All Fall Down: A gripping psychological thriller with a twist that will take your breath away by Tom Bale

shadow over the evening. Rob, though, had decided that it was essential to rule out Jason Dennehy’s involvement. He’d sent the man a text, but hadn’t had a reply when he went to bed.
    At about two fifteen he was woken by a noise that seemed different to the rest – more deliberate – though of course it had faded before he was properly awake.
    He sat up, groggily. The house had an alarm system, installed by the previous owners. The internal movement sensors often malfunctioned, so Rob tended not to activate them at night. But the magnetic contacts on the doors and windows ought to be operating, giving them some warning if an intruder broke in.
    Fetching a cricket bat from Evan’s room, he looked in on the other bedrooms and made sure all the windows were shut. Then he went downstairs, pausing every couple of steps. The wind blew in gusts, causing a low-pitched moan as it pushed against the roof.
    Rob prowled from room to room, but there was nothing out of place. Then, as he was entering the kitchen, he heard it again – a loud clattering noise, like someone falling against the fence.
    Exactly what he’d heard yesterday afternoon.
    After peering, uselessly, into the gloom, he unlocked the doors and stepped on to the terrace. He was wearing nothing but his boxer shorts, but the wind that buffeted him didn’t feel cold at all; the air was rich with the scent of honeysuckle and – he didn’t think he was imagining it – a tang of the sea.
    The garden seemed to be deserted, though there was some kind of small animal snuffling in the bushes to his right. Then, during a sudden lull in the wind, he heard a high-pitched creak and caught movement straight ahead.
    The gate was swinging open.
    His first reaction was to raise the bat. Heart racing, he turned and checked all around. He remembered locking the gate after the police had left, and no one had come out here during the evening. Had someone climbed the fence and then opened the gate to get out?
    Before it could slam again, Rob hurried across the lawn and trapped the gate with his foot. There were clouds scudding across the moon, dimming its pale light and turning the acres of open ground into a silvery alien landscape, dotted with mysterious clumps of shadow. To Rob’s fevered imagination, the hissing of the wind in the trees sounded like voices, whispering in collusion against him.

    T here was nothing to see , so he shut the gate and pushed the bolts home. Then, as he turned towards the house, he heard a shriek.
    Wendy.
    He sprinted across the garden and saw her in the living room, looking terrified.
    ‘Are you okay?’
    ‘I panicked because you were gone. And then I saw the door open. . .’
    ‘Sorry, that was stupid of me.’
    As he entered the room he noticed something in her hand: a small white square. Wendy caught him staring at it, and said, ‘I found this on the mat.’ She indicated the garden. ‘What were you doing?’
    He struggled to focus on her question. ‘The gate was open, banging in the wind.’
    ‘Didn’t you shut it earlier?’
    ‘I thought I had.’ He couldn’t take his eyes off the envelope. ‘We’d better open that.’
    Wendy looked down as if she’d forgotten what she was holding. His tone had probably betrayed that he knew what it was, but she said nothing as she took out a slip of paper. She read the message and handed it to Rob. As with yesterday’s, it was short and to the point:
    YOU KILLED HIM
    Rob was frozen for a minute: he couldn’t move, or speak, or think.
    Wendy snapped him out of it: ‘What is this?’
    ‘Hold on.’ He put the cricket bat down and fetched the other note. Wendy seemed to tremble as she studied it.
    ‘When were you going to tell me about this?’
    ‘I found it last night, but I didn’t want to—’
    ‘ What? Why haven’t you given it to the police?’
    ‘I didn’t think it would achieve anything.’
    ‘It’s not just your decision to make.’ She hadn’t raised her voice, but there