Notes on a Drowning

by Anna Sharpe

Genres: Legal Thrillers; Conspiracy Thrillers

Synopsis

'Powerful' Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'Gripping' Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'High-octane' Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'Grabs you' Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'Atmospheric' Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'Timely' Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Alex knows she risks getting fired from her law firm if she takes on another unpaid case, but when she hears Rosa's desperate voice at the other end of the phone, she knows she has to help: the body of Rosa's shy teenage sister, Natalia, has been dragged, lifeless, from the Thames. Alex can't help but think of her own missing little sister. She knows how a lack of answers can eat you alive.

Kat has worked hard to become Special Adviser to the Home Secretary, and is eager to finally put the dark and tragic part of her past behind her. But when she discovers a series of cover-ups, she begins to wonder whether her seemingly perfect new boss could be involved. Then she's shocked to discover a letter that raises worrying questions about a girl found drowned in London... Natalia.

There are complex and painful reasons for Alex and Kat not to work together, but when it becomes clear that there are powerful people involved in Natalia's death, and that other girls are at risk, Alex and Kat must overcome their differences to find answers. Will they save the girls and discover the truth? Or will the high-powered players in this game stop Alex and Kat for good?

What your favourite thriller writers are saying about Notes on a Drowning:

'It's excellent - razor sharp writing, a gripping plot and a level of authenticity that comes straight from years of legal experience right at the coal face. Highly recommended' Harriet Tyce

'Fast-paced, topical, sharp and with a heart, I could see Notes on a Drowning played out on screen. Hope Anna Sharpe's cracking out the next one.' Sarah Vaughan

'Witty and warm' Adele Parks, Platinum

'My kind of thriller: pacy, absorbing and smart, with great characters and brilliant dialogue on every page. I loved it!' TM Logan

'A whip-smart, taut thriller...It zips along like a high-end Netflix drama you can't help but binge.' Jane Casey

'A whip-smart thriller, and I adored Alex, a clever, funny lawyer who is trying to hold together her career and failing marriage while trying to find out what really happened to her sister. Both gripping and compassionate, I really hope this is a series, and it would be perfect for TV.' Jo Callaghan

'A belter of a book. Shrewd, powerful, and constructed of smoke and mirrors, it's contemporary thriller writing at its breathless best. Anna Sharpe knows how to weave a tale.' Helen Fields

Release date: January 23, 2025

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 304

Sample

She’s more alive now than she’s been for weeks, which would be funny if she wasn’t drowning. If she can just keep moving her legs, then it’s possible to think she might make it, but her grasp on the present is slipping, just as her body is starting to lose the fight against the dark and frigid depths.

Soon after she first hit the water, her skin began to tingle with heat, which she guessed was her body trying to save her. She thought in that moment of how, when she was little, her father used to lift her up and drop her into the ocean, re­membered how she’d screamed with delighted fear, and was briefly convinced that she’d see her family again. But the warmth has fled now, and the hope, and she can’t keep her face above the water. She thrashes, she panics. She can’t breathe. She must breathe. She wants her mother, wants her sister, but knows they won’t want her, not now. She knows too that if someone doesn’t come soon, she’ll be sucked down into the blackness – a fitting end given what her life has become. The water is in her mouth, gagging her. She thrashes, she coughs, she claws for the surface, for air. Until this moment, she hasn’t realised quite how much she wants to live.

The water is winning, and her chest is burning, searing, despite the cold. Soon her lungs will give out, she’ll be forced to inhale, and then she’ll be breathing water. Her life doesn’t flash before her eyes as she imagined it would, but rather it projects into the future. She imagines the police telling her family, her sister’s face as she hears the news. She thinks of all the other things they’ll discover, and the weight of water is unbearable. She must breathe, she can’t breathe. Her chest is a ball of fire. Surely she deserves another chance: a new life, a different one. She’ll make better choices this time, recognise what people are, see the darkness beneath the surface rather than the light that it reflects. Her lungs are screaming. Her mind is screaming.

She breathes in.

‘Alice!’ the barista yelled, banging the coffee cup down on the counter. It was the kind of customer service only London could provide.

Alex raised her sunglasses and squinted at the paper cup – the name ALICE scrawled across it in thick black pen. Who the fuck is Alice? But no, OK, fine. She would be Alice today. It was close enough; maybe better. Better than being the Alex who’d drunk unknown amounts of white wine at a chambers party the previous night and now had to navigate a full day of distressed clients, criminals and, worse, other lawyers.

She picked up the coffee, added a sugar, lowered her shades and left the café, joining the stream of suited, caffeinated humanity flowing up Clerkenwell Road towards the offices where people would settle around wood-veneer tables and before the blue glow of computer screens and try to make themselves feel that their lives had a purpose. All she needed to do was get into the office unremarked, make it through her 10 a.m. call, then perhaps have a little lie-down under her desk.

Alex failed on step one, of course, because nobody ever got anything past Marcia: receptionist, gatekeeper, security guard. The woman raised her eyebrows as Alex walked through the battered office door and attempted a vibrant smile.

‘Late night, was it, Alex?’

‘Just feeling a touch under the weather, Marce.’

‘You and most of the paralegals. Already had one call in sick.’ She accentuated the word, baring her teeth, then shook her head at Alex. You’re too old for this, her expression said, and didn’t Alex know it.

‘But Lucy’s here?’

‘Oh, yes. Been in since nine. She always is.’ Another pointed look.

‘Right, well, I’ve got a lot to get done this morning, so would you mind putting any calls through to her? Thanks, Marce.’

Alex hurried on before Marcia could object, managing to make it down the damp-stained corridor and into her dingy office without any further assault. She kicked off her shoes, gulped some of the coffee and leant back in her swivel chair. Maybe if she remained completely still, the pain would go away. She closed her eyes. Tried not to think of the many items on her to-do list, the many emails lurking in her inbox, the many clients awaiting her call.

She was still sitting in exactly the same position five minutes later when her office phone began to ring. For a few moments, she studied it, willing it to stop. When, after five rings, it did not, she picked it up.

‘Marcia, I said to put calls through to Lucy.’

‘Not this one, Alex. This is a judge.’

‘What?’ She sat bolt upright.

‘Mr Justice Wilson. Calling from Central London County Court. Said he wanted to speak to you immediately.’

Fuck, she mouthed. Why would a judge be calling her? What had she forgotten? The familiar feeling of dread, of having missed something monumental, of having done something complaint-worthy, negligence claim-inducing, career-ending – a feeling familiar to all lawyers – flooded her, despite the fact she was normally careful, analytical, astute. Alex removed her dark glasses, felt suddenly that she would vomit, grabbed her bin, but the retching passed and she exhaled. ‘Right. You’d better put him through, then.’

The click of the line. ‘Good morning, My Lord.’ My Lord? She squeezed her eyes shut. That wasn’t what you called a circuit judge, was it? Shit.

‘Yes, good morning, Miss Moreno. I was expecting you here this morning.’

Alex’s eyes widened and she stared about the room – at the pen-smeared whiteboard, the dented filing cabinets, the dying plant – hoping that one of them would enlighten her. ‘On which case, Your Honour? I fear some communication—’

‘Your client, Ms Bartley. Mr Bartley made an urgent application.’

Ah, Mr Bastardby. Financier and manipulative narcissist. A man who’d abused his wife for years and was now trying to silence her in the courts. ‘Well, he didn’t serve it on us, I’m afraid.’

‘There is a fax receipt.’

Fucking faxes. Law remained the only profession on earth that still used fax machines. Alex rubbed her eyes. ‘Well, I’m terribly sorry, sir, but no fax was given to me. If you could just explain the nature of the application?’

‘He’s applied to have your client’s case struck out. His barrister is here now, so you had better get your instructed counsel here. I can delay by an hour, but no more. I’ll be in my chambers. I can expect you?’

Alex’s mouth was open, but she was unable to produce any sound from it. She was thinking of their so-called instructed counsel, namely Mike from King’s Bench Walk, who she’d last glimpsed on Instagram. Or at least she’d seen his knees, bronzing by a pool in Italy.

A young woman had appeared in her doorway: light-brown hair tied back, no make-up, gorgeous. Lucy. She held up two sheets of paper. The dreaded fax.

‘Miss Moreno?’ came the judge’s voice.

‘Yes. I believe our counsel is abroad, but I will be there, Your Honour. As soon as possible. You will appreciate that this is a complex case that follows years of failures by the criminal justice system. Strike out at this early stage would be entirely inappropriate and would deprive my client of a remedy for the many years of suffering she endured.’

‘That is for you to put to me when you finally arrive,’ came the judge’s voice.

Alex put down the receiver, took the papers from Lucy and skimmed through them. ‘Shit. Shit it. How did this not make its way to us yesterday?’

Lucy shrugged. ‘No idea. It just arrived in my in tray, but the hearing—’

‘Yes, the hearing is now, and I don’t even have a shitting jacket. Do you?’

‘No, it’s dress-down Friday. No one wears a jacket on Friday, do they?’

‘Go and find out for me, would you? Someone must have one. I’ve got to read through this and work out what the scumbag’s up to now.’

Alex rooted through the cupboard for the paper file and cursed herself for not filing everything earlier in the week, but then she hadn’t had time. She’d skim the recent documents, then ring her client on her way to court to tell her of her ex’s newest ruse to continue his lifelong strategy of escaping culpability for his actions.

‘Got a minute, Alex?’ It was Ari, her colleague from the crime team, leaning through the doorway.

‘No, Ari. Not even one.’ She continued trying to sort the papers, cursing the system that allowed men like Bastardby – white, monied, connected, assured – to win again and again, not just in the courts, but in life. Well, she wouldn’t let him win this one.

‘This could be juicy, Alex.’

‘Whatever it is, I’m not doing it, OK, Ari?’ She’d known him for years: a smart criminal solicitor specialising in fraud, cybercrime and in getting people to do what he wanted.

‘Listen. It’s interesting. Dead Moldovan girl taken out of the Thames, near Tower Bridge.’

Alex was hole-punching the documents and shoving them into the file. ‘I’m not taking on another inquest, Ari. I can’t.’ Not financially, not psychologically. A substantial part of Alex’s caseload was inquest work; mostly deaths in prison or police custody, deaths following lack of mental health help. A cornu­copia of misery and injustice, and almost none of it properly paid.

‘Hear me out. The Home Office post-mortem found there were drugs in her system, but her sister, Rosa, she says Natalia never took drugs.’

‘Ari, that’s what the families always say.’ It’s what she herself had said many years ago.

‘I know, I know. But it’s dodgy, I reckon. It’s a simple one-day inquest. And I owe Rosa a favour.’

Alex was skimming a document on the Bastardby file. ‘Here we go. Why?’

‘She was a character witness on a fraud case I dealt with a while back. Sidorov. Remember that? Big case.’

‘That doesn’t mean I have to act for her.’

‘No, but I said you’d at least speak to her.’

Alex looked up from the papers. ‘Oh, did you now?’

‘That’s all I’m asking. A chat.’

‘For free.’

‘For free. I promise you: it’s interesting. Might be something in it. A nice, lucrative police claim, or something.’

Alex felt a vague feeling of nausea rise through her. ‘Ari, I really have to go.’

‘So, you’ll speak to her?’

Alex sighed. ‘Fine! Very briefly.’

‘You’re amazing. I’ll send you the documents. Most of them are in Romanian.’

‘Great. Helpful.’

‘You’re a superstar, Alex.’ Ari was walking from the room.

‘I’m not doing the whole thing for free, Ari, you know that, yes?’ she shouted after him. ‘Paul will kill me. You will be doing my inquest!’ Paul was the mafia boss-like managing partner: the money man, the enforcer, the one who tried to keep it all together as many other firms fell apart.

‘Love you!’ Ari closed her door.

Lucy reappeared a minute later, while Alex was crawling under the desk trying to disconnect the laptop charger, bringing with her Daisy, the tallest and thinnest of the paralegals, a beanpole of a human being. Alex banged her head, stood up, stared at her, then at Lucy. ‘Yes?’

‘You wanted a jacket.’ A pause. ‘Daisy has a jacket.’

Alex’s gaze returned to the tall paralegal, to her long, beige-clad limbs.

‘Yes, so she does.’ She would be needing another coffee.

End of the day and south of the river. Alex collapsed on her sofa, still clutching her keys and the bag of shopping she’d bought on her way home.

Megan emerged from the bathroom, a towel wrapped round her hair. ‘Mum, you look like shit.’

‘Hello, darling daughter. Great to see you too.’ Megan was right – she wasn’t looking her best. Her dark hair needed ­cutting, her wardrobe needed an update, and she could do with a few years’ sleep.

‘Is that tea?’ Megan nodded at the plastic bag.

‘No, it’s a collection of body parts.’

‘Good, ’cos I’m not eating here. I’m going out.’

‘Out where?’

‘Out with Dad. He said we’d get Thai.’

Alex took off her shoes and rubbed her forehead. Dad. Jason. Who no longer lived with them. Six months and the sting still stung.

‘Fine. I might just have toast, to be honest.’

‘You can’t just eat toast,’ Megan said. ‘Not at your age.’

Alex looked at her daughter wearily.

‘Vitamins. Minerals. You’ve gotta look after yourself.’ Megan wandered back into the bathroom and there came the sound of running water.

As soon as Alex entered the kitchen, the cat padded up to her and gave a long, piercing miaow.

‘I know, Steven. I know. But you’ll be pleased to hear that I won my application today, despite wearing a rolled-up jacket that made me look like the Michelin Man. Did Megan feed you?’

No, the cat miaowed.

‘Are you telling me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?’

The cat miaowed louder.

‘All right, all right.’ She scraped a tin of food into his bowl, the smell of the stuff reminding her stomach that she was still processing last night’s wine. She thought of the Moldovan girl who’d been found in the Thames. She’d gone over the emails Ari had sent and seen that her blood alcohol level had been 0.12 per cent. High, but not high enough to render her unconscious. Had she just slipped and fallen, befuddled with drink? That was what the police seemed to have assumed.

‘I’ve already fed Steven.’ Megan’s voice from behind her. ‘He’ll get fat.’

‘Well, Steven, like most males, is a liar.’

‘Mum! They’re not all bad.’ Megan was now in tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt with the words DON’T YOU DARE emblazoned across it. This apparently was what fifteen-year-olds wore.

‘What time is Jason coming?’

‘Ten minutes ago?’ Megan surveyed her mother’s face. ‘Mum, maybe you should get Botox.’

‘Thanks.’

‘No, really. It’s not necessarily too late.’

‘Right.’

The sound of the key in the lock. Why could the man not bloody knock?

‘Hello! Anyone home?’

Not your home anymore, darling. You saw to that. Alex nodded to her daughter. ‘Go on, then.’ She watched as Megan left the kitchen. Could she just hide in here? she wondered. Pretend, perhaps, that she was dead?

‘Hi, Dad!’

‘Hi, sweetie. Sorry I’m late. Big job. Your mum still at work, is she?’

A pause from the other room. OK, come on, Alex. Important to be amicable. Even more important to show she was doing just fine without him. She ran her hands through her hair, dragged herself into the living room, and arranged her face into a smile. ‘Hi, Jason. How’s things?’

‘Oh, you know, not bad. You?’

‘Great.’ Never better. Top of the world. That’s why I look like I’ve been run over. ‘What’s the big job, then?’

‘Employer reckons several of his men have had their fingers in the till. Wants me to investigate. Could be worth a few bob.’

‘Nice.’

He shrugged. ‘Yeah. It’s not a diamond heist, is it, but it’s better than sitting in a car all day watching for someone to commit a marital infidelity, right?’ Only too late did Jason realise what he’d said and then he squeezed his eyes shut in a grimace. ‘Sorry.’

A pang of pain, but Alex shrugged. ‘It happens, apparently.’

‘Yep. I heard. And apparently people then regret it.’

‘Well, this has been lovely, but we’d better go.’ Megan had her bag strung over her shoulder and was wearing a hoodie mainly obscuring the DON’T YOU DARE T-shirt. She kissed Alex on the cheek. ‘See you later, Mum.’

‘Bye, darling girl. Have fun.’

‘Bye, Alex.’ Jason scratched his head. ‘Sorry about, you know, everything.’

She gave a tight smile, shut the door on them and felt her shoulders sag. Wandering back into the kitchen, she saw that the cat had jumped onto the table and started nosing at the Sainsbury’s bag. ‘Well, it’s just you and me again, Steve. What do you want to do? Movie? Glass of wine?’

The cat regarded Alex with, she thought, a look of dis­appointment, as she uncorked a bottle of red wine and poured herself a glass. ‘Don’t stare at me like that, Steven. It’s been a hard day, and I’m only having one. Hair of the dog.’ He blinked. ‘Sorry, poor choice of words.’ Alex turned on the radio and sliced herself some bread, listening to the Chancellor talking about cutting red tape to secure more international investment, insisting rich people made for a rich country. ‘After all,’ he opined, ‘doesn’t a rising tide lift all boats?’

‘Drowns those who can’t keep up with it, more like.’ Alex switched off the radio. Having spent a good part of the afternoon trying and failing to get housing support for a destitute client, she had limited enthusiasm for claims of trickle-down. The wealth certainly wasn’t trickling anywhere near the people she saw day in, day out. From what she could work out, it was mainly flowing offshore.

She opened her laptop, and clicked on an email from Ari, headed ‘Further documents re. Moldovan case’. After a moment, the download opened on her screen. The top document was Natalia’s passport, showing a pretty, dark-haired girl with large brown eyes. ‘Natalia Xenia Morar.’ Alex felt a wave of sadness. She was so young. Eighteen, Ari had said, but she looked younger than that. She checked the date the passport had been issued. The year before, when the girl had been seventeen. But she looked fifteen at most in that photo, no make-up, hair scraped back. What had happened to her when she reached London? Inevitably, Alex thought of another young woman who’d travelled to a new country, only to vanish, as though into the ether. Her sister, Elisa. Still missing, twelve years later.

Alex scrolled down, past various documents entirely in Romanian to, at the very bottom, a scan of a postcard. On one side, a picture of Buckingham Palace; on the other, a short note, again in Romanian, save for the last sentence: ‘I wish you were here.’

Without an exclamation mark, the sentence seemed sad and plaintive. A cry for help, or just a girl who missed her big sister? Difficult to say.

Alex closed the document and rubbed her eyes, trying to push away that feeling of grief and guilt and fear that came with every memory of her own sister; that made her strive to help others because she hadn’t helped her. Because she’d driven her own sister away. She wouldn’t think about Elisa. Not now. You couldn’t shut down memories entirely, but you could, Alex had found, file them in a drawer at the back of your mind and hope that they went astray. She’d run herself a nice hot bath and wash the day away.

Life takes you by surprise. That’s what Kat’s dad used to tell her, or at least he did until he was hit by a car when she was nearly fourteen years old, neatly proving his point. He’d been right, though. Certainly, she’d never imagined that she would be sitting in a sleek metallic Jaguar, briefing the Home Secretary as a police officer drove them to an exclusive private view. Because, yes, despite everything, she, Kathryn Ishida – Kit-Kat – was now officially a Special Adviser to the Home Secretary himself. They were driving along the Chelsea Embankment, the office lights jewelling the Thames. Kat used a compact mirror to apply her lipstick, while Richard combed his hair. Richard Carmichael, appointed Secretary of State for the Home Department only three weeks before at the age of forty-eight. A man at the top of his game, or near it, for some already predicted he would rise still further. A man who, from all the possible candidates, had chosen Kat to bring into his circle. And if she’d kept things back, that was only right. She’d worked so much harder than everyone else, and she wanted so desperately to succeed. If she didn’t, then what did she have?

Richard replaced the silver comb in his jacket pocket and smiled. ‘We’ll do, I think, Kat, though the other attendees will be dripping in pearls.’ He turned to the papers in his ministerial red box. ‘Talk me through the urgent stuff, would you?’

‘I’m afraid there’s rather a lot.’

‘Isn’t there always?’

And yes, it seemed there was. The Home Office was crisis central. There was always some problem exploding, some drama hitting the headlines. It was what made the job so exciting. Kat gave Richard the evening briefing, highlighting the key documents for the Home Secretary to sign off on that night: draft legislation proposals, a briefing from the PM. It wouldn’t normally all fall to her: she covered media and comms, while her co-spad, Charly, was the Home Secretary’s policy adviser and general sparring partner. Charly, however, had somehow escaped to the beer-scented gloom of the Barley Mow to catch up on political gossip. Kat didn’t mind. Truth be told, she was pleased to be alone with Richard, to have a chance to impress him, to learn from him. She sometimes felt Charly hogged his attention, that they had an easy camaraderie, from which she – wrong gender, wrong ethnicity, wrong class – was excluded. And she enjoyed Richard’s company, she had from the first. Her interview, at which she’d arrived almost sick with nerves, had turned out to be a coffee and a chat, with far more laughter than most of the internet dates she’d endured with men claiming to ‘not take life too seriously’.

‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ Richard had said. ‘I’ve read the references, some of your work. I know you’re smart, ambitious and with an enquiring mind. I just needed to check we’d get on, and I think we will, won’t we, Kat?’

‘Yes,’ she’d said. ‘We will.’

The Jag passed Albert Bridge, as elegant and sparkling as the nearby residents, and progressed through Belgravia, where immaculate shop windows cast squares of light onto the pavements: expensive antiques and designer boutiques. Kat hurried through the remaining documents, passing them to Richard to sign. ‘There’s also the prisons tender,’ she said. ‘Charly told me your preference was Omnius. Do you want us to discuss it informally with MOJ?’

Richard handed her the pen. ‘Actually, I’ll talk to George about that myself, I think.’ George: Justice Secretary and Richard’s friend from Bar school. Kat had last seen George with his journalist wife in the Prime Minister’s kitchen, eating Bran Flakes. Her life had grown surreal.

They were now entering Mayfair, where old money and oil funds mixed to produce the most visible wealth in London: hotels like fairy tales, houses like fortresses, warehouses for international wealth. The car drew up to a large white townhouse in Berkeley Square, one of the many private galleries in the area. An array of shining cars waited outside. At a Rolls-Royce, a uniformed chauffeur was using a tiny brush to ensure the wheels were polished clean. As they approached the house, Kat. . .