The Curfew Read online

  Praise for

  ‘Smart, intense and with a humdinger of a mid-point twist. I loved it’

  GILLIAN MCALLISTER

  ‘Taut, tense and compelling. Thriller writing at its finest’

  SIMON LELIC

  ‘T.M. Logan’s best yet. Unsettling and so, so entertaining.

  The perfect thriller’

  CAZ FREAR

  ‘A tense and gripping thriller’

  B.A. PARIS

  ‘Assured, compelling, and hypnotically readable – with a twist at the end I guarantee you won’t see coming’

  LEE CHILD

  ‘A compelling, twisty page-turner, and that’s the truth’

  JAMES SWALLOW

  ‘Outstanding and very well-written . . . so gripping I genuinely found it hard to put down’

  K.L. SLATER

  ‘A terrific page-turner, didn’t see that twist!

  A thoroughly enjoyable thriller’

  MEL SHERRATT

  ‘Another blistering page-turner from psych-thriller god T.M. Logan’

  CHRIS WHITAKER

  ‘Even the cleverest second-guesser is unlikely to arrive at the truth until it’s much, much too late’

  THE TIMES

  For my brilliant wife, Sally,

  from the luckiest guy in the world.

  Happy 25th anniversary x

  It is a wise father that knows his own child.

  — William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

  Contents

  SUNDAY 12TH JUNE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  MONDAY

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  TUESDAY

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  WEDNESDAY

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  THURSDAY

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  FRIDAY

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  THREE MONTHS LATER

  Chapter 77

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Reader’s Club

  Letter from Author

  Copyright

  Letting go is hard.

  Maybe the hardest thing there is.

  More than that; sometimes it’s impossible.

  Because sometimes, letting go threatens everything you love, everything you are.

  But to do anything else, you have to lose a part of yourself. Forever.

  I don’t know the answer.

  I guess that’s why we ended up here.

  SUNDAY

  12TH JUNE

  1

  I should have known something was wrong.

  I should have sensed it. Felt it in the air, like the build-up of pressure before a thunderstorm, that heavy, loaded calm.

  I was his father, after all. His first line of defence. And his last.

  But at this moment, at a few minutes past three o’clock in the morning, all I know is that I’m awake.

  Perhaps it was a noise outside that pulled me from sleep, the call of a fox, or maybe a cat. Something else. But all is silent now in the warm inky blackness of the bedroom, both windows open, half the thin summer duvet thrown off. My phone is on silent on the bedside table, the screen’s glow dazzling me for a moment as I look for a message from my son. The first of our three golden rules: one – send a message to let us know where you are. Closely followed by two – stick to your curfew and thirdly, stay with your friends. We don’t tell Connor not to drink, because telling your teenager that seems like an exercise in futility. It’s going to happen whatever we say, so we might as well just learn to live with it in a way that keeps him safe.

  There is no message from my son.

  But to be fair, he’s more likely to text my wife.

  She sleeps soundly beside me, her soft breathing a slow, comforting rhythm in the dark. I lay the phone back down and close my eyes again. Of the two of us, I’ve always been the heavy sleeper; Laura would have heard Connor when he came in. His curfew was midnight. Earlier than some, later than others. A normal Saturday night would be 11 p.m. but the first post-exams weekend of his summer holidays allowed for a little more flexibility.

  He will have been back for hours by now, I think.

  And then that’s it – I can’t get back to sleep. My mind is starting up, gears turning, thoughts pulling me up and away. After-images from the phone’s screen still bright in my eyes. And for some reason I need the bathroom. Ah, the joys of middle age. I swing my legs out of bed and pad across the landing to the bathroom, softly pushing the door shut behind me.

  On my way back, I realise there’s more light than there should be, up here on the landing. A single bulb throwing a wash of pale shadows in the hall downstairs.

  The porch light is still on.

  Connor was supposed to turn it off when he came in. That was what we always said to him: The porch light switched off means we know you’re home, OK? The light being left on means . . . probably nothing. He just forgot, that’s all. Sixteen-year-olds forget things like that.

  I move downstairs into the hall, the tiles cool beneath my bare feet, and hit the light switch. The hall is plunged back into full darkness. I stand for a second, blinking as my eyes slowly adjust, groping for the familiar wooden banister at the foot of the stairs.

  Back on the landing, I go to the bottom of the small curving staircase that leads up to Connor’s bedroom on the second floor, listening.

  The house is silent around me.

  He just left the porch light on, that’s all. He leaves lights on all the time, and doors unlocked, plates unwashed, toilet rolls bare and wet towels on his bedroom floor. That’s just what teenagers do.

  But . . . I’m awake. Might as well double-check that he’s home.

  I climb the top staircase slowly as it curves right and then right again, missing the third step from the top – the creaky one – and move carefully onto the landing. Two doors. Spare room to the side, and Connor’s room at the end, occupying two-thirds of the top floor beneath the sloping eaves of the roof.

  His door is ajar and I push it open cautiously, taking a step inside, greeted by the familiar smells of summer sweat and trainers and deodorant lingering somewhere beneath. The earthy smell of unwashed clothes and a half-eaten sandwich lurking on a plate beneath the bed. The debris of scattered items on the floor – jeans, shoes, dishes and cups – softened into indistinct shapes by the darkness.

  I squint into the shadows of his room. I wish I hadn’t left my glasses on the bedside table, but I can still make out his familiar shape: long limbs sprawled beneath the duvet, dark hair against the pillow. No longer a boy, but not yet a man either. My whole body relaxes with relief. Connor is in bed. Home. Safe. Of course he is.

  I’m struck by a pang of nostalgia for the years when I’d read him bedtime stories every night, when he had been my little shadow. We had been inseparable, father-and-son football in the garden, video games, Mr Bean and Star Wars and every single Roald Dahl story until we both knew them all by heart. Now he prefers to spend time with his cousin, his mates and he mostly confides in his mum. Probably because she’s less judgemental. She sees his side and doesn’t condemn. She doesn’t necessarily condone, either, but she listens without jumping in as I’m prone to do. Now I feel I’m always on his back and increasingly we’re like ships passing in the night, sometimes going days at a time without exchanging more than a few words. He’s either in his bedroom, locked in the bathroom, or monosyllabic at the dinner table. Or just out.

  But at 3.09 on a Sunday morning, none of that matters – because my boy is home. He’s in his room, in his bed, where he is supposed to be. Everything is OK. I linger in the doorway, squinting into the shadows at my son’s sleeping form.

  Unaware, in that moment, of how b
adly mistaken I am.

  Because I should have known then that something was wrong. I should have sensed it.

  But I didn’t.

  Not until it was already too late.

  2

  I sleep fitfully and wake from a dream in which I’m convinced the front door is standing open. When I go to push it closed, the dream hallway gets longer and the door gets further away, the handle just out of my grasp.

  By the time I’m showered and dressed, Laura is already back from her run, cheeks glowing red, phone strapped to her arm, long auburn hair tied back in a ponytail. In the kitchen, she hands me a cup of freshly brewed coffee from the Nespresso machine, sipping at her own.

  ‘Double shot,’ she says. ‘Looks like you need it.’

  ‘Thanks.’ The coffee is strong and dark, the smell of it widening my eyes before the caffeine even hits my bloodstream. ‘Do I look that bad?’

  ‘Just kidding, you look as fresh as a daisy.’

  ‘Doubtful,’ I grunt. ‘Did you hear Connor come in last night?’

  She sits at the kitchen table and begins unlacing her trainers.

  ‘He messaged me. You were asleep. Why?’

  ‘He must be getting better at creeping around in the dark,’ I say. ‘Didn’t hear a thing when he came in.’

  ‘That’s because you were snoring again.’

  ‘Was not snoring.’

  ‘I was going to give you a little kick, then you turned over.’

  She gives me a smile. We’ve been together more than twenty years but I still can’t always tell when she’s winding me up. Especially first thing in the morning. I take another sip of my coffee, cradling the cup in both hands as I lean against the breakfast bar. Laura has already opened the double French doors out onto the patio, the smells of cut grass and blossom coming in on a warm breeze that promises another perfect midsummer day. The sky is a pure, cloudless blue.

  ‘Anyway,’ I say, ‘Connor made his curfew, did he?’

  ‘Like I said, he messaged me at twelve to let me know he was back.’

  ‘But you didn’t actually hear him come in either?’

  She gives me a quizzical look. ‘He’s never broken his curfew before, has he? He said he was in at twelve, he did what we asked him to do. I trust him.’ She shakes her head. ‘You know, there comes a point when we both just have to trust him, Andy.’

  She finishes unlacing her trainers and begins her warm-down stretches, resting one tanned leg on the windowsill and reaching over to touch her toes.

  Toffee, our Cavapoo, pads into the kitchen with his lead in his mouth, dropping it at my feet like a sacrificial offering. He sits, tongue lolling, looking up at me with his big chocolate-brown eyes as his tail swishes a slow sweep of the kitchen floor.

  I stroke the curly straw-coloured hair behind his ears.

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘I know that. I do trust him. He left the porch light on, that’s all.’

  ‘Well if that’s all we’ve got to worry about, I think we’re doing OK.’

  I couldn’t really argue with that. And I didn’t want to admit that I’d checked on our son at 3 a.m., because that would make me sound even more paranoid. ‘So where do you suppose they went last night?’

  ‘Beacon Hill Woods, I assume.’

  While we’ve been talking, Toffee has disappeared. He returns now with a well-chewed tennis ball, dropping it at my feet next to his lead, and looking up at me again.

  ‘In a bit, boy.’ I scratch under his chin. I know Beacon Hill well enough – it’s one of Toffee’s favourite places – but I’ve only ever been there during the day. ‘What do they even do up there at night?’

  It’s a rhetorical question; we both have a pretty good idea of the answer. Connor and his cousin Zac are at that in-between age where they’re still too young to get served in pubs but getting too old and restless to sit around at home on a Saturday night. A few of their mates have fake IDs saying they’re eighteen, typically from an older friend who has sold, loaned or gifted their provisional driving licence with a picture that is generic enough to get them served in a bar. But they were the exception, not the rule. For everyone else, there were house parties, birthday parties, spur-of-the-moment gatherings when parents were absent – or Beacon Hill Woods.

  Toffee is now watching my every move, his ears twitching at any gesture towards the front door. Finally, I pick up his lead and he gives a single happy bark of approval. In the lounge, I find my daughter, Harriet, cross-legged on the sofa in her Team Gryffindor pyjamas, eating a bowl of Coco Pops. Noise-cancelling headphones clamped to her head as always, laptop open beside her. Our cat, Pablo, is sprawled across her little lap, paws in the air.

  ‘Harry? I’m taking Toffee for a walk, do you want to come?’

  She gives no indication she’s even aware of me standing there, headphones blocking out the world. She’ll be a teenager soon but she’s still so small and slight, already being left behind by the tall girls in her class and not remotely interested in clothes or makeup or TikTok or any of the things I assumed girls started getting into at her age. Maybe that was all around the corner. But for now, she was into coding club and Minecraft and her pets, still preferred jeans and T-shirts, had flatly refused to wear a skirt since she was tiny and never changed her mind since. Insisted on keeping her red hair boyishly short to stop it getting too curly. She seemed happy in her own skin and that was enough for me. She’s an enigma, our Harry, is how my wife puts it. A little eccentric, my mum said.

  ‘Harry?’ I say again, a little louder.

  She lifts one headphone off her ear, looking up at me. ‘Did you say something?’

  ‘Going for a dog walk, do you want to come?’

  ‘I don’t want to disturb Pablo,’ she says, rubbing his tummy with her small hand. If it had been anyone else in the family, the cat would have taken their arm off at the elbow; but with Harriet he simply purrs softly and arches his back, asking for more.

  I indicate the laptop on the sofa next to her.

  ‘What are you watching?’

  ‘Stuff. YouTube.’

  ‘Stuff, eh? Sounds interesting.’

  ‘If you must know, it’s a video by a world-famous hacker explaining how he penetrated a top-secret Russian database.’

  ‘Oh.’ I stop at the door. ‘Really?’

  ‘No, Dad,’ she says with a sigh. ‘Just some TED talks.’

  She puts her headphones back on and hits play on the screen.

  Laura is making toast in the kitchen, the radio a low burble beneath the crunch of her knife cutting the crusty bread in half.

  ‘Breakfast,’ she says, handing me a thick slice smothered with blackberry jam. ‘I’m going to grab a shower.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I take a bite of the toast, jam meltingly sweet on my tongue, and loop Toffee’s lead over my shoulders with my free hand. ‘See you in an hour.’

  I walk up the block-paved drive to my neighbour’s house, past his front lawn thick with summer growth and bursting with dandelions. I make a mental note to come back with the mower at some point in the next few days. There is a short wait after I press the bell, a familiar pause as the house seems to hold its breath, before a thin voice reaches back from somewhere deeper in the house.

  ‘Who is it?’

  I lean closer to the blue and red-coloured glass of the front door. ‘It’s just me, Arthur.’

  ‘With you in a jiffy.’

  The vague outline of a figure emerges at the end of the hall and begins to approach, making slow progress, until finally the door creaks open. There was a time when Arthur and I were the same height, but the years have curved his spine and stooped his shoulders so that now he looks up at me, both hands pressed over the top of his walking stick. He’s been retired from teaching undergraduate law for more than two decades now, but his pale blue eyes are as sharp as ever.

  ‘Good morning to you, young man.’ Despite the early heat of the day he’s wearing slacks with a long-sleeved shirt and a navy jumper.

  ‘Morning, Arthur,’ I say, Toffee sitting obediently at my feet. ‘I’m taking the hound to the park, thought Chester might like to join us?’

  Officially, Arthur is one of my patients, but he has an old man’s reluctance to bother his GP so I like being able to keep an eye on how he’s doing. His wife Marjorie had been able to cajole him into making an appointment when he needed to, but since he lost her he’s become more stubborn about asking for help with the ailments common to his eighty-eight years. Insomnia is God’s way of telling you to make the most of the time you have left, he liked to tell me. Our normal routine was for me or Connor to take both dogs out in the early evenings after work and school, although lately I’ve been doing it more and more.