For Rye Gavin Gardiner (best book club books for discussion TXT) 📖

drip fed. Suddenly she knew how the crawling Harley behind them felt. She took a deep breath. ‘Detective O’Connell, yes?’

‘That’s right, Miss Wakefield. Or Hector, whichever you’d prefer.’

She picked at her beige Aran knit. ‘Detective O’Connell, I’ve come a long way to say goodbye to my mother and to make sure my father’s in good hands.’ …my love, they’re just bruises… ‘If you don’t mind, I’d ask one more thing on top of the kindness you’ve already shown.’ A strand of wool came loose. ‘Be straight with me.’

For a fleeting moment she allowed his stained eyes to meet her own. She’d spent a lifetime filling pages with other people’s emotions, yet, living the life of a recluse, she had little personal experience of such things. Somehow, through second-hand knowledge gained in a childhood lost to books, her writings had become like the voice-over in a nature documentary, expert narration on something she could see but never touch. That same narrator gave a name to the thing behind this man’s eyes, muttering it in her ear: sadness.

‘Yes, I apologise,’ he said. She felt him flatten the throttle. ‘Your mother was found bound on the church altar. I’m afraid…well, I’m afraid she met her end by way of…’ He cleared his throat. ‘…fire.’

The estate lurched as if the man had just broken the news to himself.

‘What are you telling me? She was burned?’

‘Yes.’ The detective straightened. ‘The remains of Sylvia Wakefield indicate she was restrained and set alight. However, I must add there’s no evidence to suggest she was conscious throughout. No gag of any kind was recovered, implying there was no need to prevent unwanted attention by way of, well, screaming. For this reason I surmise she was rendered unconscious or passed away before her…’ He swallowed. ‘…lighting.’

Her stomach cartwheeled, then whispered: That’s your mother he’s talking about, the woman who raised you. Burnt. Like a witch.

‘A note was found near her body, Miss Wakefield. It’s this note that links the crime to Mr Rye. His most recent novel, a thriller by the name of Midnight Oil, features the strikingly similar scenario of a woman being bound and set alight upon an altar by the story’s antagonist, who recites a rhyme throughout the murder. Aside from the method of execution, it is this rhyme that connects your mother’s death to Mr Rye’s latest work.’

‘The note,’ she said, eyes cemented to the grey conveyor belt passing beneath, ‘my mother’s killer left the rhyme at the scene?’

‘Midnight, midnight…’

His voice lowered.

‘…it’s your turn. Clock strikes twelve…’

Her breath caught in her throat.

‘…burn…’

She felt her hands tighten around that imaginary wheel.

‘…burn…’

She thought of the flames.

‘…burn.’

White light exploded from infinite points. She gasped as the pain tore through her head.

‘Miss Wakefield, are you all right?’ Hector asked. ‘I said too much. You understand I just wanted you to hear the truth from a reliable source.’

The motorbike lost patience and powered past them. Renata ran her fingers over the coiled noose in her satchel, stroking the coarse hemp like a cat in her lap. Soon she’d be gone.

Her breathing levelled.

‘Sorry, no. I mean, it’s alright,’ she stammered. ‘I’m just tired from the journey.’ Her hand stilled on the rope. ‘Has Mr Rye been questioned?’

‘Yes,’ said Hector between chesty coughs. ‘He cooperated fully and his alibi checks out. Poor man. Years spent writing the damned thing and some psycho comes along only to use it as a how-to manual.’

Poor man, indeed. Forges a career in torture porn, makes millions of dollars, and finally inspires someone to set fire to an old lady.

‘Yes, pity,’ she agreed.

‘Anyway, he’s devastated at the thought of his work having played a part in all this. Personally, I can’t stand what he does, but I respect his efforts to put things right. He rented his…’ Hector smiled. ‘…little place, and has done everything he can to help with the investigation. He’s become quite the regular around Millbury Peak.’

‘And my father?’ Renata asked hesitantly, rubbing her wrist. ‘What’s he got to say about Mr Rye?’

The detective’s smile faded. ‘Still wears that same old vicar garb, but don’t be fooled: he hasn’t much positive to say about anything these days. That’s another reason I wanted to explain to you the circumstances of Sylvia’s – I’m sorry, Mrs Wakefield’s – death. It’s better coming from me than him, I think you’ll come to agree.’

She already did. Her entire adult life lay between this day and the last time she’d seen her father, and yet the spectre of Thomas Wakefield had always loomed, like the ghost of a man not yet dead. Through the vast void of time, his fist forever reached.

She squeezed the noose.

…he would never hurt us.

The afternoon sun slid down a cool autumn sky as the Crove, in all its fickle meanderings, finally reconvened with the lurching Vauxhall. Quentin’s Harley had long since shrank into the horizon, leaving behind only the coughs and splutters of Renata’s ride. She gradually began to notice the lush fields and clear sky lighten in tone.

They were driving into a haze of mist.

Detective O’Connell switched to full beams and squinted through the windscreen. ‘Not far now, Miss Wakefield,’ he said. ‘Just as well. Can’t see a bloody thing.’

Shapes formed in the fog. Tight-knit ensembles of cross-gabled cottages and Tudor ex-priories emerged around them, triggering neural pathways long since redundant in Renata. The town was a snapshot dragged into present day, some kind of Medieval-Victorian lovechild refusing to bow to the whims of natural progression. You could practically sense from the rough brickwork and uneven cobbled roads the stubbornness with which this town opposed modernisation of any kind. It was stuck in the past, and perfectly content. The familiar forms of Renata’s childhood, of this frozen town, assembled themselves as Millbury Peak unfolded in the