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Copyright © 2015 by Paula Hawkins

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hawkins, Paula.

The daughter on the train / Paula Hawkins.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-698-18539-5

1. Railroad travel—Fiction. 2. Commuters—Fiction. 3. Strangers—Fiction. 4. London (England)—Fiction. 5. Psychological fiction. I. Championship.

PR6108.A963G57 2015 2014027001

823'.92—dc23

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the production of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or expressionless, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Version_1

CONTENTS

Championship Page

Copyright

Dedication

RACHEL

MEGAN

RACHEL

MEGAN

RACHEL

MEGAN

RACHEL

MEGAN

RACHEL

ANNA

RACHEL

MEGAN

RACHEL

ANNA

RACHEL

MEGAN

RACHEL

ANNA

RACHEL

ANNA

RACHEL

MEGAN

RACHEL

ANNA

RACHEL

ANNA

RACHEL

ANNA

RACHEL

ANNA

RACHEL

ANNA

MEGAN

RACHEL

MEGAN

RACHEL

ANNA

RACHEL

Acknowledgments

FOR KATE

• • •

She's cached beneath a silver birch tree, downwards towards the old train tracks, her grave marked with a cairn. Not more than a piddling pile of stones, really. I didn't want to draw attending to her resting place, only I couldn't leave her without remembrance. She'll sleep peacefully there, no one to disturb her, no sounds merely birdsong and the rumble of passing trains.

• • •

One for sorrow, two for joy, iii for a girl . . . Iii for a daughter. I'm stuck on three, I just tin can't go any further. My caput is thick with sounds, my mouth thick with blood. Three for a daughter. I can hear the magpies—they're laughing, mocking me, a raucous cackling. A tiding. Bad tidings. I can see them now, black against the sun. Not the birds, something else. Someone's coming. Someone is speaking to me. Now look. At present expect what you fabricated me practise.

RACHEL

• • •

FRIDAY, JULY 5, 2013

Morn

There is a pile of clothing on the side of the train tracks. Light-blueish cloth—a shirt, perhaps—jumbled up with something muddy white. It's probably rubbish, office of a load dumped into the scrubby little forest up the banking company. It could have been left behind by the engineers who work this part of the track, they're here ofttimes plenty. Or it could be something else. My female parent used to tell me that I had an overactive imagination; Tom said that, besides. I tin't assistance it, I grab sight of these discarded scraps, a dirty T-shirt or a lonesome shoe, and all I tin can remember of is the other shoe and the feet that fitted into them.

The train jolts and scrapes and screeches back into motion, the piffling pile of clothes disappears from view and we trundle on towards London, moving at a brisk jogger's stride. Someone in the seat behind me gives a sigh of helpless irritation; the viii:04 dull train from Ashbury to Euston can test the patience of the near seasoned commuter. The journey is supposed to take l-four minutes, but it rarely does: this department of the rails is aboriginal, decrepit, aggress with signalling problems and never-ending engineering works.

The train crawls along; it judders past warehouses and h2o towers, bridges and sheds, past modest Victorian houses, their backs turned squarely to the track.

My head leaning against the carriage window, I watch these houses roll by me like a tracking shot in a film. I come across them every bit others do non; even their owners probably don't see them from this perspective. Twice a mean solar day, I am offered a view into other lives, just for a moment. There's something comforting nearly the sight of strangers safe at abode.

Someone'southward telephone is ringing, an incongruously joyful and upbeat song. They're slow to answer, it jingles on and on effectually me. I can experience my young man commuters shift in their seats, rustle their newspapers, tap at their computers. The railroad train lurches and sways around the bend, slowing as it approaches a red signal. I attempt non to wait upwards, I try to read the gratuitous newspaper I was handed on my way into the station, but the words mistiness in front end of my eyes, cipher holds my interest. In my caput I can nevertheless come across that little pile of clothes lying at the border of the track, abandoned.

EVENING

The premixed gin and tonic fizzes up over the lip of the tin can as I bring it to my oral cavity and sip. Tangy and cold, the taste of my offset-ever holiday with Tom, a fishing village on the Basque coast in 2005. In the mornings we'd swim the one-half mile to the little island in the bay, make dearest on clandestine hidden beaches; in the afternoons we'd sit at a bar drinking strong, bitter gin and tonics, watching swarms of beach footballers playing chaotic 20-five-a-side games on the low-tide sands.

I take another sip, and some other; the can's already half empty, simply it'southward OK, I have three more than in the plastic bag at my feet. Information technology'southward Fri, and so I don't have to feel guilty most drinking on the railroad train. TGIF. The fun starts here.

Information technology's going to be a lovely weekend, that's what they're telling united states of america. Beautiful sunshine, cloudless skies. In the old days we might take driven to Corly Forest with a picnic and the papers, spent all afternoon lying on a blanket in dappled sunlight, drinking wine. Nosotros might accept barbecued out back with friends, or gone to the Rose and sat in the beer garden, faces flushing with sun and alcohol as the afternoon went on, weaving abode, arm in arm, falling asleep on the sofa.

Cute sunshine, clement skies, no one to play with, nothing to do. Living like this, the manner I'grand living at the moment, is harder in the summer when at that place is so much daylight, so piffling comprehend of darkness, when everyone is out and about, being flagrantly, aggressively happy. Information technology's exhausting, and information technology makes you feel bad if you lot're not joining in.

The weekend stretches out alee of me, forty-eight empty hours to fill up. I elevator the can to my mouth again, simply there's not a drop left.

MONDAY, JULY 8, 2013

Forenoon

It's a relief to exist back on the 8:04. Information technology'south not that I can't wait to go into London to start my week—I don't particularly want to be in London at all. I just want to lean back in the soft, sagging velour seat, feel the warmth of the sunshine streaming through the window, feel the railroad vehicle stone back and along and back and forth, the comfo

rting rhythm of wheels on tracks. I'd rather be here, looking out at the houses beside the rails, than almost anywhere else.

There's a faulty signal on this line, about halfway through my journey. I assume it must be faulty, in any case, because it's nigh ever crimson; we stop there virtually days, sometimes just for a few seconds, sometimes for minutes on cease. If I sit in carriage D, which I commonly do, and the train stops at this betoken, which information technology almost always does, I have a perfect view into my favourite trackside house: number fifteen.

Number fifteen is much similar the other houses along this stretch of rail: a Victorian semi, two storeys high, overlooking a narrow, well-tended garden that runs around twenty feet downward towards some fencing, beyond which lie a few metres of no-human being's-land before you become to the railway track. I know this house past heart. I know every brick, I know the colour of the curtains in the upstairs bedroom (beige, with a dark-blue print), I know that the paint is peeling off the bathroom window frame and that there are four tiles missing from a department of the roof over on the right-hand side.

I know that on warm summertime evenings, the occupants of this house, Jason and Jess, sometimes climb out of the large sash window to sit on the makeshift terrace on superlative of the kitchen-extension roof. They are a perfect, gilded couple. He is dark-haired and well built, strong, protective, kind. He has a great express joy. She is one of those tiny bird-women, a beauty, pale-skinned with blond hair cropped short. She has the os structure to bear that kind of thing off, precipitous cheekbones dappled with a sprinkling of freckles, a fine jaw.

While we're stuck at the red point, I expect for them. Jess is often out there in the mornings, especially in the summer, drinking her coffee. Sometimes, when I see her there, I feel as though she sees me, too, I feel as though she looks correct dorsum at me, and I want to wave. I'thou likewise self-conscious. I don't see Jason quite so much, he'southward away a lot with work. Simply even if they're not there, I think most what they might be upwardly to. Maybe this morning they've both got the 24-hour interval off and she's lying in bed while he makes breakfast, or maybe they've gone for a run together, because that's the sort of thing they practice. (Tom and I used to run together on Sundays, me going at slightly above my normal pace, him at near half his, just so we could run side by side.) Maybe Jess is upstairs in the spare room, painting, or maybe they're in the shower together, her hands pressed against the tiles, his easily on her hips.

EVENING

Turning slightly towards the window, my dorsum to the residue of the railroad vehicle, I open one of the little bottles of Chenin Blanc I purchased from the Whistlestop at Euston. Information technology's not cold, but it'll practise. I pour some into a plastic loving cup, screw the acme dorsum on and slip the bottle into my purse. It'due south less acceptable to potable on the train on a Monday, unless you lot're drinking with company, which I am not.

There are familiar faces on these trains, people I run across every week, going to and fro. I recognize them and they probably recognize me. I don't know whether they see me, though, for what I actually am.

It's a glorious evening, warm but not besides close, the sun starting its lazy descent, shadows lengthening and the calorie-free just beginning to burnish the copse with gold. The railroad train is rattling along, we whip past Jason and Jess's place, they pass in a blur of evening sunshine. Sometimes, not often, I tin see them from this side of the track. If in that location'southward no train going in the opposite direction, and if we're travelling slowly enough, I tin sometimes catch a glimpse of them out on their terrace. If not—like today—I can imagine them. Jess will be sitting with her anxiety upwards on the tabular array out on the terrace, a drinking glass of vino in her paw, Jason standing behind her, his easily on her shoulders. I tin can imagine the feel of his hands, the weight of them, reassuring and protective. Sometimes I take hold of myself trying to remember the last time I had meaningful physical contact with another person, just a hug or a heartfelt squeeze of my hand, and my center twitches.

TUESDAY, JULY 9, 2013

MORNING

The pile of clothes from last calendar week is even so there, and it looks dustier and more forlorn than information technology did a few days ago. I read somewhere that a train tin rip the dress right off you when information technology hits. Information technology's non that unusual, death by train. 2 to iii hundred a year, they say, and so at least 1 every couple of days. I'm not certain how many of those are accidental. I look advisedly, as the railroad train rolls slowly past, for claret on the clothes, but I can't see any.

The train stops at the signal as usual. I can run into Jess continuing on the patio in front end of the French doors. She's wearing a bright impress apparel, her feet are bare. She's looking over her shoulder, back into the house; she's probably talking to Jason, who'll be making breakfast. I keep my eyes fixed on Jess, on her home, as the train starts to inch forward. I don't want to see the other houses; I peculiarly don't desire to come across the i 4 doors down, the 1 that used to exist mine.

I lived at number twenty-3 Blenheim Road for v years, blissfully happy and utterly wretched. I tin't look at information technology now. That was my first domicile. Not my parents' identify, not a flatshare with other students, my get-go home. I can't comport to look at it. Well, I can, I do, I want to, I don't want to, I try not to. Every solar day I tell myself not to wait, and every day I look. I can't help myself, even though there is zero I desire to see at that place, fifty-fifty though anything I exercise encounter will hurt me. Even though I call up so conspicuously how it felt that time I looked up and noticed that the foam linen bullheaded in the upstairs sleeping accommodation was gone, replaced by something in soft baby pink; even though I even so recollect the pain I felt when I saw Anna watering the rosebushes about the fence, her T-shirt stretched tight over her bulging belly, and I bit my lip so difficult, it bled.

I shut my eyes tightly and count to x, fifteen, 20. There, it's gone at present, nix to run into. We scroll into Witney station and out again, the train starting to option up pace equally suburbia melts into grimy Due north London, terraced houses replaced by tagged bridges and empty buildings with broken windows. The closer nosotros get to Euston, the more anxious I feel; pressure builds; how volition today be? There's a filthy, low-slung concrete building on the correct-hand side of the track about five hundred metres before we become into Euston. On its side, someone has painted: LIFE IS NOT A PARAGRAPH. I think virtually the bundle of clothes on the side of the rails and I feel equally though my throat is closing up. Life is not a paragraph, and death is no parenthesis.

EVENING

The train I take in the evening, the 5:56, is slightly slower than the morning one—it takes one hr and 1 minute, a total vii minutes longer than the morning train despite non stopping at whatever actress stations. I don't mind, because only every bit I'chiliad in no bang-up bustle to get into London in the forenoon, I'm in no hurry to get back to Ashbury in the evening, either. Not just because it'southward Ashbury, although the identify itself is bad enough, a 1960s new town, spreading similar a tumour over the heart of Buckinghamshire. No improve or worse than a dozen other towns similar information technology, a center filled with cafés and mobile-phone shops and branches of JD Sports, surrounded by a band of suburbia and beyond that the realm of the multiplex cinema and out-of-town Tesco. I alive in a smart(ish), new(ish) cake situated at the point where the commercial middle of the place starts to bleed into the residential outskirts, but it is not my dwelling house. My abode is the Victorian semi on the tracks, the one I office-endemic. In Ashbury I am not a homeowner, not even a tenant—I'g a lodger, occupant of the small second sleeping room in Cathy's bland and inoffensive duplex, subject field to her grace and favour.

Cathy and I were friends at university. One-half friends, actually, we were never that close. She lived beyond the hall from me in my first year, and nosotros were both doing the same course, and so we were natural allies in those first few daunting weeks, before we met people with whom we had more in common. Nosotros didn't see much of each other after the first year and barely at all afterwards college, except for the occasional wedding. But in my hour of need she happened to accept a spare room going and it fabricated sense. I was so sure that it would only be for a couple of months, six at the nearly, and I didn't know what else to do. I'd never lived by myself, I'd gone from parents to fla

tmates to Tom, I found the idea overwhelming, so I said yes. And that was nearly two years ago.

It's non atrocious. Cathy's a nice person, in a forceful sort of mode. She makes y'all detect her niceness. Her niceness is writ large, it is her defining quality and she needs information technology best-selling, ofttimes, daily near, which tin can be tiring. But it's not so bad, I tin think of worse traits in a flatmate. No, it's non Cathy, information technology's not even Ashbury that bothers me nigh about my new situation (I however think of it as new, although it'southward been two years). It's the loss of command. In Cathy's flat I always experience similar a guest at the very outer limit of her welcome. I experience it in the kitchen, where we jostle for space when cooking our evening meals. I feel information technology when I sit beside her on the sofa, the remote control firmly inside her grasp. The just space that feels like mine is my tiny sleeping room, into which a double bed and a desk-bound have been crammed, with barely enough space to walk between them. It'southward comfy plenty, but it isn't a place you want to be, and so instead I linger in the living room or at the kitchen tabular array, ill at ease and powerless. I accept lost control over everything, even the places in my head.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 2013

MORNING

The heat is building. It'southward barely half by 8 and already the twenty-four hour period is close, the air heavy with wet. I could wish for a storm, just the sky is an insolent blank, stake, watery blueish. I wipe away the sweat on my top lip. I wish I'd remembered to buy a bottle of water.

I tin can't see Jason and Jess this morning, and my sense of disappointment is astute. Silly, I know. I scrutinize the house, but there's null to see. The curtains are open downstairs just the French doors are closed, sunlight reflecting off the glass. The sash window upstairs is airtight, as well. Jason may be abroad working. He's a md, I recall, probably for one of those overseas organizations. He's constantly on call, a bag packed on top of the wardrobe; there's an earthquake in Iran or a tsunami in Asia and he drops everything, he grabs his bag and he's at Heathrow within a matter of hours, ready to fly out and salvage lives.

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