Read Three Steps Behind You Online
Authors: Amy Bird
Three Steps Behind You
Dan and Adam have always been close. In fact, they’ve been closer than Adam could ever guess. And if Dan’s going to get that close again, it will take time. It will take research. It may even take practice. Fortunately, Dan is a very patient person – and Adam trusts him. With his house key. With his secrets. With his wife…
But as Dan gets closer, someone is watching. Someone who will stop at nothing to uncover the truth… and seek revenge.
It’s only a matter of time before danger steps out of the shadows. Dan has his sight fixed on the future; perhaps he should have kept one eye on what lay behind.
This chilling psychological thriller from the author of
Yours is Mine
explores love, obsession, and betrayal, and asks: can we ever
really
know another person?
‘Plenty of twists and surprises … This is excellent escapism.’
*
5 stars from London_reader
‘… impossible to put down as its plot accelerates towards the climax with an amazing final twist … An unusual and striking debut novel that will leave you thinking.’
*
5 stars from Leonora
‘a unique story that had me hooked from the start. There were moments that goose bumps spread across my arms at the chilling reality of [the] situation. And I have to say the last chapter left me a little breathless.’
*
4 stars from Katlyn
‘a captivating debut novel from Amy Bird. The author skilfully contrives a clever plot and sensitively develops believable characters, with which the reader will readily identify and come to love or despise. Amy Bird weaves together a world where nothing can be taken for granted, and the past comes back to haunt those who deserve it or not.’
*
5 stars from AdamJordan
*
Reviews taken from Amazon.co.uk
Yours is Mine
Three Steps Behind You
Amy Bird
Three Steps Behind You
is Amy’s second novel for Carina UK. She has a Creative Writing MA from Birkbeck College, University of London, and is also an alumni of the Faber Academy ‘Writing a Novel’ programme, where she studied under Richard Skinner. Amy has written a number of plays, which have shown to large audiences and received critical acclaim. Her play
The Jobseeker
was runner-up for the Shaw Society’s 2013 T.F. Evans Award. Having moved all around the UK as a child, she now lives in North London with her husband, dividing her time between working part-time as a lawyer and writing. For updates on her writing follow her on Twitter, @London_Writer or visit her site
www.amybirdwrites.com
Contents
I would like to thank all the people who have helped bring
Three Steps Behind You
to readers. The Carina UK team has been a delight to work with, in particular my wonderful editor, Clio Cornish. I am ever grateful for her insight, judgement and encouragement. My fellow Carina UK authors have also spurred me on, both online and in person. To my legal colleagues, who have embraced the author side of my existence, I am also grateful. Thanks are due, too, to the friends, family and enthusiastic readers who championed my first novel,
Yours is Mine
, while I was working on
Three Steps Behind You –
your feedback kept me going. And of course, special thanks and love must go to my husband Michael, for his unerring support, excellent advice and endless optimism.
For all of us
Have you ever been really close to someone? So close not only that the hairs on the back of their neck stand on end, but you can count each raised follicle, and when you blow, you can see the goose bumps appear on the skin. Each little golden hair quavering, erect, as you observe.
Imagine the physical proximity that you would need to control those little hairs, the ease with which you could –with just one move – be touching the back of their neck. With your lips, with your hand, with both hands, encircling if you wish.
Ever been that close?
I have, once. And I will be again. For Luke.
Let me tell you a little about my method. If I were a good author, a published author, maybe I would show you. ‘Show, don’t tell’, they lecture you at those creative writing classes, the interminable hours spent taking dictation of how to craft your own unique ideas. But I’m not a good writer, not yet, you see. Nor am I published. That’s what this new method is all about. How I’m going to differentiate my fourth book, get it to the readers who matter. Make it the best.
It first occurred to me when my character, Luke, needed to cook a lobster. I could make Luke visualise the exoskeleton, in its abstract pre-cooked greyness. Then I could write him seeing it pink and lifeless on my kitchen slab. The in-between time, I just couldn’t capture so well. I realised it then: in order for me to write convincingly, I would have to do all the things that my character does.
I remember, once, Nicole reminiscing about being taught method acting in her student drama days, pre-Adam. A director had told her that if she wanted to act eating an apple, she would first have to practise eating one, savour each tooth indentation, each salivation, finishing it to the core. Only then would the audience believe she knew what it was to truly eat an apple. A tempting proposition. And Nicole’s only useful titbit.
So today, I am embarking on a whole new writerly me. The lobster in its box writhes next to me on the bus seat. I think it appreciates its role in this journey. The other passengers on the bus have been less appreciative, but they will see the true value when my name is a foot high on the Tube billboards. They can say: ‘I once sat on a bus along the North Circular with Dan Millard.’ Adam can introduce me to his friends as his mate Dan, the published author. Except by then I might have changed my name to something catchier. Perhaps Jeremy Bond. That worked for me before. And for Adam.
Back at home I put the lobster on the kitchen surface and take a closer look at it. To me, Dan, the prospect of what’s to come is revolting. I Googled it earlier. I know that if I freeze the lobster first, it will be numb, and feel less pain, but then I’d have to take the knife and slice down through the flesh beneath its grey shell, stopping just before its wide grey tail, containing the roe. I don’t think I have the strength for that. Besides, I will be writing this as Luke, who does not have my empathetic nature. Luke will want the lobster to feel pain. Luke will just seize the lobster, its claws still bound, and throw it into the boiling water. When the lobster tries to escape, jumping out of the too-shallow pan, to slither away, Luke will grasp it firmly and throw it back in again. The flames will rise under the pan until the lobster is red hot. Then, taking it out of the pan, he will twist its claws till they crack, rip off the red-pink shell, stare it in the eyes then take a snarling bite of the flesh beneath and—
Something catches in my gullet. I cough, choking. Spluttering out of my Luke reverie, I see right up in front of my face a pink, cooked, lobster, so close that I can distinguish the little hairs on its antennae. On the hob is a still-simmering pan of water. I stare, amazed. I have entered into the character of Luke so much that I have slaughtered and cooked a lobster all as him.
I smile. All I need to do is write this down. The method is working. The lobster is just the start, of course. But one must begin somewhere.
Over dinner, I tell Adam about the lobster. Nicole listens too, or at least pretends to, nuzzling Adam’s ear while I’m talking. But I’m not addressing her.
‘It was amazing!’ I say. ‘I’d killed it even before I’d thought about it. This is a real breakthrough. Look, read the piece I wrote on the bus on the way over!’
‘You still don’t drive, then, Dan?’ asks Nicole, as I hand Adam the manuscript.
I shake my head. Now is not the time for Nicole’s irrelevant questions. It is the time to impress Adam with my work.
‘You always said I was the best at writing, Adam. And now I really will be, with the method!’
‘Well, if I said that, I must have meant it, hey?’ he asks, winking at me.
I nod but he doesn’t look at me. It’s okay if he doesn’t remember. I’ll prove myself again, now, get his adulation afresh, when this new work is published. I watch him while he reads. He has a bit of stubble today, blond hairs not quite breaking through, dots instead lining those sharp cheekbones.
‘Haven’t thought of learning?’ Nicole probes. ‘With all those cars at the garage?’
‘I can’t afford to. Besides, it’s so dangerous,’ I reply.
Adam flinches and I notice his eyes move across to the dresser. I see Nicole notice too and her lips tighten. She must hate that photo of Helen, the constant reminder that she is number two. All over the house, there are stills of Nicole from RADA, playing Desdemona, St Joan, Ophelia, all those other classic roles. None after college. I suppose they make her feel young. Or else she really thinks she still looks like that. On the mantelpiece though, it is just Helen. I see it whenever I come round for dinner.
Nicole sees me looking at the photo of Helen.
‘They’ll catch the driver one day,’ she says, kissing the top of Adam’s head. ‘Give you closure.’ She drapes a protective arm around Adam, forming a barrier between him and me.
‘They’ve tried, they failed,’ he says. He kisses her arm but his tone is clipped.
‘I’ve chosen the third-person voice for Luke,’ I say, helping Adam by changing the subject. ‘That way I have more control over him.’ Adam nods, as if he understands.