The Christmas Guest by Peter Swanson

Author:Peter Swanson [Swanson, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Published: 2023-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

I won’t recount the next two years of my continued education in London, except to say that they were unpleasant years at best. The last time Adam and I talked about Ashley Smith was at a crowded pub in Charing Cross, when he whispered in my ear that I had saved his life. Needless to say, the perpetrator was never caught, but they did stop considering Adam a prime suspect, just as he’d known they would. The Cotswold Killer became a tabloid sensation for a while, and since I was the girl who’d survived the second attack, I was flooded with requests for interviews or simply statements. I refused them all. But I always felt the eyes on me at university functions and at student pubs. There was even a period when I was followed around by a troll-like journalist who would hide in bushes outside my flat, then leap out and take my photograph.

I had already decided that I was going to leave England for good as soon as I had my degree. I had no interest in ever seeing my parents again, especially since the death of my grandmother ensured that I now had money of my own. There had been a time when the thought of not seeing Adam again would have filled me with despair, but that time was now gone. Ever since I’d murdered Ashley Smith in order to ensure his freedom, we’d grown further apart. I was happy, I suppose, that he wasn’t going to go to prison for the remainder of his life, but I could no longer bear to be near to him.

My plan was to move to Italy, and study to be an art restorer, but as I was consolidating my possessions in preparation for the move, I was reminded that I still had a valid passport for Ashley Smith, along with her Californian driver’s license, several of her credit cards, and, of course, her diary. Adam had managed to get to her diary before the police did, when he returned to Starvewood Hall on Christmas Day. Having reread it, I don’t think there was enough in there to really point the finger at either Adam or me, but back then he was erring on the side of caution.

“To the victor go the spoils,” Adam said, when he gave me Ashley’s possessions. I’d expected to see his wolfish smile, but he looked serious as he said it, almost proud.

I held on to the journal, and to all of Ashley’s personal items. I wonder what the police thought about never finding her passport—I assume they must have searched her flat—but I never heard anything about it. She was a nineteen-year-old girl from America and I guess that they figured her passport had gotten lost in the messiness of her life.

I remember staring at her driver’s license photograph and her passport photo, both of which had been taken in 1986, when she’d been sixteen years old. She wore a fair amount of makeup

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.