Hope to die, p.1
Hope to Die, page 1
part #6 of DI Adam Fawley Series
Cara Hunter
* * *
HOPE TO DIE
Contents
Previously … in the Fawley files
Hope to Die
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Cara Hunter is the author of the Sunday Times’ bestselling crime novels Close to Home, In the Dark, No Way Out, All the Rage and The Whole Truth, all featuring DI Adam Fawley and his Oxford-based police team. Close to Home was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick and was shortlisted for Crime Book of the Year at the British Book Awards 2019. No Way Out was selected by the Sunday Times as one of the 100 best crime novels since 1945. The Whole Truth was also a Richard and Judy Book Club pick in 2021. Cara’s novels have sold more than a million copies in twenty-nine territories worldwide, and the TV rights to the series have now been acquired by the Fremantle group, who are in script development with a network. She lives in Oxford, on a street not unlike those featured in her books. Hope to Die is her sixth novel.
PRAISE FOR
CARA HUNTER
‘Your next riveting, twisty read’
SHARI LAPENA
‘Fast-paced and a fantastic cast of characters. Kept me guessing to the end’
FIONA BARTON
‘Cara writes with an intelligent vivacity. You can almost hear her characters breathing on the page’
JANE CORRY
‘Cancel everything. You’re not going anywhere until you finish reading’
EMILY KOCH
‘A masterful, engrossing, twisty novel’
ROSAMUND LUPTON
‘A top-notch psychological thriller’
JP DELANEY
‘I was totally gripped and terrified’
ARAMINTA HALL
‘The most gripping book I’ve read in ages’
KAREN PERRY
For the Oxford pride
I couldn’t have got through it without you
And for the real Chloe Sargent
A very special person
Previously … in the Fawley files
In The Whole Truth I included a summary of the police characters at the beginning, to help people coming to the series for the first time. So many people got in touch to say they loved it that I’m including one again here. There are a few updates to the old hands, and the first chance to meet the new members of the team.
Name DI Adam Fawley
Age 46
Married? Yes, to Alex, 45. She’s a lawyer working in Oxford.
Children? The Fawleys’ ten-year-old son, Jake, took his own life two years ago. They were devastated, and thought they’d never be able to have another child. But against the odds, Alex fell pregnant again, and they now have a precious three-month-old daughter, Lily Rose.
Personality Introspective, observant and intelligent, outwardly resilient, inwardly less so. He doesn’t care that Alex earns more than he does, or that she’s taller than him in high heels. He’s good at lateral thinking and bad at office politics. He’s compassionate and fair-minded, but it’s not all positives: he can be impatient, and he has a short temper. He was brought up in a dreary north London suburb, and he’s adopted, though he only discovered that by accident – to this day his parents have never discussed it.
He doesn’t watch crime on TV (he has enough of it during the day); he listens to Oasis and Bach and Roxy Music (Alex once told him he looks like Bryan Ferry, to which he replied ‘I wish’); if he had a pet it would be a cat (but he’s never owned one); his favourite wine is Merlot, and his favourite food is Spanish (though he eats far too much pizza); and surprise, surprise, his favourite colour is blue.
Name DS Chris Gislingham
Age 43
Married? Yes, to Janet
Children? Billy, 2
Personality Chirpy, good-humoured, hard-working, decent. And a serious Chelsea fan.
‘Always described as “sturdy” and “solid”, and not just because he’s getting a bit chunky round the middle. Every CID team needs a Gislingham, and if you were drowning, he’s the one you’d want on the other end of the rope.’
Name DS Gareth Quinn
(recently reinstated)
Age 36
Married? A long-standing Lothario, Quinn is now in his first serious relationship.
Personality Cocky, ambitious, good-looking. Fawley describes him as ‘sharp suit and blunt razor’.
‘Quinn took to DS like a dog to water – zero hesitation, maximum splash.’
Name DC Verity Everett
Age 34
Married? No. But has a cat (Hector).
Personality Easy-going personally, ruthless professionally. Lacks the confidence she should have in her own abilities (as Fawley is well aware).
‘She may look like Miss Marple must have done at thirty-five, but she’s every bit as relentless. Or as Gis always puts it, Ev was definitely a bloodhound in a previous life.’
Name DC Andrew Baxter
Age 39
Married? Yes, but no children.
Personality Stolid but dependable. Good with computers so often gets lumbered with that sort of stuff.
‘A solid man in a suit that’s a bit too small for him. The buttons on his shirt gape slightly. Balding, a little out of breath. Halfway to high blood pressure.’
Name DC Erica Somer
Age 29
Married? In a relationship with a DI in Hampshire Police, Giles Saumarez.
Personality Her surname is an anagram of ‘Morse’ – my nod to Oxford’s greatest detective. In the last book, Erica discovered she had cysts on her ovaries and was sent for an MRI. She also had an argument with another Thames Valley officer which has resulted in a disciplinary process.
Name DC Thomas Hansen
Age 25
Personality Just transferred into Fawley’s team, after DC Asante moved sideways into Major Crimes. Previously at Cowley. Shrewd, understated and effective.
Name DC Chloe Sargent
Age 24
Personality On secondment with Fawley’s team. She was previously in the PVP (Protecting Vulnerable People) unit. Tough but kind, hard-working and insightful.
Name DC Bradley Carter
Age 23
Personality Temporarily covering for DC Somer and determined to make the most of it. Ambitious and out to impress.
The other members of the team are Alan Challow, Nina Mukerjee and Clive Conway, in the CSI department, Colin Boddie, the pathologist, and Bryan Gow, the profiler.
It’s a perfect night for it. No cloud, and barely any moonlight. Though cold comes with clear skies – they said on the radio it could hit freezing tonight. But he’s done this before and he’s come prepared. The backpack is digging into one shoulder and he hoists it a little higher, then starts off again. His stride is sure, despite the dark: he knows where he’s going – he did the full recce a couple of days ago. All the same, it’s hard slow-going at night, especially with all this kit. But he made allowances for that, and in any case, this game is all about patience. The right time, the right place, the right conditions.
The path is winding up through the woods now, and he feels the earth give like mattress beneath his feet; generations of leaf litter compressed to sponge. There are owls calling to each other, invisible in the thickets above his head, and small animals moving in the undergrowth, and – louder than any of them – the thud of his own heart. When he breaks through the treeline at last he stops on the ridge and inhales deeply on the cold damp air, peppered with woodsmoke from the house in the valley below. There’s nowhere else for miles – the only sign of habitation is a scattering of lights on distant hills, mirroring the constellations. It’s completely silent now, out in the open. Not a wisp of wind, just the earth breathing.
He scans the sky for a moment, then swings down the backpack and crouches next to it, flicking on his torch. He pulls out his mount and night-sight and, his excitement growing, starts to snap them together.
Adam Fawley
21 October
21.15
‘So what do you think? I know Ben’s really young to be a godparent, but if it hadn’t been for him –’
I load the last of the supper plates and straighten up. Alex is watching me from the other side of the kitchen. She looks a little apprehensive, though I don’t know why: she can’t really think I’d say no.
‘Of course – I think it’s a great idea.’
There’s a photo of Ben and Lily stuck to the fridge behind me; his small face managing to look thrilled and nervous all at once, because he’s never held a baby before and is clearly terrified he’s doing it all wrong. It was Ben – our eleven-year-old nephew – who phoned the ambulance when Alex went into premature labour and there was no one else in the house. Certainly not me. I didn’t even know it was happening. Because I was in the cells at Newbury nick, twelve hours and counting from a rape and murder charge. I’m not about to go into all that again – I’m guessing you know already, and if not, I’m sorry, but I’ve tried damned hard, these last few weeks, to stop obsessing about it. Let’s just say that I have two people to thank for being here right now, stacking my dishwasher rather than slopping out a cell. One of them is my wife; the other is Chris Gislingham. Gis who’s in the dictionary under ‘dependable’; Gis who doesn’t know it yet but will be needing to get his wedding suit cleaned, because when Lily is christened in a few weeks’ time, he’ll be standing up next to Ben as her other godfather.
And right on cue there’s a crackle on the baby monitor and I can hear the little breathy snu
‘I’ll go,’ says Alex. ‘She’s probably just hungry.’
Which is mother code for ‘so you wouldn’t be much use anyway’. She touches my arm gently as she goes past and I catch a drift of her scent. Shampoo and baby milk and the butter-biscuit smell of her skin. In the last few months of her pregnancy Alex looked haunted, like someone locked on the brink of terror. But that last day, the day Lily was born, something changed. She found herself again. Perhaps it was the hormones, perhaps it was the adrenaline; who knows. Alex has never been able to explain it. But it was the old Alex who worked out where the evidence against me had come from, and made sure, even as they were lifting her into the ambulance, that a message got through to Gis. The old Alex I have always loved, the old Alex who laughed and was spontaneous and stood up to people and could out-think pretty much everyone I know, including me. I didn’t realize it until much, much later, but a daughter wasn’t the only gift I was given that day; I got my wife back too.
* * *
Transcript 999 emergency call
21.10.2018 21:52:08
Operator 1: Emergency, which service do you require?
Caller: Police, please.
Operator 1: Connecting you.
[Ringing tone]
Operator 2: Go ahead, caller.
Caller: I’m at Wytham [INAUDIBLE 00.09] may be in trouble.
Operator 2: I’m sorry, I didn’t catch all of that – can you repeat?
Caller: It’s that big house on Ock Lane [INAUDIBLE 00.12] heard something.
Operator 2: You’re at Ock Lane, Wytham?
Caller: Well, not exactly – the thing is [INAUDIBLE 00.15] definitely sounded like it.
Operator 2: You’re breaking up, sir –
Caller: My phone’s about to die [INAUDIBLE 00.17]
Operator 2: You want the police to attend – Ock Lane, Wytham?
Caller: Yes, yes –
[Dial tone]
Operator 2: Hello? Hello?
* * *
‘According to Google, this is the place.’
PC Puttergill pulls on the handbrake and the two of them peer out of the window. It may have ‘Manor’ in its name but it’s actually just a farmhouse, though to be fair, a pretty hefty one – a gravel drive, a five-bar gate and an old mud-spattered SUV parked outside an open barn. It looks quiet, private and a little run-down, as a certain type of old-money home so often does. What it certainly doesn’t look like is a place where bad things happen.
‘What did the control room say again?’
Puttergill makes a face. ‘Not much, Sarge. The line was bad and they couldn’t hear half what he was saying. When they tried to call back it just went to voicemail.’
‘And who lives here, do we know?’
‘Couple called Swann. Pensioners. They aren’t answering the phone either. Though they should be expecting us – the station left a message.’
Sergeant Barnetson gives a heavy sigh, then reaches into the back seat for his cap.
‘OK,’ he says, his hand on the door handle, ‘let’s get on with it.’
They trudge up the drive, the gravel crunching beneath their feet, puffing white in the cold air. They can almost feel the temperature dropping; there’ll be ice on that SUV by morning.
The front door has a wrought-iron carriage lamp and a fake-old bell you pull like a lavatory chain. Barnetson makes a face; it’ll be bloody horse brasses next.
They hear the bell ringing deep in the house, but despite the light in one of the upstairs windows there are no signs of life. Puttergill starts stamping to keep warm. Barnetson rings again, waits; still nothing. He takes a couple of steps back and looks up at the first floor, then gestures to Puttergill.
‘Can you try round the back? I’ll wait here.’
It’s so quiet he can hear Puttergill’s feet all the way along the side of the house. A distant knock, a ‘Hello, anyone in?’, a pause. And then, suddenly, the sound of running and Puttergill appearing round the corner and slithering to a halt in a spatter of gravel.
‘I think there’s someone in there, Sarge – on the floor – it’s too dark to see much but I reckon they could be injured –’
Barnetson strides up to the door but even as he stretches out to knock there’s a crunch of bolts being drawn back and the door swings open. The man on the step is late sixties or early seventies, slightly stooped, an angular and bony face. He’s wearing the sort of threadbare cardigan that keeps for thirty years if you look after it, as he evidently has. He doesn’t look like someone bad things happen to, either. In fact, as Barnetson is already concluding, Puttergill must have got the wrong end of the stick: no one with a casualty in their kitchen could possibly look as composed as this.
‘Yes?’
His vowels are more clipped than his hedge.
‘Mr Swann, is it?’
The man frowns. ‘Yes?’
‘Sergeant Barnetson, PC Puttergill, Thames Valley Police. We had a call from a member of the public. They thought you might be in need of assistance.’
There’s something on the man’s face now. Irritation? Surprise? His glance flickers away. He doesn’t, Barnetson notes, ask them what the caller said or why they thought something was wrong. ‘I think,’ he says heavily, ‘you’d better come in.’
He heads off into the house and the two officers exchange a glance. There’s something, obviously, but clearly nothing that drastic, and certainly not a corpse. So, what? Break-in? Some sort of minor domestic?
The hall is paved with quarry tiles. There’s a rack of wellington boots, hooks with waxed jackets and tweed caps, a line of musty watercolours running along the wall, most of them hanging skew. Somewhere upstairs a loo is flushing. Barnetson glances back at Puttergill, who shrugs and makes a mental note to suggest a tea-stop at the garage on the bypass on the way back: it’s not much warmer inside than it was out.
‘It’s in here,’ says Swann, gesturing forward. They round the corner after him, two steps down and into the kitchen.
Thirty seconds later Puttergill is stumbling blindly out of the back door and throwing up what remains of his lunch over the crazy paving.
* * *
‘So they think it went well?’
Everett tries to catch Somer’s eye, but she’s just staring at her hands.
The ward around them whirrs with hospital white noise. Bright nurse voices, rattling trolleys, the swish of curtains on metal rails.
‘Erica?’
Somer looks up and takes a heavy breath. ‘As far as I know.’
‘But they caught it really early, right? That’s what they said – before – when –’
Before, when Somer was told she had a malignant tumour on one of her ovaries. She makes no answer to Ev’s question, leaving all the others festering in the air, unasked.
Somer starts to fiddle distractedly with the plastic bracelet round her wrist. Her mouth is trembling with the effort not to cry.
Ev reaches for her hand. ‘What about your mum and dad? Have they been in?’
Somer bites her lip and shakes her head. ‘I can’t face seeing them. It’s bad enough –’
The sentence dies. Ev suspected as much. And she gets it – the last thing Somer needs right now is a deluge of parental sympathy, however kindly meant. But Somer has a sister too – and a boyfriend. Where are they?
Somer glances up, reading her mind.
‘Kath’s in Washington.’
