99 Red Balloons: A chillingly clever psychological thriller with a stomach-flipping twist
Two girls go missing, decades apart. What would you do if one was your daughter?Eight-year-old Grace is last seen in a sweetshop. Her mother Emma is living a nightmare. But as her loved ones rally around her, cracks begin to emerge. What are the emails sent between her husband and her sister? Why does her mother take so long to join the search? And is there more to the disappearance of her daughter than meets the eye?Meanwhile, ageing widow Maggie Sharples sees a familiar face in the newspaper. A face that jolts her from the pain of her existence into a spiralling obsession with another girl – the first girl who disappeared…This is a gripping psychological thriller with a killer twist that will take your breath away.
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LIBBY CARPENTER
99 RED BALLOONS
Published by Avon
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
195 Broadway
New York
NY 10007
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2017
Copyright © Elisabeth Carpenter 2017
Elisabeth Carpenter asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008223519
Ebook Edition © August 2017 ISBN: 9780008264024
Version: 2017-07-25
For Dad
Table of Contents
Chapter Twenty-Three: Stephanie
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Stephanie
Chapter Thirty-Five: Stephanie
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Stephanie
Chapter Forty-Eight: Stephanie
Chapter Fifty-Three: Stephanie
I squint at him. The sun’s in my eyes and he looks like a shadow monster.
‘I can’t,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve got to get home. I’m only meant to be getting sweets from the paper shop, then straight back.’
He crouches in front of me. He’s wearing a woolly hat, which is funny as it’s really warm today.
‘But your mum asked me to fetch you.’ His eyes crinkle at the corners as he smiles.
I fold my arms. When I tilt my head, his face blocks out the sun.
‘You might be lying,’ I say. ‘Mummy warned me about men with sweets and puppies.’
The man laughs, like Gramps does when he’s Father Christmas.
‘I know,’ he says. ‘What’s she like? She’s such a worrywart.’
He’s right: she is. I drop my arms to my sides.
‘Anyway,’ he says, holding out both of his hands, ‘I’ve no sweets and I’ve no puppies. My name’s George – she’s always talking about me, isn’t she? She’s waiting at the bus station, says she’s got a surprise for you, for being a good girl at school.’ He taps his nose. ‘And we all know what you’ve been asking for.’
‘Really?’ I try not to jump up and down. ‘They’ve got me a horse?’
He winks and puts his finger on his lips. I try to wink too, but it turns into a messy blink. He holds out his hand, and I take it.
I’m allowed to sit on the front seat, but I’m not allowed to tell Mummy. On the radio, a song plays that I know: ‘Ninety-Nine Red Balloons’. I’m warm inside because Mummy sings it a lot. She sings it in German sometimes: Noin and noinsick or something. It’s an old one, but I like it.
‘Are you feeling all right?’
He’s looking at me as though I’ve got spots all over my face.
‘I think so.’
Mummy’s always worrying about me. When I had a bad cough in the middle of the night three weeks ago, she ran a hot bath and called the ambulance, but it was a false alarm.
He stops the car at a mini car park on the side of the road, just as the song is ending. Without his hat on, he looks older than he did before. He puts his hand on my forehead.
‘You do feel a bit hot.’
As soon as he says it, I feel it. I’m burning up.
He turns to the back seat and grabs a plastic carrier bag. I can’t read the supermarket’s name, but I recognise the red and green. He gets out a flask and pours a drink.
