I'll Keep You Safe

Prologue

All she can hear is the ringing in her ears. A high-pitched tinnitus drowning out all other sounds. The chaos around her has no real form. Flaming fragments from the blast still falling from the night sky, bodies lying on the concrete. The shadows of figures fleeing the flames extend towards her across the square, flickering like monochrome images on a screen.

She can make out the skeleton of the car beyond the blaze, imagining that she sees the silhouettes of the driver and passenger still strapped in their seats. But how could anyone have survived such an explosion intact?

Bizarrely, traffic continues to move along the Boulevard de Magenta, but slowly, like a river of coagulating blood. Neon lights still glow in the dark, the final moments of normality frozen in time. But the hope that she might save her marriage is gone. Because she knows, with a deep, hollowing sadness, and beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he is dead.