Chapter One

Cambridgeshire 1998

Snow had been falling intermittently all day and was beginning to turn to slush, making driving conditions hazardous. Ally knew she ought to stop and find somewhere to stay the night. It was foolish to have set out at all in such atrocious weather, but she'd been impatient to reach the cottage before everywhere closed down for the Christmas holidays. She had been promised that the heating was on, the fridge stocked as she'd requested, and the phone working, but in Ally's experience, promises were often not worth the paper they were written on.

Especially promises made by a man to the woman he was supposed to cherish and protect. To have and to hold ... until death us do part.

Oh, God! She mustn't let her thoughts drift that way, not here on this lonely road tonight. Ally fought down her rising panic. It was over. All of that was over. She had clawed her way back from the brink, and she wasn't going to let the grief and anger destroy her again.

She peered through the tiny space the wiper had cleared on the windscreen. Where the hell was she for goodness sake? She couldn't remember having come this way when Paul had driven her down to inspect the cottage a month ago. Had she taken a wrong turning somewhere? It wouldn't be surprising if she had missed a signpost in this weather.

She felt the car slide towards the side of the road and her heart skipped a beat. The road was slippery! It was black ice that had caused the accident two years previously; black ice and the fact Tony had been drinking too much.

Ally braked softly, her car sliding to a gentle halt in the country lay-by. She was trembling. It had been months before she could bring herself to get in a car again. A year before, she'd let Paul bully her into driving herself.

"You've got to do it, Ally," he'd told her. "Until you do, the nightmares won't stop. You've got to stop hiding from the truth. Tony is dead. He was responsible for the accident, not you. You've got to stop blaming yourself. You have to start living again. Stop thinking it would have been better if you had died that night."

"Oh, Tony..." Ally's eyes stung with tears as she leaned her head on the steering wheel. "I'm sorry. So sorry..."

Paul insisted she wasn't responsible, but Ally couldn't remember. She knew they'd been arguing all night at the party. She had accused Tony of cheating on her with Laura Baines, his agent and manager. He had denied it furiously, but Ally wouldn't let go. She'd kept on nagging at him, refusing to believe his excuses, so he'd started drinking too much. She'd driven him to it by her jealousy.

They'd been arguing when they left the party. Ally had wanted to drive. She had tried to snatch the keys from him, but he had held on to them.

"You're drunk!" she'd screamed at him. "You'll kill us both."

But of course he hadn't. He'd killed only himself--and his unborn son.

Ally couldn't remember what happened after they'd finally got in the car. She had no memory of Tony's expensive sports Cabriolet leaving the road and plunging into a tree. She remembered the fear of waking to bright hospital lights and pain. She'd been lucky, they told her some days later. Two cracked ribs, some bruising and a bang on the head were nothing. Not when you considered the way the front of the car had crumpled on the driver's side.

"It was probably the bump to your head that wiped out your memory," the doctor explained when she'd asked why she couldn't remember the accident. "It may come back in a few weeks, months or never. We don't know why amnesia is total in some cases and not in others."

She hadn't recalled anything. Nothing more, after screaming at Tony to let her drive.

Why hadn't she forced him to give up the keys? She should have done something. It was her fault Tony was dead, her fault she had lost the child they had both wanted so badly.

"I'm not saying you can't have more children, Mrs. Matthews, just that the accident damaged you and may make it more difficult for you to conceive again. Although, time is a great healer, of course. In a year or two--well, we shall see."

"I don't want another child. I don't deserve to have one."

Ally wasn't sure whether or not she had spoken the words aloud in the doctor's clinic. She had hardly been living at the time, drugged into a false state of calm and close to being a zombie.

"Oh, Tony ... Tony ... " Something inside her called out to him, trying to bring him back from the grave. She was still consumed with her guilt after all this time, still unable to find any real reason to live. If Paul had let her, she would probably have taken the easy way out. A handful of tablets and then oblivion.

"Excuse me!" Ally opened her eyes, blinking in the glare of headlamps. A car had pulled up behind her and a man was knocking at her window. "Are you all right? Did you break down or something?"

Ally wound her window down. Tony! It was Tony. She had willed him back from the afterlife.

"What's the matter? You look awful."

"Sorry." She blinked hard as her eyes began to focus properly. Of course it wasn't Tony. There was a superficial likeness, but this man had darker hair and his features were more rugged--lived in. "Nothing is wrong. Except that I seem to have lost my way. I'm looking for Abbey Cottage. I'm sure I passed a sign for Lynston village a little while ago, but I can't seem to find the turning for Monkshead."

"You should have turned off to your right about a quarter of a mile back," the man said. "If you're really all right to drive, you can follow me. I'm going that way myself."

"Thank you, that's very good of you." Ally smiled at him. He wasn't really like Tony at all. It must have been a trick of the light. "I was thinking I might have to find somewhere to stop over night, but I would really like to get into the cottage tonight if I can."

"You can turn out of here," he said. "I'll go slowly, because the roads are like ice. I thought you'd had an accident. Gave me a turn, to see you sitting so still, with your head against the wheel." He gave her a wry look. "We must both be mad to be out on such a night."

"Yes." Ally allowed herself a brief smile. "Yes. I wanted to move in before everything closes down for Christmas, but I ought to have waited. I suppose I could have waited until after the holiday. It's just that having taken the cottage, I was impatient to move in."

He nodded but didn't bother to answer. Ally watched as he returned to his car, then reversed out into the road and across it. She glanced both ways but there was no sign of any traffic, so she followed in his wake. He was keeping to his word, taking it very slowly. Ally wished he would go a little faster. For some reason the heater in her car wasn't working very well. Her feet were freezing!

Even at her guide's snail-like pace, it took only a few minutes to reach the cottage. Ally breathed a sigh of relief as she stopped the car in the driveway. Someone had left the porch light burning to welcome her.

She got out of the car and opened the boot, then turned as her guide came up to her. She could see he was tall and well built, more of an outdoor man than she'd taken him for at first. He was wearing a thick sheepskin jacket and a flat cap. Not at all like Tony, he was probably a farmer, she thought. It was farming country: the heart of the fens was how the estate agent had described it to her.

"Why don't you unlock the door?" the stranger suggested. "I'll cart these things in for you."

Ally hesitated momentarily. They were in the middle of nowhere and this man was a stranger. He might be an axe murderer for all she knew! When Paul arrived for Christmas, he might stumble over her mutilated body.

Her imagination was working overtime again! Ally smiled inwardly. She hadn't, three years previously, won the Bronze Dagger Award for the Best Thriller of the Year for nothing.

"Thank you," she said. "You're very kind. I would still be sitting there if you hadn't turned up when you did."

The stranger said nothing, merely lifting the first of her heavy cases and humping it towards the door. Ally turned the key in the lock and went in. It smelled warm. All fears of finding the place damp, dark, and friendless faded as she heard the phone ring.

"Hello. Ally Matthews speaking."

"Ally?" Her brother's voice sounded as if he was just up the road instead of New York. "I was wondering if you had moved in yet. Everything all right, love?"

"I've just got here," she replied, "but the heating's on and the phone works, so yes, I think it will be fine."

"I've rung to tell you I shan't be down until late on Christmas day itself," Paul said. "Apparently there's another meeting here, which means I've had to cancel my flight and take a later one. A damned nuisance, but I can't get out of it."

"Don't worry about it," Ally said. "You know I love having you, but you don't have to fuss over me, Paul. I'm fine now. Honestly." The stranger had carried in the last of her things and was looking at her inquiringly. "Thank you," she said, hand over the mouthpiece. "You didn't tell me your name?"

"Brian," he said, and laid her car keys on the oak chest just inside the door. "Brian Forrester. I'm your nearest neighbour actually. I'll call in a couple of days to see how you're settling in."

"Who are you talking to?" Paul's voice said in her ear. She smiled and nodded at her helpful neighbour, then answered her brother as the front door closed firmly behind him. "I've just met my neighbour. I was lost actually, and he showed me the way and brought some stuff in for me."

"Oh, you must mean Brian Forrester," Paul said. "Decent sort of chap. Yes, you'll like him. His family owns most of the land round there, or at least they did until fifty or so years ago. I think they sold the manor off then, but he still owns a fair bit of land."

"He certainly seems friendly," Ally said. "It's been snowing all day, and the road was slippery. I'd stopped in a lay-by for a few minutes when he saw me and came to ask if I was okay."

"Snowing..." she could hear the concern in her brother's voice. "Well, at least you arrived safely."

"I'm fine. Honestly, Paul. How are things going over there?"

Paul Wyndham had one of the most brilliant minds in the computer software business. Ally smiled as she listened to him talking about the love of his life. He was thirty-five, divorced, and totally absorbed in his work. Sometimes she worried, because he went from one brief love affair to the next without seeming to become involved. She supposed he worried about her getting over Tony's death, in much the same way. They had been good friends as children, but had become closer over the past two years.

"This call must be costing a fortune," Ally said some ten minutes later. "And I have some food that needs to go in the freezer."

"Hint taken!" Paul's laughter warmed her. She could picture his gentle, intelligent face, eyes twinkling behind gold-rimmed spectacles, his always a little too long, soft brown hair falling over his brow. "I'll ring you when I arrive at Heathrow. Take care, love."

"You too, and Paul..."

"Yes?"

"I love you."

"Me too," Paul replied. "See you soon, Ally."

Ally replaced the receiver. She glanced at the boxes and suitcases waiting for attention. Food into the freezer first, then a cup of tea, she thought and picked up her cooler bag.

She walked into the kitchen and sighed with pleasure. It was such a satisfactory room. Large enough to live in, with two pine dressers, a long table, a rocking chair set either side of the Aga, and a lovely American style fridge/freezer.

Ally and Tony had spent several months touring America, when he was recording folk music for his TV shows, and she had learned to appreciate the enormous storage space in these double cabinets. A glance inside, revealed the eggs, milk, butter and bacon she had requested, together with a good selection of salad and tiny red tomatoes.

She popped one into her mouth, smiling in pleasure as she tasted the sweet yet tart flavour on her tongue. Lovely!

It seemed as though the woman the estate agents had recommended was reliable after all. Ally hadn't met Ellen Walters yet, but the house appeared to be spotless, and there was a faint, sweet perfume in the air. Not the synthetic perfume of commercial fresheners. No, this was like spring flowers. Lily of the valley or roses, the old-fashioned kind. Ally glanced round the room in search of the source, but couldn't see anything.

She would probably work on the table in here. She'd had a very efficient set up in her London flat, but she hadn't been able to write there. In fact, she hadn't written a novel since the accident. She'd managed a few short stories, but nothing serious, nothing that gave her any satisfaction. Tony had left her everything, of course, and she'd had a little money of her own, so it hadn't mattered financially. Yet she wouldn't be at peace with herself until she was working properly again. Writing was something she needed to do the way other people smoked or took soft drugs: it was a compulsion, as necessary as oxygen to her well being.

Ally had been on the verge of making it to the very top, when the accident had pulled the proverbial rug from under her. Sara Tomson, her agent, had been mentally ringing the till bells for the crime novel she had been planning.

"This is going to be the 'Big one', I can feel it in my water," Sara had phoned her two days before Ally's world had collapsed. "I've already had offers from a publisher who wants to take you over. No more short print runs and minuscule advances. I'm talking big bucks here, love."

"Hold on, Sara," Ally had laughed. "I've only finished one chapter. Besides, you know I like having Edwin as my editor. I'm not sure I want to change."

"You leave that to me," Sara said. "I have plans for you, my darling. I want to see you at the top of the best-seller lists, where you belong."

She had let Sara down badly. Ally felt guilty about that, as she did about so many things. It was partly because she wanted to pay Sara back for her continuing faith in her that Ally had decided to rent the cottage for three months. She needed a change, somewhere with no memories, no reminders. Perhaps then, she could get down to some real work.

Paul had always said, she should sell her flat and buy something different, but he didn't understand. The flat was hers, not part of Tony's legacy. She had kept it after they married, because Tony thought it would be useful when they needed to stay in London overnight.

"It isn't big enough for us to live here," he'd said, rather amused by its neatness and order. "Besides, I prefer to live in the country."

Tony's home was a huge and rambling Tudor style manor house in Sussex. It had been the first real extravagance he'd splashed out on after his shows went to the top of the ratings. He'd built a fantastic recording studio in one wing, and invited his friends to come down whenever they felt like it. Because he was a generous host, they took him up on his offer in droves. Sometimes, Ally had wished for a little peace and quiet, a few days when the two of them could be alone.

"This place would be like a morgue without people," he'd told her when she suggested it might be nice not to have visitors for a while. "Besides, I like my friends around me. I like to make music."

Ally hadn't sold the house, though she'd had several offers. It was currently let to an American family. She hadn't been near the place since Tony died. She probably would sell it one day.

Ally drank her tea and left her cup in the sink, then went back into the hall and picked up the first of her cases. It was heavy and she had to drag it up the stairs, one by one.

The bedroom she had chosen for herself had a good view out over the surrounding countryside. It was rather flat and not particularly inspiring to look at, though she was reliable informed the fen skies could be beautiful at times. At the moment, of course, it was too dark to see anything outside.

The room was furnished with heavy, antique oak furniture. The bed had been part of what attracted Ally in the first place. It was a four-poster with heavy, damask silk curtains in a pretty shade of turquoise blue, shot through with gold stars. There was a canopy of the same material overhead, and an elegant armchair set by the window, which had been recovered, in the same material. The wardrobes, chests and writing desk were probably Victorian, she imagined, but the chest at the end of the bed looked much older. Perhaps fourteenth or fifteenth century, unless it was a fake.

She ran her hand over its smooth surface. It felt genuine. The wood had a lovely smooth feel beneath her fingers, and the carving was rather crude and rubbed with age.

Ally dumped her suitcase and turned back to fetch the second. As she did so, she caught a breath of the perfume she'd smelt downstairs. It was much stronger here, but still very fresh and light, the sort of perfume a young girl might wear. There were no flowers in the room, except a little arrangement of silk roses. She bent to sniff them, but they had no scent. Perhaps it was furniture polish.

As she went down to the hall, Ally heard someone laugh. It was a pleasant sound, youthful and joyous. Where had it come from? The door to the sitting room was open. She walked in, half expecting to see a child at play, because it had surely been a child's laughter. The room was unoccupied, but the tiny, latticed window had been left open a little at the top. Of course, that was why she had heard the laughter. Sound carried a long way at night. Her neighbour probably had children.

Ally smiled, picked up another suitcase and carried it upstairs.

"Why do you always smell so sweet? Why does your skin have the perfume of flowers?"

Ally froze as she heard the whisper. The voice was a man's--a man talking to his lover.

Laughter and now, whispers! Ally's skin prickled as she stood on the threshold to her bedroom. The voice had seemed to come from this room. But it couldn't have. She had been into the room, she knew it was empty. Perhaps one of the other rooms? Was it possible that someone had been squatting here?

Putting down her case, she walked along the hall and looked inside the other bedrooms. They were both neat and clean, as pristine as when the agent had showed her the cottage. No one was in the house. It was her imagination.

Ally went back to the bedroom. It was quite empty. She was alone in the house. She hadn't heard that whisper. It was all in her mind.

Perhaps it was the book beginning to take shape at last. The explanation was one she could live with, because it had happened occasionally in the past. Not whispers exactly, but thoughts that came out of the blue and were so insistent, so loud in her head that they might have been spoken.

It was probably her muse trying to get in touch, telling her it was time to get down to work. Ally had never told anyone--not even Sara or Paul-but sometimes when she was writing, she felt as if she was given ideas from a being outside herself. Paul would have laughed and said she'd always been imaginative as a child, and Sara would have wondered if there was any publicity mileage in the idea.

Ally laughed at her thoughts. At least the whispers were creative. Already she was seeing a girl in her mind. A very pretty girl, innocent and not very old, perhaps ten or eleven. She was wearing a long white shift and her feet were bare. Ally saw her running through a meadow of summer flowers. The kind of meadow that was common before agriculture became so intensive. She was running and laughing, looking over her shoulder at a young lad who chased after her. He was probably her brother, because they looked a little alike.

Ally blinked, bringing her mind back to the task in hand. She really wanted to get her things unpacked before she even began to think about starting the book. Besides, her thriller had no place for a young girl. It was set in New York and featured a young female lawyer who found herself defending the boss of a big crime syndicate.

This girl had probably lived centuries ago, Ally thought, as she fetched up the last of her cases and unlocked them. She hung the jeans and loose tops, which were her favourite working clothes side by side with a couple of smart suits, a softly-pleated skirt and a long, black velvet evening skirt with a sequined jacket. She had bought it specially and would wear it for the first time for dinner on Christmas night with Paul.

Ally stroked the velvet, smiling to herself as she imagined the dinner she was planning to cook for them. She imagined them sitting by a log fire afterwards, Paul on the settee, her on the rug, leaning her head against his knees. She saw herself looking up at him, then he bent to kiss her on the lips. A feeling of horror went through Ally, as she realized the way her thoughts were taking her.

What on earth had put such an idea into her head? Paul was her elder brother. He was kind, considerate, and very dear to her but she'd been picturing him as a lover.

For the first time since Tony had died, Ally was aware of a need to make love. The physical side of their marriage had always been special. She supposed it was the aching hunger his kisses had always stirred inside her, which had kept them together even after the rest of it began to fall apart.

It was Tony she'd been thinking of-of course, Ally reassured herself. It had become harder and harder to see Tony's face over the past two years, so she'd substituted the face of the person she loved most these days. The explanation was quite simple, but the mind slip had shocked her more than she liked.

"You need to get a life, Ally Matthews," she scolded herself, as she went into the kitchen and took some bacon from the fridge. "Paul was right. It's time to leave the past behind."

"The past is a part of you ... You can never be free..."

Ally shivered, feeling cold all over suddenly. She didn't like this much and wished it would stop. Whispers ... Thoughts trapped in her subconscious ... Whatever. It was scary.

She took her bacon sandwich to the kitchen table, then opened her briefcase. She took out a pen and lined pad, and at the top of the page, she wrote in a firm hand. 'COME TOMORROW.' A thriller by Ally Mathews.

Chapter one.

She took a bite of her sandwich and made a few notes. The heroine's name was Isobel. She had dark hair and eyes, was petite, gutsy and quick to wound with her rapier-like speech.

Ally began to write swiftly, the words flowing out of her as she introduced her heroine to the crime boss, with a few pithy words that brought a smile to its creator's lips.

"That's the stuff, girl," Ally murmured. "Give it to him straight."

Ally wrote two pages, then closed the pad. That was enough for the moment. In the morning, she would set up her laptop and then she could begin in earnest. It had been a longish drive down from London, and she was sleepy. She glanced at the kitchen clock. Only nine-thirty, that was early for her. Perhaps it was the change of air.

She stood up, yawned, and stretched her shoulders. She would have a nice relaxing bath and then get a good night's sleep.