Paradise, p.1
Paradise, page 1
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Praise for Patricia Wolf
Also by Patricia Wolf
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50: Ten days ago
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Acknowledgements
About the Author
About Embla Books
First published in Great Britain in 2023 by
Bonnier Books UK Limited
4th Floor, Victoria House, Bloomsbury Square, London, WC1B 4DA
Owned by Bonnier Books
Sveavägen 56, Stockholm, SwedenCopyright © Patricia Wolf, 2023
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
The right of Patricia Wolf to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 9781471411717
This book is typeset using Atomik ePublisher
Embla Books is an imprint of Bonnier Books UK
www.bonnierbooks.co.uk
Praise for Patricia Wolf
‘Tense, atmospheric and gripping. I adore Australian crime fiction and Outback doesn’t disappoint. I eagerly await the next DS Walker thriller.’
Chris Whitaker
‘Outback is a hot read, I highly recommend it.’
Lynda La Plante CBE
‘Compelling, immersive and gripping, with a setting so vivid it’s almost a character in itself.’
Becca Day
‘A tense, twisty read that gripped me from its shocking start, immersed me in its sun-scorched landscape, then raced to its satisfying conclusion… Wolf is an architect of suspense.’
Sarah Yarwood-Lovett
‘Nail-bitingly tense, Outback grabs you from the word go and doesn’t release the pressure until the very end. A startlingly well-accomplished debut.’
John Marrs
‘A dark, compelling read.’
Caroline Mitchell
Also by Patricia Wolf
Outback
Prologue
She wakes with a start. Her bedroom is dark, too dark, and her heart is thumping hard in her chest. She can hear something. There’s something here. She can hear it breathing, hear it coming closer. It’s a bad dream, she tells herself. It’s just a bad dream. I can wake up and it will all be OK. She forces her eyes wide open but the room is pitch-black and she doesn’t know if she’s properly awake or still dreaming.
Why is it so dark? She can’t see anything, only shadows that make the room look all wrong. Her bedroom door must be shut. Mum doesn’t usually close it, Mum knows she prefers it open, wants some light spilling in, doesn’t like it when it’s too dark. She’s breathing fast. Everything feels wrong. The door shouldn’t be shut, and she can hear something, breathing, grunting, panting, but it’s so dark she can’t make out what it is or where it is. She’s trembling. The thing, whatever it is, is coming towards her. She’ll pretend she’s still asleep. Maybe it won’t hurt her if it thinks she’s asleep. Maybe if it can’t hear her, it can’t find her. She closes her eyes, doesn’t make a sound, holds her breath, freezes, listens as hard as she can. Her heart is pounding in her ears.
There! She hears it again. It’s not in her room, it’s in the corridor outside. She keeps holding her breath for as long as she can and the noise comes and goes, sometimes quiet, sometimes louder, groaning, snuffling, squishy wet sounds. Like a big animal in the corridor, she thinks. It’s sniffing and looking for her and it’s going to come into her room and eat her up.
‘Mum,’ she tries to call, but her voice comes out in a whisper because she’s so scared. She’s definitely awake, she’s not dreaming, it’s not a nightmare. There’s something out there. She curls tight into a ball, pulling her legs up and hugging Dotty against her chest. Dotty is a pink cat covered in white spots. She’s soft and cuddly and she doesn’t have claws like a real cat but maybe she can protect her from that thing outside.
As she lies there, her eyes open, straining into the blackness, trying to see, she hears someone cry out. Not a word, just a sound of hurt. Was that Mum? Is Mum OK? Has the thing found Mum?
‘Mum?’ she calls out. ‘Mum?’
There’s no answer. But the noise stops.
‘Mum …’ she calls again, a little louder. Mum always comes when she calls. She waits to hear Mum’s footsteps, waits for Mum to open the door, to say ‘Have you had a bad dream, Gabsy? Do you want a drink of water?’ and come over and give her a hug.
She hears something coming but it’s not Mum. The steps are too heavy, too stompy. Mum is quiet, soft. It’s all wrong, everything is weird, nothing sounds right, nothing is normal. Not the thing outside nor the stompy steps, the closed door, the dark. It’s almost as if her room has moved to a different house. The noisy steps come to a stop outside her bedroom door. She holds her breath, tells herself to be still. Perfectly still. Lie as quiet as can be. After a minute, she hears the thing stomp off again.
She’s crying now but trying not to make too much noise. She hugs Dotty closer, tells herself this is a bad dream after all. A nightmare. It must be. She’s been having them a lot this year. Mum says dreams can’t hurt you. That you’re in charge of your dreams and that if you don’t like one you just say ‘Go away, bad dream’ and then you’ll wake up. She whispers it out loud: ‘Go away, bad dream’ – but nothing changes. The room is still too dark, her heart is still pounding, the beast is still outside.
She wants to go back to sleep but she’s too scared. She wants a drink of water and a hug from Mum. She thinks about calling out again but maybe the beast thing with the clompy steps will hear her and this time it might find her. Even if she is in charge of this dream, she doesn’t want to risk it.
She wishes she could wake up in Mum’s room, lying in bed beside Mum, telling her about the dream. Mum would make it all go away. The thought of it, of Mum’s arms around her, being warm and safe, the thing outside gone, the bad dream banished, is so comforting that she finds the courage to sit up. She sits there for a minute in the dark, holding Dotty close. She can’t hear anything. Maybe the thing has gone.
Still holding Dotty, she swings her legs out of bed and waits, listening again. The air conditioner is on and blowing cold air across her bare arms and legs. She feels goosebumps on her skin and shivers. She can’t hear the beast anymore. Now she’s properly awake, the thing has gone and she’s going to go and sleep with Mum. She stands and inches slowly across the room, her hand out in front of her to feel her way in the dark. When her fingers touch the wall, she slides her hand along to find the door. Just in case the thing is waiting outside, waiting to pounce, she does it slowly, quietly, trying not to cry, trying not to breathe too loud. She doesn’t want it to hear her.
When she finally touches the cool metal of the handle, she’s so relieved that she flings the door open. The hallway is gloomy but not as dark as her bedroom. The big light above the stairs is on and is throwing funny shadows down the hall. Her heart starts thumping again. She peeks out. She can’t see anything scary.
Just ahead, towards the stairs, she can see that the door to Mum’s room is shut but there is a shaft of light running underneath. Mum is awake, Mum will take care of her. She always makes everything better. She pulls Dotty close, takes a deep breath and then runs down the corridor as fast as she can and pushes open the door to Mum’s room.
Chapter 1
Monday 6 March
4 a.m.
‘This is triple zero. What is your emergency?’
‘You have to help me. Please help me. They broke into my house, the
‘OK, sir, we’re going to get help to you. Please tell me your address—’
‘It’s thirty-five Shipman Court, Macintosh Island. Please, please, I need an ambulance. My wife, she’s been stabbed, she’s losing too much blood, I can’t make it stop …’
‘Are you safe? Are there still intruders in the house?’
‘No, no, they’ve gone. They tied me up … I got myself free but they’ve hurt my wife. Please, I need an ambulance.’
‘Ambulance and police are on their way. What’s your name, sir?’
‘Owen – David Owen.’
‘OK, Mr Owen, I’m here with you. Stay on the line, put me on speakerphone. Have you tried to staunch your wife’s bleeding …’
Constable Anna Jones and her partner Dean Hammond are the first team to respond to the 000 call. Jones pulls the cruiser to a stop outside a big mansion in the swanky Macintosh Island neighbourhood, lights flashing, siren off. It’s not a neighbourhood she knows well. This part of Surfers – with its big waterside mansions, quiet cul-de-sacs and wealthy residents – is not a crime hot spot. Even now the street looks peaceful in the pre-dawn dark. The only house with lights on is number 35, almost every window ablaze.
She takes her Glock out of its side holster and nods to Hammond. They’re both constables but she’s been in the force five years longer than him, so she’s in charge.
‘We’ll go in, check what’s going on, make sure it’s safe for the ambos to enter,’ she says, feeling a rush of adrenaline but trying to hide her nerves.
‘Shouldn’t we wait for back-up?’ asks Hammond. Not for the first time, Jones wishes she had a more experienced partner. Still pimply, barely shaving and in this role less than six months, he’s only on his first serious call-out – a home invasion, at least one victim seriously wounded. It’s a potentially dangerous situation and she’s happy that back-up is on the way, but they can’t hang around.
‘We need to get in there. It sounds as though there’s a victim with life-threatening injuries,’ she says.
Number 35 is an imposing place, architect-designed, modern, spread over two floors, sitting behind a white shoulder-height wall. The first sign that all isn’t as it should be is the grey metal security gate, unlocked and swinging open. Jones and Hammond walk across a tightly mowed lawn dotted with palm trees, the fronds rustling in the night breeze the only sound they can hear. The front door is heavy teak, ornately carved. Jones pushes it gently with her foot, and it too swings open. She breathes deep, moves her gun into the firing position, arms extended in front of her, and steps into the hallway, a tall, high-ceilinged space brightly lit by a big glass chandelier. She can smell a heavy scent coming from a big vase of lilies on a glass console table beside her.
‘Police,’ she calls. ‘Anyone home?’
‘Up here, in the bedroom – we’re in the bedroom.’ A male voice, calling from a room on the floor above. It could be a trap; he could be lying in wait for them. She takes another deep breath and with a quiet movement of her hand directs Hammond to wait, to guard the front door; then, gun still drawn, she walks slowly up the staircase, the plush carpeting muffling the sound of her approach. As she gets to the top of the stairs she shouts: ‘Armed police.’
‘In here, in here …’ The voice is shaky, coming from a bedroom to her right. ‘It’s David Owen, I called triple zero. My wife is bleeding. Please, we need help.’
Jones finds her courage, takes the last two steps quickly and turns into the room towards the voice, gun extended. Despite her experience, the scene she finds stops her dead in her tracks. She’s in a bedroom, a large master suite, luxuriously decorated, lots of gold and white. A woman lies on the bed in front of her, arms and legs tied spreadeagled to the bedstead. Her chest and throat are a dark bloody mess. Pools of blood colour the covers around her crimson, and, where it has dripped off the side, it is coagulating in dark puddles on the wooden floor beneath. A man is sitting beside her. He’s wearing a torn t-shirt also covered in blood. His face is ashen; his bloody hands are raised, trembling in the air.
‘My wife, she’s dying. Please. You have to help us,’ he says.
‘Is there anyone else in the house?’ Jones asks, gun still drawn.
‘No, they’ve gone, they’ve gone. My daughter is in her bedroom, she … she’s sleeping. But please, my wife, she needs help now …’
Jones walks quickly over to a door on the far side of the room. It leads into a dressing room. She steps in, gun first; the room is empty. She can hear chatter on her radio, the back-up team arriving, a search of the ground floor beginning. She speaks into her radio: ‘First floor, adult female, seriously wounded, adult male, also wounded.’
Turning to the man, she says, ‘Stay there, please. I need to check the rest of the rooms.’
She goes back into the hallway. A pink-and-white soft toy is lying discarded on the floor, and a couple of steps further there’s an open door to a room on the right. By the dim light of the hallway she can just make out a riot of pink and glitter and a young girl asleep, lying in bed, on her back. As Jones approaches the bed, she realises that the way the girl is sleeping is unnaturally tidy – her arms are tucked under the bedcovers, and only her shoulders, encased in a bright-pink t-shirt, are visible, her short blonde hair neat against the pink pillowcase. From closer still she can see that the girl’s face is much paler than it should be, her lips blue, the skin a horrible white, and a cluster of small red spots, like a rash, on her face. She notes a second pillow discarded on the floor beside the bed.
She speaks quickly into the radio: ‘I’ve got another victim, young girl, seven to ten years old …’
She needs to clear the house, ensure it’s safe for the paramedics to enter. Her gun still raised, her urgency increasing, she checks the rest of the rooms. More bedrooms, a study – messy, papers lying on the floor, a wall safe with its door hanging open – a yoga room, two bathrooms, all empty.
‘Top floor clear,’ she says into the radio. ‘Paramedics OK to enter.’
‘Ground floor clear,’ comes the reply, and moments later she can hear quick footsteps as the ambulance crew enters the house. Hammond is still standing with his gun drawn, face pale, at the bottom of the stairs.
‘It’s fine, all clear,’ she says to him, and she notices his hand is shaking slightly as he holsters his weapon. ‘Up here,’ she calls to the paramedics. They are up the stairs and beside the bed in seconds. Standing behind them, Jones can smell the rusty tang of too much blood. The air conditioner in the bedroom is off, and the scent of slaughter and violence hangs heavy. Her stomach lurches and she forces herself to breathe through her mouth.
The two paramedics look at one another and something passes between them. Jones meets their eyes, and one gives a barely discernible shake of his head. The woman on the bed is dead.
A second ambulance team materialises at the door.
‘There’s a kid in the next room,’ says Jones.
‘Take us to her, please,’ says the lead paramedic.
She turns and leads him to the girl’s room, where the paramedics lean over the child. One takes her pulse, looks closely at her hand, then checks her breathing and tries to rouse her, tapping her on the shoulder, gentle but firm.
‘Not responsive. She’s breathing but her pulse is erratic, and she’s unconscious. Her fingernails are blue.’ He holds a small hand up to show her: the fingernails have a bluish tint. ‘That and the rash on her face – it looks like she might have suffered a loss of oxygen. She needs to go to hospital now.’
