The Drowning Child
The heart-stopping new thriller in the Ren Bryce series by Alex Barclay, bestselling author of DARKHOUSE and KILLING WAYS.When Special Agent Ren Bryce is called to Tate, Oregon to investigate the disappearance of twelve-year-old Caleb Veir, she finds a town already in mourning.Two other young boys have died recently, although in very different circumstances. As Ren digs deeper, she discovers that all is not as it seems in the Veir household – and that while Tate is a small town, it guards some very big secrets…Can Ren uncover the truth before more children are harmed?
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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016
Copyright © Alex Barclay 2016
Cover design layout © HarperCollinsPublishers 2016
Cover photographs © Stephen Mulcahey/Arcangel Images (boy); Mike Dobel/Arcangel Images (background)
Alex Barclay asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This 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.
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Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2016 ISBN: 9780007494583
Version: 2016-08-10
‘Gripping, stylish, convincing’ Sunday Times
‘The rising star of the hard-boiled crime fiction world, combining wild characters, surprising plots and massive backdrops with a touch of dry humour’ Mirror
‘Tense, no-punches-pulled thriller that will have you on the edge of your deckchair.’ Woman and Home
‘Explosive’ Company
‘Compelling’ Glamour
‘Excellent summer reading … Barclay has the confidence to move her story along slowly, and deftly explores the relationships between her characters’ Sunday Telegraph
‘The thriller of the summer’ Irish Independent
‘If you haven’t discovered Alex Barclay, it’s time to jump on the bandwagon’ Image Magazine
For my editor, the wonderful Sarah Hodgson
To a Dying Girl
How quickly must she go?
She calls dark swans from mirrors everywhere:
From halls and porticos, from pools of air.
How quickly must she know?
They wander through the fathoms of her eye,
Waning southerly until their cry
Is gone where she must go.
How quickly does the cloudfire streak the sky,
Tremble on the peaks, then cool and die?
She moves like evening into night,
Forgetful as the swans forget their flight
Or spring the fragile snow,
So quickly she must go.
Clinton F. Larson
February 12
Jimmy Lyle was lying, bleeding, by the pond in Montgomery Park. Behind him, at the water’s farthest edge, four ice-white swans moved with mechanical serenity, necks as long as their bodies, black eyes on brighter views.
Jimmy drifted in and out of consciousness, aware of rallying bystanders, footsteps, the tones of cell phone keys, raised voices, concern. He could smell his own blood. He had taken multiple blows to the face before he dropped to the ground, powerful kicks to the ribs and abdomen as he lay there. His left eyeball was swollen like a nut. His right eyelid flickered. Darkness to light, darkness to light.
When Jimmy was a boy, his favorite toy was a slide puzzle. He remembered how quickly his little thumbs pushed the tiles around to put the photo of a gray duckling back together again. Sometimes, he would close his eyes as he clicked the final piece into place, hoping that when he opened them, the duckling would have turned into a swan.
‘His little girl!’ someone was shouting. ‘His little girl! She’s gone! She was right there! Then a guy showed up … he just … he beat the shit out of him! Took his little girl!’
There was a man’s voice, an authoritative one. ‘Do you think you could give me a description of the attacker, ma’am?’
‘Short white guy, stocky, brown hair, khakis and a dark polo shirt, white sneakers too,’ said the witness. ‘Early thirties is my best guess.’
‘Could that have been a uniform of some kind he was wearing?’ said the officer. ‘Like a store uniform?’
