Title: Kiss Her Goodbye
I am thrilled to be taking part in the blog tour for Susan Gee's debut novel Kiss Her Goodbye, a tightly plotted and tense thriller with a heart-stopping twist. See below for your special preview.
For more excerpts, author interviews and reviews, make sure to stop by other blogs participating in this blog tour (schedule attached).
Book Description:
DI Beverley Samuels has the body of a schoolgirl on her
hands – a murder that brings back the hauntingly painful memories of the case
she’s tried so desperately to forget.
There’s something deeply disturbing about this crime – and
yet with little hard evidence it’s up to her to decide who she will believe….
Tightly-plotted, tense, and a finale with a heart-stoping
twist - get ready for the biggest thriller of 2018. Fans of Claire Mackintosh,
Laura Marshall, A. J. FInn and Alice Feeny won't be disappointed!
About the author:
Susan Gee was a finalist in the Daily Mail Write a
Bestseller Competition as well as a finalist in The Good Housekeeping fiction
competition. This is her first novel.
Facebook: @susangeewriter
Twitter: @SusanGeeWriter
Extract:
DS Beverley Samuels
As I avert my eyes upwards the sky is surprisingly beautiful: pastel lines of mauve and pinks under a band of soft grey cloud. I say a silent prayer for the girl below me as my thoughts go to Mrs Green in her kitchen, carefully chopping the carrots for another soon-to-be-uneaten stew.
As the other police officers secure the area I picture Kirsten blowing out her birthday candles, the awkward smile in her school photograph and the snapshots of bleak-looking beaches from Mrs Green’s photo album.
As a large branch is removed it looks as if her arms are reaching out to me. Her T-shirt is slightly ripped and weeds from the river have stuck to her body like tentacles. Her neck is bare and there’s no sign of the pendant that her mother said was so precious to her. I avert my eyes from her bloated face. There aren’t any obvious wounds. As the current bubbles in the middle of the river, I wonder if the necklace is sitting on the riverbed amongst the discarded rubbish and decaying weeds.
‘She had a pendant,’ I shout over, but I know that they’ll sweep the area.
My partner, Nick, walks over to me. ‘It’s her. Same clothes.’
I nod. There’s a momentary silence from the team as they work around her and only the faint sounds of the motorway can be heard from across the fields behind. Nick’s been insistent that we’d find her in the river from day one, but even he doesn’t speak. The wind blows his hair and it falls forwards across his forehead and I’m glad that he hasn’t mentioned suicide again.
In an odd way I don’t want to stand close to her and discuss it. I walk to the top of the bank and he follows.
‘That’s not an obvious place for her to jump in,’ I say. ‘There’s a barbed-wire fence running along the field.’
‘Current’s been strong the last few days after the rain,’ he replies as we both look into the swirling water in front of us. ‘She could have gone in by the weir.’
‘Yeah, but they usually end up near the fields,’ I reply, looking back towards the bridge. ‘More likely she went off the bank further up.’
‘She could have stepped off the bank up there.’
‘Or was dumped there.’
He doesn’t argue the point, but there isn’t any need. Once the reports come back, we’ll know. We stand together at the edge of the bank as we wait for the next team to arrive. Mrs Green told me that her daughter cooked the dinner on a Sunday and always told her if she was going to be late home. I think she’d have left a note.
My thighs ache from last night’s run. I recall the reflections of the crooked trees on the water and the darkness of the sewerage pipe when I passed by.
Nick stares over at the far bank. ‘Steve’s going to speak to the mother. You want to go?’
‘No. I’m going to look around.’
Seeing Mrs Green is the last thing I want to do.
‘Coffee?’ Nick asks.
‘No. I’m going up there while they finish up.’ I point towards the weir.
‘Want some company?’ he asks, and I shake my head.
‘I’ll see you in five.’
He used to know when I needed space. Since Moira Timperley’s death we’ve lost that intuition. He never understood why I blamed myself, but that’s because his conscience was clear. I shouldn’t have gone that day. I dismissed her as an attention seeker and went home to pour myself a glass of wine while her stepdad hammered her face to a pulp. Nick can say what he wants, but I was too distracted to see what was in front of me and I can’t let that happen again.
I already know the area, but I can’t concentrate. It seems odd that she’d go into the shallows and not off the bridge further up or near the weir.
‘Bev, you all right?’ he asks.
‘I’ll see you in five.’
He walks over to Debbie on the side of the bank and she giggles as he starts one of his anecdotes. I continue further along the path until they are out of sight. I don’t want to watch his flirting. I’ve had it with men. Even though I finished with Tom six months ago, that time has slid away like water through my fingers. The day I threw him out, he accused me of seeing someone else when he was the one who’d stayed out all night. Men are all the same.
The river’s high after last week’s heavy rainfall and as it pours over the weir I make my way down the concrete steps to the bank. The broken red bricks, from the town’s past, that sit under the surface have been smoothed into red pebbles by the power of the water. Emerald green weeds stretch in the current and point to Kirsten’s body as I take a twig and drop it into the river. The twig floats on the current towards the officers and I imagine Kirsten sitting here. The trajectory is right and it’s a possible point of entry. This river once powered the waterwheels for the Bleachworks and the mills. The currents are strong and dangerous and she’d have struggled if she’d fallen in, accident or not.I walk back up the steps and sit on a bench as a pair of mallards float past on the water. The smell of damp weeds is strong and I think about the unfairness of it all: that a young girl’s life is lost while I’m still here.
Steve will be at Mrs Green’s by now. I picture him on the doorstep with a hand on the brass doorknocker. These are her last moments of hope before her world changes forever. I try to put her out of my mind and focus on Kirsten. It is four o’clock and the bell from St. John’s church chimes like a death knell as she walks down Vale Close towards the industrial estate and onto the river path from the bus stop. Her head is full of the things that have happened and her heart is heavy. I try to imagine what it’s like to be a girl on the outside that no one understands, a girl who is picked on, but I don’t know how to put myself there. It’s not somewhere I’ve ever been.
When I get past the industrial estate, there’s a girl sitting on the metal gate facing the road. She is around the same age as Kirsten Green and I stop, because seeing her there unnerves me. The loose curls of her brown hair are tied up in a headscarf and her lipstick is dark mauve. She swings her legs as she holds onto the top of the gate and, by the many silver necklaces over her cropped red tee shirt, I guess that she’s from the new estate: the more affluent side of town.
As I walk towards her she gives me a knowing look, as though she knows that I left Kirsten amongst the coiled branches when I jogged past her last night.
‘What’s happening?’ she asks, with a nod towards the river.
The ‘missing posters’ on the lamp posts have alerted most people to Kirsten’s disappearance and it’s not difficult to work out why we’re here.
‘We’re looking into something,’ I reply.
She raises an eyebrow. ‘You’ve found her. Right?’
She stares at my face and tilts her head. We both know the answer.
‘What’s your name?’ I ask.
‘Why?’
It surprises me. She doesn’t look like the type to talk back, but she tells me anyway.
‘Hayley Reynolds, what’s yours?’
‘DS Beverley Samuels,’ I reply, with a look behind her. The area is overgrown, with trees to the side, and Kirsten could have been moved from here. I decide to speak to the drivers from the industrial estate to see if anyone noticed anything.
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