizz with energy, a spark that draws people in.
Elin blinks, unable to stop herself thinking about the last time she saw those eyes – vacant, lifeless, that spark . . . snuffed out.
She turns to the window but can’t unsee the images from her past: Isaac, smiling at her; that familiar smirk. He holds up his hands, but the five splayed fingers are covered in blood.
Elin extends her hand, but she can’t reach him. She never can.
(C) Sarah Pearse 2021