Home > Author > Katherine Faulkner
1 " I had to remember not to stare. It can be hard not to stare at happy people. They are mesmerizing somehow. "
― Katherine Faulkner , Greenwich Park
2 " The privileged backgrounds of the accused. The vulnerability of the victim. The beauty of the backdrop. The ugliness of the detail. "
3 " Trying to work out where it all began, where it all started going wrong. And I suppose the real answer is it started years before you could have ever imagined it did. "
4 " But sometimes when I see his face when he walks in, I’m worried to ask how his day was. "
5 " Would I be so cheerful, in her situation? Although she hasn’t said so explicitly, it’s clear there is no father in the picture. And she is so young. I wouldn’t have the strength to do all this on my own. I mean, he might have been a bit useless lately, but I don’t know what I’d "
6 " Meanwhile, the girl has already had to have two new identities as a result of being named on the internet. She has been moved away, for her own protection, to an area where she has no family support. Something he says makes me wonder if she has made an attempt on her own life. "
7 " left Cambridge ten years ago. Yet Helen seems to lean on the memory of those summer days like a crutch. I don’t know why she must talk about it so endlessly, why it seems to matter so much more to her than it does to us. "
8 " Oh, come on. You were together, by the bookcase. Just the two of you, for ages. You were standing really close to her. Why did you have so much to talk about when you’d only just met her? "
9 " don’t get it, Katie,’ he says. ‘You met this girl what – once, twice? Why are you interrogating me about it?’ He leans closer. ‘What are you asking? Are you saying you think I’ve got something to do with her going missing?’ ‘Of course not. Don’t be stupid! "
10 " Sometimes, for a few hours, he convinces me. I allow myself to decide it’s not my fault, not my problem. I mean, we’re not responsible for her, are we? We were just gullible enough to take her in for a couple of weeks. "
11 " After Grenfell we’d done a big investigation into these blocks, tried to find out how many more were death traps, coated in dangerous cladding, at risk of infernos. I’d been haunted by thoughts of fire for a long time after covering Grenfell. I couldn’t stop thinking about all those people, trapped like animals on the upper floors. "
12 " think how lucky I am to own my tiny one-bed in Dartmouth Park, to have dodged the rental trap so many graduates like me have fallen into. Paying hundreds of pounds a month just to live somewhere like this. Somewhere where the windows only open up an inch. "
13 " sit on the ball again and rock back and forth, trying to massage the pain out of my hips. I feel like screaming. None of what he is saying makes sense. Why didn’t she tell her dad she was pregnant? Why was she always here if she lived miles away? What was she doing in Greenwich all those times? And if she lied about that – what else had she lied about? "
14 " The thing about Serena is that she somehow seems to collect female friendships, effortlessly, like the bangles she wears on both wrists. I think of that awful hen weekend in Cornwall again. There were friends from Serena’s primary school, secondary school, university, work, ‘hockey’ – I had lost count. How is it that some women amass such huge collections of people who love them, yet I can’t even go to an antenatal class and make one nice, normal friend? "
15 " Don’t patronise me, Charlie. Don’t you fucking dare. And anyway, I obviously did have to. I obviously can’t rely on you to tell me the truth. "
16 " Not you. But them. Them and my fucking brother. You know after everything, he still expects me to bring him stuff, to his parties. It’s the only reason the two of them want me around. Fucking hypocrites. "
17 " anyone would be. You were not crazy.’ This is her latest theme – that I’m a victim, just like Rachel. Except Rachel is the one who was raped, robbed of justice, and who ended up dead. Not me. ‘I’m just saying. If you saw those things, you saw them. "
18 " Things just went from bad to worse that night in the club, when Rachel came on the scene. We didn’t know her name, then. We just knew it was the girl from the boathouse floor. Daniel and I were only there because Rory had dragged us there to charm some sleazy client. It was the worst luck in the world. "
19 " feels like a dead time to me. A time defined by absence, by waiting. "
20 " In the end, I stop trying to arrange to meet my work friends. After one lunch is cancelled at the last minute, then another, I get the message. People are busy, too busy for me, anyway. I’ve already been forgotten. "
