The Detective's Secret (50 page)
On Chiswick Mall, Stella and Stanley stood by the railings facing the river.
They were waiting for him.
~
We hope you enjoyed this book.
The next thrilling book in The Detective’s Daughter series will be released in Spring 2016
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About The Detective’s Daughter series
An invitation from the publisher
In the course of researching and writing
The Detective’s Secret
, many people have been generous with their knowledge, experiences and time.
The help of Frank Pacifico, Test Train Operator for the London Underground, has been invaluable. Although he’s nothing like Jack in character, Frank has succeeded in imagining Jack’s preoccupations and, as we travelled the District line, he offered me fitting ‘driver’ observations that enabled me to see through Jack’s eyes. Any mistakes or errors regarding detail of the London Underground are mine.
Jack isn’t a believer in coincidences, so I wonder what explanation he would have for my finding that the information from brothers of two childhood friends proved to be key to my research. My thanks to them both.
The designer Tom Dixon is the brother of my beloved old friend Vikasini. Tom kindly lent me his water tower and I spent one hot summer morning wandering through it. I looked out at London from the roof and imagined Jack’s panopticon. In this novel I have taken the liberty of moving Tom’s tower across London from North Kensington and relocating it beside the River Thames at Chiswick.
I grew up in Hammersmith, up the road from Tanya Bocking and her brother Nat. While trawling the internet, I landed on the Water Tower Appreciation Society’s website and found that the writer and photographer Nat Bocking is its secretary. I am grateful to Nat for sending me links and a reading list, which included
Water Towers of Britain
by Barry Barton, a fascinating account of their use and construction.
As always, my thanks go to Detective Superintendent Stephen Cassidy, retired from the Metropolitan Police. Again, any factual errors regarding the police are mine.
Thanks to: Emeritus Professor Jenny Bourne Taylor of the University of Sussex for her recommended reading from the nineteenth century – the spirit of this century haunts this story.
My partner, Melanie Lockett, listens to and gives discerning comments on my unfolding ideas. When words arrive on the page, she is my first reader. Thank you.
Stella’s dog Stanley was ‘trained’ courtesy of Michelle Garvey at Essentially Paws. Any of Stanley’s wayward behaviour is my responsibility.
Lisa Holloway, Creative Industries consultant and lecturer, has given me valuable advice.
Thanks to: Tasmin Barnett, Domenica de Rosa, Marianne Dixon (aka Vikasini), Juliet Eve, Hilary Fairclough, Christine Harris, Kay and Nigel Heather and Alysoun Tomkins, who, in varying ways, gave me encouragement along the way.
West Dean College in Chichester was accommodating and supportive during the writing of this novel; my thanks in particular to Rebecca Labram, Francine Norris and Martine McDonagh.Thank you to my agents, Capel and Land. My agent Philippa Brewster is exceptional. Much gratitude goes to Georgina Capel, Rachel Conway and Romily Withington.
Laura Palmer is the best of editors and a joy to work with. Big thanks to all at Head of Zeus, in particular Nic Cheetham, Kaz Harrison, Mathilda Imlah, Clemence Jacquinet, Madeleine O’Shea, Vicki Reed and Becci Sharpe. Once again, my thanks to Jane Robertson and Richenda Todd, who have given the text unremitting scrutiny, proofing and copy-editing respectively.
The Detective’s Secret
TO
LET
:
Apartment in Water Tower.
A cosy home with detailed views.
Jack Harmon craves silence and a bird’s eye view. From his new home in Palmyra Tower, he can raise binoculars to watch over west London. He can see pictures in people’s houses, read epitaphs in the cemetery. If he watches for long enough, he will learn who has secrets. He will learn who plans to kill.
But Jack does not see everything. A man has died beneath a late-night train, and Jack’s friend Stella, the detective’s daughter, suspects it could have been murder.
Now Jack and Stella are stirring up the past with questions that no one wants answered – questions that lead to an unsolved case nearly twenty years old. And up here, in the tower’s strange, detached silence, Jack won’t hear danger coming until it’s too late...
‘Lesley Thomson is a class above.’
Ian Rankin
‘A wonderful, absorbing, intelligent detective story,
The Detective’s Daughter
takes you on a journey through time, loss and memory. The characters – particularly Stella – will stay with you for a very long time.’
Elly Griffiths
‘A thoughtful, well-observed story about families and relationships and what happens to both when a tragedy occurs. It reminded me of Kate Atkinson.’
Scott Pack
‘This book has a clever mystery plot – but its excellence is in the characters, all credible and memorable, and in its setting in a real West London street, exactly described.’
Literary Review
‘A gripping, haunting novel about loss and reconciliation, driven by a simple but clever plot.’
Sunday Times
‘The strength of the writing and the author’s brilliant evocation of how a child’s mind works combine to terrifying effect.
A novel one cannot forget.’
Shots
‘Skilfully evokes the era and the slow-moving quality of childhood summers, suggesting the menace lurking just beyond... A study of memory and guilt with several twists.’
Guardian
‘This emotionally charged thriller grips from the first paragraph, and a nail-biting level of suspense is maintained throughout. A great novel.’
She Magazine
L
ESLEY
T
HOMSON
was born in 1958 and grew up in London. She went to Holland Park Comprehensive and the Universities of Brighton and Sussex.
Her first novel,
A Kind of Vanishing
, won the People’s Book Prize in 2010. Her second novel,
The Detective’s Daughter
, was published in 2013 and sold over 300,000 copies.
The Detective’s Daughter
Series
Stella Darnell must clean. She wipes surfaces, pokes her cloth into the intricate carving of an oak table, whisks a duster over a ceiling rose. She keeps the world in order. Her watch is set three minutes fast for punctuality – a tip she learned from her father – and the couch in her sterile apartment is wrapped in protective plastic, though she never has guests. In her mid-forties, six foot tall, Stella is pleasant but firm, helpful but brutally pragmatic. The detective’s daughter has time for neither frivolities nor fools.
Jack Harmon is everything Stella deplores. Fanciful and unpredictable, his decisions rely on random signs. He will follow a paper bag blown along a pavement by the wind; a number on a train will dictate his day. Jack is the best cleaner Stella has ever known. Jack sees that Stella makes sense of his intuitive ponderings. Together, as unofficial detectives, these two misfits solve mysteries that have left the police confounded.
It was the murder that shocked the nation. Thirty years ago Kate Rokesmith went walking by the river with her young son. She never came home.
For three decades her case file has lain, unsolved, in the corner of an attic. Until Stella Darnell, daughter of Chief Superintendent Darnell, starts to clear out her father’s house after his death…
The Detective’s Daughter
is available
here
.
2 –
Ghost Girl
It is a year since her father’s death, but Stella Darnell has not moved on. She visits his house every day and cleans it, leaving it spotless as if he might return.
Stella’s father was Detective Chief Superintendent at Hammersmith police station, and now she has discovered what looks like an unsolved case in his darkroom: a folder of unlabelled photographs of deserted streets. But why did Terry Darnell – a stickler for order – never file them at the station or report them to his colleagues?
The oldest photograph dates back to 1966. To a day when Mary Thornton, just ten years old, is taking her little brother home from school in time for tea. That afternoon, as the Moors Murderers are sent to prison for life, Mary witnesses something that will haunt her forever.
As Stella inches closer to the truth, the events of that day begin to haunt her too...
Ghost Girl
is available
here
.
TO
LET
:
Apartment in Water Tower.
A cosy home with detailed views.
Jack Harmon craves silence and a bird’s eye view. From his new home in Palmyra Tower, he can raise binoculars to watch over west London. He can see pictures in people’s houses, read epitaphs in the cemetery. If he watches for long enough, he will learn who has secrets. He will learn who plans to kill.