Kiss Her Goodbye - blog tour

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Kiss Her Goodbye – Susan Gee

About the author

Susan Gee was a finalist in the Daily Mail Write a Bestseller Competition as well as a finalist in The Good Housekeeping fiction competition. This is her first novel.

Follow Susan

Facebook: @susangeewriter

Twitter: @SusanGeeWriter

About the book

Seventeen year old Hayley Reynolds is unwanted at home, and an outsider at school. Pushed away by her best friend Kirsten Green, she makes a deliberate, chilling decision – if Kirsten can’t belong to her, then she won’t belong to anyone….

DI Beverley Samuels has the body of a schoolgirl on her hands – a murder that brings back the hauntingly painful memories of the case she’s tried so desperately to forget.

There’s something deeply disturbing about this crime – and yet with little hard evidence it’s up to her to decide who she will believe….

Tightly-plotted, tense, and a finale with a heart-stoping twist - get ready for the biggest thriller of 2018. Fans of Claire Mackintosh, Laura Marshall, A. J. FInn and Alice Feeny won't be disappointed!

Buy links

iBooks: https://apple.co/2wIEDKY

Google Play: http://bit.ly/2uGw6Gu

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2uuh5bw

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2Jtn3hy

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EXTRACT

Hayley Reynolds

Friday 20th September 1985

The day that I kill Kirsten I find her in her usual place: on the bench by the river. She looks out over the weir, blonde hair hanging over her turquoise-blue tee shirt as she watches the rushing water through the blue curved railings. She’s seventeen, only a few months older than me. Her skin is pale on the curve of her neck and she’s beautiful – I’ve always thought so. She turns to look over her shoulder as I walk past the wooden sculpture of a carved fish on the edge of the path.

The industrial estate is behind us, masked by trees, and the faint rumble of a delivery truck from one of the warehouses builds then fades. On the far side of the river is the farmland that stretches out towards the motorway. Kirsten’s eyes are swollen from crying as she glances at the bag on my shoulder. It’s hers; I picked it up after Maxine emptied it out onto the college field.

‘You should stand up to her,’ I say, and she sneers as though I am stupid.

‘Get her on her own,’ I continue.

She turns to face the weir. ‘You don’t understand.’

Kirsten gets up and walks towards the yellow path that goes along the river and I follow. The wind picks up and the long grasses hiss by the water as our feet crunch over the sandy ground. The path curls upwards so that the river is directly below us and the water is high and fast. It’s quiet here and there’s nobody about: only the occasional clatter of wings as a bird flies out of the trees. She walks on and ignores me.

If I’d just let her go then things would have been different, but I don’t. I keep following. On the back of her leggings is the reason for today’s bullying: a dark bloodstain from the period that she’s having. In some ways, what happens next is Mike’s fault. He’s Mum’s new boyfriend and the one to blame for everything, because if he’d left us alone then I wouldn’t have been here in the first place. I’d have been at home. As I walk behind her, I press my nail into the skin on my thumb until it hurts. I haven’t been able to sleep since he came, but I can’t even talk to my best friend, Leila, about it. She doesn’t seem interested these days; it’s as if she doesn’t care any more. Nobody does.

Just before we get to the sewerage pipe, Kirsten turns around. Her orange hoop earring bounces against the side of her cheek.

‘Stop following me, will you?’

‘I’m trying to help you,’ I tell her.

‘I don’t need it.’

I take the bag off my shoulder and hold it out to her. She lifts her hand to take it, but I pull it back before she has chance to get it. ‘What if I don’t let you have it?’ I ask, while she purses her lips. ‘What will you do then?’

‘I wouldn’t care,’ she says.

‘Well, you should!’

I want to help her, because we’re so alike. She’s an outsider at college just as I’ve been pushed out at home. I’ve tried to talk to her before, but she doesn’t listen. The bank is steep here and there are concrete steps that lead to the water. I walk down them while she stays and watches from the top. The river rushes over the weir.

‘Come on, I’ll show you what to do,’ I say as I wave the bag at her. I want her to do something, but she crosses her hands over her chest and I hold it out over the water.

‘I’m dropping it. Come and stop me.’ I wait, but she does nothing. She’s useless. ‘Oh, forget it,’ I say, and put the bag down and turn to face the rocks.

She comes down the steps and picks it up.

‘You should have at least tried,’ I tell her. ‘They’ll just keep doing it otherwise.’

She looks in her bag to check if anything is missing, while I sit down on the bottom step to watch the river. As it waits to swallow up more bodies, the black mouth of the sewerage pipe yawns from further along the bank, but for now everyone is alive and the sun shines on the water as it does in one of Dad’s photographs. The current is strong, but I see my face reflected back at me and the thick dark lines of my eyeliner make me look like another girl that isn’t quite me.

‘I look different,’ I say, more to myself than to Kirsten.

‘I wish I was someone else,’ she says, as if it’s a joke, but we both know that it isn’t. The river makes a hush sound and neither of us speaks. I turn towards her and resist the urge to move a curl of hair away from her cheek.

‘My dad used to bring me here.’

‘Mine died when I was one,’ she replies, looking back at me. Her eyes are dark green and her lips are pink and fat. As she says the words, her eyes moisten with tears and my heart quickens. We’re so alike and I knew that we would be. I’ve waited so long for this moment. The concrete step is cold through my skirt, but I feel warm inside as Kirsten comes closer. The nervous sweat that has soaked into her top and the weedy smell of the river merge together as she leans forwards so that her face appears in the water next to mine. The turquoise colour of her T-shirt flickers on the water’s reflection. In there, her eyes don’t look as if she’s been crying: she’s beautiful and happy just as she could be with me.

‘I don’t remember him at all,’ she says.

I rub my fingers over the hard bumps on the concrete step. This is the moment that I’ve been waiting for. If Kirsten will let me in, then maybe all the shit with Mike and Mum won’t matter any more and we’ll both be happy. When I put my hand on her arm she doesn’t push me away, she lets me do it, because it’s what she wants too. We’re both lost and we only have each other. She understands me and it feels so right.

‘I don’t remember mine much either, but he’s not dead, he’s a photographer in Brighton.’

‘Nice town.’

‘He never visits us cos Mum hates him. She says it’s a shame the IRA didn’t blow him up too last year. She’s awful.’

She exhales. ‘I might quit college.’

‘It’s not that bad,’ I reply, even though it is, because I want her to stay.

She wets her lips with her tongue and I put my hands onto her shoulders and lean in to kiss her, but she pulls back.

‘Hey, pack it in.’ She frowns.

‘Relax. We’re the same.’

‘I’m nothing like you,’ she sneers.

She looks to see how hurt it’s made me feel, just as Mum does sometimes, and I start to get angry. I take my hand away and put it back onto my lap. Her skin is milky pale and all I want to do is to hold her close.

‘I just want to help you.’

‘I don’t need your help. Just leave me alone.’