Free The Beauty of the End by Debbie Howells Page A

happened yesterday.
    â€œ Do you remember that day? ” I ask her silently through the window, wondering if what the nurse said is true; if from the distant place April’s gone to, if she can hear my voice, maybe she can hear my thoughts, too.
    â€œ On top of Reynard’s Hill? I slipped. Nearly went over the edge. You saved me. ”
    I pause, because I can still remember how the ground crumbled, falling away under my feet. “ Remember how we ran? Ran until our legs gave way underneath us, tumbling us to the ground, where we laughed wildly, until our eyes locked and we fell into an awed kind of silence .”
    That had been the thing about April. She’d had darker moments where, for a while, I’d lose her; but there’d been an overwhelming intensity about her, a desire to live each moment, that doesn’t tally with this frail woman who’s taken an overdose.
    As this and other thoughts race through my head, I’m still watching her, for the faintest indication that she’s sensed me, but she hasn’t moved. There’s not a flicker.

11
    A s I walk away, I’m caught, swinging between hope and despair, faith and cynicism, telling myself other people have come out of comas, there’s no reason why April won’t, yet convinced that whatever the nurse might think and wherever April is, she’s too far away to hear me.
    But as I drive back toward my B&B, my unease grows and I find myself going full circle. The North Star was hardly her hangout. April must have been in Musgrove for a reason.
    To kill Norton? Before driving the hour or so home to take an overdose?
    I push the thought from my mind, because there are people who can kill and people who can’t—maybe a group in the middle, who if pushed just might. I know April isn’t one of them, but when I least need it, I hear Clara’s voice.
    You could be wrong .
    But she doesn’t know April.
    It’s then I realize I can’t leave her, and my thoughts swiftly turn to what lies ahead should I defend her. The painstaking research that’s required; the in-depth scrutiny of April’s life; the leaving-no-stone-unturned level of detail involved, in the pursuit of a single piece of information someone’s deliberately hidden or forgotten about, that can determine guilt or innocence, prison or freedom.
    And the truth isn’t obvious, whatever the police think, whatever Will says—not even with her phone and her glove found in Norton’s car. Until they have fingerprints, a witness, a motive, nothing is certain.
    * * *
    Once I’m back in my room, my mind has already turned to the people in her life. Work colleagues, her friends, neighbors if there are any. Any family—and I need to find out about Norton, too, because there could be any number of innocent reasons behind their meeting that night. Perhaps it was just a twist of bad luck that the night they met up was the same night the murderer chose to strike.
    I switch on my laptop and type April Rousseau into the search bar. It takes seconds to find two listed on the electoral roll, one of whom I dismiss immediately, due to both her age and the fact that she lives in Manchester. I copy down the address of the other, then pause, because I’m acting for April, but without her consent and assuming that when she comes round she’ll have no objection. Knowing that I could just as easily be wrong, and that if I’m caught entering her house, I’m trespassing—theoretically. I dismiss the thought just as quickly, knowing it’s a chance I have to take.
    * * *
    That April is under police guard suggests her home may have been secured, but I at least have to check it out. After I’ve typed in April’s postcode, my GPS takes me a mile or so out of Tonbridge, along a meandering B-road, then into a quiet lane. As I turn into it, on either side are empty fields with just the occasional large house set in its own