The Quality of Silence

Praise for Rosamund Lupton

‘With
Sister
, Lupton enters the highly charged ring where the best psychological detective writers spar, her hands raised in a victory clench . . . Like Kate Atkinson, Patricia Highsmith and Ruth Rendell, Lupton builds suspense not only around the causes and details of her story’s brutal denouement, but also around the personalities . . . Both tear-jerking and spine-tingling’
New York Times

‘Nicci French via Ford Madox Ford.
Sister
is so ably done, so perceptive about grief and guilt and self-delusion’

John O’Connell,
Guardian

‘Lupton’s crisp insights into grief and familial guilt are married to a confidently executed plot. Lupton’s persuasive narrative voice is what keeps this classy debut (on track)’

Emma Hagestadt,
Independent

‘Stunningly accomplished from first page to last, this is the most exciting debut thriller I’ve read all year . . . Written with the power and panache of a young Daphne du Maurier; it’s devastatingly good’
Daily Mail

‘Rosamund Lupton’s
Sister
grips like a vice’
Sunday Times

‘An outstanding debut novel . . . It seems wrong to describe a thriller as being elegantly written with sincere emotion, but that is really a surprising description of this fine piece of fiction’
Daily Herald

‘Superb debut novel . . . the literary equivalent of “scream if you want to go faster” – and, just when you think things are slowing down to a peaceful, settled resolution, there’s one more stomach-churning final turn in store’

Radio Times

‘A remarkable piece of work . . . Lupton shrewdly and compassionately peels back the story’s rich layers . . . providing a genuinely wicked sting at the end. But the key to
Sister
is Bea’s voice: clear, strong, single-minded, and not to be denied’
Seattle Times

‘The narrative process is so intimate and delicate . . . the stop-and-start associative movement of Bea’s voice is, as a British review wrote, “utterly compelling”. And the ending, however gently foreshadowed, is a stunner’

Houston Chronicle

‘Lupton’s remarkable debut is a masterful, superlative-inspiring success that will hook readers (and keep them guessing) from page one . . . A chilling, gripping, tragic heart-warming, life-affirming enigma of a story’

Booklist
(starred review)

‘Fast-paced, absurdly entertaining . . . Along with a juicy mystery, it resounds with an authentic sense of sisterly love and loyalty’
Boston Globe

‘A bold, impossible-to-categorise and riveting blend of psychological suspense, literary thriller and the paranormal. Afterwards proves that Lupton isn’t just good – she’s wickedly good’
Seattle Times

‘Loved
The Time Traveler’s Wife
? This is even better’
Company

‘Lupton pushes the boundaries of our imagination with the manner in which the mystery is solved, creating a stunningly good read that’s impossible to second-guess. A literary crime novel that’s as clever in its premise as it is well written’
Glamour

‘This sophisticated thriller is brilliantly written and utterly gripping’
You
,
Mail on Sunday

‘Thrilling’
Vanity Fair

‘Chillingly good’
Red magazine

‘A knockout, one of the most inventive crime-fiction novels to come along in a decade’
Star
, Canada

‘In
Afterwards
, we see a master’s touch on every page. Uncompromising emotional impact, a poet’s sonorous style and a gripping story all come together to make this a transcendent literary experience. I guarantee this novel will touch everyone’Jeffrey Deaver

‘I became insanely gripped . . . The word “compelling” is used lightly of mystery and crime novels – this one will define it for you’
Daily Mail

‘. . . a taut and sinewy narrative . . . masterful pacing and a highly charged atmosphere . . . a stellar sophomore effort’

Booklist
(starred review)

By Rosamund Lupton

Sister

Afterwards

The Quality of Silence

little, brown

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Little, Brown

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Copyright © 2015 by Rosamund Lupton

‘No Possum, No Sop, No Taters’ by Wallace Stevens from
The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens
(copyright 1954 by Wallace Stevens and renewed 1982 by Holly Stevens reproduced by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd and Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

‘Sign for Eternity’ by Leyla Serahat Roshani, translated by Adeeba Talukder and Aria Fani, taken from
Peyk
magazine, Persian Cultural Center

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders for this material. The publisher regrets any oversight and will be pleased to rectify any omission in future editions.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

HB ISBN 978-0-349-40812-5

C format 978-0-349-40813-2

Typeset in Goudy by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk, Stirlingshire

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

Papers used by Little, Brown are from well-managed forests and other responsible sources.

Little, Brown

An imprint of Little, Brown

Little, Brown Book Group

100 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DY

An Hachette UK Company

www.hachette.co.uk

For Tora Orde-Powlett

It is deep January. The sky is hard.

The stalks are firmly rooted in ice.

It is in this solitude, a syllable,

Out of these gawky flitterings,

Intones its single emptiness,

The savagest hollow of winter-sound.

Wallace Stevens

My name is a shape not a sound. I am a thumb and a finger, not a tongue and lips. I am 10 fingers raised old – I am a girl made of letters

R - u - b - y

And this is my voice.

Chapter 1

@Words_No_Sounds

650 followers

EXCITEMENT: Tastes like space dust & popping bubble-gum; feels like the thud-bump of a plane landing; looks like the big furry hood of Dad’s Inupiaq parka