Blind Date

by Wendy Clarke

Genres: Women's Fiction; Friendship

Synopsis

When I met Malik my life changed in the blink of an eye. We were set up – Chris and Simon called it a blind date – and I suppose they could see that I was lonely, that I needed someone in my life to make it more exciting. And they were right.

He was so good to me. He seemed to know exactly what I needed to feel safe and loved again. We’d talk and laugh into the night, and I haven’t had someone on my side since my divorce. But soon the honeymoon period was over.

It started with my car’s tyre being slashed and strange calls at the radio station where I work. Then there was the morning I stayed at Malik’s and found myself locked in his flat…

Waking up next to him, I asked myself: is this charming, handsome man someone I should feel scared of?

When a woman’s attacked outside my work the police want to question Malik. Everyone says I shouldn’t trust him.

But I have dark secrets of my own, things I’ve revealed to him in the middle of the night, and it might already be too late to keep myself safe…

Thrilling and gripping until the final page, Blind Date is a dark and unsettling story about deception and how much we can trust the people we love. For fans of Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train and anything by Lisa Jewell.

What readers are saying about Wendy Clarke:

‘One of the best psychological thrillers I have read in a long time, I read this book from cover to cover in less than 24 hours, unable to put it down… It's been a long time since I have read a book that captivated me quite so much.’ Real Mum Review, 5 stars

‘The twists in this were U-N-B-E-L-I-E-V-A-B-L-E! I've read many thrillers in fact that's my main genre and this one blew them all out of the water… So suspenseful, action-packed, dynamic that I stayed up till almost 3am to finish it.’ Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars

‘I started reading it and didn't stop reading until 2am. It was impossible to put down… Thrilling and mysterious the entire way and by the end my jaw dropped. The ending wasn't something I expected at all.’ Living My Best Book Life, 5 stars

‘Wow, wow, wow! What an amazing novel!… Secrets, lies and terrible events galore, this is a real rollercoaster of a ride throughout.’ Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars

‘Had me flying through the pages to find out what happens… My heart was racing as I was reading. It kept hitting me with twist after twist… I have to say it's the best thriller I've read this year.’ Ramblings of the Book Addict, 5 stars

‘Wow what can I say! I should be sleeping now but I was so gripped by this.’ Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars

‘My god a real rollercoaster of a read… Read it in one sitting, finally turning the last page at 2am…

Release date: October 29, 2021

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

I know your secret, but you don’t know mine.

That’s my confession.

You’ve gone silent, Melanie… Why’s that? Is it because you’re afraid of what I’ll say? That this call will no longer be about me but about you? What would be the fun in that? It’s enough that you know I know.

But that’s not my only confession. What I want to tell you tonight is that I hurt. Right deep inside my chest, the way it would feel if a knife was thrust into my heart to the hilt. Then further still. And all this because I’ve experienced the most perfect love.

The purest love.

Can you understand that?

When you feel love like that, passion like that, madness like that, you will do anything to keep it. Anything to make sure that no one will ever stand between you and that perfect state.

But what if that love is taken from you? Maybe you’ll seek that person out or perhaps you’ll seek out another. Always chasing. Always searching. And when you have them, you will make them understand they are yours, that you won’t let them leave you as the other one did. You will cling to that love with fingers capable of tenderness but also capable of much worse.

And yet, even though you have someone new, you will never forget that first perfect love. How they left you empty. How can you forget when the space they left in your heart has become filled with something harder? Darker. When that darkness threatens to turn you into a monster you don’t recognise, it’s hard not to wonder if it really was your fault.

What do you think, Melanie? Now you’ve heard my confession, my secret, does it surprise you that I might not be who people think I am? That I’m worse… so much worse. Maybe it does or maybe you knew all the time because, perhaps, we’re not so different.

And yet, something still bothers me. Something I wanted to ask. It’s a question that comes to me when I walk the dark streets at night or see the cold moonlight reflected in the canal.

I’ve made my confession, Melanie.

When will you make yours?

It’s funny how sometimes you know change is coming. You have an inkling. A small nudge. Maybe just the ghost of a feeling. That hadn’t happened today. When I’d woken at 4.15 a.m., my back-up alarm shrill in my ear, there had been nothing. Just bleary-eyed, crushing tiredness and the need for strong coffee.

It’s five now, still dark, the sky not yet showing even a hint of pink or peach, but there’s something in the air that tells me it’s no longer night. A softer tone that’s more like a bruise than solid blackness. A certain expectation to the silence, as if it’s waiting to be broken by something: the first note of birdsong, the soft rumble as a bin is wheeled out for collection, the bark of a dog as it’s let out into a garden. In my case, it’s the slam of my car door before I lock it and hurry across the car park to the rather uninteresting-looking red-brick building in front of me.

Reaching up a hand, I punch at the buttons on the keypad, my fingers numb with cold, glad that I’m not the first one here even if it means that I’m late. I let myself in and the door clicks shut behind me, shutting out the security light that illuminates the puddles that have formed in the potholes of the car park overnight.

Once, when I was new and enthusiastic, I would have taken the time to pause before pushing open the door. With the flat of my hand pressed to its cold face, I’d have taken in the blue lettering on the panel attached to the wall beside it… the one spelling out the name of my place of work. Lock Radio. For most of my first year of working here, although I’ve never admitted this to anybody – not even my husband, Niall – I’d whisper the name to myself. Wondering as I did how I’d managed to bag my dream job against such stiff competition. Asking myself what good-luck fairy had been looking down on me when I’d arrived on the doorstep that first day. Giving thanks for the lucky series of events that had led me from an internship all those years ago to the prestigious post I now have on breakfast radio.

But now I’m older and wiser, I know it wasn’t luck at all. I’ve watched other young hopefuls come through the doors. Seen who’s made it and who hasn’t. It’s their hunger and enthusiasm that keeps the successful ones here… along with hard graft. Nowadays a lot don’t get in the same way I did – three years of media studies at university, followed by a stint on hospital radio, broadcasting from a tiny room with no windows – but by other efforts. Vlogs and podcasts done in their spare time, making them current. On the pulse. Accessible to the younger members of our audience.

I smile to myself as I shrug off my jacket, thinking about my first few months here. Remembering how happy I’d been when after months of making tea and running around after everyone, I’d been taken on as part of the promotion team at events. Even though it had only been handing out flyers, it had been a foot in the door. The highlight, though, had been when Simon had suggested I sit in on the Breakfast Show. From my stool at the back, I’d scribbled frantic notes, taking in everything he and his co-hosts, Chris and Nadine, did and said, longing to be one of them.

Now, of course, I am.

The reception is brightly lit even though Dawn, the receptionist, won’t be in for a few hours yet. I lay my jacket on the desk, next to the sheaf of fliers and other promotional material and dig in my bag for a mirror. Holding it up to each ear to make sure I’ve not put in mismatching studs – a distinct possibility after managing to sleep through my alarm. If it hadn’t been for my back-up alarm waking me, I’d still be tucked under my duvet.

Tipping my head to the light, I wipe a smudge of black from under my bottom lashes then put the mirror back in my bag. Applying mascara when your eyes are glazed with tiredness is no mean feat. Still, at least with Niall sleeping in the spare bedroom, I no longer have to worry about waking him.

On the wall, a large flat-screen TV is showing a demonstration that happened in Manchester yesterday. Although the sound is muted, subtitles chase each other across the bottom of the screen. As I watch, the picture changes. A newsreader sits behind a desk, and on the screen behind, I recognise the wide-open mouth of the tunnel that burrows through the hillside a little way down the canal from where the radio station is situated. The subtitles tell me what I already know. It’s the place where two years ago, a young woman, a prostitute, disappeared… presumed dead. Today the police are going to do an anniversary appeal.

That poor woman.

I turn away not wanting to see, even though it will be something to add to today’s schedule, along with anything else of interest my co-presenters and I find in the papers. Speaking of which, where are they?

As if in answer to my unspoken thoughts, a burst of laughter comes from the kitchen area on the other side of reception. It’s Chris, probably responding to one of Dan, the producer’s, filthy jokes. They’re going to love the fact that I’m late as it’s well known at the radio station that I take pride in my punctuality. I sigh.

Picking up my coat, I’m about to join them when the board with our photos on catches my eye. Under the heading Breakfast Team, Simon, Chris and I smile out from behind the glass. I pause and press a finger to my face; the picture was taken a few years ago when I was younger and more fresh-faced.

Before the godawful hours had started to take their toll.

Before my home life had fallen apart and divorce had become no longer something that happened to other people.

Before I knew the misery of betrayal.

I look at the happy young girl in the photo, her shiny, dark hair falling to her shoulders, the one who believed her marriage would last forever, and wonder what happened to her. The photos are long overdue an update, and a few weeks ago, someone came in to take some new ones. When he’d turned his camera round to show me what he’d taken, I couldn’t help thinking that although my smile was the same, it had lost some of its sparkle, the hair some of its shine.

I lift my hand to it, surprised, as I always am when my fingertips touch nothing but the soft skin at the back of my neck. My straighteners still sit on my chest of drawers next to the mirror in my bedroom, but they’re no longer needed. After years of getting up at the crack of dawn, I decided a pixie cut would be simpler to manage. I just hadn’t realised how long it would take for me to get used to it.

The boys’ photos are either side of mine, flanking me like bodyguards. Theirs need changing too, though neither will admit it. Chris’s hair was shorter than it is now when the photographs were taken, and Simon was clean-shaven and boyish, without the stubble he’s recently started sporting. He looks out at me now, his expression calm and reassuring. At least he won’t join in with the ribbing I’ll get when I open that kitchen door. He’s not like that.

Suddenly I feel weary. I used to laugh at all Chris’s jokes, but now the thought of responding to whatever he’s going to say feels like too much of an effort. I push the door open with my shoulder and sling my coat and bag onto an empty chair before heading to the coffee machine.

‘Morning, gang.’

Normally, there’d be chat and joshing or a companionable silence as each member of the team gets ready for the show. This morning though, I can already tell that the hush has a different quality to it.

I get myself a black coffee, tearing a corner from a sugar packet and adding it to the dark liquid. Needing the energy. I wait for either Dan or Chris to get their first joke in at my expense. When it doesn’t happen, I turn my head and look from one to the other.

‘What’s up?’

Chris has been looking at his phone, his large fingers tapping at the screen. He raises his head, a frown on his face. ‘Eh?’

I point at the digital clock on the wall. ‘It’s five-fifteen. I’m late. You should be taking the piss out of me. That’s what you do, Chris.’

Chris breathes in sharply but just as quickly he rallies. ‘Were you catching up on your beauty sleep, Mel? You certainly need it.’

I laugh but there’s something about his quip that feels forced. Maybe I’m imagining it. ‘I slept through my first alarm. Anyway, are you all right? When you’re this quiet, you make me nervous.’

‘Of course I’m all right. More than all right.’ There’s a lag in his response that worries me, but when his face creases into a smile I relax again. I’m probably just imagining things. Chris cups his round face in his hands and strikes a pose. ‘Just look at this face. With good looks like this I’m every girl’s dream.’

‘Nightmare more like,’ Simon says, throwing Chris a disapproving look. But I catch the warmth in his voice. The boys have, after all, been friends for years. He looks back at me. ‘Anyway, don’t fret about the time, Mel. You won’t be the first to miss an alarm and you won’t be the last. It happens.’

‘Not to me it doesn’t.’ I take my coffee over and sit down on the settee next to him. ‘I never oversleep.’

‘It could be your body telling you something – that you need to take things a bit easier. You have been quite anxious lately. Not surprising with everything that’s been going on at home. No wonder you’re tired.’

I frown. ‘I thought it was the other way round… that anxiety keeps you awake.’

‘Yes, usually but sometimes your body just gives in to it. I remember last year after Anne lost the baby…’

He stops and looks away. I want to say something to make it better, but I can’t. I’ve never been good at that sort of thing. Instead, I say something mundane. Less emotive.

‘Yes, you’re probably right. I think I might have read something similar or maybe it was one of our callers who mentioned it. Anyway, I’ll be fine with a shot of caffeine inside me.’ I glance up, wondering if the others are listening in to our conversation but they don’t seem to be. ‘Niall and I are doing okay, as it happens. We’ve been grown up about the divorce thing.’

I pick up my mug, hoping it will be the end of the conversation, but he hasn’t taken the hint.

‘I’m glad.’ He turns in his seat to look at me with concerned eyes. ‘It must be hard still living under the same roof, now you’re not married.’

The mouthful of coffee I take is too hot, burning my throat as I swallow it. I put the mug down again, annoyed with myself.

‘It’s fine,’ I say. Recently, fine seems to have become my default word. I don’t know what’s got into me today. It’s not as if Simon means anything by it. ‘Ignore me.’

Simon leans across and gives my hand a squeeze. ‘Sorry, I should never have brought it up.’

‘Stop being so bloody nice. Mr Bloody Nice Guy.’

Chris picks up a pen from the coffee table and throws it at him. It misses and rolls to the edge of the desk. So, he had been listening. ‘Say it like it is. That’s what I do. I’m sure Mel doesn’t mind sharing a bathroom with a guy she can’t stand the sight of.’

‘That’s not true. I—’

He cuts me off. ‘Any more than she minds being late. Or looking like a tired sparrow that’s been plucked.’

‘Fuck off, Chris,’ I say, my hand rising to my head, smoothing the wisps at the nape. ‘At least I don’t look like an ageing hippie.’

Chris has his feet on the coffee table, one crossed over the other, and I lean forward, whacking at the one nearest to me. I immediately regret it as the side of his trainer is covered in mud.

I look at my hand. ‘Jesus, Chris. You didn’t walk here, did you?’

Now I think about it, I hadn’t seen his car in the car park.

He shrugs. ‘I like it. It helps me to wake up.’

‘Sober up, more like.’ Producer Dan closes the lid of his laptop and scratches at his ginger beard. He gets up and takes his mug over to the sink, rinsing it under the tap before hanging it on the cup stand.

‘None of you bloody lot touch this mug or you’re dead,’ he says, pointing a finger at us all.

‘As if we’d want to catch what you’ve got,’ Chris fires back, bullet fast.

Dan looks at the clock. ‘Come on, slackers. Let’s get this show on the road. We’ve only thirty minutes until we go live and we’ve a lot to talk about. It’s the anniversary appeal for the woman who disappeared in the canal tunnel. The police are hoping to refresh the public’s memory and maybe pull up more witnesses. They want us to mention it on the show.’

My eyes move to the window although there’s nothing to see but darkness. ‘Crazy that it was so close to here. Her poor family.’

Dan nods. ‘Crazier still that they never got anyone for it. Hopefully, the appeal will jog someone’s memory. I’ll see you all in the meeting room. Get your arses into gear, you lot, or we’ll have Di on our backs.’ He looks meaningfully at me. ‘You know how she hates tardiness.’

Di, our programme controller, is a dour woman with little sense of humour, and she and I have little in common other than our commitment to Lock Radio, but she knows what she’s doing. I’ve also learnt that it’s wise to keep on the right side of her, as she’s the one who puts the programme schedule together and keeps the station running smoothly.

‘And no one wants Di on their back.’ Chris points to his soft stomach. ‘Or on their front. Jesus the thought.’

I laugh but he’s right. If we had the choice, we’d all avoid her. But we don’t have that option as, every day after the show has finished, the four of us meet with her to go through a snagging list of what’s just gone on air. We don’t enjoy the feedback much, but we know it’s a necessary evil if we want to make the show as good as it can be. Her feedback usually consists of a slapped wrist for Chris when one of his jokes has been too near the mark, or a suggestion to Simon that he keep things tight and move into a story quicker. I’ve been lucky. In all the years I’ve been doing the show, I’ve come off lightly in comparison.

‘Don’t worry. She won’t even know I was late and, even if she did, I’ll get Si to sweet-talk her.’

Chris looks up and winks at Simon. ‘Good luck with that, lover boy.’

He’s right, despite his ridiculously boyish good looks and old-fashioned charm that make women want to mother him, even Simon finds Di difficult to deal with at times.

‘Five minutes,’ Dan bellows, and as he leaves, Chris gives his disappearing back the finger. I have to laugh. Despite the snipes and the banter, we really are one big happy family and I’m relieved that the odd tension I’d felt in the room when I’d first walked in has gone.

Sometimes it’s easy not to see the clues. Or maybe it’s just easier to ignore them.

We’re almost finished with the preparation meeting, and are about to go into the studio, when there’s a knock on the door.

I look up, surprised. There’s not normally anyone else here this early in the morning.

‘Who’s that do you think?’

Simon shrugs, but I see how his eyes slide over to Chris, who doesn’t look up but shifts in his seat uncomfortably.

It’s Dan who breaks the silence. ‘That’ll be Charl.’ He pushes back his chair and goes to open the door, but I catch his arm as he walks by me.

‘Who the hell is Charl?’

‘Come on, you must have seen her around. She’s the new intern who’s been sitting in on Lee Carden’s afternoon slot. Di got her in after seeing her YouTube channel. Bright little thing. She’s certainly got the patter, I have to say.’

I frown, trying to remember if I’ve seen this girl, Charl, or not and decide that I haven’t. After our morning meetings with Di, I’m usually straight out of the door. Desperate for a hearty breakfast at the Canal Café on the corner, followed by a run in the park to stretch legs that have been sitting too long.

‘I don’t think I’ve seen her, no.’

Dan smiles as he opens the door. ‘Now’s your chance then.’

The girl who walks in looks to only be in her early twenties, but she exudes a confidence that I never had at that age. Her hair is dark blonde. Her smile wide.

‘Hi.’ She throws her denim jacket on the back of the nearest chair and looks at each one of us in turn, her eyes not faltering. ‘Thanks for having me.’

It’s a strange expression to use – like she’s a child who’s just arrived at a birthday party, rather than someone who’s burst in on a breakfast show meeting. Still unsure as to what she’s doing here, I make myself smile back.

‘It’s nice to meet you, Charl. I’m Melanie, or Mel… whichever.’

She doesn’t answer but nods, her large blue eyes taking in my rather run-of-the-mill appearance. Suddenly, I’m seeing myself through her eyes. Knowing that she’s looking for something that sets me apart from other dull women my age… finding nothing. In her young eyes, the pixie hairstyle I chose because I thought it looked youthful will have done nothing but push me closer to middle age, the jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt I’m wearing testament to my ordinariness.

‘You don’t mind if I sit in then?’ The question is directed to me, not to Si or Chris… or even Dan.

I look to them for help but it’s like they’ve suddenly found very important things to do. Chris’s head is bent to his phone and Simon is shuffling through the papers on the table in front of him, like a newsreader at the end of the ten o’clock news.

‘No, of course not. I’ll find a stool for you to sit on.’

‘Great. Thanks.’

The dress Charl has on is made of some sort of chiffon material, pale pink and blue with an asymmetric hem. She’s teamed it with opaque indigo tights and Doc Martens and the bow of the tangerine-coloured scarf she’s twisted around her head flops onto her smooth brow.

An outfit like that on me would look odd, as if I’d dressed in the dark, but on her it’s creative and arty. Feeling a prick of envy, I tear my eyes away from the tiny stud in her nose and the full blood-red lips and pick up my bag and notes.

‘Come on then. Or the listeners will tune into Radio One instead.’ I laugh but the sound is hollow. Nothing feels right this morning.

As we leave the meeting room, I feel the touch of Simon’s fingers on my arm. Thinking he’s going to say something, I turn and look at him with a question in my eyes, but he’s already gone, striding down the corridor after Chris, leaving me alone with Charl.

‘I really do love your show,’ she says. ‘Really, really love it.’

It’s said with such surprising passion that I find myself smiling back at her. A genuine smile this time. ‘Thank you. I’m glad.’

She tilts her head at the boys who are going into the studio at the end of the corridor. ‘What are they like to work with… I mean really?’

I think of how I should answer her then decide to give her the truth. ‘Annoying. Frustrating. Fun. Silly. That sums it up pretty well.’

‘I envy you,’ she says, her hand on my forearm. ‘I really do. How long have you been doing this?’

I lead the way down the corridor. Her question has made me feel suddenly old. ‘Nearly eight years.’

‘And you’ve never thought about giving up? Doing something else?’

‘No, never. What makes you think I would?’

‘Oh, no reason. I just wondered if you ever got itchy feet. I certainly do.’

I let her into the studio, where Simon is already at his control desk, studying the monitor in front of him, and show her where to sit. Then I take the seat next to Chris and put on my headphones, swinging the mic round on its arm until it’s in the right position.

Simon gives me the thumbs up, and I smile back, leaning back in my chair as the words I’ve listened to for the last eight years sing out.

Lock… ray… dee… oh!

Then I wait and listen as he gives his usual introduction.

‘Morning folks. This is Lock Breakfast Radio with Simon, Mel and Chris. The Three Musketeers. All for one and one for all. It’s six o’clock and time for the news and weather in your area.’

I look at the monitor in front of me and draw a breath in before letting it out slowly through my mouth. Preparing myself.

The next few hours go by in a blur as they always do. The three of us have been working together for so long that sometimes we forget there are people listening to us.

Simon leans forward, the microphone grazing his lips. ‘In a minute we’ll be talking about the five things women over forty should never wear but first I’ll leave you with Taylor Swift.’

I watch as Simon pushes the fader button to bring in the next song then takes off his headphones. I do the same. Each song is a precious breathing space, and we like to make the most of it. The screen in front of us will tell us when it’s coming to an end.

‘So,’ he says, looking thoughtfully at me. ‘Any plans for tomorrow evening?’

I shrug. ‘I haven’t really thought. I’ll probably just watch something on Netflix then have an early night.’ My happy mood fades a little. It seems to be what I do most evenings. Niall in one room, me in another. Trying our best to be civil to one another if our paths cross in the kitchen or hallway, as they inevitably do from time to time. Making careful small talk that won’t threaten to crack the delicate shell of our carefully built equilibrium.

Next to me, Chris slides his own headphones down so they’re resting on his shoulders. He pushes his seat back and puts his feet up on the desk in front of him, eliciting a frown from Simon.

‘Come to The Junction with us. You haven’t had a good night out in ages.’ He rubs at his cheek. ‘I remember when we . . .