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A s the clock on the wall ticked towards three in the afternoon, 90 per cent of Emily’s energy was going into not yawning in Jack’s face and the remaining 10 was working to keep her eyes open. He seemed tired too, and more than happy to call it a day when she suggested it.

‘It’s exhausting,’ he said. ‘Talking about yourself this much.’

She refrained from pointing out that he had another four days of it to get through and all the bad stuff – the fire, Kate’s death, him as a suspect in it – yet to come.

‘I think tomorrow we should aim to finish at two,’ she said. ‘This was probably too long a day for you.’

‘But was it OK? I mean, am I doing this right?’

Emily reassured him that it was and he was, although she had no frame of reference. But if that wasn’t a good day in ghostwriting, what did one look like? Jack had been very forthcoming and they were getting on well. There were over four hours of recorded conversation in the bag and there was some interesting stuff in there.

She already had a few ideas about threading together the things he’d said about cosmic compensation and cycling being suffering, and using that as the opening of the book. A prologue, maybe, with Kate dying in the fire, or him thinking she had. The penultimate paragraph would be one short line: Then there was a knock on the door . That would be the Garda detectives telling him about what the autopsy had revealed, and the prologue’s final line would be something like, I wasn’t just a widower anymore. I was a suspect . Or was that too cheesy? Then, Chapter One: a brief history of Jack Smyth’s cycling days. Very brief. By the end of it, he’d already be on his honeymoon with Kate. Chapter Two could then skip swiftly on to their relationship in the months leading up to the fire.

In fact, if Emily forgot about the threatening emails, the unopened solicitor’s letter waiting for her at home and whatever Jack and Grace had been arguing about in the courtyard earlier, she’d have to say that things were going pretty well, actually.

After Jack left her alone in the room, she got up and stretched, and made herself a double espresso in the machine. But it was only a temporary fix. She stayed at the desk long enough to back up the audio recording to the laptop and write a few notes to herself regarding questions to ask tomorrow, but that was all she could manage. She feared that if she stayed any longer, Grace would find her drooling on the keyboard.

Emily shut down the computer, tidied everything together in a neat pile on the desk and went downstairs. She heard Jack – on the phone, it sounded like – in the kitchen, but there was no sign of the elusive Grace. Maybe she’d gone to get groceries. If she had, that was a bit annoying, because she hadn’t given Emily a chance to give her a list yet, or even to make one in the first place.

Entering Bookmark, she refused to even look in the direction of the couch because she knew what would happen: it would pull her into its cushions like a tractor beam and she’d fall into them and then asleep. She’d be awake all night and end up feeling even worse tomorrow than she did today. It was imperative that she keep herself awake.

The only thing for it was a walk around the town.

When Emily stepped out onto the street, it occurred to her that she’d been within Beach Read’s walls for almost twenty-four hours, ever since Tony had dropped her off in the exact same spot. It was nice to get out of the house. The construction crews had finished for the day; the only movement in the building site opposite was the lazy rippling of plastic tarps and one lone man in what appeared to be a security guard’s uniform, walking away from the chain-link fence. There was no one else but her on the street. Patting her pockets for one final check for her phone and keys, Emily turned left and then left again around the corner of the house, heading for the beach.

She was expecting to find a sandy path cutting through the wiry scrub, or weather-beaten wooden stairs that would carry her up and over the dunes, but instead there was what looked, at first glance, like it must be a mirage: a set of majestic marble steps, about twenty feet wide and blindingly white under the glare of the afternoon sun. Two huge matching planters, as big as bathtubs, sat at the foot of them. They were empty and wrapped in blue protective plastic. The beach was blocked from view, so the steps appeared to lead up into the sky. They looked for all the world like some kind of stairway to heaven.

And all Emily could do was look, through the gate in the middle of a six-foot-high wooden fence that had been erected in front of them. The gate was locked, the light on its numerical keypad glowing red. Signs warned P RIVATE B EACH : G UESTS AND R ESIDENTS O NLY – N O P UBLIC A CCESS and P LEASE RESPECT OUR RESIDENTS’ PRIVACY – NO P RIVATE PHOTOGRAPHY PERMITTED IN THIS AREA in red lettering. Emily wondered what incident had led to that being erected. Another, smaller sign attached to the fence read T EMPORARY S TRUCTURE – PARDON OUR DUST AS WE MAKE SANCTUARY A SANCTUARY FOR YOU.

She pressed her plastic fob against the keypad, but the indicator light stayed red. Whatever you needed to access the beach, she didn’t have it.

It occurred to her that whoever the man on the beach had been, he had had access. Which meant that he must be staying here, too. She didn’t know if that made her feel better or worse – but better, she supposed, on balance. It meant that people other than her, Jack and Grace were staying in town.

Although if they were, they must be in hiding.

Sanctuary’s completed streets were empty, its buildings silent. Emily retraced her steps back to the house and then kept going, moving in a straight line until she met the highway and the first pair of butteries. From there, she could see that Sanctuary, so far, consisted of twelve rows of houses along six streets. Everything between the last one and the other set of giant traffic cones in the distance appeared to be a building site or a cleared plot of land, patiently awaiting its turn to transform.

Each existing street looked eerily similar to the others: two rows of homes made of white masonry, with no gardens or driveways. The footpaths ended at the homes’ exterior walls and the only place to park a car, presumably, was out of sight, in your garage. The road system was a grid, paved and wide going north–south, narrow and cobbled going east–west. There was only one vehicle parked in plain view: a Barbie-pink vintage convertible with a chrome trim, whitewall tyres and a white leather interior, parked outside a house two streets over from Beach Read, looking like it might have teleported in moments ago via a glitch in the space–time continuum.

Near the highway, she caught the engine of an occasional passing car as it neared, zoomed past and then faded away again. Near the beach, there was the distant roar of the waves. But otherwise, the only sounds were the occasional bubbling water fountain or tinkle of wind chimes in the breeze, and the steady smack of Emily’s own shoes on the ground.

The more she walked, the more the streetscapes began to reveal little surprises.

She’d round a corner and meet a sudden expanse of lush, green lawn, or a line of swaying palm trees, or a laneway inviting her to a courtyard with a tiered fountain surrounded by chairs in which she could sit and admire it. At one point, a path of white decking carried her over what must have been a manmade pond, crowded with water lilies. And there was, as Jack had teased, art.

A Romanesque bust, sitting unassumingly on a corner. A two-foot-high silver ballerina twirling on the roof of a house. Three unicorns, fashioned from twists of driftwood, sitting in a patch of long grass. An abstract something sculpted from white marble but splashed with a shock of Yves Klein blue. A cast-iron fish the size of a small car. A river of blue mosaic tiles creeping up a white wall.

Beautiful, but weird.

She couldn’t put her finger on exactly why, or even say that weird was the right word. But something just felt off. Perhaps it was Sanctuary’s completeness. Even though only part of the town had been built, that part was clean and perfect and finished . It was like walking around a showhouse, only in a development that had decided to make twelve rows of them before they got to work on the other houses.

Jack had mentioned they’d also, oddly, already built a town square, but Emily ran out of streets before she saw anything like that. She’d cut a zig-zagging path through the town, and thought that perhaps she’d just missed it.

She turned on her heel and started back towards Beach Read on the pedestrian path that ran parallel to the highway.

And heard footsteps. Quick and purposeful, following close behind.

Her first reaction was relief. Another beating heart! She longed to see another human being in this ghostly place.

But when she glanced behind her, there was no one there.

She stopped and turned around, scanning to be sure. She was completely alone on the path and, without any traffic passing at this particular moment, Sanctuary’s late-afternoon soundtrack of near-silence had resumed all around her. Whoever had been behind her must have turned down into one of the streets.

She thought, weird , turned back around and kept walking.

Within a few strides, the footsteps came again – and now, so did the icy finger, running a cold unease up the length of her spine.

Emily made a show of pulling her phone out of her pocket and stopped to pretend to check her email.

The footsteps stopped too.

She spun around—

There was no one there. But as she turned, she caught a blur of movement: a tall figure maybe fifteen, twenty feet behind her, ducking out of sight.

Someone was following her.

Someone who didn’t want to be seen.

It could be Jack or Grace, out for a stroll like she was – but neither of them would have any reason to hide. A security guard? A Sanctuary resident? A wandering day-tripper? But none of them would have any reason to hide either. Maybe it was a journalist who had somehow already found out about Jack’s book, flown across the Atlantic and found their way to Sanctuary – but wouldn’t a journalist be trying to make contact rather than avoid it?

Emily had a sudden, overwhelming urge to go home. Not back to Bookmark, but all the way to Dublin.

She didn’t want to be here. She should never have come.

Behind her thoughts, the electric buzz of a gathering panic was threatening to push through. Yes, it was broad daylight, in the middle of the afternoon, in a town – or part of one – secure enough to leave expensive works of art sitting out. But there was no one around, and she was still a few streets away from Beach Read, and if Emily screamed right now, who would come running?

Would anyone even hear her?

She felt for the reassuring hardness of her phone in her pocket, and set off at pace. Where to go? If she stayed beside the highway, she had a much better chance of being seen or meeting a passing motorist. But if she cut through Sanctuary and walked in something resembling a diagonal line, utilizing laneways and cut-throughs, she’d get to Beach Read quicker.

She couldn’t hear any footsteps, but it was possible they were just drowned out by the hammering beat of her own heart.

Emily made a sudden left turn, down a narrow lane running behind two rows of houses. Halfway down it she came to another lane, criss-crossing it, and she followed that one to the right, crossed a street, went under an archway—

And emerged into the town square.

It was paved and empty and smaller than she’d been expecting, but more elaborate too; it was enclosed, like a plaza in a Spanish city, with what must be apartment balconies on the upper level and vaulted arcades on the one below. Hidden in their shadows were shop fronts which, like Sanctuary itself, were finished and ready, but also empty and waiting. Some already had signage in place. Emily could see what looked destined to be a restaurant, an estate agent’s, a café, a shop selling beachwear and something called T HE S ANCTUARY S HOPPE . There was a tiered fountain in the centre with water in its basin, but it wasn’t turned on.

Emily went to the café and cupped her hands to the window to look inside. There were some fixtures and fittings in place – a counter, a fridge, a glass display case – but no tables or chairs, and no coffee machine.

When she pulled back, she saw him reflected in the glass.

He was tall and lean, with light-coloured hair long enough to flop down over his ears. Dressed casually in shorts and a T-shirt. Standing maybe thirty feet behind her, under the archway that had brought her here. Hiding in its shadows, watching her, waiting to see where she would go.

It was the same man she’d seen on the beach.

She strained to listen for traffic, for other footsteps, for a voice, for any evidence that there was someone else near here who could help her. Nothing. Without turning her head, she glanced right and left, scoping a route out of the square.

Diagonally across it was another archway.

She braced herself, tensed to run.

You can’t run , a voice in her head said. You’ll look ridiculous. And crazy. It’s just a guy walking around town! She should confront him. Swing round and go, ‘Hi. Can I help you?’ But a louder voice in her head said, He’s hiding, waiting to see where you go, and this is the second time you’ve caught him looking. There’s no one around. Don’t engage, run. What’s worse, getting attacked or looking silly? We don’t want to get hurt just because we didn’t want to be embarrassed.

Emily took off, running.

Across the square, under the archway, out onto another street, left around the far corner of the nearest one, onto a wider street—

And straight into the path of an SUV.

Its horn blared and its tyres screeched as it came to a shuddering stop, just as she managed to take a step back and get out of its way. She looked behind her, but there was no sign of the man from the square. When she turned back around, she was looking at Jack.

He was behind the wheel of the SUV, his face full of concern. He slowly pulled the vehicle forward a little, put his window down and called out to her, his eyes wide.

‘Jesus, Emily. Are you OK?’

‘Yeah. Sorry, I’m …’ She gulped down a breath, her chest burning. ‘Sorry.’

‘No, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I was fiddling with the air-con, I didn’t see you until you were right in front of me.’

So perhaps he hadn’t seen her dart out onto the street like a madwoman, so she wouldn’t have to explain to him why she’d done that.

Which was good, because now that he was there, now that she wasn’t alone and the other mysterious guy was gone, the volume of the voices in her head had switched and it was the louder one saying, Drama queen, much? You just completely overreacted. Not everything is a threat. Maybe stop watching those goddamn documentaries on Netflix, eh?

It’s just spam.

‘I’m heading into Seaside,’ Jack said. ‘I might grab something to eat.’ He hesitated. ‘Do you want to come? Or is that, like, against the ghostwriter code or something?’

Emily considered her options. Be alone again, still a ways away from Beach Read, in an eerie, empty town where the only other beating heart was a strange man following her around, or get into a car and go somewhere with Jack Smyth.

Better the devil you know . Wasn’t that what people said?

‘Actually, yeah. If you don’t mind? Seaside sounds great.’