Guilt: The Sunday Times best selling psychological thriller that you need to read in 2018. Amanda Robson

secret that I am looking forward to unleashing.

      Miranda, you are fantastic too, with your glamorous shiny flat. My sensible, caring sister, a sister like a second mother. But then you have always been there for me.

      Most of all, and I want to shout this from every balcony in Bristol, I am on a high because I’m infatuated with my lover Sebastian. His craggy face. His swarthy complexion. The darkness of his stubble that radiates testosterone. It’s the first time I’ve ever been infatuated with anyone, isn’t it, Miranda? You have always teased me about how I suck men in and spit them out.

      And I haven’t had a panic attack since I arrived.

      I will never forget my first one. At school. At the start of my first mock A level. Chemistry. I could hardly breathe. The more I looked at the words on the exam paper in front of me, the less I could read them. They became black wavy lines swimming in front of me. When the result came out I had an E. Not a result to shout about. Not like yours always were, Miranda.

      This bad experience made future exams even more nerve-racking. Looking back, for me, moving towards exams was like moving towards the guillotine. It was simple. My life was about to end. No life beyond them. This is not how I feel now on my photography course. My photography course at the University of the West of England is so natural, it feels like an extension of me.

      After my first panic attack, a barrage of further attacks hit me regularly, assuaged only by cutting. The panic attacks pulled me down. Cutting lifted me up. So many panic attacks. So much cutting.

      The last one was the night before I came to Bristol. Since I came to Bristol, the panic attacks have gone. What has stopped them? The smell of salt on the breeze? The way Sebastian melts into my soul? What will it take to make me throw away my blade? Or will throwing away my blade always be one step too far?

       10

       Miranda

      I watch delicate fingers making the spliff, sprinkling the tobacco, spreading the shaken bud on top of it. Rolling tightly. Licking the edge of the Rizla paper, pressing the paper together with casual but practised insistence. You always roll the perfect spliff, don’t you, Zara? I have never been an expert. I don’t even know where to buy the stuff. But neither of us smoke much. An evening of you to myself. An evening of best Colombian Gold.

      We lie on the rug in front of the TV – on our stomachs, facing each other. Your golden eyes sharpen beneath the electric light of the wintry evening as you light the spliff and take the first drag. You inhale deeply, as if you are sucking the elixir of life into your very being. A passing frown as you concentrate. Holding in. Holding in. Holding in. Release. The musky aroma of cannabis spreads thickly around us. Clinging. Sickly. Sweet. You pass the spliff to me. The same routine: holding, holding, release. The cannabis is making me feel floaty.

      ‘You and Sebastian. Don’t you think it’s too quick?’ I pause. ‘Is it lust, or love at first sight? Don’t you think it might just be lust?’ I ask.

      ‘I thought you’d ask that,’ you sigh, looking into the distance beyond me. ‘But it isn’t lust, it’s definitely love,’ you continue. ‘And when you really love someone you want them to love you back. You want to possess them.’ There is a pause. ‘I do worry that I love Sebastian too much.’

      ‘What’s different about Sebastian?’ I ask, handing the spliff back.

      ‘You sound disapproving.’

      ‘No. I’m curious. Just interested. I want to know.’

      The spliff is burning down in your hand. Slowly, slowly, you take a drag. Then you say, ‘He’s volatile. Dark. There’s nothing bland about him.’

      ‘Don’t you think a bit of bland might be more relaxing?’

      ‘No. Bland is boring.’

      ‘So for you dark and volatile means love?’

      ‘You’re twisting my words. I didn’t say that.’

      ‘Come on, tell me, really tell me about love.’

      ‘Should I quote the Bible or Shakespeare?’

      ‘No. Tell it for yourself.’

      ‘When I touch him, something jumps inside me.’

      ‘That’s sexual.’

      ‘When I’m in a crowded room with him I don’t see anyone else.’

      ‘That’s antisocial.’

      ‘I think about him all the time when I’m not with him.’

      ‘Try being an accountant, not a photography student.’

      ‘That’s condescending.’

      You laugh your heady laugh. You raise the spliff in the air, in sudden proclamation.

      ‘Listen Miranda, when you love someone you just know. It’s a physical actuality, a certainty that settles in your mind. And from that moment on, the rest of your life swings around it. The love, the certainty, is the pivot from which everything else flows.’

       THE PRESENT

       11

      Bail denied. Back inside the cattle truck. First it rattles along a straight road, presumably the motorway. Now it twists and turns down country lanes. Never-ending sickness. Never-ending discomfort. Even when the truck stops still the ground moves beneath her feet. Still she feels sick as she is escorted from the truck into the prison yard.

      The prison building unfolds before her. It looks like a 1960s secondary modern school. Dusty, boxy, low-rise architecture. Surrounded by open countryside. Green upon green. Tree upon tree. Beech and oak, ash and sycamore. Air that tastes fresh. Air that tastes clean. But she will not breathe it for long. Soon she will be incarcerated.

      She is the only prisoner to arrive today. No one else to watch. No one else to empathise with as the guard takes her through the yard.

      Inside, the registration area looks like a hotel reception. Premier Inn? Travelodge? Almost, but not quite. The receptionist is a prison officer. A prison officer with shiny blonde hair, scraped up in a bun. Looking more like a ballet teacher than a prison officer. The ballet teacher hands her paperwork. So much paperwork. Piles of instructions. About the prison routine. About what will happen to her.

      The ballet teacher hands her the suitcase her mother has brought in for her with a label on it announcing it has been checked. The ballet teacher, who is also Little Miss Admin Efficiency, with soft-pink painted fingernails and carefully dyed eyelashes, asks her for details, primly and crisply. Then when she has finished interviewing her, she telephones to request another officer to take her inside. Deepening her voice on the word inside, making it sound as sinister as possible.

      ‘Before you go inside you will be searched,’ Miss Ballet Admin Efficiency warns.

      Her stomach tightens. Her chest burns. She thinks she’s about to have a panic attack. She’s seen too many films where women are strip-searched. Miss Ballet Admin Efficiency sends her across the vestibule to a doorway on the opposite wall. She knocks on it.

      ‘Come in,’ says an elderly voice.

      She breathes deeply to prepare herself. But as soon as she steps inside the small, sterile room she sees a female officer of about sixty, smiling at her. She is gently patted down. So gently she’s not sure how they ever find anything. How easy it must be to smuggle things in. That worries her too. Her insides tighten again.

      ‘That’s fine,’ the elderly officer says. ‘Is it your first