We present an extract from Closing In, the new thriller by E.D. Thompson.
Caroline has a good life – a job she likes, a daughter she'd do anything for. In the midst of the Christmas rush, covering events and parties, the local journalist is looking forward to the holidays and having some quality time with the ones she loves. But Caroline’s good life is not her only life. When, out of the blue, she spots a frighteningly familiar figure in the crowd – a man she hasn’t laid eyes on in more than twenty years – she is jolted shockingly back to a secret past she’d hoped she’d put behind her forever. As Christmas nudges closer and alarming events unfold, she feels him closing in on her. Caroline must come up with a plan to keep this man away from her family. But just how far will one woman go to protect a good life? And just how far will one man go to destroy it?
I only saw him from the back, and in a long, black overcoat that gave no more than an approximation of his shape and size.
My hands, holding the new pyjamas I’d chosen for Ray’s boys for Christmas Eve, seemed to lose their grip and I shakily hung the garments back on the rack.
Part of me wanted to pursue him through the throng of shoppers, spin him round, find out if it was really him. The other part wanted to bolt.
Because if Mark was here, in the town where I lived now, where I had worked and built a life for the past thirty years, then he had come for me – hadn’t he?
Or could it be just co-incidence, him turning up?
All around me, Christmas shoppers were lifting down merchandise and examining it.
‘Do you not want those?’ a woman asked, looking at the pyjamas.
I was, as they say, lost for words and could merely shake my head.
The festive party music suddenly seemed oppressive. Had it always been this loud?
And I was too hot. I should have left my coat in the car.
Someone said: ‘Are you all right?’ but the voice floated away before I could catch it.
A huge yawn reared up in me so that I couldn’t hold it in.
Now the shop was starting to swim and I felt unsteady. I thought there was something I was meant to do, something important, but I couldn’t remember what.
I kept picturing Mark – if it was Mark – striding away from me through the people and clothes and tinsel.
He had got that limp from jumping into a haystack when he was fifteen, not knowing there was a pitchfork in there.
I had given up wondering if I would ever see him again. To be perfectly honest, I had thought he might very well be dead.
Someone knocked over a display of children’s slippers. I looked at the mess and heard someone tutting. Was it me who had sent the slippers scuttling? Did I do this?
‘Here, come and sit down.’ I turned and there was someone in a shop uniform, someone who belonged here, someone to help me. ‘You’re as white as a sheet.’
I must have gone with her, because next I was sitting, sweating, on a blue plastic customer chair by a pillar.
The Christmas music had receded and instead I thought I heard the gentle tap as a stylus dropped onto a vinyl record, and the black velvet hiss as a track began.
Another assistant materialised, interrupting.
‘Is she drunk?’
Was I drunk?
There were people, faces, crowding round, arms full of clothes on hangers, gawping at me. Did I know any of them? All of them? Were they waiting for me to say something? But I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to say.
‘I’m…I’m…’ I began, struggling to think of the next words and failing.
‘Do you think you’re going to be sick?’ The voice sounded like we were underwater.
Why now? Why had Mark come now?
I heard someone suggest calling a first aider and I wondered if there had been an accident somewhere.
Another huge yawn.
Then someone was putting something into my mouth.
I tried to push them away with both hands. How dare they!
‘Caroline. It’s all right. They’re just dextrose tablets. You’re having a hypo.’
We were still underwater, but I knew this voice and tried to remember whose it was.
‘Are you family?’ someone asked, far away.
‘Yes,’ the familiar voice responded.
I peered out and recognised Eric Haffey, though I couldn’t have told you his name for a while yet. Although he definitely wasn’t family, he did know me and might understand what was happening.
I heard him tell the small crowd that I was Type 1 diabetic and was experiencing an episode of low blood sugar. Meanwhile, he continued to stuff me with dextrose tablets.
Woozily, I knew that he was right. That was the thing I needed to do – boost my blood sugar, quickly. I crunched up the tablets and held out my hand for more.
I don’t know how long it took, though it’s usually not very long, until, gradually, I felt my awareness return and smiled apologetically at the remaining concerned faces.
‘Sorry. Did I give everyone a fright?’
A more senior assistant had arrived. She quizzed me slightly and told me her mother had Type 2 before inviting me to rest in their in-store café – in other words, please take this sideshow elsewhere as you are impeding the happy march of capitalism.
‘Can you stay with her?’ she asked Eric.
‘Of course,’ Eric replied. ‘Caroline, you need to eat something.’
Now it all made sense. Everything dropped into place. I’d had a hypoglycaemic attack. I had taken my insulin but hadn’t followed up quickly enough with food to balance it. Stupid of me. Really stupid. You’d think I would know better after more than forty years of managing the condition.
This also explained the so-called sighting of Mark. I had imagined all sorts of things, when my blood sugar had fallen really low – ghosts, talking walls, tigers in the house. Silly stuff. Something about a hypo brought a rush of creative thought, little of it reliable. I could easily have imagined spotting an old flame in a crowd.
Oh, but what a flame.
Closing In is published by Hachette Ireland.
