PRAISE FOR THE SEARCH PARTY
“A chillingly complex, well-crafted web. The voices cry out from Simon Lelic’s pages as if they are standing right next to you.”
—Jane Corry, bestselling author of The Dead Ex
“Clever and atmospheric, with shades of Stand by Me.”
—Mark Edwards, author of Here to Stay
“A brilliantly tense tale of teenage frustration, lost souls, and sibling love, with an atmosphere as tense as the end of a summer storm that threatens throughout the book. Plus a whirlwind of an ending that’s like riding a roller coaster.”
—Araminta Hall, author of Our Kind of Cruelty
“I’ve spent every free moment of the last few days feasting on The Search Party . . . a bloody good read and the very definition of unpredictable. Twisty, creepy, brilliantly paced, and with a denouement I never saw coming.”
—John Marrs, author of The One
PRAISE FOR SIMON LELIC
“An intricate, powerful, and deeply unsettling thriller about the profound ways in which cruelty can change its survivors, and the creeping fear that nothing—not your home, not love, not even your own mind—is as rock-solid and impregnable as we all want to believe.”
—Tana French, New York Times bestselling author of The Trespasser, on The New Neighbors
“Highly recommended!”
—Karen Dionne, author of The Marsh King’s Daughter
“I’m such a fan of this author and can’t wait to see what he has in store next.”
—Criminal Element
“Lelic slowly and exquisitely ratchets up the suspense. . . . If you like your stories tangled and complicated by eminently readable, [he] is one you will want to pick up.”
—Book Reporter
TITLES BY SIMON LELIC
The Search Party
The Liar’s Room
The New Neighbors
The Facility
The Child Who
A Thousand Cuts
BERKLEY
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
penguinrandomhouse.com
Copyright © 2020 by Simon Lelic
Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lelic, Simon, author.
Title: The search party / Simon Lelic.
Description: Berkley trade paperback edition. | New York: Berkley, 2020.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019055349 (print) | LCCN 2019055350 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593098332 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780593098349 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Suspense fiction.
Classification: LCC PR6112.E48 S43 2020 (print) | LCC PR6112.E48 (ebook) | DDC 823/.92—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019055349
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019055350
Viking UK trade paperback edition / August 2020
Berkley trade paperback edition / August 2020
Cover art by Robert Norbury / Millennium Images
Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
pid_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0
CONTENTS
Cover
Praise for Simon Lelic
Titles by Simon Lelic
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Day Six
The bloody rain.
Day Seven
Abi
Cora
“A search party?”
Mason
Fash
Cora
Mason
“Sir? They're here.”
Abi
Cora
Fleet sat in his car
“Hello, mum.”
Fash
Cora
Abi
Cora
Full dark, no stars.
Day Eight
“Something wrong with your neck, boss?”
Mason
Fash
“Look at those leeches,”
Mason
Abi
Cora
Fash
Mason
Abi
Cora
This time Fleet didn’t bother
It didn’t take long
Mason
Abi
Fash
Fleet was walking the estuary
Day Nine
The first thing Fleet noticed
Cora
Abi
Fash
“Your business card?”
Luke
The rain had dwindled
“That way. He went that way.”
Day Ten
He spotted her
Acknowledgments
About the Author
For my family
[phone call]
Operator: Emergency, which service please?
Caller: Hello? Hello?
Operator: Do you need fire, police or ambulance?
Caller: I can’t . . . Hello? Is anyone there?
Operator: I can hear you. Can you hear me?
Caller: Yes, I . . . Thank God. Please, help us. Please.
Operator: Can you tell me what’s happened?
Caller: Hello? She’s gone. I can’t . . .
Operator: I’m here. I can still hear you. Where are you?
Caller: I don’t know. In the woods. Somewhere, I . . . Please. We need an ambulance.
Operator: Right. An ambulance. Can you tell me where you are? What can you see?
Caller: Oh God. Oh God.
Operator: You’re in the woods, is that what you said?
Caller: Yes. Yes. Near . . . a building. A house, or . . . [inaudible]
Operator: A house, you say? Do you know the address?
Caller: There isn’t one. It’s empty. Abandoned. But . . . Please. Just come. Quickly. Please. Just—
[call ends]
DAY SIX
THE BLOODY RAIN. For twenty-four hours it had fallen, flaying the banks of the river with a tropical fervor. Except it was cold. Granted the summer was officially over, but just two days ago the volunteers had been wearing shorts, while Fleet had stood sweating in his thinnest suit. Since the weather had broken, the water had struck like winter hail. Hard, pitiless, icy. A month’s rainfall in barely a day, so they said. Fleet didn’t know about climate change, all that, but he knew when something wasn’t right. And this weather? It was freakish. As messed-up as everything else that was going on in this town right now.
He paused in the doorway of his hotel to light a cigarette, taking almost as much pleasure from the brief burst of warmth as he did from the nicotine itself. He exhaled a cloud of smoke that was immediately doused by the tumbling rain, then took two more drags and tossed the cigarette into the gutter, knowing it would be ruined anyway the moment he stepped into the torrent.
That’s fifty pence down the drain right there, said a voice inside his head. His wife Holly’s, unmistakably, and Fleet felt a pang from somewhere in his gut. It
