If You Love Me: True love. True terror. True story.. Jane Smith

      

      

       Copyright

      Certain details in this story, including names, places and dates, have been changed to protect the family’s privacy.

      HarperElement

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published by HarperElement 2017

      FIRST EDITION

      © Alice Keale and Jane Smith 2017

      Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

      Cover photograph © Stephen Carroll/Arcangel Images (posed by model)

      A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

      Alice Keale and Jane Smith assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, 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 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 e-books.

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      Source ISBN: 9780008205256

      Ebook Edition © January 2017 ISBN: 9780008205263

      Version: 2016-12-20

       Dedication

      For my family and friends, who never gave up on me. I wouldn’t be where I am today without their continued love and support.

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       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

       About the Author

       Moved by If You Love Me?

       Moving Memoirs eNewsletter

       About the Publisher

       Prologue

      I glanced down at the luminous hands of the large watch that made my wrist look as thin as a child’s. Surely that couldn’t be the right time. It couldn’t possibly have taken me as long as that just to get this far. Then I remembered that he’d set the watch before I left, so I knew it was accurate. Which meant that I would have to run even faster if I was going to reach the pub, take a photograph on his mobile phone and get back to the house in the few minutes that remained before time ran out.

      Quickening my pace, I scanned the darkness of every side street and every shop doorway I passed. And I listened too, for the sound of approaching footsteps or distant voices.

      As I ran past the café where we had sat together just a few hours earlier, I thought I saw a flicker of movement, and the ever-present knot of fear tightened inside me. It was almost 1 a.m. on a Wednesday night and I’d been certain I was the only person out on the street. But, suddenly, a man stepped out of the shadows directly in front of me.

      I had to swerve off the pavement and on to the road to avoid being caught in his outstretched arms, and as I did so I was engulfed in the alcohol-laden breath he exhaled when he lunged towards me. I gasped in shocked surprise, but kept on running, ignoring the sharp objects I could feel cutting into the flesh of my bare, bruised feet and the incoherent shouts of the man who stumbled