The Book Swap Read online

  THE BOOK SWAP

  JE ROWNEY

  Other thrillers by this author

  Other People’s Lives

  I Can’t Sleep

  The Woman in the Woods

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Where the names of actual persons are used in this book, the characters themselves are entirely fictional and are not intended to bear any resemblance to persons with those names.

  All rights reserved.

  © JE Rowney and Little Fox Publishing, 2022

  For Becky Sumner,

  who suggested including

  Book Swap Central in a novel.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Laura lifted her mug to her lips and took a sip of her coffee. Moments later, the cold brown liquid came spluttering back out, narrowly missing the book, but landing on the arm of her mother’s armchair. She had let it go cold again.

  “How many times?” she asked, but the only person to hear her words was herself.

  Laura’s life had changed dramatically over the previous few months. Separating from her husband and moving back with her mother for the first time since she had moved out to get married, she barely had any time to herself. Sitting down to read had become a luxury, but every time she managed to curl up for a few chapters, she found herself forgetting the rest of the world, which unfortunately included the coffee she had made to accompany her book break.

  “Did you say something, love?”

  Laura’s mother, Catharine, peered into the living room.

  “No, I’m fine,” Laura said, moving her book to cover the small brown patch. “Thanks, Mum.”

  Her mother stood in the doorway, casting her eyes over her, as though trying to work out whether she was telling the truth.

  “You can talk to me, you know,” she said, without moving closer.

  “I know, Mum.” Laura shifted in her chair. Either she had been sitting in the same position for too long or she felt the pressure of her mother’s concern boring into her. It had been four months, and if she hadn’t talked to her mum about the breakdown of her marriage by then, she wasn’t likely to start.

  Sensing the barrier between them rising, Catharine didn’t push further.

  “How’s the book?” she asked instead.

  “Uh, it’s okay. I’ll lend it to you when I’ve finished.”

  “One of those thrillers, is it?”

  Catharine took her chance to come into the room and walk over to her daughter, peering at the book cover. The tell-tale imagery of a psychological thriller, a yellow-windowed house in ominous darkness, was emblazoned across the front.

  “Yeah,” Laura said.

  It wasn’t just that she didn’t want to talk about her failed marriage, Laura didn’t want to talk at all. Since leaving her husband, it was almost as though she had clammed up and closed herself off from everyone she knew. Including her mum.

  Aware of the snappiness of her response, she added, “It was one of those I got from that book swap. You know, that group I’m in.”

  “On the World Wide Web?” Catharine pronounced each word carefully, as though it tasted strange in her mouth.

  “Facebook, yeah,” Laura replied.

  Catharine nodded.

  “That’s nice, love.”

  Laura couldn’t help but think that her mother would consider any social interaction she had was ‘nice’. She had stayed in the house, not answering the phone to her friends, taking time out of work, all under the guise of healing and getting over her broken marriage.

  Social media was easy, though. She could talk to the people that lived in her phone, on the Facebook app. Her one true love had always been reading, and – unlike her soon to be ex-husband – it would never leave her.

  Being in a group with thousands of other like-minded people from around the world was all the community she needed. She didn’t have to talk about why she had split from the man she had planned to spend her life with. Nobody needed to know why she still didn’t feel like she could return to work after almost five months. There were no intrusive questions, and nobody was judging her for being a thirty-year-old woman that lived with her mum.

  The group chatted about books they were reading, books they had loved, books that had driven them crazy. Books, books, books. Laura loved it.

  “What happened there?” Catharine leaned over her daughter, investigating the splash of tan brown liquid on her cream armchair.

  Even though she was a grown woman, Laura couldn’t help but feel like a child when she had done something wrong.

  “Sorry, Mum,” she said. “I was going to come and …”

  But Catharine was already reaching down, wiping away at the mark, humming away to herself.

  It seemed like she always had a cloth in her hand since Laura came home. Everything was in perfect order. The carpet hoovered twice a day, washing up, never sitting, waiting to be done, clean dishes dried and put away as soon as they were washed. Heavens forbid Laura left the towels out of place in the bathroom.

  “Leave it. I’ll do it.” Laura put her book down on the carved oak end table that had sat by the sofa since the days that her father was still alive. “Mum …”

  “All done,” Catharine said. “Try to be more careful though, love.”

  “I didn’t mean to do it.” Laura could already feel herself becoming defensive. The sharp edge her husband had always hated entered her voice and made her wince.

  Catherine placed her hand, gently, onto Laura’s arm.

  “I know,” she said, her voice as soft as Laura’s was hard. “Why don’t I make you a fresh brew, and you can get another chapter in while I finish in the kitchen?”

  Laura didn’t resist the warmth in her mum’s voice or the touch of her hand. No matter what, she knew that Catharine only had good intentions. It was difficult, sometimes, not to overreact or lash out. Her temperament had not yet settled after her split.

  “Thanks. And I’m sorry. About the …” she pointed at the splash mark that was now so faint that it was barely visible.

  Catharine shook her head and smiled.

  “Go on now, get stuck back in. I’ll never get to read it if you don’t finish.”

  Eleven o’clock in the morning, a time when once the confident and seemingly happily married Laura Jacobs would be sitting at her desk in the office of Chaucer and Sons. A couple of hours of paperwork, then perhaps a visit out to show a prospective buyer around a property. Once she had a purpose, places to be, people to see. Now mornings were for coffee and books. Catharine would make lunch and then encourage her daughter to take a walk with her in the afternoons. Then evenings were either filled with television marathons or, commonly, more reading. With her head in a book, Laura was in her own world, and sometimes even her own universe.

  All the drama in her life was fictional, and Laura liked it that way.

  Little did she know that things were about to change.

  Tucking her legs beneath her on the large, soft armchair, Laura leaned back and started to read.

  She devoured one page, and then the next. By the time she had reached the third, the outside world had ceased to exist. There was nothing apart from the world the author had created within the pages of the book.

  Reading was her escape. The world within the book may have be
en filled with drama, danger, and deceit, but it was a different world, a world where she didn’t have to think about the drama, danger, and deceit of her own life.

  A shrill ringing from the hallway broke Laura’s concentration and dragged her back from her novel into her less desirable reality.

  In her marital home, she had insisted that she and Jamie had a doorbell that chimed gently, after suffering the harsh trill of her parents’ ringer for so many years. All those things she had argued for had been left behind. None of them mattered anymore. She wondered whether they ever had at all.

  “I’ll get it,” Catharine called from the kitchen. Laura could tell by the shift in tone that she was already walking, heading to the door.

  “Thanks.”

  No point carrying on reading for the time being. Laura pulled her phone from her pocket and scrolled through social media.

  She heard the click of the heavy wooden door opening, and then the familiar sound of the voice that her mother used with strangers. It was a lighter, more honey-sweet tone than her usual sound, and the two of them often laughed about it. How easy it could be to disguise one’s feelings just by changing one’s voice. Laura had been doing the same thing ever since she split from Jamie.

  There was a second click as her mother closed the door. Only then did Laura speak.

  “Who was it?” Laura called through into the hall.

  “Parcel for you,” her mum said, rather unnecessarily as she walked in holding a padded envelope. “Expecting something? Feels rather like a book, I’d say.”

  Laura’s mood lifted as soon as she saw the delivery.

  “Thanks, Mum.” She reached up for the package and read her name and her mother’s address on the parcel.

  One good thing about living here instead of living with her husband was that she was no longer judged for her book mail. Jamie had complained every time he saw the postman arrive. He didn’t understand Laura’s passion for reading.

  “Probably because he’s never picked up a book himself,” Catharine would always say.

  The parcel was wrapped in brown paper, her name danced in green marker pen. Someone had taken the time to pick this book out for her from their own bookshelf. They had wrapped it carefully and handwritten her name on the crisp packaging. Before she had even opened the parcel, Laura was already buzzing with excitement.

  “Are you going to open it now?” Catharine asked.

  Laura set the package down on her dad’s table.

  “I’ll save it,” she said. “I’ll be done with this one today, then I can open the parcel and dive straight in.”

  She took one last look at the freshly arrived mail, smiled to herself, and settled back to finish her book.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The following day was much like every other day had been since Laura had moved in with her mum. After reading and half-watching the daytime television shows that her mother couldn’t stop watching, Laura took herself out into the garden to sit in the little outhouse that had once been her father’s tool shed. After he died, it sat unused for almost three years, before her mother finally brought herself to sort through the contents.

  There was so much inside that he had gathered over the years. Nothing of financial value to anyone, but the sentimental value was immeasurable. Of course, there were actual tools, but there were also gadgets that he had tinkered away at, sketches of intricate objects that he would never get to complete, even handwritten notes that he had made about future projects or plans that he never had time to work on.

  Jonathan Deacon had been a practical man, who loved nothing more than creating and repairing. The shed had been his domain, his sacred ground. It was little wonder that Catharine had not wanted to disturb it.

  Still, time passed, and the pain of loss never left, but it lessened. The shed became Catharine’s place for time alone as she sifted through the stacks, picked through boxes, and separated Jonathan’s belongings into what she would keep and what she could let go of. And again, later, a second pass, where she whittled down the ten boxes of memories into just two. The essence of her husband, Laura’s father, decanted into cardboard storage containers, to be kept for eternity.

  Then came the transformation of the sacred space into the garden room that stood to the present day. Wooden slats were removed and replaced with windows, the dirty workbench and vice switched for a neat desk, Jonathan’s sturdy chair made way for a deep, comfortable sofa. Laura covered her clothes in white overalls to help her mother paint over the rough walls with eggshell paints, and one of Jonathan’s friends came to lay floorboards over the concrete ground.

  When the work was completed, and the shed was transformed into somewhere the women could sit, relax and remember the man who had been such an important, beloved part of their lives, the finishing touch was placed. In almost ceremonial fashion, Catharine set a framed photograph of the three of them onto the newly fitted desk. The last holiday they had taken together, before Jonathan’s diagnosis. That was how Laura wanted to remember him, how she wanted to remember her family. Close, happy, healthy.

  Now, most days, she would sit in the garden room that had once been his universe, relaxing and reflecting. No matter what stresses life threw at her, the shed was her safe place. With a book in her hand and a tea by her side, she needed nothing more.

  On this particular morning, Catharine had gone upstairs, after the end of Quiz Time, to soak in the bath. If reading was Laura’s escape, the same could be said for Catharine and her love of luxuriating in scented bubbles. Living together was a balance of spending time as mother and daughter without getting under each other’s feet. They both needed some time to themselves and mornings like this were when that happened.

  When her mother retreated to the bathroom, Laura sat down on the new sofa in the old shed and looked at the brown paper parcel. The name said Laura Jacobs, which felt like a half-truth. Jacobs was her husband’s name. Perhaps it was time to leave it behind. She lived with her mother, she could take back her maiden name, give in to her new life.

  Laura picked up the parcel and turned it over in her hands to access the rear, where a thick strip of clear tape ran along. Over the months since she had been part of the Book Swap group, Laura had received many such parcels as this. Sometimes the books came from people that she had, in turn, sent parcels to. Some were anonymous gift exchanges, random novels from kind strangers. Today’s new arrival was one of the latter. She did not know what the book was going to be, and that made unwrapping it even more exciting.

  Even though she had just finished reading a thriller, Laura devoured all kinds of books. Unless it was something she had already read, she knew she was going to love it. Even if it was a duplicate, she could swap it with somebody else and the cycle could continue.

  Taking her time, Laura slid her fingernails beneath the edge of the tape and gently prised it from the paper. If she was careful, she could reuse it when she sent her next parcel.

  As she lifted the wrapping, she caught sight of the back of the book, a sea-green colour with black lettering and a small photo of an author she didn’t recognise. Even before she flipped it over, Laura had guessed that this was another thriller.

  The cover confirmed her suspicions. It featured a red-haired woman with smeared lipstick and the bright yellow title, The Trophy Wife.

  Laura let out a low ‘ooh’ sound as she studied the picture and turned the book back over to read the description on the rear.

  Her eyes glided over the words, her mind already guessing the plot as she read. It looked as though it was going to be a good one.

  “Thank you, stranger,” Laura said to the empty little room. It was de rigueur to add a post in the Facebook group to send actual thanks to the sender, but that could wait until she had flicked through the first few pages.

  She sipped her tea and felt the rush of starting a new novel. Laura took the book in her hands, feeling its comforting weight and smooth cover, and turned to
the first page.

  As usual, Laura quickly became engrossed in the thriller’s plot. So engrossed that she didn’t hear the crunching of footsteps on the gravel path that ran along the centre of the garden. So engrossed that she didn’t hear the turning of the door handle. So engrossed that she didn’t notice the door opening, and the tall figure step into the garden room.

  “How’s your book?” Catharine asked, almost causing Laura to fly out of her chair.

  “Mum!” Laura thrashed her arms instinctively, and the book flew from her hands onto the floor.

  “Sorry, love! Didn’t mean to make you jump.”

  Catharine bumbled over to where Laura was sitting and bent to pick up the book.

  “Oh, I’ve made you lose your page, too. I’m sorry.”

  “Stop apologising, it’s fine!” She felt like she could just about have had a heart attack, but, sure, it was fine.

  Laura extended her hands to receive the book from her mum. When Catharine passed it up to her, Laura frowned.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  “It came out of your book. I thought it was your bookmark,” Catharine said.

  The ‘bookmark’ was a scrap of paper that looked like it had been ripped from brown card. It curled ever so slightly, as though it had once been part of a cylindrical shape, and time and the weight of the book had tried to reshape it.

  Laura pulled it closer to her. There were two faint, almost imperceptible words on it and as she read them, Laura couldn’t help but gasp.

  “What is it, Laura?” Her mother instinctively put her hand on Laura’s arm.

  Laura shook her head and looked down at her mother, displaying the scrawled note.

  “I don’t have my glasses,” Catharine said. “What is it?”

  “It says,” Laura read, “‘Help Me’.”