A spellbinding locked-room mystery about a glamping trip gone horribly wrong when a powerful storm leaves the participants stranded and forced to confront long-held secrets and a shocking disappearance.
Max and Annie Kingsley have left the London rat race with their twelve-year-old son to set up a glamping site in the wilds of Cornwall. Eager for a dry run ahead of their opening, they invite three old university friends and their families for a long-needed reunion. But the festivities soon go awry as tensions arise between the children (and subsequently their parents), explosive secrets come to light, and a sudden storm moves in, cutting them off from help as one in the group disappears.
Moving between the police investigation, a hospital room, and the catastrophic weekend, The Search Party is a propulsive and twisty destination thriller about the tenuous bonds of friendship and the lengths parents will go to protect their children—perfect for fans of Ruth Ware and Lucy Foley.
Release date:
January 16, 2024
Publisher:
Atria Books
Print pages:
320
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He has no idea how long he’s been sitting there. There’s no clock in the room, just a table, three chairs, and a single, narrow window set high into the wall—too high to offer anything but a glimpse of the blank gray sky outside. It could be twenty minutes since the police ushered him in and asked him to “wait here, please”; it could be far longer. Dominic knows in moments of heightened stress that seconds can feel like minutes, and minutes like hours, though the vending machine cup of tea someone brought him cooled ages ago. He also knows that every time he thinks about what might be happening outside this room he feels a painful constriction in his chest, a tight band pressing viselike against his lungs, making breathing hard.
He would have been more help out there. Not shut away in a hospital consulting room, sitting in his damp clothing, waiting to answer questions—questions he’s certain he won’t have the answers to. But the two detectives have been insistent—he was to assist with their inquiries. Almost, he thinks, as if they suspect him of something.
The door opens and Dominic springs from his chair. “Any news?” he asks, his eyes darting from the lead police detective in her gray suit to her burly, blond colleague just behind.
“Nothing yet I’m afraid, Mr. Davies,” she says. “Take a seat please.”
Dominic hesitates. The last thing he wants to do is sit. “I think I’d be more use—”
The detective raises her hand. “We’ve got a team scouring the site now. As soon as we know anything—anything at all—we’ll be sure to let you know. Right now, Mr. Davies, we need you to take us through everything you can remember.” She gestures toward his chair, before pulling out her own with a screech, slapping a thin, cardboard file on the table between them. The second officer takes his seat, his huge frame swamping the small plastic chair. He opens a notebook and uncaps a pen.
Dominic eyes the chair with frustration. He wants action and consequences, not talking and note-taking, but sensing the resolve rising off the female detective, he takes the seat.
Lawson, he remembers. DI Sue Lawson. She’d introduced herself earlier. Her younger colleague, the rosy-cheeked young man with the bleached-blond hair and shoulders that would be better suited to a muddy rugby shirt than a starched police uniform, is Barrett. No, Barnett. DC Barnett.
Lawson nods and Barnett starts the recording device resting on the table between them.
“To reiterate,” states Barnett, clearing his throat, “your participation in this interview is entirely voluntary. You can leave at any time, though of course,” he adds, “the more information we can gather about the weekend’s events, the more successful we are likely to be with our investigation.”
“I’ve already told you,” says Dominic, “it’s not me you need to talk to. It’s that kid. He’s got something to do with it, I know it.”
Another nod from Lawson. “As I said, we’ll be talking to everyone involved.”
“They’re always making excuses for him, but trust me, there’s something wrong with that boy.”
“Mr. Davies,” DI Lawson leans forward and fixes him with her level gaze, “I hear your concerns. I know how worried you must be.” Her eyes, he notices, are an intriguing color, gray like sea pebbles, an almost perfect match for the streak running through her short, dark hair. “But I’m afraid we do urgently require your assistance. We’d be grateful for your full cooperation.”
There’s a part of Dominic that can’t help wondering if they are deriving some small pleasure from this. It can’t be every day they get to interview someone off the telly. This whole incident will no doubt provide a flutter of excitement at the station. Guess who we had in the chair today. God forbid this should reach the press. He should probably call Barry. Give him the head’s-up in case the tabloids come sniffing for another salacious Dominic Davies story. They’d certainly raked him over the coals a few years back, around the time of his divorce. He frowns, glancing between the two detectives. “Do I need to call my lawyer?”
“Would you like legal representation?” Barnett glances up from his notepad, pen poised.
It’s like falling into one of those gritty crime dramas, Dominic thinks, the kind Tanya loves to watch on a Sunday night, curled up on the sofa in her pajamas with a glass of wine in her hand and her phone on her lap. He’s always thought them silly—overblown and too predictable—and yet here he sits, in an airless interview room with a recording device on the table between them, blinking its red light like an evil eye. “No,” he says, “of course I don’t need my lawyer. Let’s just get on with it.” He folds his arms across his chest. “What do you want to know?”
Lawson leans back in her seat and nods again at Barnett to continue.
“It was a reunion amongst friends? Four families meeting up for the May Day weekend?”
“Yes.”
Barnett checks back through his notes. “And there were fifteen in your party?”
Dominic considers this for a moment, counting in his head. “Well… we were sixteen, if you include the baby.” He reaches for the plastic cup in front of him before remembering it’s cold and undrinkable. At the sight of the brown film floating on its surface, he slides the cup away.
“You were all invited to Wildernest?” Barnett is consulting his notes again. “The site belonging to Max and Annie Kingsley, located out beyond the Cape, near Morvoren Point?”
“That’s right. I’d just wrapped filming on the latest series of the show, so it was good timing. Star Search,” he adds. “You’ve probably seen it.”
Barnett nods, but the female detective maintains her inscrutable stare. Dominic can’t hide his smile. He knows her type. Wants to pretend she’s above reality TV. Doesn’t like to admit she’s one of the ten million viewers tuning in religiously each week, cheering on her favorite contestants, texting her votes.
“No matter,” he says, with a small wave. “Max and Annie had invited us for the bank holiday to road test their new ‘glamping’ business.” He lifts his hands and emphasizes the apostrophes. “You know the sort of thing. All the rage: save-the-planet, sustainable ecotourism. Max’s dream.”
“I understand the Kingsleys had relocated to Cornwall last year, with their son?”
He nods. “To tell you the truth, none of us quite believed it when they announced they were leaving London. We were supportive, of course. You have to be, don’t you? It’s not exactly the done thing to tell your friends that you think they’re making a terrible mistake.”
“Why did you think it a mistake?”
Dominic lets out a sharp laugh. “They’d spent years building up their architectural firm, making it a success. Only last year they won a prestigious RIBA award for the ‘Grand Designs’–style makeover I commissioned from them on my pad. It was a big deal. It got a lot of press.” He looks at the officers in turn, but Lawson still refuses to give an inch. “Anyway, they did a great job. Knocked out the back of the entire house and built on a huge glass extension. Very cool. Very minimal. But it wasn’t just the fact they were giving up successful careers,” he adds. “They had their own place, right on Clapham Common… a good school for Kip… London at their feet, and they were throwing it all away to move to the sticks to do what?” He throws them both an incredulous look. “Set up a camping business?” Dominic shakes his head. “It seemed madness to me. But I suppose they had form for springing big life decisions on us all.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, the kid. The adoption.”
“By ‘kid,’ you mean their son, Kip?”
He nods, glancing from one police officer to the other, waiting for them to delve further, but Lawson, to his irritation, doesn’t bite. “How about you take us back to Friday. I gather you set out from Hertfordshire around lunchtime?”
“Yes, we left Harpenden at one.”
“We being…?”
“My wife Tanya and my kids, Scarlet, Felix, and Phoebe.” Dominic stretches his legs out in front of him, notices the rip in his trousers and the mud-caked hems, and quickly folds them back again.
“Everyone was happy about the trip?”
He shrugs. “I suppose there was some resistance, but I really don’t see how that’s relevant.”
Lawson eyes him. “We’re simply trying to build a clear picture of the weekend. Given the trauma you’ve all faced and the questions that still need to be answered, we need to be as thorough as possible.”
“Personally, I thought the invitation sounded fun,” he says, addressing Lawson, holding her gaze. “After the pressures of filming, I was looking forward to some downtime with old friends, a long weekend in the great outdoors. I assumed the kids would love it too, but you know how it is with teenagers these days.” He glances between them. “The merest hint of a few hours without Wi-Fi and panic sets in.”
DI Lawson nods. “Carry on, Mr. Davies. This is helpful.”
Dominic narrows his eyes. “You said you’re talking to everyone?”
She nods again. “We’ve sent an officer to the farmhouse. Family Liaison.”
“Good,” says Dominic. He can’t help wondering what the others will say, how their stories might intersect, how their words might corroborate or contradict. All he can hope for, he supposes, is that when all is said and done, twenty years of friendship still counts for something. “Good,” he says again, raising himself in his chair, tilting his chin, flexing his hands out of the tight fists he hadn’t realized he’d formed, “because I’m sure you’ll find we all did things this weekend that we regret.”
DI Lawson maintains her level stare, those impenetrable gray eyes boring into him. Dominic is annoyed to find he is the first to look away.
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