Seeking Mandy

The night Nicole went early to be with a cold, instead of going out with her best friend Gemma, her life would never be the same again. Suddenly, after a couple of hours, she woke up because she thought she heard someone call her name. Her throat was hurting and she was burning up. As she looked around and there was no one in the room, she realised her fever was responsible for imagining that someone was calling her name. Nicole walked towards the radiator and turned it off. She parted the slats of the blinds and glanced through the window to check on the weather. December had been a very wet months so far. At first the heavy rain prevented her from seeing anything. but when her eyes had adjusted, Nicole could not believe who was standing soaked to the skin standing under the lamppost across the street. Luke, ex fiancee who since their break - up six months, had made her life a living hell. His obsession of stalking her had just reached an even more sinister level. Now she could no longer escape from his unwanted attention even in her own house. Perhaps he had been earlier in her bed room after all and she had not imagined someone call her name. Or was she getting paranoid. Her heart was racing and her forehead was covered with beads of sweat, she even considered calling her mother to come and stay with her. There was no point in calling the police. They would dismiss her complaints again as they had on previous occasions when she had reported Luke's stalking incidences. They would tell there was no law against standing under a lamppost in the pouring rain. Snap out of it, she said out loud. I hope you catch pneumonia. The rest of the weekend she spent swallowing Paracetamols and sleeping. Early on Monday morning she phoned the school to let them know she would not return until after the holidays. The headmaster was very sympathetic and thanked her for not spreading round her Germs. Nicole decided to return to bed before making herself some breakfast. She had just dozed off again when the ringing of door bell woke her up. Still half asleep, she opened the door and came face to face with a man waving an ID at her and introduced himself as DI Pullinger. I wonder if I could come in and ask you a few questions, he said. Once they were seated across the kitchen table, she realist he was a plain clothed policeman. Worried that something had happen to her family, she was shocked to discover he came to see her about Luke. At last they have arrested him. Nicole said with relief but the next sentence would dismiss that notion. Luke Harding has been found dead by one of your neighbour in your garden. At first Nicole wondered if the police was mistaken. How do you know It was Luke and not some homeless man? Because we found his driving license on his body. Nicole began to feel bad, thinking she had wished him to die of hypothermia. That illusion was soon shattered when, the DC told her he had been murdered. After a questioning Nicole for over an hour, she realist that she had become a person of interest. Paul, Luke's father and his wife separately paid Nicole a visit. Paul threatened to ruin her career by using his influence with the school to get her suspended. Valerie, his second wife threaten to sue her if she publicly smeared her stepson's memory. After a couple of days Nicole was subjected to a house search. The police found a knife similar to the one Luke had been stabbed with, missing from her knife block. Nicole was taken into custody and charged with Luke's murder. Birgit, Nicole's mother bailed her out by putting up her house as security. The result was that Robbie, her brother banned Nicole from seeing his wife and five year old twins. The only ally Nicole had left was Anna Bower, an ex girlfriend of Luke. She