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About the Author

Simon Lelic is the author of seven highly acclaimed thrillers: Rupture (winner of a Betty Trask Award and shortlisted for the John Creasey Debut Dagger), The Facility, The Child Who (longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger and the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger), The House, The Liar’s Room, The Search Party and The Hiding Place. He has also written The Haven series for younger readers, twice shortlisted for the CrimeFest awards.

JOIN THE READERS WHO CAN’T PUT SIMON LELIC’S GRIPPING THRILLERS DOWN …

‘An intricate and powerful thriller’ TANA FRENCH

‘What a read! It’s proper clever. Loved it’ STUART TURTON

‘Clever and atmospheric’ MARK EDWARDS

‘A bloody good read and the very definition of unpredictable’ JOHN MARRS

‘Skilful and compelling’ OBSERVER, THRILLER OF THE MONTH

‘A brilliantly tense tale’ ARAMINTA HALL

‘A marvel: intricate, complex and utterly gripping’ ALEX LAKE

‘Expect twists aplenty’ WOMAN’S WEEKLY

‘Simon Lelic just gets better and better’ DERVLA McTIERNAN

‘A chillingly complex, well-crafted web’ JANE CORRY

‘A skilfully-woven mystery that oozes with tension’ T M LOGAN

Dedication

For Sarah, Barnaby, Joey and Anja

Prologue

Ben Draper wasn’t ready to die.

He knew he’d done some bad things. Some very bad things. But surely he didn’t deserve this.

It was only supposed to have been a game – a stupid game he hadn’t even wanted to play.

And now he was lying here bleeding, scrunching up his eyes at the pain in his arm.

He wanted to wail, to call for help, but he couldn’t be sure who would reach him first. And there were footsteps close by. He could hear them. Meaning it was crucial he didn’t make a sound. He couldn’t run any more either, not in the state he was in, and not without drawing attention to himself.

His only chance was to squash in tight, and to hope that the monsters passed him by. To trust the shadows, and to pray. Please God, if you’re really out there, keep me hidden. Keep me safe.

Please let me never be found.

TWENTY-TWO YEARS LATER

Friday 18 October, 3.17 p.m.

‘Why do I suddenly feel underdressed?’

Robin Fleet took his eyes momentarily from the road. Nicky was in the passenger seat beside him, her gaze turned to the window as the main building came into view. Fleet had to admit it was impressive. After they’d passed through a set of manned entry gates, the route from the road had taken them up a private drive long enough that it had seemed it would never end. There were thick banks of trees on either side, impossibly green in spite of the fact that it was already mid-October. Eventually the drive had swept left, the wall of trees receding as though someone were pulling back a curtain.

‘Seriously, boss, you could have warned me. If I’d known we were heading anywhere quite so fancy, I would have worn my string of pearls.’

Fleet’s eyes were back on the tarmac. ‘Do you even own a string of pearls, Detective Sergeant?’

He couldn’t recall seeing Nicky in a pair of heels, let alone a set of pearls. Pearl necklaces and impractical shoes would for her fall into the same category as tiaras and sequinned dresses: fine, for seven-year-olds and princesses; completely useless for anybody living and working in the real world. As a rule, Nicky wore black trouser suits and Converse trainers, and in Fleet’s opinion looked all the better for it.

‘I do, as it happens,’ Nicky said, in answer to Fleet’s question. ‘My grandma left it to me. An apology for my mother, I always thought.’

‘Well,’ said Fleet, ‘pearls or not, I don’t think either of us is going to exactly blend in. It’s probably only because we’re coppers that they didn’t ask to check our bank balances at the gate.’

The drive had turned into gravel. Fleet swung the Insignia around a fountain and followed the signposts to the visitors’ car park, before pulling into a space between two Range Rovers. He and Nicky stepped out of the car, and together surveyed the building looming over them. There was a huge central clock tower above the main entrance, and crenellated red-brick walls stretching to each corner of the building. The windows were arched and leaded, and ivy crept artfully around the main entrance, an elaborately carved set of wooden doors set atop a sweep of stone steps. Looking at the storybook setting, it would have been easy to forget why they were there.

There was a tall, severe-looking man waiting for them just inside the entranceway. He was dressed in black, from his robes to the suit he wore beneath them. The only flash of colour was the crimson knot of his tie and the piercing blue of his eyes. He was most likely in his early sixties, Fleet guessed, but like the building he was standing in, showed his age without appearing in any way decrepit. Facially, he was like a stone carving of himself, reminding Fleet of one of the presidents on Mount Rushmore.

‘Detective Inspector Fleet, I presume,’ the man said. ‘I was told to expect you. I’m Adrian Harris, headmaster.’

Fleet offered his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Harris. This is my colleague, Detective Sergeant Nicola Collins.’

Harris glanced at Nicky and nodded cursorily. Fleet caught Nicky’s expression, and he could tell she’d immediately taken against the man. Too aloof, too supercilious, too dismissive of anyone who wasn’t in authority. Probably a chauvinist, too, Fleet heard her thinking.

The headmaster extended an arm, directing them across the entrance hall and towards a doorway off to one side. The hallway was as impressive in its way as the building’s facade. There was a vaulted ceiling, and a thick green carpet running up a central oak staircase, with a gleaming gold carpet rod on each step. On the wall opposite the entrance, completely dominating the room, was a wooden engraving of the school’s coat of arms: a snake on one side, a dove on the other. Sicut serpentes, sicut columbae, read the Latin inscription – evidently the school’s motto.

‘I have to say, when news reached me about what had been found, I imagined sirens wailing and helicopters buzzing overhead,’ Harris said. ‘I am thankful that you and your colleagues instead opted to exhibit some discretion.’ His eyes dipped, as though he was taking in what Fleet and Nicky were wearing. He seemed to think they’d ditched their uniforms solely out of consideration to the school.

He directed them through the door, marked Staff only in gold-leaf lettering.

‘This is not the most direct route,’ the headmaster said, as he led them down a corridor in what appeared to be the administrative area of the building. ‘But at this stage of proceedings, it would not do to attract undue attention. In an environment such as this one, rumours spread quicker than measles. We’re already having to act to discourage some of the more gruesome ones. The line we’re taking with the pupils is that a site has been discovered of potential historical interest.’

They passed from the corridor into a kitchen, and a dozen workers dressed in white turned their way. Harris ignored them all, ushering Fleet and Nicky towards an emergency exit sign on the far side of the room. Fleet was beginning to feel like a call girl being smuggled through the back entrance of a luxury hotel.

The emergency exit took them outside, into a service area at the rear of the building. From here they could see the full extent of the enormous campus. There were football, rugby and hockey pitches off to Fleet’s left, all perfectly flat even though the campus itself was on a hill with the main building perched at the top. Thirty or forty metres down the slope, almost directly opposite them, was what was unmistakably the school’s chapel, although Fleet had seen cathedrals that were less impressive. Beyond the chapel was a dense line of trees, marking the boundary of a wood that seemed to stretch out of sight.

Harris was several steps ahead. He had veered from the path leading towards the chapel, on to the grass. ‘We’ll need to cut through the woods,’ he explained, as he waited for Fleet and Nicky to catch up.

A cheer went up from behind them, and Fleet guessed one of the players on the hockey pitch had scored a goal. He turned just long enough to see that not all of the pupils on the sidelines were watching the game. Several were facing Fleet’s way, and he felt their eyes on his back as he followed Harris towards the trees.

The woods were even thicker than Fleet had expected. From the moment he stepped beneath the canopy, he might almost have been in the forest on the outskirts of his home town. He shared a glance with Nicky, and he could tell she was experiencing the same sense of déjà vu he was. At least it isn’t raining, he told himself.

They walked another hundred metres or so before Fleet spotted the tents that had been set up by the forensic teams.They’d been pitched in a clearing, on the southern side of the chapel. Where the trees thinned, they were replaced by stone markers jutting drunkenly from the earth.

‘Is this a graveyard?’ said Nicky, at Fleet’s shoulder.

‘A long-neglected one, I’m afraid,’ the headmaster acknowledged. ‘It was overgrown and ignored even before the old chapel was demolished and the new one built further up the hill.’

Fleet raised his head, and realised the trees between the abandoned graveyard and the existing chapel were much younger than those they’d walked through. ‘Why was the old chapel knocked down?’ he asked.

‘After the fire, there wasn’t much left of it,’ Harris said.

Fleet looked at him blankly.

‘The fire?’ Harris repeated, in a tone he might have used on a pupil who’d evidently forgotten a lesson that had been covered in class the previous week. ‘In 1921. It completely decimated the entire school. We have some literature available on the subject if you are interested?’

‘Thank you, Mr Harris,’ Fleet said, ignoring the offer. ‘We’ll find our way from here.’

The headmaster had obviously expected to escort Fleet right into the middle of the crime scene – perhaps even to stand beside him while Fleet’s colleagues outlined what they’d found. Harris appeared to wrestle for a moment with his displeasure at someone else exerting their authority on territory he clearly considered to be his own.

‘Certainly,’ he replied stiffly. ‘You will of course let me know if there is anything more I can do. As I mentioned, your discretion in this matter is appreciated. We have to be mindful of safeguarding our children. And, naturally, the reputation of the school.’

Fleet caught Nicky’s eye. They turned away, leaving Harris standing watching them from the edge of the graveyard.

A PC was stationed on the perimeter, and he nodded Fleet and Nicky through. There were one or two scenes of crime officers milling about in the cordoned-off clearing, but most of the activity appeared to be happening inside the tents. There were three: two staging areas, Fleet guessed, and one larger structure covering up whatever had been found. He looked around for the person in charge, then paused when he heard a noise he hadn’t been expecting. It was singing, he realised. High and sweet, and drifting melodically from the chapel.

‘Rob? Jesus Christ, Rob. When the hell did you get so fat?’

Fleet closed his eyes at the sound of the approaching voice.

‘No, wait, let me guess,’ the voice went on. ‘It was when the divorce came through. I went through the same thing myself. Your wife leaves you, and all of a sudden Deliveroo becomes your mistress. But hey, you’ve got to get your hugs from somewhere, am I right?’

‘Randy,’ said Fleet, turning, and with as much of a smile as he could muster. ‘I didn’t know this was one of yours.’

‘It wasn’t supposed to be,’ said Randolph Green, snapping off a latex glove and extending a hand. ‘But Kathleen called in sick, so now it is. Lucky for you, old friend.’

They shook hands, and Fleet gestured towards Nicky. ‘Do you know Detective Sergeant Nicola Collins?’

‘Sure, I know Nicky,’ said Randy, giving Nicky’s hand a pump, too. ‘What’s the story, Detective Sergeant? He’s got fatter and you’ve got thinner. Has Rob here been stealing your lunch money?’

Nicky smiled – with genuine warmth, Fleet noted. ‘And pulling on my pigtails,’ she answered.

Randy grinned. He was a big man himself, a match for Fleet in height if not in weight. It had been several years since Fleet had worked with the forensic pathologist, but Randy in fact looked trimmer than ever – despite being more than a decade Fleet’s senior.

‘We were told you’d found a body, Randy,’ said Fleet, drawing in his stomach. ‘I didn’t know it was because you were out here digging up graves.’

‘It certainly does look that way, doesn’t it?’ said Randy, casting around. ‘But wait until you see what we’ve actually found.’ Once again he looked Fleet up and down. ‘Although it’s going to be a bit of a squeeze, I’m afraid.’

Fleet frowned, and Randy tipped his head. ‘Come take a look-see,’ he said.

They followed the pathologist to the main tent. There was nothing inside but a hole in the ground – and a stone stairwell in the shadows leading down.

‘What on earth …’ said Fleet. He turned to see Randy watching him.

‘Did Harris tell you about the fire? That the site of the chapel had moved? Well, most of what look like grave markers in this corner of the clearing are actually bits of debris from the original chapel. We had to move a few slabs to find the staircase, but we’re assuming this was the entrance to the old crypt.’ Randy held out a hand, and smiled ghoulishly. ‘Step into my world, my friends.’

Once they were appropriately kitted out, Fleet and Nicky followed Randy down the narrow stairwell. Both men had to duck and turn sideways, but Nicky was so slender there would have been space for her double at her side.

‘Did nobody know this place was here?’ said Fleet.

‘Apparently not,’ Randy replied. ‘It looks as though the entrance got blocked up when the old building collapsed, and it clearly hadn’t been disturbed in years. Although someone obviously found out about it at some point.’

When they reached the bottom of the steps, the chamber opened out, and Fleet was able to stand upright. There was no daylight in the crypt, but the space was being illuminated by powerful LEDs, allowing Fleet to survey the scene before him. The room was perhaps seven or eight metres square. The walls were made of stone, as was the floor. There were Latin inscriptions on some of the stones, and markers to show where people had been buried. The words were so faded it was hard to tell who or when, but the vault appeared to be centuries old at least – older even than the gravestones outside.

‘A site of potential historical interest,’ Fleet muttered, recalling the way the headmaster had described the place. Harris must have used the description in Randy’s presence, too, because the pathologist gave an irritated snort.

‘I tell you, that man has been buzzing around us like a fly around a dead body. Talking of which …’ he added, with a macabre leer.

There were two white-suited SOCOs in a corner of the room. One was on her hands and knees, while her colleague peered over her shoulder. From her evident concentration levels, and the careful sweeping of her hands, she might have been searching for a dropped contact lens.

When the SOCOs saw Randy approach, they moved to one side, allowing Fleet to see what they’d been examining.

It was a bag of bones. Literally.

Half buried in a pile of loose earth were the frayed remains of what looked like a hessian sack, and a skeleton curled in a foetal position. The skeleton was small. Child-sized.

Fleet cleared his throat. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance these remains are as old as those tombs?’ he asked Randy, not moving his eyes from the body at his feet.

‘We can’t be sure yet,’ Randy replied. Fleet glanced and saw the intense fascination in the pathologist’s eyes. Randy must have spent hours staring at the remains already, but now that he was looking at the skeleton again, it was as though he couldn’t bring himself to look away. It would have been like a jigsaw to him, Fleet knew. The most intricately illustrated storybook. ‘But I would imagine that the chances are slim,’ the man concluded.

‘What makes you say that?’ asked Fleet, finally turning fully.

Randy stood up straight. ‘Because we also found this,’ he said. He passed Fleet a see-through bag. It contained a piece of material. A badge, in fact: a stitched version of the coat of arms Fleet had seen on the wall in the school’s entrance hall.

‘We’re fairly certain it’s from his blazer,’ said Randy.

‘His?’ said Fleet, looking up.

‘The subject is male, almost certainly. Between twelve and sixteen years of age, would be my guess. And I checked with our friend, Mr Harris. Apparently this particular version of the coat of arms has only been used on the pupils’ blazers since 1984. Which doesn’t prove anything conclusively, of course, and we’ll be able to tell you more in due course, but for the time being …’ He finished the sentence with a shrug.

Nicky moved in to get a closer look at the coat of arms.

‘Sicut …’ she read aloud, but then stumbled. ‘Does that say serpent?’ she said, pointing.

‘Sicut serpentes, sicut columbae,’ Fleet quoted, even though the second portion of the motto was illegible. ‘Wise as serpents, innocent as doves. It’s from the Bible. Matthew … something or other.’

‘10:16,’ put in Randy. ‘I didn’t know you were a scholarly man, Detective Inspector.’

Fleet turned the badge over in his hands. He dropped on to his heels, and peered more closely at the remains. Nicky hunkered down beside him. There was a distant sound of a bell ringing, presumably in the tower at the front of the school. It was almost certainly ringing for the hour, but it felt as though it were tolling for the dead.

‘Do you think it’s our boy?’ said Nicky softly. ‘Do you think it’s Ben?’

Fleet looked at her, then back at the body. ‘I think we should probably warn Mr Harris that things are about to get a lot less discreet.’

Ben – January 1997

(Four months before his death)

Ben saw the children watching him as he stepped from his father’s car.

There were three of them, two boys and a girl. One of the boys was leaning against a tree, arms folded across his chest, while the other two simply stood there staring.

‘Ben? Are you listening to me, Ben?’

His dad was talking to him across the roof of the Aston Martin, hissing in that way he did when he wanted to yell but he knew there would be people watching. Those kids by the tree. Other eyes through the windows of the building. A great big, ugly, old thing, looking like something from one of those stupid period dramas his stepmother loved to watch on TV. One look at it and he could tell his dad had been suckered. Again.

‘I mean it, Ben. This is your last chance. Three schools in three years. Do you think anyone else is going to want to take you if you get kicked out of a fourth? You’ll be stuck in some inner-city comprehensive, and believe me, you wouldn’t last a single morning in a place like that.’

Ben wasn’t so sure. He had a feeling an inner-city comprehensive would suit him just fine.

‘Now wait here while I go and tell them we’ve arrived. Don’t move a muscle, do you understand me?’ His dad turned, hesitated, turned back again. He leaned in close to the car, dropping his voice and raising a finger. ‘Do not. Fuck. This. Up.’

Ben glared at his dad’s back, silently daring himself to raise two fingers. A hand fell on his shoulder. He gave a start in spite of himself, and turned. It was the girl from the tree, the boys now standing either side of her, the taller of the two with his arm around her. The girl was dark-haired, pale-eyed, gorgeous. The boy Ben took to be her boyfriend was dark-haired, too. The other was blond, and an inch or so shorter than Ben.

The girl extended her hand. ‘It’s Ben, isn’t it? We heard you were arriving today.’

Ben felt his eyes narrow. ‘You did?’ His hand had moved of its own accord, and the girl’s fingers closed around his. Her skin was soft, but surprisingly cold, and she held on to Ben’s hand long enough that he began to feel slightly uncomfortable, particularly with the girl’s boyfriend staring at him so intently.

‘Callum here overheard the headmaster talking to your new head of house,’ the girl explained, gesturing minutely to the boy with his arm around her waist. ‘Apparently, the headmaster described you as a troublemaker.’ The girl’s eyes sparkled mischievously, and she uttered the word with obvious relish.

Ben didn’t know whether to be offended or proud.

‘I’m Melissa, by the way,’ the girl went on, before Ben could decide. ‘This is Callum, as I said, and that’s Lance.’

‘Cool car,’ said Lance, the blond one, as he eyed the Aston.

Ben shrugged, affecting nonchalance. ‘I’d rather have had the money when the old man dies.’

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