The Winner, page 1
PRAISE FOR C.J. PARSONS
‘A dark tale of celebrity life where fame and fortune cost the ultimate price. I was gripped’
Louise Jensen
‘Highly original and totally addictive’
Lorna Dounaeva
‘A twisty, addictive page-turner that pulls you into a glitzy, glamorous world where nothing is as it seems and no-one can be trusted’
Dreda Say Mitchell
READERS ARE GIVING C.J. PARSONS FIVE STARS!
‘Most spellbinding psychological thriller of the year! I swear I forgot to breathe in parts!’
‘This is the first book in months which I haven’t been able to put down’
‘Worth far more than five stars and very very highly recommended’
CJ PARSONS was born in Britain and grew up in Canada. She graduated from Montreal’s McGill University with a degree in psychology and went on to earn a graduate degree in journalism. She worked as a newspaper reporter at Canada’s Globe and Mail before moving to Hong Kong, where she became a columnist at the South China Morning Post.
After returning to Britain, she moved into television news, working as a broadcast journalist for both the BBC and CNN International. She also spent two years covering crime, seeing first-hand the disturbing forces that drive people to kill, something that inspired her first novel, When She Came Back, published by Headline in November 2020.
CJ is now senior producer at CGTN. She lives in north London.
COPYRIGHT
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
HarperCollinsPublishers
Macken House, 39/40 Mayor Street Upper,
Dublin 1, D01 C9W8, Ireland
This edition 2024
1
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2024
Copyright © C.J. Parsons 2024
C.J. Parsons asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008613952
Ebook Edition © June 2024 ISBN: 9780008613945
Version 2024-04-20
NOTE TO READERS
This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:
Change of font size and line height
Change of background and font colours
Change of font
Change justification
Text to speech
Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008613952
To Mum, aka ‘Purple Grandma’
CONTENTS
Cover
Praise
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright
Note to Readers
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Acknowledgements
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE
This is it, Elliot thought, as his brain registered that the car was no longer clinging to the sharp curves of the coast, that he had overshot the last turn and there was now nothing beneath the wheels but air. This is the end of my life.
The fabric of time seemed to stretch, the car floating above the North Sea in slo-mo, its windscreen blurry with rain.
Then a gut punch of panic knocked the breath from him.
Rosie.
His head turned to the passenger seat; she was staring at the windscreen through splayed fingers, a clichéd image of a girl watching a horror film, mouth gaping in a silent scream as the car flew forward, riding a fading wave of momentum.
The sky vanished from the windscreen, replaced by a view of waves crashing against rocks. Elliot’s stomach swooped into his throat as they fell.
There was a deafening crash, a high-pitched squeal of protesting metal, and he was flung forward, the seatbelt cutting into his chest, face slamming the airbag.
Then nothing. Silence. Darkness.
Was he dead already? Was this death?
It could have been seconds or hours before the pain came, telling him that he was still in this world. He could hear rain falling on metal. Waves smashing the shore.
Alive. I’m alive.
He inhaled and pain knifed him in the chest, fading as he exhaled. He breathed in and the stab came again. Was that a broken rib?
Elliot was hanging forward in his seat, his back to the sky, only the seatbelt preventing him from falling, face first into the airbag.
Rosie.
He turned his head slowly, painfully, towards her.
Her upper body was sagging against the seatbelt like a puppet on slack strings, her face suspended just above the pale mushroom of the airbag, eyes closed. He could see a starburst of fractured glass on the window beside her, and only blackness behind it. Elliot reached across to touch her dangling wrist. Felt the flicker of a pulse beneath the skin. Waves of dizziness were breaking over him, sending white dots swarming across his vision, so at first he thought her face was half masked in shadow. Then his mind cleared for a moment and he saw that the layer of darkness was blood. She must have cracked her head against the side window on the way down.
She’ll die if I can’t get out of here.
He took a breath, winced in pain. Stared hard at the windscreen, trying to see what lay beyond it. But his vision doubled and all he could make out was darkness on the other side. Panic launched a fresh assault as he pictured the car trapped beneath the waves. Imagined water spilling in through the seams of the windows. Drowning slowly in the dark.
Inhale … pain. Exhale … relief.
With a Herculean effort, he raised his head until it made contact with the seat back, the movement unleashing a sick dizziness and an unnerving sensation of loose parts shifting and skidding inside his skull. Something trickled across his lip and he licked it away without thinking. It was slick and salty in his mouth. Blood.
Inhale … pain. Exhale … relief.
He turned his face slowly towards the driver’s door, the broken shards sliding and clicking in his head, dread filling him as he imagined what he might see through the side window.
Please don’t let it be water.
And sobbed with relief. The window was webbed with cracks but still intact, a diagonal of deeper darkness cutting across the bottom, warped by the rain wriggling along the glass.
Rock. He could see the surface of the sea boiling just beyond it, perhaps half a metre below. Elliot could feel his mind starting to function properly again, his cerebral cortex coming back online, wresting control from the crazed jangle of his limbic system. And now, at last, he was able to do what psychologists did best: analyse.
So, the front of the car was wedged between a couple of the giant rocks jutting out of the sea just beyond the cliff’s base. The doors were held shut so he’d have to escape through the back, climb up to the road.
Was that really possible, though? How steep was the cliff? It might be better to call for help and wait here until it arrived. He looked at Rosie again, for signs that she might be coming round. And noticed something that sucked his breath away. Now that his vision had cleared, he could see that the wall of the car beside her had caved in. The metal bulged obscenely, reaching halfway across her lap. Jesus. He tried to pull her out from under it, but she was stuck tight, her lower body pinned down by warped metal. It would take equipment, experts, to prize her free.
Assuming it’s not too late for her. Because of you.
The thought whispered around his skull. He pushed it aside.
His mobile. Where was it? It had been in his jacket pocket as usual, but when he groped for it now, it was no longer there. He closed his eyes – a mistake; the world tilted and lurched like a funfair ride – then quickly opened them again. The phone must have fallen out in the crash and skidded to the lowest part of the car: the front. He would have to navigate around the airbag to reach it.
Don’t panic, his cortex admonished. There’s no need to rush.
Except that wasn’t really true, was it? Because a realisation was creeping up on him. There hadn’t been any rocks sticking out of the water when they’d driven along this road a week ago, at the start of their Highlands holiday: Rosie had taken photos from the window and they’d admired them later, in the hotel.
There hadn’t been any rocks because the tide had covered them. He forced himself to remain calm as the implication of this sank in. Was the tide coming in now?
There was a dripping sound from somewhere in front of him. He leaned left then right, trying to see around the airbag.
Inhale … pain. Exhale … relief.
The windscreen was cracked at the base and water was travelling across the dashboard in rivulets, dripping down into the footwell. He became aware of the sound it made: the plink of liquid on liquid. He stretched his legs towards the space beside the pedals and felt the cold clutch of water around his ankles. If he’d dropped his phone, it was submerged now.
Think-think-think.
What about Rosie’s? She usually kept it in her canvas bag.
The bag she had tossed onto the floor at her feet. Under water now, like his phone.
The waves were becoming more aggressive, pushing shards of glass out of the jigsaw in the windscreen, gushing in through the gap at the bottom. Slowly but surely, seawater was filling the car. It was only a matter of time before the entire front section, including the seats they were strapped to, became completely submerged.
‘Rosie, wake up!’
Nothing. Not a flicker of response.
He grabbed at her arm and her one exposed leg, yanking with all his strength. But it was no use.
He needed to get out of here. Climb to the road and flag down a car. Would he make it, though? Even getting to the cliff’s base would be a major achievement, battered by waves on the sharp rocks.
Still, he had to try. He couldn’t just stay here, waiting for the tide to bury him.
He looked at Rosie. What would happen to her? This was an isolated stretch of coast, they had passed only a few other cars in the last hour. How long would it take for rescuers to arrive? How far was the nearest hospital, the nearest fire station? The cold hard fact of the matter was that help probably wouldn’t arrive in time.
Then a cold voice slid across his thoughts, whispering, She brought this on herself, though, didn’t she? If she hadn’t said those things, we’d be safe right now.
Elliot considered her profile. Now that the wave of panic had passed, he felt oddly dispassionate. Empty. He watched fresh blood trace a sideways line across her face. Listened to the dripping of water filling the footwell.
Plink-plink-plink.
Getting louder. Faster.
CHAPTER 1
‘What are you hiding in your sleeve?’ Heather demanded.
The boy turned and gave her a sly smile. Eric Shulman: a budding psycho if ever there was one. Different from the school bullies whose bravado was a thin covering for the gaping wound of their hellish insecurities. No, Eric was a different breed entirely. He didn’t seem to be masking anything except a dark, unnerving blankness.
‘Sorry, what did you say, Miss?’
The recreation zone was noisy with lunchtime shouts, shrieks and laughter. So she supposed it was possible that he genuinely hadn’t heard her question.
Possible.
But unlikely.
‘That packet I just saw poking out of your jacket sleeve. I’d like you to take it out. Right now.’
Any other Holland Park Upper student would have backed away, or at most, stood his ground. But not Eric. He moved a step closer, the reduced distance emphasising the difference in their heights. Fifteen years old and already towering over her.
‘That’s a big accusation, Miss, to make without proof. Because everyone has rights. Even the police aren’t allowed to search people without a good reason.’ He took out a piece of gum, popped it into his mouth and began to chew, releasing a smell of mint. It mingled with the skunky scent of cannabis clinging to his jacket. ‘Last time I checked, teachers didn’t outrank police. And you’re not even a proper teacher. Just a trainee.’
Arrogant little bastard.
She was dimly aware that her leg was throbbing again: a sick, thudding ache, as though the bone itself were swelling and contracting with each beat of her heart. The pill must have worn off already. Swallowing, she pointed to Eric’s cuff, where the packet of drugs – it had to be drugs, didn’t it? – was concealed. The tip of her finger touched his sleeve.
‘I can see that—’
Eric’s hand whipped up and grabbed hold of her wrist. He leaned down, filling her nostrils with mint. Hissed in her ear.
‘Don’t. Touch. Me.’
And suddenly Heather was afraid. Afraid of this oversized teenager with his dark, glittery eyes and his insolent slouch, the posh accent stretched out into a drawl. His grip tightened. Heather’s eyes darted around the recreation area. There were supposed to be two of them on duty, damn it. Where the hell was Steve? Probably drinking coffee in the staffroom, the lazy shirker.
She pulled herself to her full height, which, at five foot three, didn’t really achieve much. Then she looked Eric straight in the eye, speaking with all the authority she could muster.
‘Let go of my wrist immediately or I will report you to the head.’
‘Oh dear,’ he said, without a trace of concern. ‘Do you think I’ll get chucked out?’
And he laughed. Because of course they couldn’t get rid of him. Not without turning off the money tap that had sent donations flowing into the school’s coffers from the first day Eric Shulman (heir to the Shulman media dynasty) had sauntered through the gates. Shulman money had paid for the shiny new equipment in the lab and the flashy computers in the ‘coding corner’. It had turned the neighbouring plot of land into the tennis courts that were the jewel in Holland Park Upper’s PE crown.
Which meant that Eric would never be permanently excluded no matter what he did. If Heather’s eight months’ training at the school had taught her anything, it was that the wealthy occupied a sort of parallel universe where the rules didn’t apply, floating through lives of beauty and ease while people like her trudged below, clocking up hours, toeing the line.
‘Let go this second, or …’ She cast around desperately for a suitable threat, but her mind had gone blank. Then, from somewhere to her left, came the sound of footsteps.
‘Stop it, you dickhead.’
Heather turned to see Dean Mitchell, the big-mouthed, big-hearted boy who lived two floors down from her, in number thirty-four.
He squared up to Eric, not quite as tall, but broad.
Eric released Heather’s wrist, long fingers migrating to his school tie, adjusting the gold clip.
