A homecoming will shake this small town to its very foundations. The taut new mystery from the bestselling author of The Inheritance, perfect for readers of Sally Hepworth and Liane Moriarty.
Desperate people do desperate things…
Sixteen years ago, teenage Maddie Marshall’s body was found on a desolate beach near her hometown, Carrinya. Vibrant, feisty Maddie was the only daughter of a high-profile politician. The case was the talk of the town but was ultimately never solved.
Nel Foley, daughter of the town doctor and Maddie’s best friend, was the last known person to see her alive, and the Carrinya rumour mill was vicious. Nel fled the town and has never been back. Until now.
Now a 32-year-old city GP, Nel returns after her father’s sudden death, determined to get in and out as quickly as possible. Begrudgingly, she agrees to run his clinic for a few weeks, but during that time she meets local mum Sophie Warner and that changes everything.
Sophie’s husband Ryan, a prominent local real estate agent, was Maddie’s boyfriend and Nel is certain he played a role in her death. When Nel discovers that Ryan is not the loving husband and father that he seems, she decides she must prove what he did all those years ago. But as she starts to unravel the past, she discovers the truth is far more complex than she could have imagined.
A twisty, suspenseful mystery about the desperate things people do when they’re on the edge.
Prologue
Wednesday 20 October 2010
She lies beneath rugged cliffs that glow ochre and orange in the photos on the postcards the tourists buy in summer. Tonight they are an inky blue. A full moon is suspended overhead like a fortune-teller’s ball, casting a glow over her delicate face, illuminating her profile with a fine silver thread.
Every twenty seconds, a beam of light sweeps across the vast ocean, a warning to sailors to avoid this treacherous stretch of coastline that has already claimed too many lives. Waves rise up and crash onto jagged rocks. Frigid water seeps into the denim of her jeans, the thin cotton of her shirt. The tide is coming in.
She is slipping away.
She feels cold.
There’s a presence above her.
Breathing. Fast and heavy.
Hot on her face.
And everything fades to black.
Chapter 1
The most significant days of our lives, the pivotal ones that change our trajectory, start just like any other day. Nel Foley would have that thought—once everything had unfolded and she could see it in retrospect—and she would trace the start of it all back to this wet Sunday when her mother called as she was suturing a deep gash in the knee of a sobbing preschooler.
Despite the anaesthetic, Billy was struggling, so his mum sat behind him holding his arms by his sides. Nel’s phone vibrated loudly on the desk as she knotted the stitch and trimmed the thread. She stole a glance at the screen, then looked back at the tear-stained face of little Billy.
‘Just one more to go, mate,’ she said. ‘You’re being very brave. Another jelly bean?’
He nodded and took a shaky breath as his mum fished an orange one out of the jar with tongs. He popped it into his mouth and gripped the arm of the chair again, his little knuckles white. As Nel pulled the next stitch through, the phone vibrated again.
‘All done!’ she said a minute later when she trimmed the last thread. ‘High five, buddy.’ He raised a weak hand to meet hers. ‘Now you can tell all your friends you got six stitches.’
He gave her a slight smile. She ran through the wound care with his mum, then closed the door behind them. Nel didn’t have the time or the energy for a conversation with her own mother right now, so she put the phone in the top drawer and went to call her next patient.
Nicole the receptionist tapped her watch and looked pointedly around the crowded waiting room. They were meant to close at one o’clock on a Sunday. Nel sighed and glanced at the wall clock above the desk, trying to calculate how far behind she was running.
‘Alice Partridge?’ she said.
A tiny elderly lady looked up from where she sat sandwiched between two mothers in active wear jiggling oversized prams.
‘Goodness,’ she said as she shuffled down the corridor behind Nel. ‘You doctors are getting younger and younger!’
After Mrs Partridge left, Nel saw a rugby player with a dislocated shoulder, who was furious she was running late, followed by a teary new mum and a corporate lawyer with an anxiety disorder. By eleven thirty, she’d decided not to work Sundays anymore. They were always a nightmare. She’d only picked up the extra shift in the first place so she wouldn’t need a flatmate to help with the rent, but she wasn’t sure her solitude was worth it.
It was almost two o’clock when Nel farewelled her last patient. She sighed as she shut down the computer and reached for her bag. Remembering her phone, she opened the drawer. She frowned. Her mum had called again. Just as she was about to call back, Nicole buzzed on the intercom.
‘Mrs Partridge just rang.’ She sounded exasperated. ‘She’s lost the script you wrote her. Said she must have dropped it somewhere in the shopping centre. Can you, I don’t know, maybe send her an electronic one?’
Nel sighed. Mrs Partridge was pushing ninety, so an e-script didn’t seem like a good solution. Besides, the weather was miserable and she would have to go out again to get the medication.
‘I’ll get the antibiotics from the chemist now and drop them over to her,’ Nel said, looking up her patient file to find the address.
‘You sure? I’d offer to do it myself but I’m meeting a friend. I’m already late.’
‘It’s fine, honestly. It’s not far out of my way.’ All Nel had waiting for her at home was Netflix and her cat Winston.
It was almost an hour later by the time Nel had delivered the medication to Mrs Partridge, who answered the door in her quilted dressing-gown, called her ‘a dear girl’ and thanked her profusely. Now Nel sat in traffic on Victoria Road listening to the repetitive drone of her windscreen wipers. She hadn’t moved in five minutes. There must be an accident up ahead. She contemplated an illegal U-turn to go down a side street, but there was no break in the endless procession of cars coming the other way.
There was a long beep from the car behind and she realised the traffic had started moving. She lifted her hand in a wave as the rain came down heavier, drumming on the roof and making a blur of the outside world. She turned the wipers up faster.
Her mobile vibrated on the passenger seat and she looked over at it. Lauren. Her chest tightened. Three missed calls from her mum and now her sister was ringing. A sick feeling took hold in Nel’s stomach as she looked around quickly, checking for police—cursing her broken Bluetooth—and answered the call. She put the phone on speaker mode in her lap.
‘Hello?’
‘Nel?’ Lauren said, an uncharacteristic tremor in her voice. Nel’s heart lurched. ‘What is it? Is something wrong?’
‘Mum’s been trying to call you.’ Lauren faltered. Was she crying?
‘I just finished my shift. Why? What’s happened?’
‘It’s Dad.’
‘Dad?’
‘He’s had a heart attack. They …’
A long pause.
‘They what? Lauren?’
‘They—’
There was a sudden jolt and the crunch of metal as she realised, too late, that the traffic had stopped again.
‘Shit!’ She hit the steering wheel with both hands.
A balding man got out of the Mercedes in front and stood in the rain, shouting and gesticulating wildly in her direction. A discordant chorus of car horns blared from behind.
Nel took a deep breath. ‘Sorry. I just crashed into the car in front.’ The line was silent. She looked at the phone. ‘Lauren? I missed the last thing you said.’
‘I said … they couldn’t save him.’
*****
Nel dumped her handbag and keys on the kitchen bench and stood looking around her studio apartment, not sure what to do next. Winston barely opened one eye to acknowledge her from where he lay curled up on the bed. She covered her face with her hands as hot tears filled her eyes and ran down her cheeks.
She tried to calm herself with some deep breaths. She should call her mum. She’d had to end the call with Lauren abruptly to swap insurance details with the balding man who’d become increasingly irate the longer Nel sat in her car. He’d made no effort to share his enormous golf umbrella as they stood on the roadside in the pouring rain while he pointed out all the damage done to his car. He seemed particularly furious that her car had come out of it almost unscathed, except for a slight ding. ‘What the hell were you doing?’ he’d exclaimed more than once, apparently oblivious to the tears streaming down her cheeks.
Nel reached for her phone now and tried her mum, but it went to voicemail. She peeled off her wet clothes, leaving them in a pile on the kitchen floor, then went into the bathroom and flicked on the hot tap. When steam filled the shower, she stepped in, letting the water scald her skin as huge sobs overcame her.
Her legs buckled and she let herself collapse onto the floor, her thoughts swinging between disbelief and despair. How could this be? She’d seen her dad just a month ago when he came to Sydney for a conference. They’d caught the ferry to Manly and walked to Shelly Beach, marvelling at the turquoise water. He’d insisted on swimming, even though it was the middle of winter.
‘Get in here!’ he’d called as she stood on the sand, delaying the inevitable. She knew he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
She’d squealed as she tiptoed in. ‘It’s bloody freezing!’
‘It’s bloody beautiful!’ Rob had replied, and he was right.
She frowned. This must be a mistake. It had to be. He was only sixty-two. Sixty-two is young! And he was the fittest man she knew. He surfed every morning. He paddled on Saturdays. He’d run a marathon last year, for fuck’s sake! But then Lauren’s words echoed in her mind and sobs overwhelmed her once more.
She wasn’t sure how long she stayed like that, but when she turned the water off she could hear her phone ringing. She wrapped herself in a towel and rushed to answer, her hair dripping on the carpet.
‘Mum,’ she gasped, tears coming again.
‘Oh, Nellie. I’m so sorry, darling.’
For a few minutes, they cried together without speaking.
‘I don’t understand,’ Nel said eventually. ‘What happened?’
Cath sniffed. ‘He went into the clinic this morning to get on top of his paperwork, and he must have started to feel unwell because he called an ambulance. He was unconscious when they found him. They tried …’ She took a shaky breath. ‘They tried to resuscitate him but …’ Her words trailed off as tears took hold again.
Nel pictured her father, all alone, as the symptoms came on. Was it a terrifying tightening in his chest? Did he have the telltale pain down his left arm? Did he know what was happening? What did he think of in those final moments? Was he scared?
‘When will you come home?’
‘Home? Oh … I’m not sure …’ Nel put a hand to her chest, suddenly tight at the thought of returning to Carrinya. It had been fourteen years since she’d left, and in all that time she hadn’t once made the five-hour journey south.
‘Can you come tomorrow?’ her mum said, her tone tentative. ‘Um, I don’t know …’ Nel felt like there was a brick pressing on her chest, but what choice did she have? ‘Okay … I guess I’ll come tomorrow.’
When Nel ended the call, she started pulling out clothes and piling them on the bed beside Winston, wondering how much to pack. It was all so sudden that she couldn’t quite comprehend it. This time tomorrow I’ll be back in Carrinya. It felt both daunting and implausible. Nausea gripped her stomach as she pictured the road into town, the quaint main street, her childhood home. The whispers and stares of the locals.
She took a steadying breath and told herself it would be okay. She’d always known she’d go back one day. It was inevitable. In fact, it was surprising she’d been able to avoid it until now. She would get in and out as quickly as possible, she decided, putting one jumper back in the drawer.
She sat down on the bed and looked at Winston. What would she do with him while she was gone? Her mother was allergic, so taking him with her wasn’t an option. She thought of the neighbours. She’d become friendly with Beth upstairs, but she was a flight attendant so she was away for days at a time. There was a nice couple on the ground floor, but they were expecting a baby any day now. The old guy in number three communicated entirely through aggressive notes—airing grievances relating to recycling and packages left in the foyer (in all caps, with key words double underlined)—and the guys across the hall seemed to spend most of their time partying. Winston wouldn’t cope, even if they were willing, which they probably wouldn’t be.
She had some friends in Sydney, old uni mates, but she’d only seen them a few times since she’d returned from Dublin. After five years away, and very patchy contact, she could hardly expect them to welcome her grumpy rescue cat with open arms. She thought of Nicole from work who had three boys and a high tolerance for chaos, which made Nel think she might not mind taking care of a random cat. It did feel like a stretch of their professional relationship though.
By the time she finished packing, she’d decided to put Winston into a cattery. It would be simpler that way anyway. She wouldn’t owe anyone anything. Within fifteen minutes she’d arranged to drop him off at the Balmain Pet Hotel later that afternoon. She reached out to stroke him, but he made a high-pitched sound, jumped off the bed and slunk over to the sofa where he promptly curled up and went back to sleep.
Nel sighed and turned her attention back to the packing. She looked at her warm winter coat, the one she’d bought in her first Irish winter, but decided it would be too heavy and took her leather jacket off the hanger instead. Then she pulled her suitcase down from the top of the wardrobe, put all the clothes inside and zipped it halfway up, ready for Carrinya tomorrow.
A homecoming will shake this small town to its very foundations. The taut new mystery from the bestselling author of The Inheritance, perfect for readers of Sally Hepworth and Liane Moriarty.
Desperate people do desperate things…
Sixteen years ago, teenage Maddie Marshall’s body was found on a desolate beach near her hometown, Carrinya. Vibrant, feisty Maddie was the only daughter of a high-profile politician. The case was the talk of the town but was ultimately never solved.
Nel Foley, daughter of the town doctor and Maddie’s best friend, was the last known person to see her alive, and the Carrinya rumour mill was vicious. Nel fled the town and has never been back. Until now.
Now a 32-year-old city GP, Nel returns after her father’s sudden death, determined to get in and out as quickly as possible. Begrudgingly, she agrees to run his clinic for a few weeks, but during that time she meets local mum Sophie Warner and that changes everything.
Sophie’s husband Ryan, a prominent local real estate agent, was Maddie’s boyfriend and Nel is certain he played a role in her death. When Nel discovers that Ryan is not the loving husband and father that he seems, she decides she must prove what he did all those years ago. But as she starts to unravel the past, she discovers the truth is far more complex than she could have imagined.
A twisty, suspenseful mystery about the desperate things people do when they’re on the edge.