Excerpt from I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Jacob's death is front-page news. It screams at me from the petrol station I pass, from the corner shop, and from the bus-stop queue where I stand as though I am no different than anyone else. As though I am not running away.

Everyone is talking about the accident. How could it have happened? Who could have done it? Each bus stop brings fresh news, and the snatches of gossip float back across our heads, impossible for me to avoid.

It was a black car.

It was a red car.

The police are close to an arrest.

The police have no leads.

A woman sits next to me. She opens her newspaper and suddenly it feels as though someone is pressing on my chest. Jacob's face stares at me; bruised eyes rebuking me for not protecting him, for letting him die. I force myself to look at him, and a hard knot tightens in my throat. My vision blurs and I can't read the words, but I don't need to—I've seen a version of this article in every paper I've passed today. The quotes from devastated teachers; the notes on flowers by the side of the road; the inquest—opened and then adjourned. A second photo shows a wreath of yellow chrysanthemums on an impossibly tiny coffin. The woman tuts and starts talking: half to herself, I think, but perhaps she feels I will have a view.

"Terrible, isn't it? And just before Christmas, too." I say nothing.

"Driving off like that without stopping." She tuts again. "Mind you," she continues, "five years old. What kind of mother allows a child that age to cross a road on his own?"

I can't help it—I let out a sob. Without my realizing, hot tears stream down my cheeks and into the tissue pushed gently into my hand. "Poor lamb," the woman says, as though soothing a small child.

It's not clear if she means me, or Jacob. "You can't imagine, can you?" But I can, and I want to tell her that, whatever she is imagining, it is a thousand times worse. She finds me another tissue, crumpled but clean, and turns the page of her newspaper to read about the Clifton Christmas lights switch-on.

I never thought I would run away. I never thought I would need to.

Excerpted from I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.