Free Killing Me Softly by Nicci French

sweatily against each other. He was holding On Top of the World. I’d pushed it under my pillow last night, when he was away in Edinburgh.
    ‘That?’ I tried to sound casual. ‘Someone at work lent it to me. They said it was brilliant.’
    Jake was flicking through the pages. I held my breath. There. The photographs. He was looking at Adam in a photograph. ‘I wouldn’t have thought it was your kind of thing.’
    ‘No, well, it’s not really, I probably won’t read it.’
    ‘People must be mad to climb mountains like that,’ said Jake. ‘Do you remember all those people dying in the Himalayas last year?’
    ‘Mmm.’
    ‘Just to stand on the top of a mountain and go down again.’
    I didn’t reply.
    The next morning, it had snowed, although not enough to go tobogganing. We turned up the heating, read Sunday newspapers and drank pots of coffee. I learned how to ask for a double room in French, and to say that ‘Janvier est le premier mois de l’année’, or ‘février est le deuxiéme mois’, and then I ploughed through some technical journals that I’d let pile up, and Jake went on with the climbing book. He was about half-way through.
    ‘You ought to read this, you know.’
    ‘I’m going to go to the shops to get something for lunch. Pasta?’
    ‘We had pasta last night. Let’s have a real greasy fry-up. I’ll cook and you wash up.’
    ‘But you never cook,’ I protested.
    ‘I’m changing my ways.’
    Clive and Gail came round after lunch. They had obviously spent the morning in bed. They had a post-coital glow about them, and occasionally they would smile at each other as if they knew something we didn’t. They said they were going tenpin bowling and would we like to come too, and maybe we should ask Pauline and Tom.
    So I spent the afternoon skidding a heavy black ball towards the skittles, and missing them every time. Everyone giggled a lot: Clive and Gail because they knew that as soon as this was over they would go straight back to bed, Pauline because she was planning to have a baby and couldn’t believe how her luck had changed, Tom and Jake because they were nice men, and it’s easier to join in than not. I giggled because everyone expected me to. My chest hurt. My glands ached. The echoey, overlit bowling hall made my head spin. I giggled until my eyes watered.
    ‘Alice,’ said Jake, at the same time as I said, ‘Jake.’
    ‘Sorry, go on,’ I said.
    ‘No, you first.’
    We were sitting on the sofa with mugs of tea, about six inches apart from each other. It was dark outside, and the curtains were closed. Everything was silent, the way it is when snow falls and muffles all sound. He was wearing an old speckled-grey jumper and faded jeans and no shoes. His hair was all rumpled up. He was looking at me very attentively. I liked him so much. I took a deep breath. ‘I can’t keep on with this, Jake.’
    At first, the expression on his face didn’t change. I made myself go on looking into his eyes, nice brown eyes.
    ‘What?’
    I took one of his hands and it rested limply in mine. ‘I have to leave you.’
    How could I say it? Every word was like hurling a brick. Jake looked as if I had slapped him really hard, bemused and in pain. I wanted to take it all back, return to where we had been a minute ago, sitting together on the sofa with our tea. I could no longer remember why I was doing this. He didn’t say anything.
    ‘I’ve met someone else. It’s all so…’ I stopped.
    ‘What do you mean?’ He was staring at me, as if through a thick fog. ‘What do you mean, leave? Do you mean you want to stop being with me?’
    ‘Yes.’
    The effort of that word rendered me speechless. I gazed dumbly at him. I was still holding his hand, but it lay nervelessly in mine. I didn’t know how to let it go.
    ‘Who?’ His voice cracked a bit. He cleared his throat. ‘Sorry. Who have you met?’
    ‘Just… no one you know. It just… God, I’m so sorry, Jake.’
    He passed a hand over