The Bed I Made

I'm at the airport now, coming back today, and I need to see you. What I did was wrong but let me apologise, Katie. I love you - you know I do. Kate Gibson, a translator of French crime thrillers, has always been spontaneous. But when she suddenly decides to leave London to spend six months alone on the wintry Isle of Wight, even her long-suffering best friend Helen is surprised. Kate insists she is going to the island because she has fond memories of being there on holiday as a child. The real reason is one she cannot yet give voice to, but it has a name. Richard. Suave, confident, sensual Richard, who she met in a Soho bar five years ago. She remembers feeling wanton and electric in his company, at the beginning. Kate must not let thoughts of her ex-lover distract her from her new life, translating manuscripts in a draughty seaside cottage and working shifts at Mary's Cafe. But as she tries to distance herself from her past, she is drawn to another story. A young woman called Alice Frewin has drowned in Freshwater Bay. They are still looking for the body, but across the island are whispers of suicide. Scanning the local newspaper, Kate realises with a jolt that she has met Alice - furiously smoking by the seawall the day before she disappeared. Now Kate is propelled into Alice's world, and all the while the spectre of Richard is looming... A tense and atmospheric tale of jealousy, obsession and betrayal, The Bed I Made establishes Lucie Whitehouse as a master of her genre.