Elliott Bright and Deadly Things

From the author of the 2022 Richard and Judy Book Club pick, How to Kill Your Best Friend
Main
ISBN: 978-1-83895-049-1
Verlag: Corvus
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 304 Seiten

A retreat doesn't always mean safety... Following the death of her husband, Emily is happy to find herself surrounded by friends and fellow Oxford peers at the rustic Chalet des Anglais in the French Alps. With no electricity, running water, or access by car, surely this trip will offer her the time and space she needs to heal. But before she makes it to the airport, Emily interrupts a break-in at her home, and on the first night at the chalet, she discovers an inappropriate sexual liaison between an undergrad and a colleague. When the student suddenly disappears, and Emily sees her deceased husband's number in her call history, she realizes she had better figure out who she can trust - or the next disappearance may be her own...

Lexie Elliott grew up in Scotland, at the foot of the Highlands. She graduated from Oxford University where she obtained a doctorate in theoretical physics. A keen sportswoman, she works in fund management in London, where she lives with her husband and two sons. The rest of her time is spent writing, or thinking about writing, and juggling family life and sport. www.lexieelliott.com

Autoren/Hrsg.

Elliott, Lexie

Leseproben

1

There’s someone in the house.

I know it as soon as I’m inside, though I couldn’t say how. Some indescribable change in the air, perhaps, or a sound I hadn’t consciously registered. A wave of adrenaline sweeps over my skin, prickling all hair follicles on end. I stand frozen, just inside the still-open front door, a layer of warm air and sunshine pressing at my back and the shadowy cool of the terraced house silently waiting for me. But it’s the wrong type of silence. I stand motionless, staring, my ears straining to catch any sound above my own racing heartbeat, which is thumping in my ears, thumping in my throat; waiting for a moving shadow or the thud of a footfall or even just the tiniest of creaks—but nothing comes. The house, the intruder, me: we are all holding our breath.

I squint down the corridor that leads to the open-plan kitchen/living area at the back. Beyond the rectangle of the doorframe, I can see the bright saturated green of the back garden’s lawn through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the rear of the house, verdant in the sunshine after the rain we’ve been having. , I think. . . . But even if I scream, no one will come: the residential street outside is quiet, drowsy with the heat; and anyway, most of my neighbors will be either at work or away for their summer vacation. And what can I tell the police?

But I know it’s true: there’s someone in the house. I can sense it with a pressing urgency, as if there’s music playing at a pitch that’s below my range of hearing, but nonetheless felt.

. . .

I check that my phone is easily accessible in my pocket, then slide my rucksack off my shoulder, easing it to the floor as quietly as possible—though surely whoever is here must have heard me come in—before reaching out slowly, silently, to the coat cupboard that is just beside me. My heartbeat is a hammering thud that must be audible streets away. I know the cupboard door will squeak, regardless of whether I open it slowly or fast. , I decide. .

I take a deep breath. . “Get out of my house; I’m calling the police right now!” I yell, and keep yelling as I yank the screeching cupboard door open with one hand and reach in with the other to grab a club—any club—from the golf bag that languishes beneath the coats. Words keep tumbling out of my mouth, though I have no real idea of what I’m shouting as I yank the club out, briefly entangling it with a navy rain jacket that slips off its hanger and falls to the floor as I charge with my improvised weapon toward the back of the house. Surely the intruder will head straight for the open front door? I don’t want to be in the way when they do. I reach the living room, with the afternoon sun streaming in through the French doors, and whirl around so my back is to the sunlight, holding the club diagonally in front of me with both hands on the shaft, no longer yelling and poised to spring. I strain to listen. The house is silent, but I’m not fooled. . . .

A dark shape explodes out of the small study to my left, running straight for me. For a moment I’m frozen, staring blankly at the man—for it seems to be a man, though his head is covered by a black balaclava—who is heading directly toward me. Belatedly, in blind panic, I swing the club viciously, but too late; he’s almost upon me. Only at the last minute, he veers, planting a foot on the seat of one of the armchairs and leaping over the back, and my clumsy swing connects only in a glancing blow on his lower back, the club continuing in an arcing path. I hear, rather than see, it smash through the crystal vase that was on the sideboard, because I’m whirling round to keep the intruder in my vision; he’s at the sliding doors, yanking one open to run out into the garden, where, without any hesitation whatsoever, he sprints across the small lawn to scale the cedar-planked back fence and disappear into the lane behind.

I’m left staring at the red-brown horizontal planks of the cedar fence, the club still gripped tightly in my hands. A small breeze slips in through the now open sliding door, carrying with it the shouts of children playing, a car starting somewhere, a bee buzzing round the lavender in the garden—the lazy sounds and smells of summer. I’m alone now; the insistent press of danger has receded. I am very much alone.

The police—an officer and a forensics specialist—come quickly. Perhaps there’s less for them to do in Oxford in summer, when the bulk of the student body has melted away. The tourists more than make up the numbers, but I imagine they’re less troublesome: nobody comes to visit the city of dreaming spires for the nightlife.

The forensics specialist takes out some sort of kit and starts to look around while the officer and I sit on the sofa. He’s a spare man with a no-nonsense attitude, but his eyes are kind when they meet mine. I sip from a cup of tea while I answer his questions, though what I really want is something much stronger. The golf club is on the floor now. It feels like a talisman, like I shouldn’t ever be without it; I keep one foot pressed on it as I try to describe the intruder. I assume male, given build; somewhere between five foot ten and six foot; lean and obviously quite athletic; Caucasian, judging by the small patches of skin visible around the balaclava. Wearing dark clothing of the sporting variety: black joggers and a long-sleeved top. Gloves? I’m not sure on that. I find myself saying . The cliché doesn’t do the experience justice. That moment when he exploded toward me, when I was frozen in his path . . .

“He must have accessed from the rear,” says the colleague, stepping carefully over the navy rain jacket that’s still strewn on the floor. Nick’s jacket: a good one, but too big for me. I ought to do something with it; it shouldn’t go to waste. She crosses to inspect the sliding doors. “There’s no sign of forced entry at the front door—Ah, here we go. There are marks here on the doorframe, and the lock is damaged. We won’t get a print, though.” She looks across at me, mild disapproval edging into her tone. “You really should think about an alarm system and additional locks on these sliding doors.” I nod, though I’m thinking that it’s a little late to lock the stable door after the horse has bolted. Though I suppose horses can always bolt again.

“And you’re sure nothing is missing, Mrs. Rivers?” asks the officer.

“Doctor,” I say reflexively. “Dr. Rivers.”

“Dr. Rivers,” he repeats. “Do you work up at the JR, then?”

He means the John Radcliffe Hospital. I shake my head. “I’m not a medical doctor. I’m an academic.” My eyes move inadvertently toward the shadowy entrance to the study—only an alcove, really—as if the intruder might burst from there again.

“Ah. But you’re sure nothing is missing? Bikes, electronics, money, jewelry, passports, other valuables?”

“Nothing that I can see. I had my passport with me, and I’m wearing most of my jewelry.” I see them both eyeing my minimalistic adornments. “As I said, Oxford academic.” I make an attempt at a wry smile. “We’re not known for our disposable cash.”

“Well, I would think it was an opportunist thief and they couldn’t have been here long,” says the officer in a tone that suggests he’s bringing his questions to a close. “Probably just got here when you disturbed him. Or her.” They are not convinced, given the balaclava and genderless clothing, that the thief is necessarily male; in their eyes, that may be an assumption of mine that has stuck in my head, tainting what I really saw and remember. Unconscious bias. I suppose it could be; they’re right to keep an open mind. But nevertheless I can’t shake the feeling that the intruder was male.

“He—or she—must be local,” I muse. “Not everyone would know about the access to the garden from the lane at the back.” Nor about the study either, in fact, though I suppose he simply looked for a place to hide when he heard me come in.

“Did the intruder pick up and smash the vase?” asks the specialist. “If we’re lucky I might get a print off one of the larger pieces.”

“No, I did it. With the, um”—I lean down to pick up the golf club and look at the head of it properly—“seven iron.” I see Nick deep in conversation with someone—who? Does it matter? And where were we anyway?—his beanpole figure hunched over like a shepherd’s crook so that his words could be safely delivered to the ear of a smaller man as he said earnestly, . Nick, who had only taken up golfing six months...