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ABRAMS BOOKS - Hill Susan Hill

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163 pages

English

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Susan Hill-the Man Booker Prize nominee and winner of the Whitbread, Somerset Maugham, and John Llewellyn Rhys awards-returns with a gripping new novel, the latest chapter in one of the most acclaimed mystery series of our time. From the outside, the cathedral town of Lafferton seems idyllic, but in many ways it is just like any other place. It suffers from the same kinds of crime, is subject to the same pressures from a rapidly changing world, and has the same hopes and fears as any number of towns up and down the land. When Simon Serrailler is called in by Lafferton's new Chief Constable, Kieran Bright, he is met by two plainclothes officers, who ask him to take the principal role in a difficult, potentially dangerous undercover operation. He must leave town immediately, without telling anyone-not even his girlfriend Rachel, who has only just moved in with him. Meanwhile, Simon's sister Cat is facing difficult choices at work, as Lafferton's hospice closes its bedded units-and at home, as her daughter is presented with a glittering opportunity that they would have to struggle to afford. And all is not well with Simon and Cat's stepmother, Judith, either. To complete his special operation, Simon must inhabit the mind of the worst kind of criminal. This takes its toll on Simon and-as the investigation unfolds-also on the town and some of its most respected citizens.

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Publié par	ABRAMS BOOKS
Date de parution	03 mai 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781468311501
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0450€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Simon Serrailler Crime Novels
THE VARIOUS HAUNTS OF MEN
THE PURE IN HEART
THE RISK OF DARKNESS
THE VOWS OF SILENCE
THE SHADOWS IN THE STREET
THE BETRAYAL OF TRUST
A QUESTION OF IDENTITY
Fiction
GENTLEMAN AND LADIES
A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER
I M THE KING OF THE CASTLE
THE ALBATROSS AND OTHER STORIES
STRANGE MEETING
THE BIRD OF NIGHT
A BIT OF SINGING AND DANCING
IN THE SPRINGTIME OF THE
YEAR THE WOMAN IN BLACK
MRS DE WINTER
THE MIST IN THE MIRROR
AIR AND ANGELS
THE SERVICE OF CLOUDS
THE BOY WHO TAUGHT THE BEEKEEPER TO READ
THE MAN IN THE PICTURE
THE BEACON
THE SMALL HAND
A KIND MAN
BLACK SHEEP
Non-Fiction
THE MAGIC APPLE TREE
FAMILY
HOWARDS END IS ON THE LANDING
For Children
THE BATTLE FOR GULLYWITH
THE GLASS ANGELS
CAN IT BE TRUE?
Copyright
This edition first published in hardcover in the United States in 2015 by The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.
141 Wooster Street
New York, NY 10012
www.overlookpress.com
For bulk and special sales, please contact sales@overlookny.com , or write us at the above address
Copyright 2014 by Susan Hill
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.
ISBN 978-1-4683-1150-1
Contents
By The Same Author
Copyright
Dedication
Part One
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Part Two
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Thirty-one
Thirty-two
Thirty-three
Thirty-four
Thirty-five
Thirty-six
Thirty-seven
Part Three
Thirty-eight
Thirty-nine
Forty
Forty-one
Forty-two
Forty-three
Forty-four
Forty-five
Forty-six
Forty-seven
Forty-eight
Forty-nine
Fifty
Fifty-one
Fifty-two
Fifty-three
Fifty-four
Fifty-five
Fifty-six
Fifty-seven
Fifty-eight
Fifty-nine
Part Four
Sixty
Sixty-one
Sixty-two
Sixty-three
Sixty-four
Sixty-five
Sixty-six
Map
About the Author
To my friend Mrs Green (Candida Lycett Green 1942-2014)
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
PART ONE
One
APRIL 2007
Lafferton, and a night in early spring. After a week of frosts, the wind had swung to the west, bringing milder air. Snowdrops and crocuses were over, daffodils were flowering. Quiet, empty streets. No footsteps.
Jeff Barclay and Robbie Freeman sat on a low wall near the bus stop in the square, finishing off a shared kebab. They only had enough money for one, and a tea. Robbie screwed up the greasy paper and lifted his arm to throw it into a nearby bin. But his arm froze in mid-air.
What?
Bloody hell.
What? Jeff shoved him so that he almost fell off the wall. Robbie did not protest or shove back, he just stared at the entrance to the Lanes, the cobbled pedestrian-only street to their left.
Shit, did you see that?
Didn t see anything. What was it - a ghost? Jeff snorted.
No. Robbie said quietly, getting off the wall and walking towards the Lanes. I saw a kid.
What sort of kid?
A little kid. It it had no clothes on.
You re taking the piss. I never saw any naked kid.
Jeff levelled with him as they reached the top of the Lanes. There were old-fashioned lamps at either end and a couple of shops had lighted front windows. The whole street was empty.
Stupid.
No. I saw it. There was a little kid, it sort of - just ran and then it vanished.
Yeah, right. Come on, let s see if there s anyone outside the Magpie.
But Robbie was walking slowly away from him, looking closely to right and left. In the end, Jeff followed.
How could there be a kid?
I know what I saw.
What are you on, Rob? You start seeing things, you got a problem.
There was a passageway between the deli and a smart clothes shop, and as Robbie looked into it, he saw a quick movement - something pale. He ran down, but he had to push past two wheelie bins, and by the time he had got through, if there had been anyone, they d gone.
Cat.
No.
You re mad.
No.
Oh, for fuck s sake! I m off home.
It was another five minutes before Robbie followed him. They walked slowly along the kerb, thumbs out every time a vehicle went by. Not many did.
Wanker. Jeff gave two fingers to a speeding car. Robbie said nothing. His head was full of what he knew he had seen - not imagined, not hallucinated, seen. A child, maybe three or four years old, naked, slithering out of sight into the shadows, dodging down the alley and passageway. He couldn t get it out of his mind.
A patrol car took the call at twenty to three.
PC Bev Willet sighed. Wind-up, she said.
Sounds like it. But just in case - hold onto your hat.
It had been a quiet night. Even a wind-up was better than trying to keep awake with more plastic coffee. The car raced up the bypass.
How old did he say?
Little kid, three or so. Couldn t say if it was a boy or girl.
And naked ?
Naked.
They piss me off, these hoaxers. I d have them dunked in the canal on a freezing night. Bev snorted as she pulled up at the entrance to the Lanes. One taxi was in the rank, the driver asleep with a copy of the Sun over his face. He didn t stir at the sound of the patrol car.
Talk to him in a mo. Come on.
Ten minutes later they had scoured the area, including every alley and passageway, every wheelie bin and recycling area.
Diddly squat, Bev said.
Pisses me off, this sort of thing.
You said.
Only why would he invent a naked child , for heaven s sake?
Guaranteed to make us move fast.
Right. Just someone s idea of a good laugh then. Better go and wake up our cabby.
But their cabby had been out on jobs all evening and then fallen asleep. He was going home now. He d keep an eye out.
His face said it all.
Wind-up.
Wind-up.
Jess Honeywell s baby woke for a feed at four. She picked him up out of his crib and moved the curtain aside briefly to look out at the night. Starry, with a big moon. A front-bedroom light was on a few doors down. Another wakeful baby. She and Katie Green sometimes chanced to look out at the same time and then they d wave, sharing the small hours of new babies. They had propped one another up through pregnancy and the first weeks and went on doing so now, meeting almost every day, walking their buggies together, swapping notes. It had made all the difference. St Luke s Road was in the grid of small Victorian terraced houses known as the Apostles, friendly, neighbourly, and near to the shops, coffee bars and restaurants of Lafferton s centre. They were lucky, Jess thought as she dropped the curtain, even if the houses were small. She hated the idea of being stuck out in the sticks, even with bigger rooms and a garden, but no life nearby and needing a car to get you anywhere. They couldn t afford a car. Matt walked to work.
The Green bedroom was in darkness, the moon shining on quiet pavements, but as she turned, Jess thought she saw something move. Turned back and lifted the curtain again. No. Trick of the light. Nothing. And then her hand went to her mouth. Noah was grizzling himself back to sleep but she barely noticed.
Matt was hard to wake and when he did, he stumbled out of bed assuming he had to pick up the baby and was almost able to do so in his sleep.
He came awake fully as Jess shook his arm.
What? You ve been dreaming -
NO. Matt, go down, go out there I was not dreaming. You ve got to go. Noah cried again as her voice rose. She picked him up and sat on the edge of the bed, putting him to the breast and gesturing to Matt to hurry.
It was not that he refused to believe her, just that he was still not fully awake, and he felt foolish, standing half dressed and in slippers, looking up and down St Luke s Road and seeing nothing, Nothing at all. But she had been wide awake and he knew that she thought she had seen
And then he saw.
The child was squatting down behind the gate of a house opposite.
It s OK, Matt said. It s all right, it s all right.
He went through the gate and stopped. Later, he said that he would never forget the child s face until his dying day. Later, he could not sleep because the face was in front of him. Later, he was haunted during his waking hours by sudden flashbacks to the child s face as it looked up at him.
It s all right. Dear God. Listen, I won t hurt you. I m going to look after you, OK? But even as he spoke, gently, quietly, the child tried to shrink into a hedge, as if it might find a safe place among the rough bare twigs and earth.
Very slowly, Matt inched his way, his hand out, talking softly in what he desperately hoped was a voice of reassurance. The child continued to shrink from him and now it turned its face away from him out of fear.
It was a girl. She was perhaps four years old. She was filthy, she had smears of blood on her arms and legs. Her long, fine, fair hair was matted to her scalp. She was completely naked.
There was silence and stillness and fear for long minutes before the child lurched forward, the hedge catching at her again as she moved and drawing fresh pinpoints of blood, and then she was clinging to Matt, climbing up him like a terrified small animal and pressing her little body to him. He put his arm round her carefully and edged backwards down the path. She did not move, only clung fast to him. Matt hurried across the road, back into the