Baskerville 2023/2024

EXCLUSIVE EXTRACTS from gripping new crime and thriller releases in 2023/4

Dear Reader,

In January 2022 we launched Baskerville – the distinctive new crime imprint from established publisher John Murray Press. We publish books that haunt the imagination, with distinctive characters, a strong sense of period or place, and plots that will keep you turning the pages late into the night. Our titles explore the depth and breadth of this wonderful genre, from crime novels, thrillers and true crime to ghostly, gothic chillers.

The Baskerville name and imprint colophon draw on John Murray’s heritage as the long-term publisher of Arthur Conan Doyle. Who wouldn’t want to make that connection to one of fiction’s greatest detectives? Our publishing however, looks forward, not back. Our list stars one of the genre’s best loved writers – Sunday Times number one bestseller Mick Herron, whose novels have been adapted for Apple TV+ as Slow Horses, starring Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas.

We are also proud publisher to talented debut writers including Rose Wilding (Speak of the Devil) and Natalie Marlow (Needless Alley) and love to help readers discover crime fiction gems like Charlotte Carter’s 1990s Nanette Hayes mysteries.

This booklet contains a sneak-peek at the opening chapters of six superb books that we will release in 2023 and 2024. I hope you enjoy reading them! We would love to know what you think – you can find us on Twitter and Instagram: @BaskervilleJMP.

Yours,

Jade Chandler

Jade Chandler Publishing Director, Baskerville

THE SECRET HOURS

Mick Herron

A case file. A Berlin operation in 1994. A cover story ready to blow.

The Secret Hours is the unmissable new standalone novel from ‘Britain’s greatest living thriller writer’ and author of the bestselling Slough House series, now a major Apple TV+ series starring Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb.

mick herron ’ s Sunday Times #1 bestselling Slough House thrillers have won The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award, two CWA Daggers, and have been published in over 20 languages. Mick was born in Newcastle Upon Tyne and now lives in Oxford. /MickHerronAuthor

EXTRACT

THE WORST SMELL IN THE WORLD IS DEAD BADGER. He’d encountered it on his morning walk down a green lane; had caught the odour without seeing the corpse, but had guessed what it was before returning later with a shovel. Whether they all smelled that bad or whether this one had expired of noxious causes he didn’t know. As it turned out, he couldn’t do anything about it either – the creature had crawled into a tangled nest of roots to die, and it would require heavy machinery and a strong stomach to recover it. Lacking the former, and not wanting to put the latter to the test, Max opted for a third way: he’d walk a different route for a while, and see if one of the local farmers shifted it in the meantime. Which was why he wasn’t sure the badger would still be there a couple of nights later, when he was running for his life.

The first of the intruders entered through the kitchen window. Max hadn’t been asleep, though anyone watching the cottage would have been forgiven for thinking otherwise: the lights were out, the curtains drawn. He’d been lying in bed, not so much struggling with insomnia as letting it do its worst, when he’d heard the window latch being finessed open: a piece of wire sliding through the draughty gap he’d been meaning to repair, lifting the metal hook from its eye. Quieter than taking out the glass, but a long way short of silent. He’d pulled on jogging pants and a sweatshirt, slipped into a pair of trainers, then froze in place, caught between two lives, trying to remember where he’d stashed his flight kit… You could worry you were losing your mind. That they were coming too late, and you’d long ago turned into whoever you were pretending to be.

(Max Janáček. Retired (early) academic; still footling around with a history book, but mostly just passing the days – taking long walks, cooking slow meals, losing himself in Dickens.)

The stairs were an out-of-tune orchestra of squeaks and whistles, every tread announcing that Peter or the wolf were on their way, unless you’d practised descending, and knew where to put your feet. So almost noiselessly he reached the sitting room, whose doorway was diagonal to the kitchen, and plucked the poker from its stand by the wood-burning stove. Not a great weapon, for all its iconic status in fiction. You needed high ceilings to accommodate your swing. Max Janáček understood a good swing: he was the man you saw walking the lanes, beheading dandelions with a stick. Who lived in a 500-year-old cottage in north Devon, and could be counted on to do the neighbourly thing: keep an eye out for the old folk, whose company

© Mikael Buck

he was on the threshold of joining; litter-pick after the bank holiday rush; sign the petition resisting the makeshift industrial estate down the lane –numbering seventeen cabins now. This and more he’d been for more than twenty years, and whether the locals took him at face value or gave less than a tuppenny damn had become irrelevant, or had done until someone slipped the latch on his kitchen window and climbed inside more or less gracefully, breaking no crockery, dislodging no pans, and moving across the flagged floor in careful silence, intent – it would seem – on unlocking the back door and allowing his comrades ingress. Or her comrades, as it turned out. Whether Max would have jabbed her so hard at the base of the skull with the poker, then slammed her head on the floor when she fell, had he known it was a woman beneath the break-in gear was something he could ponder at leisure, if he survived the night. Meanwhile, he checked her for weapons. She was carrying a Taser, which put her outside the range of opportunist burglars, but no ID, and nothing to indicate what she was up to. But he had to work on the assumption that she wasn’t alone, an assumption confirmed when he picked up the landline to hear the deep silence of a well on a windless night. Inside the cottage – anywhere down this lane – his mobile made for a useful paperweight. So sitting tight and calling the cavalry wasn’t an option, and wouldn’t necessarily have been a sensible move anyway. Sometimes, it was the cavalry you had to watch out for.

Discover Mick Herron’s bestselling Slough House series

‘The first of the intruders entered through the kitchen window.’

EXTRACT

Chapter One

HAZARDOUS SPIRITS

Anbara Salam

A gothic literary mystery set in 1920s Edinburgh about a young woman whose husband makes a shock announcement: he can communicate with the dead. Hazardous Spirits whisks the reader away to a world of seances and spiritualism.

anbara salam is the PalestinianScottish author of Things Bright and Beautiful and Belladonna. She has a PhD in Theology and now lives in Oxford.

@Anbara_Salam

@AnbaraSalam

Edinburgh

Sunday, 25 November 1923

EVELYN WATCHED ROBERT SLEEP ON THE CHAISE longue, his face buried in the tufting. Suddenly squeamish about getting too close to him, she tossed the silk throw in his direction and withdrew to the hallway, where she stood with her back pressed against the staircase. What was she supposed to do? Telephone for a doctor? A minister? His hair had been cut that morning, and it was a little too short. It made his cheeks seem overly full, lending him the smug air of someone who’d recently placed a winning bet on a horse. But still, he looked normal; he didn’t look like a man who had just announced that he could speak to the spirits of the dead.

The reflection of her face stared back from the window-pane on the far side of the parlour. Her lips were almost white, a smudge of grease on the collar of her blouse. As she put a finger to the stain, the curtain fluttered, and Evelyn jumped, pressing herself even harder against the staircase. Robert had always been open-minded, the type to chat to a peddler at a tram stop, to accept a leaflet from a street-corner fakir, but this? She pictured Robert’s expression of hectic excitement, the dampness gleaming at his temples.

‘And the voices give me messages,’ he had said, his eyes jittering.

Evelyn was waiting for a joke that hadn’t arrived. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Well, they aren’t really voices. More like a sort of swirl.’

‘A swirl?’

‘A swirl of suggestions, symbols. At first, I thought I was losing my mind!’ He laughed, and Evelyn shrank back. ‘But it’s not so unusual after all. There’s lots of ways spirits communicate – returning lost items, butterflies, special numbers. I’ve been researching.’

‘What do you mean, researching?’ Evelyn’s voice was strained, the back of her neck prickling.

‘Researching my gift.’

‘Gift?’

‘The gift of understanding the spirits.’ He turned to stare at the curtains. ‘The spirits of those who have died.’

Hazardous spirits z

And now there he was, spent and snoring. For Evelyn, it felt like the disorientation after an accident. With a before and an after and no way to go back. Robert was the one who always knew how to make things right, to think practically, to be rational, reasonable. He was an accountant, for heaven’s sake! Evelyn peered across the room. The window on the far side was fixed at the latch, and yet the curtain was moving, the peacock pattern rippling, all by itself. She felt her panic growing, a zeppelin inflating in her throat. Grabbing the first coat that came to her hand in the hallway, she let herself out of the house.

It was dark outside, the streetlamps smudgy baubles of light in the misty evening. Not until she was halfway along the front path, did Evelyn realise the coat she had seized was, in fact, a summer gabardine cloak she’d intended to donate to the Salvation Army. On the other side of the road, Mrs Wrigley’s housemaid was walking her beagle, and she nodded politely. Evelyn swallowed – what if the housemaid could already sense the peculiarity, pulsing out of her? Now aware she was hatless, Evelyn bunched up her cloak and began to run. Breathless, she arrived at Kitty’s house and pounded on the door.

Jeanie, Kitty’s maid, answered. ‘Mrs Hazard, good evening,’ she said, her eyes travelling over Evelyn’s attire.

Without waiting for an invitation, Evelyn pushed past her into the hallway. ‘Where is Kitty? Upstairs?’

‘No, Mrs Hazard.’ Jeanie licked her lips. ‘Mr and Mrs Fraser are in the dining room.’

Evelyn marched along the corridor and stopped at the dining-room door. From outside, she heard conversation, and through the gap in the hinge, silver candlesticks glittered. Kitty never used the Mairibank silver unless she was entertaining.

‘Who else is here?’ she hissed at Jeanie.

‘Mr and Mrs Wheeler are dining here tonight,’ Jeanie said. ‘Shall I let Mrs Fraser know you are expecting her?’

‘Yes.’ Evelyn stepped from foot to foot, and dared to put her face around the door. The wallpaper was red-and-black velvet damask, which Evelyn had always found far too heavy, and in the dim light, it took her a precious two seconds to locate Kitty at the far end of the table. She was wearing her pink Callot Soeurs evening dress, the pearls around her neck shining in the glow from the polished candlesticks.

Jeanie cleared her throat, and Evelyn pulled back.

‘Mrs Hazard? The parlour is available, if you like.’

‘Fine.’ Evelyn hurried next door where a fire was burning in the grate, and a card table and four folding chairs had been pulled into the middle of the room, ready for a game of bridge. She paced the narrow aisle between the sofa and the table.

‘Evie?’ came Kitty’s voice.

Evelyn flung herself at her sister so violently she almost bowled her over. Kitty patted her on the back, and then gently levered her away. ‘What’s wrong? Your coat – your shoes!’

Looking down, Evelyn now saw that she was still wearing her Turkish house slippers. ‘It’s Robert,’ she said, and began to cry. ‘He’s gone insane.’

Kitty’s hand flew to her pearls, and even through Evelyn’s distress, the primness of the action chimed in a way she would later identify as funny. Kitty glanced over her shoulder to the doorway, where Jeanie was wearing a practised blank expression. ‘Fetch Dr Greitzer,’ Kitty said.

Jeanie nodded with the indecent haste of someone thrilled to find themselves perpendicular to a drama.

Kitty gestured to the sofa. ‘Tell me what’s happened. What do you mean, insane?’

Evelyn sniffed into a handkerchief she had recovered from the cloak pocket. ‘He called me into the parlour, and I thought he was going to complain about the purse I bought for your Christmas present—’ Evelyn stopped. ‘Oh, and now the surprise is ruined.’

‘Never mind that. What has he done? Has he …’ Kitty’s face flushed. She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Has he struck you?’

Evelyn bristled. Even insane, her husband wasn’t that insane. ‘No, it’s nothing like that.’ She wiped her face with the handkerchief; now realising it wasn’t at all clean. She swallowed. ‘He thinks he’s hearing voices, whispers in the house.’

THE BURNING TIME

Peter Hanington

An intriguing tip-off leads old-school reporter William Carver deep into a dangerous world of corruption and greed in this gripping international thriller that races between Sydney, New York, Seville and London.

peter hanington is the author of A Dying Breed, A Single Source and A Cursed Place, which star William Carver. Peter worked as a journalist and radio producer for over twentyfive years, including fourteen years at Radio 4 on the Today Programme as well as The World Tonight and Newshour on the BBC World Service. He currently lives between London and New York and still travels frequently as research for his novels. @HaningtonPhan

EXTRACT

The London Eye, South Bank, London

CARVER WAS HALFWAY ROUND ON HIS FIRST ROTATION and two thirds of the way through his first bottle of prosecco when he saw Leonard Allen waiting at the foot of the London Eye, dressed for the weather in a fawn-coloured mackintosh with a black umbrella. It took another fifteen minutes for Carver’s pod to wobble its way down to terra firma. When it did, he greeted the civil servant with a handshake and a quick hello before negotiating with the attendant to exchange his now empty bottle for a fresh one and a second glass. As soon as the pod doors slid shut, he filled both glasses and handed one to Allen who gave a little bow of thanks.

‘I suppose it’s five o’clock somewhere.’

‘It’s almost five o’clock here.’ Carver looked at his watch. ‘Or four anyway. I’m not a big fan of heights, I thought a drink might help.’

‘I’m sure it will.’ The civil servant shrugged himself free from his coat and folded it carefully, placing it on the egg-shaped bench in the middle of the pod next to his umbrella. He was wearing a dark suit with a faint chalk stripe to it, a white shirt and knitted navy-blue tie. ‘I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have suggested we meet here if I’d known you were… it’s acrophobic, isn’t it? Sounds a bit like the spider one but isn’t. We could press that…’ He pointed at a big red emergency button next to the sliding glass door. ‘…and ask them to let us off.’

Carver shook his head. ‘We’re here now.’

‘True. I thought this would make a nice change from those dingy little pubs and hotel bars where we’ve met in the past.’

‘I see.’

‘Plus, there’s that hiding in plain sight thing, isn’t there? What could be less suspicious than two fellows taking a ride on the London Eye?’

Carver could think of many things, but he let it go.

‘What’s this about then, Leonard? I haven’t heard from you for a while.’

‘No, well you haven’t asked me to…clarify anything for you…’ He took a tiny sip of his prosecco. ‘…and I haven’t had anything interesting to say to you.’

‘Until now.’

burningtime the

‘Yes, until now.’ He paused. ‘Well, that sounds a little arrogant. I’ll let you be the judge of whether what I have to say is interesting or not. I hope

© Paddy Scott

that it might be.’ Allen smiled. He had old manners. It was one of the things that Carver liked about him. ‘I’m aware, however, that you’re a man in high demand right now and my timing is probably not ideal.’ Carver shrugged. ‘After that last scoop of yours, I imagine your phone is ringing off the hook. Figuratively.’

‘I am busy.’

‘And those bosses of yours must be pleased.’

‘For now. I’ve been around long enough to know that you go in and out of fashion. Either they want to sack you, or they want to start calling you a special correspondent, make you do a podcast and that sort of thing.’

‘But you’re holding out?’

‘So far. Being a reporter is good enough for me.’

‘The only un-special correspondent?’

‘Something like that. Enough about me, Leonard…why are we here?’

‘Good question. Enough prevarication.’ Carver watched and waited. It was clear that Allen was teetering on the brink of something unfamiliar. He’d been useful before, cooperative – but he’d never initiated anything. Never come anywhere near blowing a whistle or spilling a full plate of beans or whatever it was he was getting ready to do now. ‘This concerns my political masters.’

‘Of course.’

‘I think they might be about to make a mistake…a consequential mistake.’ Carver gave him what he hoped was an encouraging nod. ‘What do you know about Clive Winner?’

Carver searched his memory.

‘Winner? Is he that inventor come green businessman bloke? Australian. A bit of an oddball.’

‘Oddball’s an understatement.’ Carver shrugged.

‘Wasn’t it Winner who did that rescue job on the Great Barrier Reef a few years back?’

The civil servant grimaced.

‘Yes. Mr Winner and his people span that story extremely well. His team temporarily revived a small section of the reef.’

‘That’s not such a good news headline.’

‘No, I suppose not. Anyway, you know the fellow.’

‘I’m aware he exists.’

‘Take a look at this.’ Allen reached into his inside pocket and produced a cream-coloured business card with the government crest on it. He passed it over with a rather theatrical flourish.

Mr. Clive Winner Senior Adviser Prime Ministers Office

The civil servant watched as Carver read.

‘What do you make of it?’

‘Shouldn’t there be an apostrophe in “Prime Minister’s office”?’

‘Probably. Good grammar has gone the same way as the ministerial code – all the way down the toilet and halfway round the U-bend.’ He pointed at the card. ‘You notice the email address?’

Carver had noticed it. He’d memorised it too, as it seemed unlikely that Leonard Allen would allow him to keep the card.

‘C.Winner@no10.x.gsi.gov.uk…that’s a legitimate Downing Street email, isn’t it?’

‘It is. The landline’s legitimate too. It connects to an answerphone message, a very efficient-sounding American lady telling you how much Clive is looking forward to talking to you.’

‘It’s unusual, I’ll give you that.’

‘Access like this? A job title like that? It’s more than unusual. It’s unprecedented. We ’re used to all the management consultants and corporate restructuring experts that this generation of politicians seem to like to bring in…’ Carver nodded. He’d had run-ins of his own with management consultants brought in to shake-up or restructure various bits of the BBC. He didn’t like them. ‘…but Clive Winner is something different. Giving a private businessman a senior adviser title and a seat at the table, it’s…well it’s outrageous.’

Carver smiled.

‘Outrageous? You’re sure this isn’t a case of a few career civil servants getting their knickers in a twist because someone else has got better access to the prime minister than they have?’

Allen made a harrumphing sound.

‘I’m absolutely sure. This isn’t a question of petty professional jealousy. Far from it. Winner is a snake oil salesman, allowing him this sort of access to the PM risks national humiliation. Or worse.’

‘Worse?’

‘Clive Winner is looking for friends and funding in some rather odd places these days.’ Allen detected a flicker of interest in Carver. ‘My colleagues at the Foreign Office tell me that he’s talking to people who don’t have the same fondness that we do for the rule of law, human rights – old-fashioned stuff like that. They say he’s playing footsie with at least one Moscow-linked hedge fund. No doubt he’s chasing Chinese money too.’ The veteran civil

servant took a gulp of his drink. His face was red. ‘I’m sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t get too agitated.’

‘Don’t worry, I understand.’

‘If it was just Downing Street’s reputation on the line, then maybe I’d leave them to it. Sit back and watch the uppance come.’ Carver nodded. ‘But it isn’t. You and I both know it’ll be the poor bloody civil service that will get it in the neck when this goes south. As it almost certainly will.’

Carver drained his glass, then refilled it. If even a little of that was true, this was a good story.

‘I’m sure you know several well-connected people inside Downing Street, what do they say?’

‘They advise me to let sleeping dogs lie. Look the other way.’ He paused. ‘I’m not willing to do that, but I’m not sure what else I can do. I’ve written a memorandum…’

Carver smiled. He remembered Leonard telling him once that the real purpose of a civil service memorandum was never to inform the reader, but rather to protect the writer.

‘A memorandum, I see. But you feel the need for even more protection?’

‘Not protection – action. A proper investigation. Believe me, Clive Winner is what we used to refer to as a bad egg.’

‘I think they might be about to make a mistake… a consequential mistake.’

UNDER THE BRIDGE

Rebecca Godfrey

z

A haunting piece of true crime, Under the Bridge traces the events surrounding the 1997 murder of fourteen-year-old Reena Virk by eight of her peers, in an account based on six years of research and interviews with the accused that offers insight into the social tensions that provoked the crime and the minds of teenage killers. By the author of The Torn Skirt

rebecca godfrey (1967 – 2022) was an award-winning novelist and journalist. Under The Bridge received one of Canada’s biggest literary awards, the British Columbia Award for Canadian Non-fiction, as well as the Arthur Ellis Award for Excellence in Crime Writing.

EXTRACT Prologue

under the bridge

Carefully Floated

YOU CAN’T SEE ANYTHING. In the dark waters of a saltwater inlet known as the Gorge, Sergeant Bob Wall was underwater, searching for the body of a girl. Though he had been a member of the elite Dive Unit for twelve years and was properly and fully equipped with full scuba gear, insulated underwear, neoprene gloves, a buoyancy compensator, and a twenty-five-pound air tank on his back, his search for the girl was frustrating and difficult because underwater, everything was so dark. His eyes were open as he moved forward, yet he could see only blackness. He would have to look for the girl by feeling alone, feeling and touching the darkness that surrounded him, a cold, black depth below the surface of the world.

Concealed in his black wet suit, Bob Wall moved slowly, twelve inches at a time, while the other men held the rope taut and firm. Under water, he touched the detritus of suburbia. Bicycles, so many bikes. He touched beer bottles and rusted nails and shopping carts. “There’s so much junk in the Gorge,” the men of the Dive Unit say; they speak of the water as if it is their enemy. “The visibility’s awful. The water’s crap.” You can’t see anything.

When you’re searching, you like to sink to the bottom, the men say.

You have to use your buoyancy compensator, make yourself “negatively buoyant,” so you’re almost prone on the bottom. It looks as if you’re doing a push-up. You’re as far down as you could possibly be.

Blind and feeling everything, Bob Wall touched the sand with a single hand. His other hand held tight to the rope. Two members of the Dive Unit sank with him, keeping the rope as taut as they possibly could, holding on with both hands, holding tight.

The girl who was missing was fourteen years old.

The girl, she’d been missing for over a week.

If the terrible rumor were true, she would have sunk to the bottom of the Gorge by now. Sergeant Rick “Gos” Gosling was glad he was holding the line and not the one doing the physical search. The “anticipation of finding a body is so stressful,” he explains. “You always have that nightmare of finding the face looming up against you, like that scene in Jaws.” You’d be pushing yourself against the dark water and knowing you might see a face, lifeless and still. You’d come up against the horror of death, right

© Brigitte Lacombe

there, literally, before your eyes. Gos remembered the time he’d found an old woman trapped in her sunken Chevrolet. Her eyes met his; the old lady, she looked right at him and he jumped back, feeling nausea and sadness. The old lady’s eyes were blue and her mouth was open, as if she’d died in the midst of a roar or a song.

Sometimes under water, there would be these strange moments of beauty, a light that would crack through the blackness and the sandstorms. In the darkness, the men say, sometimes, “You get swirls, a pale green, a glimmer.” It was a strange occupation—looking for something you didn’t really want to find. And on this pale, blurry day in November, the men really didn’t want to find the fourteen-year-old girl because it would mean the rumors of murder were true. “You’ve got to be kidding,” Gos said when he heard about who was alleged to have killed the girl. His partners scoffed as well, for the story of her supposed killers seemed such an absurd and impossible tale. The absence in the water seemed to confirm their disbelief. If you asked the men why they didn’t believe the story, they would answer quite logically. This was Victoria, British Columbia, a small island in the Pacific Northwest famed for its natural beauty and easygoing lifestyle. Young girls did not get murdered in Victoria. Girls in this town, they grew up unharmed. They shopped at Hillside Mall, attended schools named after politicians and war heroes. Girls lived safely on streets named after trees and explorers. Girls may have been murdered in the closest big cities of Vancouver and Seattle; in these cities murders were common and no one would be surprised to hear the story of a young girl brutally murdered. But girls did not die young here on this idyllic island, a sheltered paradise. Gos never before had been asked to investigate the murder of a young girl.

Bob Wall reached the end of the line. Still nothing. The girl was supposed to have been killed right on the sandy shore, near the old white schoolhouse, now covered by lurid yellow crime scene tape.

Gos wished he could look at the sun, get a sense of the time of day. He did not know it was 11:15. He knew only that they’d been underwater for almost an hour. He wanted to lift the seaweed, which was clammy and cold against his cheek, but to remove his hands from the rope would cause the line to flail, cause his partner to drift off his path.

Suddenly, this: a tug on the rope. One tug, then another, then a third. Three tugs was the code for discovery.

All three men rose and left the dark below.

In the eelgrass, Bob Wall had seen something, a pale white strip of fabric. As he moved closer, he reached for the fabric, retrieving it from the rough stalks tinged with a color like ivory. His hands reached in; they found the fabric

was a pair of girl’s underwear. “Panties,” he would later write in the Dive Unit Operation Log, “were retrieved from the eelgrass.”

Using a camera floated out to him, Bob Wall photographed the underwear. He then marked the spot with a wooden stick known as a pelican marker. He kicked back to shore and placed the underwear inside a sterile Ziploc bag. Wall flinched slightly as water fell from the bag and as he touched the wet fabric and saw the label, so ordinary and familiar: Fruit of the Loom.

Several minutes later, at 11:29, Bob Wall made a second discovery.

The men holding the rope felt a sudden, sharp pull and thought together and silently, we found her. The young missing girl. She would be there, on the bottom of the Gorge.

But when Bob Wall rose, his left hand held something smaller than a body. In his hands, he held only a pair of blue jeans. The jeans were covered in silt as gray as ash.

Bob Wall photographed the jeans, stuck the pelican marker in, placed the jeans in the plastic bag, sealed the bag, returned to the marker, and went down again.

“We knew we were close now,” Gos recalls. “We were expecting to find the whole package,” Gos says. “We’ve got the clothing. She should be right there. That really did confuse us.”

The men moved along westward more slowly, feeling every inch of the sand and the black water.

The line search continued until they had covered every inch of their planned path. The area under the bridge was still to be searched, but this search would require a new plan, for there were pillars to be navigated and the route was not as clear.

The men surfaced, kicking back toward the small Zodiac boat. They climbed aboard, lifted their goggles, and wiped seaweed away. A light mist fell on the surface of the water, and the air smelled like autumn bonfires. Near the schoolhouse, reporters, photographers, and onlookers gathered, all drawn to the scene by the obvious presence of something major going on. The men in black, the yellow crime scene tape, and this unusual site as well: in the sky, a red Coast Guard helicopter hovered over the Gorge.

The Dive Unit were slightly cynical about the presence of the helicopter. The Coast Guard was not trained to deal with evidence, and besides, what could you really see when you were so far above? To really find anything, you had to dive down.

The men drank coffee.

“We will do this,” they said. “We will find her.”

At 12:22, static came over Gosling’s radio. The men shivered and drank

their coffee. On the radio, a distraught voice said: “We’ve got something.”

The vagueness, the Dive Unit knew, was meant to deter journalists. On the radio, searchers never say they’ve found a body. The men knew the code. And then the helicopter above them, on the other side of the Gorge, near lavish and proud homes, the helicopter suddenly started to descend. When they received the oblique message, the four men jumped into their van without bothering to take off their wet suits. They drove quickly through the quiet streets of a suburb named View Royal, past homes still decorated with Halloween images of ghosts and falling spiders and lanky goblins. On reaching the home at 2814 Murray Street, they parked the van crookedly and ran past the stone pillars and scarlet foliage and through the backyard down toward the silver water. “It was a big frenzy there,” Gosling recalls. “Everybody converged. The coroner, some journalists, investigators, there was everybody.”

And there was the girl, who’d been found not by the men underwater but by the men up above.

She was floating in the reeds, her body hidden by the stalks, which were dry and close to the color of cinnamon. Her long, black hair floated like a velvet path, and the naked part of her body was covered by the cold rise of water.

In the water, the girl was floating while the men stood upright. They surrounded her in a circle, and the scene might have seemed like a baptism in reverse, a girl lifted from the water and placed on a gurney, her body in a black T-shirt instead of a white dress.

The body was carefully floated to the wharf by the men of the Dive Unit. Carefully floated was the term Bob Wall would choose for his police report. Carefully floated. The phrase, like the gesture, was poetic and kind, an act that might have been the only poetry and kindness shown to the murdered girl. The men lifted her out of the Gorge, away from the spot of her secret grave.

‘Underwater, everything was so dark. He would have to look for the girl by feeling and touching the darkness that surrounded him, a cold, black depth below the surface of the world.’

PAPER CAGE

Tom Baragwanath

Masterton isn’t a big town. The community’s tight, if not always harmonious. So when a child goes missing it sends shockwaves through the town. But when a second kid disappears, it’s no longer a freak accident or a mystery. It’s a pattern.

Paper Cage is the first in a new series starring Police Records Clerk Lorraine Henry, set in New Zealand. Perfect for fans of Jane Harper and Chris Hammer.

tom baragwanath is a writer originally from New Zealand, currently living in Paris. Paper Cage is his debut novel. Published by Text in Australia and New Zealand, it won the Michael Gifkins Prize and has been longlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Awards. Between pastries, Tom is working on his next novel.

EXTRACT

IT’S MORE RAIN than I’ve ever seen, all the summer’s hidden water coming down at once. The river’s breached its banks down past the netball courts, and there are eels, slick black shapes lurking in the gutters. Thirty years in Masterton, and that’s a first for me.

cagepaper

I’m almost at Sheena’s, wading through the leafy mush covering the footpath, the warm wind grumbling at the edges of my poncho. It’s only fifteen minutes from the station, but I’m soaked down to my littlest toe. The rent money is dry, though. Sheena’s landlord will come by Thursday, and we can’t have last month again.

I step over the deepest part of the gutter, half an eye out for stray river life, then through the space where Sheena’s wooden gate used to be before someone destroyed it a few parties back. I’m going slow, mostly by memory; the path is uneven under the soup of grass cuttings and branches, and the last thing my bad hip needs is another fall. Her awning’s still intact, thank Christ.

There’s a light on inside. Beneath the steady thrum of water, the pulse of music. Sounds like UB40 – enough to bring back the old shearing days and the oily feel of wool between my fingers. I always preferred Bob Marley but he was a bit much for some of the blokes, especially the locals we had to partner up with out on the coast. The mere thought of a sweating brown body was unsettling enough for some of those guys, let alone having to listen to brown tunes. UB40 was always a safer bet.

Before I can knock, the door swings open. A wall of body in a black singlet blocks the hallway.

‘Lorraine.’ Keith’s got his shades on as usual but I can tell he’s taking me in; those scarab ovals moving slowly over me. ‘None of your lot at the station thought to give you a lift, eh?’

Your lot. These tiny demarcations, the daily lines drawn. Us and them, that and this. It’s always there. In this place, anyway.

‘I don’t mind the walk.’ I look to the driveway but his truck isn’t there. One of the other patched guys must have dropped him around. ‘Bit of rain won’t kill me.’

I try for the smallest smile but there’s no point. His face is without expression, his mouth flat and waiting. I nod over his shoulder.

‘My niece about?’

He shrugs.

There’s a break in the music and a voice calls from the next room, hazy, but Keith keeps staring. I wonder how much of my last conversation with Sheena she passed on to him. For now, I keep my eyes on him. His fingers are 25

© Bonnie Beatie

dark with soil. An afternoon spent out back, probably, tending to the greens before the storm came in. There’s a reason why Sheena’s patch always yields more than mine.

‘Aunty.’ A voice behind him, a hand coming up to rest against his shoulder. ‘Love, it’s fine. Really.’

It takes a few long moments, but eventually he turns away into the house. Sheena squeezes my arm as if to reassure herself it’s really me. Behind her, Keith’s footsteps rattle the hall.

‘You’re bloody well soaked through. Time for a drink? Cuppa tea or a quick gin?’ She shifts her hair out of her eyes, her fingers quick and shaking.

‘I’m okay, girl.’

I go to reach inside my poncho for the money but think better of it. Keith might be Bradley’s dad and all, but he doesn’t need to know every little thing. I smell it, then: that musty waft between burnt sugar and vinegar. I get it whenever I walk past the evidence room at the station: all those shelves of scorched lightbulbs and tiny plastic bags stacked and numbered, waiting in the dark for court appearances. Sheena sees what my eyes are doing.

‘It’s not mine,’ she says.

I nod her outside, and she follows me with a quick look over her shoulder. The two of us stand close inside the awning’s dripping halo.

‘Is Bradley in there?’

‘He’s off running around.’ She looks down. ‘I’m careful.’

‘Careful? It’s only three weeks since the Kīngi girl went missing. Don’t tell me about careful.’ My arms come across my chest. ‘It’s only a few towns over, Sheen. You don’t think it could happen here?’

She looks past me into the silver static. ‘They’re all together, Hēmi and them. They’re just playing, Aunty. The cops said we had to…’

‘I know what they bloody said.’

I think of all those posters I printed downstairs in the station file room. Those stacks of pages, thin paper to keep costs down. The chief’s always worried about that. It was tough going finding a decent photo of the missing girl, Precious Kīngi. Her mum didn’t have much on hand. In the end we called Featherston Normal for last year’s class shot, Precious right in the centre row with a wide smile, her ponytail nice and neat. Everyone looked happy to be there. Happier than I ever remember being, anyway. Even the teacher was beaming, tie flat against his chest, hands clasped at his front. And now think of her: disappeared on her way home one afternoon. Just gone, like someone snapped their fingers and carried the girl away into the sky. Three weeks. Anything can happen in three weeks. Nobody’s saying it but the knowledge is there, tucked between our other words – reports sent up

the chain to Wellington, briefings to the papers. Nobody expects good news. ‘You’re coming on Saturday, right?’ Sheena sets her fingers on my elbow. ‘I told Bradley you’d come.’

‘I’ll be there, girl.’ I nod past her. ‘Just don’t let Keith get too comfy, all right? Remember what we talked about.’

Her eyes drop, scolded. Amazing how quickly we slip back into old patterns. ‘It’s a visit, Aunty. That’s all. He’s mostly out Castlepoint ways now.’ Mostly. I lean forward with a kiss. ‘Saturday, then. I’ll bake a cake.’ I move back into the rain, and the door shudders closed behind me. In the gutter, a grey fin twists between the wheels of Keith’s junked Ford, curling through the water.

With each step, more of the tension leaves my shoulders. My mind is on home, on a dry room. Patty will have let herself in from next door to get a pie in the oven, some buttered peas and mint, and a couple of strong gins for the Villa Wars semifinal on One. Our favourite couple made it to the last round, and we fancy their chances. Someone might be out snatching kids, but there are still renovation shows.

‘Look!’ A childish squeal. Across the road, a clutch of thin bodies crouching behind a ute, some in T-shirts dark with rain, some bare-chested and shining. ‘There!’

A boy I recognise, Hēmi Larkin I think, points down into the gutter mush, his mouth taut in an expectant O. A flat-cheeked girl steps forward and shoves a garden fork hard into the water. When she brings it up, there’s a black rope twisting itself around the tines, the eel’s mouth open and tasting the air. The other kids all whoop and slap at each other as she holds the eel high, a longlimbed Neptune with her fishy mascot.

Despite all the commotion, they see me. Even now, my hair greyer than I care to notice, body more like a marrow each year, children see me. I might be invisible everywhere else, but not to them. Kids notice everything.

‘You’ve got him, love,’ I call across the street. ‘But what’s the plan now, eh?’

There’s a detonation of glee in the girl’s eyes. ‘How’s about we ram it up your hole, lady?’

The kids all fold into each other with delight, moving as a single animal. Maybe Sheena’s right: in a group, they have each other.

The girl jiggles the eel in my direction. I see Bradley with them now, clutching a supermarket bag alive with thrashing shapes. He gives me the tiniest wave, undetectable to the others, and smiles just to me. Then, with quick hands, he grips the eel by the head and slides it off the fork, knocking it again and again into the bonnet of the parked ute as the others watch.

PAPER

A stock truck clatters past through the water, its steel belly tight with the last summer lambs on their way to the knife, wheels sending little waves out across the street. When it passes, the kids are gone, eel and all. Vanished into new mischief with a flash of a limb around the corner and a last shout before the rain replaces them.

Home, then. I shift myself forward, my hip giving me just the smallest twinge, but nothing unmanageable. Ducking between cars, I step across the road on the way to Rickett’s Circle, my mind on the glow of bad television in easy company. There’s a wet screeching behind me and I start to turn and my heart leaps as a vehicle roars and brakes and shudders in a wall of spray. A station wagon, apple red, its wipers working overtime. Whoever it is, they’ve stopped just short of knocking me down. I raise a hand to see inside but I can’t make anything out. I step across the lanes, and the car crawls forward past me, then turns down Sheena’s street, headlights shining into the flood like buttery swords. It must be someone from around here; you’d need to know the shape of the road to be out in this mess. The light starts to thin around me, early for February, the rows of houses damp and watchful as the low sky swallows the day.

‘It’s only three weeks since the K ī ngi girl went missing. It’s only a few towns over, Sheen. You don’t think it could happen here?’

THE RED HOLLOW

Natalie Marlow

Birmingham, 1934. Private Enquiry agent William Garrett and freshly minted detective Phyll Hall are called to investigate a series of strange incidents at Red Hollow Hall, a residential home for men damaged by war, depressive neurosis and addiction. But in an atmosphere of growing tension, the detectives soon become trapped in a nightmare of death, cruelty, and the occult.

natalie marlow is an historical novelist with a fascination for the people and landscapes of the Midlands. Much of her writing takes inspiration from the stories her grandparents told. She holds an MA in Creative Writing (Crime Writing) from the University of East Anglia and is part-way through a PhD at Birkbeck, University of London. She lives in Warwickshire with her family.

@NatalieMarlow2

@NatalieLovesNoir

EXTRACT

Chapter One

Thursday, 1 February 1934

‘IT’S A WONDER YOU’RE NOT SICK,’ SHE SAID.

William placed the newspaper on his knees and turned to Phyll. ‘It is a bit grim. They’re going on about the body being in an advanced state of decomposition. The coppers found her in a ditch just outside of Stafford. She’d been there for months.’ He blinked at the cold winter sun streaming through the windscreen. ‘Why rape and pistol-whip a lady bank clerk to death? Christ, women have it rough.’ He watched as Phyll winced. ‘Do you want me to read it out loud?’

‘Good God, no. I can’t think of anything worse.’ Phyll slowed the car and made a right-hand turn. ‘Besides, I was talking about motion sickness, and not the content of those awful scandal sheets you read. They should be banned.’ She glanced at his lap and tutted. ‘The Daily Mirror’

‘Alright, Mussolini.’ William placed the newspaper in the glove box. ‘Don’t you believe in the freedom of the press?’

‘In my police-state the only newspapers shall be Picturegoer and True Detective, and Marlene Dietrich will be our Il Duce.’ William laughed, and Phyll offered him her first smile of the day, and then accelerated. Before them, the Watling Street, a flat strip of near traffic-free road, glittered like polished pewter in the early morning light. She nodded at the way ahead. ‘Nice to be out of Birmingham. City motoring is such a bore.’

Phyll loved driving and was good at it. She took charge of the motor on the few jobs they had done together since the beginning of their partnership. William, in turn, liked being chauffeured by Phyll. It suited him. He was fond of her quiet, practical presence, but mostly he enjoyed relinquishing the responsibility of knowing the way. Safe in her competence, he would abandon himself to the journey, and to the pleasures of reading, smoking, and sometimes, if Phyll was inclined, conversation.

‘Still up for the pictures tonight?’ he asked. ‘King Kong is on at the Select.’

‘I do not share your excitement for this giant marauding ape.’ Phyll accelerated once more. ‘You know my tastes, it’s either gangster flicks or dancing girls, for me. Everything else is unbearable.’

red hollow the w

‘What about Flying Down to Rio?’ William lit a cigarette for them both, placing Phyll’s in her left hand. ‘They strap the dancers to the wings of an aeroplane and none of the girls are wearing brassieres.’

‘You seem terribly well-informed.’

THE RED HOLLOW BY NATALIE MARLOW

© Laura Rhodes Photography

‘I made a study of the poster when I was hanging around the lobby of the Odeon last Friday. I had nothing better to do since you’d ditched me.’

Immediately, William regretted the dig. Phyll had already apologised for standing him up. He picked at his friendships like a child worrying a scab. It was a bad habit, and it had thrown Phyll into silence. He sensed her lightly vibrating nerves fill the air of the Austin with a tetchy, headache-inducing thrum.

They sped past ugly country. Strange pinkish ploughland iron-hard with hoarfrost, bordered by horse chestnut trees stark in winter black, flanked each side of the Watling Street. William watched the circling crows gather above their high, tangled nests. Then, just ahead, he saw a road sign. ‘Red Hollow,’ he said, pointing. ‘We’re nearly there.’

‘I know where I’m going, William.’

She was testy with him and schoolmarmish. William’s hackles rose once more. ‘Billy, for fuck’s sake,’ he said. ‘You know I go by Billy. You’re not my mother.’ He glanced over at her small frame, stiff with tension, and was ashamed of both his temper and his language. He owed her plenty, and earlier that morning he had promised, with sincerity, to help her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘That wasn’t very friendly of me.’

Phyll flicked the indicator upwards and turned another right. The Austin bumped along a narrow country lane rutted with age. He sensed her thinking; her consideration of their spat; and how far to take umbrage. ‘I accept your apology, dearest. We shall go to the flicks tonight. Besides, I could do with a bit of glamour.’

At first, the hamlet appeared to be just a few red brick cottages hugging the roadside, their bowed fronts leaning slightly forward, as if poised to make a run for it. Then, the country opened out into a patchwork of meadow, scarred with centuries of work, and edged with ribbon-like drainage ditches, blackly frozen. And beyond the pasture, a river, no more than a brook, its sinuous meander partly outlined by willow and spindling beech, led to illmanaged woodland which hunkered dark in a distant dip in the land. Suddenly, Phyll swung the car a sharp left. She slowed down, and they followed a muddy trackway – splashing, almost immediately, through a wide, shallow ford – until they reached the entrance to Red Hollow Hall. It was flanked by open wrought-iron gates so mournfully elaborate and last century that William was reminded of those of a municipal cemetery. Then, they drove down a twisting avenue bordered, not with the usual countryhouse limes but with oaks. Thickly ancient, their curved, low-slung branches skimmed the frosted grass of the parkland, and sheep, fat in lamb, gathered in threes and fives under their bare canopies.

Red Hollow Hall was not the kind of house a child would draw. A brickbuilt confusion of gables, doors, small leaded windows, not one architectural feature was symmetrical to the other. One corner of the manor house was fortified with stone the colour of rusted iron and crenelated like a castle. A huge bare wisteria clung parasitical to the frontage, like the skeleton of some hideous foreign spider.

To the left of the hall, a church squatted so low in a hollow that William only saw two thirds of the tower. Built of soft red stone undulating with age; it was topped with an incongruous weathervane, in the form of a mermaid, which swung and clattered in the uncertain breeze.

Phyll parked the Austin hard against the porch. She sat, not moving, deep breathing and reluctant, as if readying herself for the day. William got out first and opened the driver’s door like a gentleman. Still, she held onto the steering wheel, her knuckles tight white with the grip. ‘Come on, Phyll,’ he said. ‘It’s colder than a witch’s tit out here, and we need to make a start.’ Phyll nodded, exiting the motor car in accepting silence.

William took a few steps towards the main door. To the left of the porch hung a painted black and white sign. He read out loud, his finger hovering over a brass electric doorbell, ‘Red Hollow Hall. Residential Treatment for Alcoholism, Drug Addiction, and Depressive Neurosis. Resident Medical Superintendent Dr H. E. Moon. MA, MD, DPM, MRCPsych.’ William laughed and turned to Phyll. ‘Half of Birmingham could do with a bit of residential treatment.’ She did not laugh but stood craning her neck, peering about the corner of the hall as if expecting someone. William lit a cigarette, and as he did so, a sickly feeling of déjà vu shivered through his veins. He inhaled deeply, letting the tobacco work its magic, and gathered himself. ‘I know where I am,’ he said. ‘I remember this place.’

‘What?’ Phyll was shrill. ‘Have you been here before?’

He sensed her thinly stretched nerves tauten further. ‘Only when I was a kid. The Coventry Canal runs through the grounds.’ William mustered a breezy reassurance. ‘Me and Queenie hauled coal along here. The house is much smaller than I remember. She always said it looked like a picture book castle.’ He flinched at the half-truth, and at his own self-deception, for it was not only Queenie’s fantasy, but it was Ronnie’s too. A survival instinct, he thought. Erase Ronnie out of history or flounder under the weight of gutchurning betrayal. William gathered himself by assessing the topography. Soon, he found his bearings.

Beyond the ancient copse of woodland and to the south, loomed a slag heap. Like a large black burial mound, it hung threatening and powerful against the white winter sky. Flanking it, the cast iron workings of the pithead

THE RED HOLLOW BY NATALIE MARLOW

and the distant factory chimneys which coughed out clouds of dark smoke. ‘Look,’ he pointed. ‘Quarrying, coal, brickworks, I remember this town well. Small but rich. Rich in the stuff.’

‘What stuff?’

William scuffed the toe of his shoe against the gravel drive and unearthed the natural red soil. ‘Clay and coal. They call it the Warwickshire Thick.’

The Warwickshire Thick. Edward Morton had once owned a good chunk of it. And Clara, she must have spent her childhood in some village, or nearby town, built to house the men who unearthed it. William knew he would never make the pilgrimage to his former lover’s birthplace; she had never named it in the short, wondrous time they had spent together. His mouth became acid metallic. He felt it in his body – the sadness, the trauma – this, at least, he understood.

Phyll squinted at the slag heap. ‘I’ve always thought it spoils the view.’ William was holding his breath. He exhaled, letting it go, and watched the steam trail from his mouth. ‘Capitalism does that,’ he said.

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THE RED HOLLOW BY NATALIE MARLOW