After She Fell: A haunting psychological thriller with a shocking twist. Mary-Jane Riley

held onto the door as if by letting go she would fall down.

      ‘Cat,’ Alex said, reaching out to hug the woman who had once been her closest friend. ‘Of course I came.’

      There had been no question about her going to Grosvenor Place Mews, even though she should have been hunting for stories, chasing commissions, chasing the cash.

      She’d been in her news editor’s office pitching an idea for looking into a story about people being trafficked for illegal organ removal when he’d leaned back in his chair and looked at her from under unruly eyebrows. ‘I had a call this morning.’

      ‘Right,’ said Alex, not sure what that had to do with her.

      ‘Someone looking for you.’

      ‘Right.’ Typical Bud, he liked to think he was being mysterious, building up the tension – all it succeeded in doing was to make her impatient. Even so, she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of winning the game. ‘Anyway, Bud, about the organ removal story. It’s early days, but I heard from a reasonably reliable source—’

      ‘Don’t you want to know who it was?’

      She looked at him: sitting in his cubbyhole in a dark corner of the office ‘so the bean counters can’t find me’; overweight, paunch almost resting on the desk. Computer pushed right to the back; the front of the desk piled high with editions of The Post going back years. And a higgledy-piggledy heap of press releases, cuttings, jottings, and God knows what. Coffee mugs littered the desk too, dark slime at the bottom of some. All Bud Evans needed to complete the ‘I’m an old-fashioned editor and I don’t take any nonsense’ look was a green eyeshade. Bloody rogue. But he’d been good to her: employing her when nobody else would after it had all come out about Sasha and she felt she needed to leave Sole Bay and lose herself in the anonymity of London. Having taken her under his wing once in her life – when she was a raw recruit – Bud had come to her rescue again. She owed him.

      She grinned. ‘What if I said no?’

      He made a gruff noise, somewhere between a snort and a cough. ‘You want to know. Of course you do.’

      She rolled her eyes. ‘Go on then.’

      ‘A Member of the European Parliament,’ he said with a flourish. ‘Asking for you personally. Said she was an old friend of yours. Didn’t know you moved in such illustrious circles. Or have you gone native on me? Hobnobbing with the enemy?’

      ‘An MEP?’ Her heart began to beat faster. There was only one such person who could be asking for her personally: Catriona Devonshire.

      She and Cat Devonshire had been inseparable through primary school and on into high school. Cat had been the sister to her that Sasha hadn’t been. They had shared secrets, problems, worries. They swore to look out for each other forever. They went their separate ways to uni, but they still kept in touch. When Gus came along, Cat made no judgements, but left her new husband, Patrick, at home, put her fledgling political career on hold and came to stay. Her presence had been a soothing balm on Alex’s soul.

      And then the twins had been murdered and Alex’s life had been consumed by guilt and the need to look after Sasha. Her world began to narrow; she had no time, no room in her head for anyone but Sasha, so she excluded everything and everyone else from her life, including Cat. And when Cat’s daughter, Elena, had been born, a few short weeks later, Alex had broken off all contact.

      ‘But I want you here,’ Cat had pleaded. ‘I want you to be Elena’s godmother.’

      ‘Cat,’ Alex kept her tone deliberately without emotion, ‘you have your family. Your career. Any association with me would spoil both those things. We need to put distance between us.’

      ‘But Al—’

      ‘No, Cat. I have to be with my family.’ And then the sentence that had sounded the death knell on their friendship: ‘I don’t need you any more, Cat. I’ve got Sasha to look after. Gus. They are my family. They are the ones I need to look after now.’ It had almost killed her to say the words, to know that she was losing Cat’s friendship, but she didn’t want the events of her life to taint Cat’s. It had to be done.

      And Cat had removed herself from Alex’s life.

      But Alex had followed Cat’s career. Had felt proud of her friend as her political star rose and rose. Had grieved for her when Patrick died suddenly, and grieved even more when Elena was found dead at the bottom of the cliff. She’d wanted to go to Elena’s funeral, but had been in Spain chasing a story.

      Now Cat was getting in touch with her again. Alex felt something shift inside her. Perhaps here was a chance for her to mend their relationship, for Cat to forgive her for pushing her away. Whatever the reason, Alex knew she’d been given a second chance.

      ‘Alex? Alex? Did you hear what I said?’

      Alex blinked. ‘Sorry Bud. What were you saying?’

      ‘MEP? Wants to talk to you? Hasn’t got your number? Said she might have a story?’

      ‘Of course, the MEP—?’

      ‘Catriona Devonshire. Is she a friend of yours, then?’

      ‘She was.’

      ‘She was talking about an exclusive. For the paper. The paper you work for.’

      Clever.

      ‘So you’ve got her number?’ Alex asked, as casually as she could.

      ‘Yep. Personal number, she said. Though God knows why she trusted me with it.’ He gave his bark of a laugh. ‘She must be desperate to talk to you.’ He picked up his e-cigarette, beginning to suck hard on it. ‘Bloody hell I hate these things,’ he said gloomily, vapours of steam curling up into the air. ‘Why does the sodding government have to spoil it for the rest of us?’ He took it out of his mouth and looked at it soulfully. ‘Nothing like the real thing.’ He put it back between his lips.

      ‘But we’re a lot healthier in this office, aren’t we?’ Alex said sweetly. ‘Now, Cat’s number?’

      ‘Cat is it now? Hang on. I wrote it down here somewhere.’ He began to sift through the papers on his desk. Not a chance, she thought. Her shoulders sagged.

      ‘Hah! Here we are.’ He waved a piece of paper triumphantly.

      ‘Thanks Bud.’ She breathed again as she plucked it from his fingers and turned to go.

      ‘And Alex?’

      ‘Yes?’ She tried not to laugh. Him and his e-cigarette just didn’t look cool.

      ‘She sounded desperate. Don’t know what she wanted, but stories involving corrupt MEPs always sell. Better if it’s a sex scandal. Didn’t she marry that much younger man recently?’

      ‘Mark Munro?’

      ‘That’s the one. Some city whizz-kid.’

      ‘They got hitched about this time last year. Whirlwind romance and a summer wedding abroad.’

      ‘And he’s younger than her.’ Bud looked thoughtful. ‘Maybe—’

      Alex raised her eyebrows. ‘I thought The Post was a serious paper, not given to Hello!-style splashes or sidebars of shame reporting. And no one gives a toss if a man marries someone considerably younger than himself.’

      ‘Ach, cut your feminist whining. And in these days of falling circulation we’ll take anything.’ He grinned. ‘Almost anything. As long as you write it in the right way. So, if there’s a story there—’

      She grinned back at him. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll be the last to know.’ She winked before closing the door, knowing the story about organ trafficking would have to wait until she’d seen Cat.

      So the next day Alex found herself sitting on the white leather settee inside the Devonshires’ mews house. It was