Chapter One

      People said that time heals all wounds. But Janice Kirkpatrick knew that wasn’t true. She could remember every minute of that New Year’s Eve – the one just after she’d turned eleven – as though it were yesterday. She bit her lip, closed her eyes and, by sheer force of will, made the memories disappear. Just as she had done for the last twenty-seven years.

      She opened her eyes and tried to focus on the present. It was the thirty-first of December and she was locked in the en-suite bathroom with her dearest friends – Patsy, Clare and Kirsty. Downstairs, the party was in full swing, the thud of a glam rock hit from the seventies reverberating through the thick walls of the house in Ballyfergus.

      ‘Okay. Who’s going to make their New Year’s resolution first?’ asked Patsy, a buxom, petite blonde perched on the lid of the closed bidet, her satin peep-toes the colour of bubble-gum. She hiccupped and slapped her hand over her mouth. Janice and the other two women giggled, the sudden exhalation of their breath causing the flames of nearby candles to flicker.

      Janice, who was lying in the empty claw-foot bathtub, a champagne flute held aloft, felt suddenly uneasy. She wasn’t in the habit of making resolutions, not public ones anyway.

      ‘Aren’t you supposed to keep them a secret?’ asked Clare, at thirty-five, the youngest woman in the room. She had one of those faces that could, with the right grooming, look striking. But in spite of all Janice’s encouragement and advice over the years, Clare just wasn’t cut out to be a glamourpuss. Tonight, enthroned on the closed toilet seat, she wore a plain black dress and sensible low heels, her long brown hair tied back severely in a diamanté clasp – her only apparent concession to the festive season.

      ‘No,’ said Patsy, waving the objection away with her hand and coming perilously close to spilling champagne on her black pencil skirt. ‘Sure, if we can’t tell each other,’ she said, stopping to suppress another hiccup, ‘who can we tell?’

      Janice didn’t like New Year’s Eve and the retrospection and sentimentality that accompanied it. And the alcohol she’d consumed wasn’t quite enough, yet, to obliterate all the dark thoughts. The idea of hosting the party – which she did every year – was to fill the house with noise and laughter in an effort to displace the depressing nostalgia she always associated with this night. However, she was well aware that her three closest friends had a more optimistic take on life and resolved to humour them.

      ‘How about you, Kirsty?’ said Janice, addressing the woman seated cross-legged on the laundry bin, a solid teak chest specially imported from Thailand. It suited the oriental theme of the black-and-grey tiled room – Janice’s serene retreat from the world beyond. But before Kirsty had time to answer, Janice added, ‘I know what your resolution should be.’

      ‘You do? Oh, don’t tell me. Let me guess. Time for me to get myself a man,’ said Kirsty, rolling her pretty grass-coloured eyes. Unlike Clare, Kirsty’s natural beauty did not require much in the way of enhancement. Tonight she wore little more than mascara and lip gloss and she looked gorgeous in a green halter-neck dress that matched the colour of her eyes and complemented the autumnal reddish tone of her shoulder-length hair. She could do with being a tiny little bit thinner – if she was a size eight, like Janice, and a tad taller, she would be model material.

      ‘Not exactly,’ laughed Janice. ‘But it is time for you to have some fun. Time to get out and about and start dating. You need to remind yourself that you’re a woman.’

      ‘I know I’m a woman,’ tutted Kirsty good-naturedly, swiping her hand in Janice’s direction. ‘I don’t need a man to find