You Know What You Did: Amanda Roberts, #1

By Laura Lyndhurst

TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE STAR—WE ALL FALL DOWN.

Amanda Roberts has it all—a rich husband, perfect children, and a prosperous life.But all that is about to change. As a successful author, she has established
herself in the elite world of glitz and glamour. But her marriage comes under pressure when she suspects that things aren't as they should be. If only that was the
end of her problems.

When paranoia takes hold, Amanda spirals into a nightmare abyss of immense proportions. There's no way out, and the clock is ticking ...

There's somebody in the shadows and they're looking at YOU.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laura Lyndhurst
• Release date: Mar 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9798224714582

Laura Lyndhurst

Laura Lyndhurst was born and grew up in North London, England, before marrying and travelling with her husband in the course of his career. When settled back in the UK she became a mature student and gained Bachelor's and Master's degrees in English and Literature before training and working as a teacher. She started writing in the last few years in the peace and quiet of rural Lincolnshire, and published her debut novel, Fairytales Don't Come True, in May 2020. This book forms the first of a trilogy, Criminal Conversation, of which the second is Degenerate, Regenerate and All That We Are Heir To the third. Innocent, Guilty, the first of another trilogy, continues the story told in these three books and leads on to The Future of Our House, which is followed by Uphill, Downhill, Over, Out as the sixth and final book to end the series. Laura also developed a taste for psychological suspense, which led to the writing and publication of You Know What You Did, to which What Else Did You Do? is the sequel. Laura has also published four small books of poems, October Poems, Thanksgiving Poems and Prose Pieces, Poet-Pourri and Social Climbing and Other Poems.

Book preview

You Know What You Did

Amanda Roberts, Volume 1

Laura Lyndhurst

Published by Laura Lyndhurst, 2021.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID

First edition. March 26, 2021.

Copyright © 2021 Laura Lyndhurst.

ISBN: 979-8224714582

Written by Laura Lyndhurst.

For struggling authors everywhere

CHAPTER 1

Here am I, and here’s the bookshop, and inside will be You, as promised.

It’s the right shop—in case I was in any doubt, which I’m not—as the poster on the window proclaims it to be. ‘Amanda Roberts to be here on—,’ with a date, and a book title, and the information that You will be here in person and signing Your new release, on that date and at such-and-such a time. The date has now been covered with a proud new poster, proclaiming TODAY!, but not obscuring the pictures of You, with Your ingratiating smile in place for Your public, and holding a copy of the text.

And below the picture, Your name, not Mine, as it ought to be, But all will come right, in time.

I’m the right person, for sure, in the right shop but in the wrong part of it, scanning the shelves of books rather than behind the table, signing them.

I walk around and find the display of Your books. There’s no missing that, the tasteful cover image, an enlarged poster-sized copy, of course, to draw in the expected crowds, to guide them over here, to take a text from the piles which lie in their pristine purity beneath the display.

I take one, and follow the sign, with its obvious arrow pointing the way. There’s no need for that though. The queue of customers, women in the main, makes a clear statement of where to go. I join the line, wait, take my turn at the till and pay. Cash, not card, however, no paper trail needed here to lead You back to me.

It’s a waste of money, of course, but necessary, just to get closer to You, even if only for a moment. It’s You who should be paying, and it’s You who will pay, although not with common currency. Nothing but a special currency will do for You, one minted and printed by myself on the spiritual printing press which represents the non-printing of my own rejected offering. But I am patient. I can wait.

As I do now and, having made my transaction at last, I follow the line which winds its way across the shop to the table set up near the shelves at the back. These are filled, I notice, with more copies of the book which I now hold in my hand, in case someone, some fan, some star-struck celebrity-author-loving fool has gone straight to You without passing Go, without claiming their very own copy and, more important, paying at the designated desk. There’s another till, I see, in a prominent place over to the left of the table. No chance of anyone getting through without currency first changing hands.

Which includes You.

Patient, I continue to wait, and move towards my goal, slow but sure. And then, there You are.

All teeth and hair, of course, both bleached, by expert hands. Big, wide smile for the punters, the readers, the followers. ‘Thank you for buying my book. Who should I address it to?’ To whom should I address it, I think you mean? You’re supposed to be a writer, of English, yet You can’t even speak it in the received manner. I can hear You even before I’m within range. From here I can see the sickly simper, see You sucking up to them because they’re the ones who pay the piper, and You dance to their tune, all the way to the bank.

Someone wants a selfie with You, and of course You oblige, displaying a copy of the book before You as they snuggle up against You and position the camera to get both in shot. All three, including the book. No publicity is bad publicity, of course, that’ll go on Instagram, and possibly Bookstagram, You may be sure. So smile for the camera, put up with their bad breath, or hairy armpits and body odour, like the one in front of me. Give them what they want and they’ll roll over and buy whatever You care to turn out. Even if it isn’t Your own work.

My turn arrives. I smile, modest, proffer the text and give a polite reply when You thank me, as You have and will thank all the others, for increasing Your already inflated-to-the-point-of-obscenity bank balance. Do You not recognise me? You ought to. Those website photos are large enough, even if I’m not as big as You are, in the celebrity sense. Celebrity? I don’t even make that list. I’m unknown, unread, by the majority of the reading public, and now never like to be, thanks to You. But there’s no hint of recognition in Your vapid gaze, which flicks its saccharine smile over me as over all those others in the line, both before and behind. They’ll dissolve back into the amorphous mass that makes up the general public, once they’ve got Your precious validation inside their personal copy. You make them somebody, a dedicated follower of Amanda Roberts, who’ll queue up for You to make Your mark in ink on the fly-leaf of their copy of Your text, in the shape of Your signature, with a custom dedication from You to whomever she requests You to address it.

For which You are awaiting me to inform You now. To whom should You make the dedication? Ah, You got it right that time. Do You recognise a superior grammarian standing before you? Read me and weep. You will, You know, although You don’t know, not yet. To Lynette, if You please. No point in giving You my real name, even if You don’t know who I am at present. You will, at some point, and I don’t need You looking back and remembering it from today and putting two and two together. Not that You would. Words are Your medium, it’s alleged, not numbers, but I don’t need to take unnecessary risks. What are You saying to me now? No, that’s quite alright, no selfie needed, thank You. I’ve no wish to bolster Your over-inflated ego any further.

I turn, vacate my place, which is filled on the instant by the next adoring fan. The production line moves on its mechanical way as I walk towards the door and vacate the premises, leaving room for the constant line of arriving acolytes, coming to worship at the temple of their goddess. As far as You are concerned, I have served my purpose. I have paid my money, taken my book, my existence as one of Your followers validated by the ink swirls which You have scrawled within. Now I can disappear back into the mass of humanity until You require my presence again, to follow You online until You deign to release Your next tome for my delectation.

I look back at the production line, weaving its way in inexorable progress across the floor, to the desk and away again after You have ministered to their needs. Keep on signing Your books for them. In mine, You have just signed Your own death warrant.

CHAPTER 2

BBC – NEWSFLASH – 3.10pm

‘Some news just breaking, we’re receiving reports of an explosion in central Sheffield within the last hour. The emergency services are on the scene, there are reports of casualties but no details of these as yet. It’s too soon to tell what the cause might be, but at this stage the police aren’t ruling out the possibility of terrorist involvement. We’ll update that for you as soon as we have any more information. For the time being, if you or anyone you know has any concerns about any person who might have been in the area, we’ll be bringing a phone number up onto the screen in the next few minutes for you to call—.’

CHAPTER 3

AMANDA

I didn’t know what was going on when the explosion happened. Like everyone else I was frozen for a split second, and then received a physical jolt as the force of the blast travelled outwards. Then the shouting began, some screams, and people started to scatter towards the doors. Someone, Carla, as it turned out, took my arm with great presence of mind and steered me out of my chair. ‘Come on, we have to get out of here.’ She headed out through the back, the staff area, with me in tow, as other people milled around. Everybody was unsure, I suppose, whether it was safe to go out through the front, or head to the back, where we were going, for that matter.

A member of staff was directing people out that way, with great authority, and we were overtaken by some women, panicking in their haste to get away. ‘Mrs Roberts, please.’ She saw me and took my other arm, helping Carla make sure that I was clear of the building.

I saw my driver of the day coming the other way, as we burst out through the back door. His obvious relief was great as mine as he took charge of me, one arm around my shoulders, and half-walked, half-ran me towards the car park, with Carla in pursuit. ‘You okay? Both of you?’

‘Yes, thank God.’ My voice emerged louder than I’d expected, but I suppose the situation excused it. I heard Carla reply in the affirmative too and then, as we saw the car park ahead, I remembered. ‘Hayley. We can’t go without her.’

‘We may have to,’ my guardian—Ben, I later discovered his name to be—answered with grim determination, ‘No!’ He let go of me for a moment and grabbed Carla by the arm in a firm grip, as she turned as if to run back the way we’d come.

‘We can’t go without her.’ She tried to shake him off.

‘There she is!’ I looked around, wild glances at the people moving at speed in all directions, then spotted Hayley, running towards the car park in her sensible heels.

She saw us too. ‘Thank God I found you. Are you alright?’

‘Yes,’ I said, but there was no time for more as Ben herded us through the entrance to the multi-storey and up to the waiting car.

‘Your friend?’ I managed to ask Hayley, but she shook her head.

‘I left her about half an hour ago, I wanted to go into Marks and get a couple of things.’ I saw the carrier in her hand. ‘I hope she got out of town before this happened.’

We were at the car by now and I grabbed a door handle, but Ben pulled me back. ‘Wait over there, until—,’ and he proceeded to get down on his hands and knees and check underneath the car. We let him do whatever he had to, dazed by the shocking and unexpected situation. Acting like weak women, I thought with some disgust later, letting the macho man take charge.

‘Okay, all clear.’ Ben was satisfied, beckoning us forward and opening the doors for us to get in. Carla was up front, next to him, with Hayley next to me in the back. ‘Seat belts?’ He wasn’t forgetting any of the usual safety precautions, I thought, he was as unfazed as a person could be in the situation. He didn’t waste any time in getting us out of there, but at a safe speed, slower than the speed limit dictated, given that people were moving around the streets like chickens with their heads off, confused and disorientated by the situation. I could see them as we navigated the one-way system, and hear the sirens of the fire-engines, police cars and ambulances.

It wasn’t long before we were out of the town centre and heading down the slip road, onto the A5 and back the way we’d come. It seemed like so long ago, but was only this morning, in actual fact. ‘You can breathe now, ladies.’ Ben attempted to lighten the atmosphere and it worked, we all laughed, a small sigh of relief, more like. It did take the edge off the stark and unreal atmosphere which had been hanging between us all, though.

‘What was that, in the car park?’ I asked him, ‘all that searching—?’

‘I was in the Army, Northern Ireland. You get used to checking under cars.’

‘Of course.’ I realised, and he didn’t need to finish what he was saying. Then it hit me. ‘Do you really think someone might have put a bomb under our car?’ He nodded, catching my eye in the rear-view mirror.

‘I couldn’t rule it out. You were the visiting celebrity today, and the bookshop’s been advertising the fact for a while. An explosion while you were there might be too much of a coincidence. Sorry to be so blunt about it, but—.’ He shrugged. ‘We’ll find out. But you’re out of it now, so try to relax.’

He reached over and switched on the radio, and Carla put out a hand. ‘Let me?’ So he let her change the switches, finding a news channel, as he turned his attention back to the road. While they were doing this I became aware of Hayley next to me, on her phone, taking a call. It was Jack, of course, frantic with worry, and she soon put him on to me.

‘Amanda! Are you alright? It’s all over the news, I’ve been trying to call you—.’ I realised then that my phone was still switched off, as I’d left it during the signing session. How long ago that seemed. I apologised to Jack, but he understood, it had all been so fast. I let him know I was okay, Hayley, Carla and Ben too, and that we were heading back towards London.

I was in the process of telling Jack what Ben had said, about the possibility of terrorism and me as the potential target, but he stopped me. ‘No, thank heavens, it can’t be that. They’re saying on the news that people are reporting a heavy smell of gas around before it blew. The company had workmen going to investigate before it happened, so it sounds like a gas leak. Do you have the radio on?’

‘Yes.’ Carla had the news on by then, although turned down because I was on the phone. I gestured her to turn it up, and kept Jack on hold while we listened to the report. It was as Jack had said, gas seemed to have been the culprit, and I was so relieved.

‘Are you coming straight home now?’ I hadn’t thought that far ahead, with the shock and stress and now relief, but I realised that life has to go on.

‘Darling, I can’t, I have the launch. It’s been appalling, what happened—.’ I paused and listened as the radio went on to say that no-one was dead, which was miraculous, but there were some injuries, and I felt guilty for my own relief. ‘Life has to go on,’ I told Jack, ‘and for me that means the launch party tonight, as planned. It’s all arranged, I can’t not go.’ He sighed, and agreed, and I let him go.

Relief washed over me, and I checked that Hayley and Carla were feeling the same. They were both making phone calls, to let whoever know that they were alright, and Ben made a fast hands-free call to tell his wifey. Hayley’s friend Freda was fine, it seemed, she was driving home and well out of the town centre before the explosion. ‘Try to get some rest,’ I told the girls, ‘then we’ll get back to normal and nail the party tonight.’

I left them to de-stress in their own ways, and tried to put the incident behind me, by behaving as I would after a publicity event in the normal course of things. I think it through, checking what went well and what not so well, so I put my mind into the present and a firm focus on the business of the day, rather than the incident that finished it too soon.

The signing had gone well, an auspicious start to the publicity campaign. The fans were out in force, all ready for the latest Amanda Roberts offering, and pleased to be privileged to have their copies bought and signed before the official launch party, which will take place tonight. Now they feel special, blessed, the chosen amongst my readers, and will I hope follow me more slavishly than they did before.

It pleases me that, in this new era of the eBook, there is still a hard core of readers who cling to the desire for a physical, paperback copy. The traditional signing sessions are still going strong, therefore, but we—well, Hayley—found a way to include those who’ve gone over to the eBook in the signings. From midnight last night, the electronic version was available to download, and the serious fans have been doing just that. If they attend the signing session though, and bring their copy with them, on smartphone, tablet, laptop or Kindle, they’ll be given a compliments slip, made for the book, with the specific cover artwork decorating it. They can join the queue of paperback buyers, waiting to have their books signed, and have their compliments slip signed likewise. It’s a brainwave, and is going down well with e-readers.

Hayley was so pleased. It was her idea, a new departure which gained publicity in a different way, and you can’t have too much of that. Plus she thought up this idea of a lottery for the national bookshops. Entry was free, for the chance of the prize—holding a pre-official-launch book sales and signing session—and this shop in Sheffield won. It’s just a pity that it’s such a long journey back to London for the party tonight. But it was part of the deal, and I’m lucky the winner didn’t come from somewhere much further afield, Shetland or the Scilly Isles, for example.

I’m grateful for all that, but a bit on edge nevertheless. The explosion keeps coming back and pushing its way into the forefront of my mind. A black cat walked in front of me, on my way into the bookshop, and it made me jump. Jack always says I’m silly, being superstitious, but I can’t help it, and I thought the cat didn’t bode well. Well, it didn’t, but for the town, rather than my affairs, and I feel bad about that, but justified for my superstitious turn of mind.

As for the signing, I needn’t have worried. There was a massive turnout, which is a good omen for the success of the book. I’d been so worried that it wouldn’t sell, that my public wouldn’t like the new genre, the new style, the new subject matter. It’s such a pressure, always trying to come up with something different, something that hasn’t already been done to death.

I put these thoughts aside and try to sleep, but sleep won’t come, so I think about what awaits me in London. The launch party for my new novel, the latest in a string of successes. My achievements, including the fact that I’ve disproved the old adage that it’s best to write about what you know. I smile to myself—a little smug, I admit—at the thought of my own wonderful life. My characters get divorced, lose their partners, their children, their homes, their lives, even, whereas my own life has been lived a very long way from any of that. And now I’m on my way to London to celebrate the fact of my charmed life.

I settle back and try to relax as well as I can. At least I don’t have to drive myself, but the train would have done. First Class of course, to avoid crowding, but Hayley wouldn’t hear of it. ‘So what if a private car costs, you’re a star and you need to act like one,’ she told me, and I’m so glad now that she did. I can’t imagine getting to the station after the explosion and waiting there. They’d have stopped the trains, most like, and we’d still be stuck there now. But Jack, dear Jack, was in total agreement with Hayley, wouldn’t hear of me slumming it on public transport. My darling wife, the celebrity author. Nothing too good for her, in his opinion.

I’m lucky to have him, in more ways than one. He’s worked hard, and made his money, and now he’s happy to work from home, run his empire by remote control. He still goes in once a week to keep tabs, keep his finger on the pulse, but the rest of the time he keeps on the ball with his minions via video-conferencing. He goes to international meetings in person, of course, when there’s something new going on. When I can’t be around though—as I won’t be for some time in the near future, with the publicity trips, the signings, the guest talks at universities, book fairs and so forth—he’s there to keep the home together and mind the children.

The children. Our pigeon pair, a girl and a boy, Elsie with her midnight mop of curls and Nat with his limpid dark eyes. I love them so much, and I know I’m fortunate to have them. There were never any of the problems so many people seem to suffer nowadays in having children. They just came along when required, three years apart, the ideal time gap. I always wanted children, what woman wouldn’t, and so did Jack. We didn’t want to rush it though, as so many people seem to. ‘Take a few years,’ our respective parents said, ‘enjoy each other, because there’ll be precious little time for that once the babies come along.’

So we took their advice, and those few years, before I stopped using birth control. Almost one year to the day afterwards Elsie came along. Nature seemed to know a break was needed to get the first child to a certain stage of development before the second came, and when Elsie was three Nat joined us.

Both easy births, so much so in Elsie’s case that I was glad I’d decided on a home birth, with a birthing pool, and Jack insisted on hiring a private midwife, who he insisted on installing in the house when my time came close. I was in labour for such a short time, and Jack only just made it home in time for the birth. He’d elected to work from home when it became imminent, but of course he’d gone to the shops to get something when Elsie decided it was time to arrive. Nat wasn’t in quite such a hurry, but still arrived fast, with Jack there to hold my hand as I ejected my second child into the birthing pool. And that was it We had no anguish with thermometers and calendars before resorting to fertility treatments, we had our pair and Nature drew a line under our productivity at that.

I’m fortunate that I too can work from home, apart from the publicity bandwagon of course, as at present, but for the majority of the time I’m home and around for Elsie and Nat. No child-care needed here. Between Jack and I—not forgetting Hayley, who’s a constant presence and a help with the children alongside her work for me, and Emily who does everything around the house for us, and Dan who does the garden—there’s a constant parental or adult presence around the home.

I was never sure what I wanted to do with my life, apart from marriage and children, of course, but I felt I needed something else to express my potential. I went to university, that was a given, although I never had any clear idea of why. All my friends were going, I suppose, and my parents could afford it on my father’s income as a consultant with his own private clinic. He even bought me my