Looking for something to read on your coffee break? We have just the thing! Read on to see the first chapter of the absolutely gripping and unputdownable thriller That Woman, by Helen Monks Takhar.
Katherine
I’ve lost you in the neon river of high-visibility vests and chrome helmets flying ahead of my car towards the junction. You lot all look the same. Is that what they think of us? I can hear Iain say. I fight my exhaustion, rub my gritty eyes and try to find you again.
I slept in my car last night. I had that dream again, the one I told you about, the one I’ve had every night since I laid eyes on you. I’m back at my mother’s farm. A darkness
soaks into my bones; a black sky marbled with thick red veins envelopes me. Through the gloom, I see my top half is me today; a short swish of black hair, my strong arms shielded by a leather biker jacket. The bottom half is twelve-year-old me; my mother’s dirty cast-off jeans hanging off stringy legs. I’m starving. Barefoot, at first I’m treading on stubbled grass, but the terrain quickly changes; I’m stepping on burnt pasture, like a thousand tiny razors under my bony feet. My blood begins to wet the parched scrub below. Suddenly, the ground begins to separate into hundreds of deep gullies. My instinct is to freeze, but I know I must go forward; ahead of me is the gate to the far paddock and I have to reach it to end
this nightmare and stop my hunger. And I can’t see her, but I know my mother is watching. She thinks I’ll never make it. She thinks me too weak; she always tried to keep me so. She’s willing me to stop, but I keep pushing forward, despite the pain, despite the hungry chasms at my feet that want to swallow me, I force myself to place one foot in front of the other to reach the gate.
I woke up aching, bent double in the backseat of my Mini. My life has come to this because of you: an existence played out slumped in Costa armchairs and the car I can’t afford to insure anymore. This morning I’d decided to drive. I didn’t know where or why until I spotted you on your bike. Then, I knew exactly what I had to do.
I stop-start, tracking you through the clog of traffic edging towards De Beauvoir and into Shoreditch, then the City. At Liverpool Street you snake your way through stationary vehicles and out of my sight. Then, the jam begins to shift, allowing me to edge forward and mark you again, keeping just a few metres behind you as the traffic pushes down Gracechurch Street.
We’re nearly there.
Five cyclists have died on the junction ahead in the past year. Five young lives, just like yours, lost. The car in front turns to give me free passage to the edge of the advanced stop line at the junction. I’ve got you in my sights. It’s as if the world has finally decided to take my side, but no sooner than I start to move forward, cyclists flood into the void ahead. I’m surrounded once more by glinting handlebars and fluorescent young bodies.
I’m stuck.
I search desperately for you up ahead, then in my rearview. But you’ve disappeared. You’re going to enjoy another day on this earth; another day in my job, going home to my
flat, tucking yourself into the bed my partner and I chose together.
Then, there you are.
You’ve pulled up right next to my door, your eyes focused on the lights ahead. Your body, that close to me again, makes my blood rise. You’re inches from me, I could reach out, grab your arm, and beg you to tell me once and for all: Why? When I was ready to help you, why did you set out to snatch everything that was mine?
You start to move away, squeezing through the other cyclists to the very front of the pack. You flash that smile of yours. Of course, they let you pass. That devastating smile. That smile is like the warmest sun and the brightest light. That smile has undone my life.
Behind you, I move ahead too, breaching the cyclists’ zone and causing various slaps on my Mini’s roof and cries of What the fuck do you think you’re doing, you stupid cow? to
erupt as I force them out of my path. You swivel round to see what’s causing the uproar, but quickly turn back towards the lights, knowing they’ll change any second. You don’t notice my car creeping up right behind you, and you don’t wait for the green light before deciding to strike out on your own; up off your seat, powerful calves bearing down onto the pedals as you begin your acceleration. But it’s time you were stopped from getting ahead of me.
Your back wheel fills my sight.
I wonder what your body will feel like under me, as your bones crunch and collapse. I can almost smell your blood, running hot in the final moments before it gushes from you, cooling as it flows out onto the tarmac to drip into the waiting drains and down to an impassive Thames.
Only when this happens can I really begin again.
The lights change to green. I slam my foot down hard on the accelerator.
That Woman is out now in paperback. Buy your copy from your local bookshop, bookshop.org, Waterstones or Amazon.
