Free The Date: An unputdownable psychological thriller with a breathtaking twist by Louise Jensen Page A

At least he doesn’t reject my call.
    ‘I need to talk,’ I blurted out, my breath steaming in the frigid air.
    ‘It’s not a good time, Ali. I’m just burning dinner.’
    ‘You’re cooking? At home?’
    ‘Microwaving,’he said. Lying. He was still lying. ‘Is it important?’
    Yes, it’s important I wanted to say. I’m important but, instead, I said nothing. Not even goodbye.
    Back at my car Mr Henderson was tipping warm water over my windscreen.
    ‘It’s icing over already,’ he said. ‘Didn’t think you’d be long. Matt’s not home.’
    ‘Do you know where he is?’
    ‘Sorry.’ Mr Henderson hesitated,as though weighing up whether to speak again. ‘He’s out most nights.’
    It was like a punch to the gut. I had no idea where my husband was. Or who he was with . ‘Please don’t tell him I’ve been here.’
    ‘Of course not.’ Mr Henderson wiped his damp hand on his cords. ‘I can keep a secret.’
    I kissed him on the cheek before driving away, my house growing smaller and smaller in therear-view mirror, and only when it had been swallowed by the darkness, the tears came. Pulling over, I rested my forehead on my steering wheel, letting out my grief, my frustration and, once drained of emotion, I tugged off my wedding ring, the line from the poem I would never be able to forget, ‘The Owl and the Pussy-Cat’, circling:
    “Dear Pig, are you willingto sell for one shilling your ring?” Said the Piggy, “I will.”
    Had Matt traded me for something else? Someone else? Tugging open the glovebox I toss my ring inside, and, pulling out my phone, once more I typed one word.
    Pig.
    But before I could send it, I changed my mind and send something else entirely. To someoneelse.
    Yes
    And I did not know whether I had agreed to go out with Ewan out of anger at Matt, out of the loneliness that pulsed inside my heart, or if I genuinely liked him.
    Fabulous. He quickly replied .
    Did I sway you with my charm?
    Sniffing hard I joked: That and your promise not to be an axemurderer.
    Only now it doesn’t seem so funny. I think about the possibility of him hurting someone else and I click on the ‘compose a new message’ icon. I am informed that Ewan is no longer an active member, and a quick search confirms his profile has been deleted. My heart sinks. There’s no way of tracing him now, but perhaps I should let the police be the best judge of that. My consciencestill nags at me to do the right thing.
    There’s a chill in the air. I tug the yellow and pink squared blanket that reminds me of a Battenberg from the back of the sofa and cover my knees. It’s one of the few things I have from childhood. After school one day I had pulled a crumpled letter out of my navy book bag and thrust it into Mum’s hands. It was an invitation to knit squares at homeand hand them in to our teacher, where we’d sew them together in class, making blankets for charity.
    ‘I’ll dig out my needles and whip a few up,’ Mum had said.
    ‘Teach me,’ I had begged, and after our dinner of mini sausages buried in mashed potato, a moat of beans spilling over the side of the plate, we’d sat, side by side, on the creaky wicker furniture in the conservatory whichDad called a lean-to. The wind battering the Perspex sheeting. ‘You’re clearing up, Justin,’ she’d said to Dad, as I’d plucked balls of wool out of Mum’s craft basket picking out the colours of my favourite wine gums: yellow, orange and green.
    Mum cast on before passing me the knitting needles, which felt long and awkward in my hands. Patiently she recited ‘in, round, through, off’ overand over, until a second row followed the first, and then a third. We had sucked sweets as we looped wool around the needles, crochet blankets draped over our knees as the storm howled outside, the apple tree in the garden bent almost in two. The apples had been thudding into next door’s garden like stones, and I had known the next day our neighbour would be lobbing