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  Hilary Norman and The Murder Room

  ››› This title is part of The Murder Room, our series dedicated to making available out-of-print or hard-to-find titles by classic crime writers.

  Crime fiction has always held up a mirror to society. The Victorians were fascinated by sensational murder and the emerging science of detection; now we are obsessed with the forensic detail of violent death. And no other genre has so captivated and enthralled readers.

  Vast troves of classic crime writing have for a long time been unavailable to all but the most dedicated frequenters of second-hand bookshops. The advent of digital publishing means that we are now able to bring you the backlists of a huge range of titles by classic and contemporary crime writers, some of which have been out of print for decades.

  From the genteel amateur private eyes of the Golden Age and the femmes fatales of pulp fiction, to the morally ambiguous hard-boiled detectives of mid twentieth-century America and their descendants who walk our twenty-first century streets, The Murder Room has it all. ›››

  The Murder Room

  Where Criminal Minds Meet

  themurderroom.com

  Too Close

  Hilary Norman

  Contents

  Cover

  The Murder Room Introduction

  Title page

  Preface

  1976

  1996

  FEBRUARY

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  MARCH

  Chapter Three

  APRIL

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  MAY

  Chapter Fourteen

  JUNE

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  JULY

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  AUGUST

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  SEPTEMBER

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  OCTOBER

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-one

  Chapter Sixty-two

  Chapter Sixty-three

  Chapter Sixty-four

  Chapter Sixty-five

  NOVEMBER

  Chapter Sixty-six

  Chapter Sixty-seven

  Chapter Sixty-eight

  Chapter Sixty-nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-one

  Chapter Seventy-two

  Chapter Seventy-three

  Chapter Seventy-four

  Chapter Seventy-five

  Chapter Seventy-six

  Chapter Seventy-seven

  Chapter Seventy-eight

  Chapter Seventy-nine

  Chapter Eighty

  Chapter Eighty-one

  Chapter Eighty-two

  Chapter Eighty-three

  Chapter Eighty-four

  Chapter Eighty-five

  Chapter Eighty-six

  Chapter Eighty-seven

  Chapter Eighty-eight

  Chapter Eighty-nine

  Chapter Ninety

  Chapter Ninety-one

  Chapter Ninety-two

  Chapter Ninety-three

  Chapter Ninety-four

  Chapter Ninety-five

  Chapter Ninety-six

  Chapter Ninety-seven

  Chapter Ninety-eight

  Chapter Ninety-nine

  Chapter One Hundred

  Chapter One Hundred-one

  Chapter One Hundred-two

  DECEMBER

  Chapter One Hundred-three

  Chapter One Hundred-four

  Chapter One Hundred-five

  Chapter One Hundred-six

  Chapter One Hundred-seven

  Chapter One Hundred-eight

  Chapter One Hundred-nine

  Outro

  By Hilary Norman

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  About the author

  Copyright page

  There are good neighbours, indifferent neighbours, lousy neighbours. And then there are neighbours from hell. There are only two ways to escape from the last kind. You die, or you move house. Occasionally, you get lucky and they leave first. Mostly it’s you who has to go through all the upheaval and the expense, but it’s worth it, you figure. Almost anything’s worth that moment when you wave goodbye and leave those sons-of-bitches behind.

  Unless, of course, they don’t want you to go. Unless, of course, they know where you’re going. Unless, of course, they follow you there. And every other place you ever try to move to.

  And then you really know what trouble is.

  She’s dreaming the dream again.

  Same every night.

  She tries to fight sleep to evade it, but it always gets her in the end.

  Every night.

  He is drowning.

  Same as he does every time.

  He’s done what he always does: jumped into the forbidden water to save her from the pond weed that’s tangling around her ankles, pulling her under, choking her, making her panic, making her scream. But Eric is there – she knows he’s going to be there for her. Her big brother’s always there for her, ready to get her out of trouble, ready to save her.

  Only this time, he’s the one getting into trouble. Because she’s pulling him down, she’s still panicking, and he’s all there is – all she has – to hold on to. And she can’t breathe, she has to get her head clear, out into the air, and he’s bigger and stronger than she is – he can hold on for longer than she can. Can’t he?

  Can’t he?

  Her face is clear of the water now and suddenly she can breathe again – oh, it feels so good to breathe. Her hands get a grip on the bank, her fingers claw crazily into the dirt, her arms – the muscles shrieking with pain – lever her up out of the water and onto the cool grass.

  She flops down for a moment, getting her breath back, then she sits up and turns around.

  Eric, I’m okay.

  Eric, you can come up now.

  In the dream, he always comes up, one last time.

  Looking at her with his gentle, brown eyes.

  Not accusing, at all. Just sad and kind and patient.

  Tell them it was my fault, Holly, the way we always d
o.

  He’s speaking to her real breathless and fast, as if he knows these are going to be his final words to her.

  Let me be good old Eric-the-fall-guy one last time, the way you always want me to be, the way you love it. Tell them I jumped in first and you told me not to and I wouldn’t listen and you came in after me and tried to help me. It’ll be easier for you that way. You know I’ve always tried to make things easier for you, Holly.

  And then he goes under again. First his face, then the top of his head, disappearing beneath the surface.

  Eric, you can come up now.

  Eric, don’t leave me.

  Eric, I need you!

  And she hears the sounds again.

  The bubbles of air that come out of his mouth while he’s struggling to breathe. The sound the water makes when it closes over his head that final time.

  The first clump of earth hitting his coffin.

  Her father weeping.

  Her mother screaming.

  And then the silence.

  1976

  For every waking minute of the eight months after her big brother Eric was drowned in the pond in the woods behind Leyland Avenue, seven-year-old Holly Bourne was in the dark. In the silence.

  She went on with her daily life in Bethesda, Maryland, was compliant with her parents and her schoolteachers, but even on the hottest, most brilliant days that summer, neither the sunlight nor the cheerful outdoor sounds of other children playing ever seemed to penetrate Holly’s heart.

  She knew what was going on. She noticed things. The way her daddy fretted about her, the way he looked at her, his grey eyes (so exactly like her own, everyone always said) watching her anxiously. The way he glanced sidelong at her mother, as if he were hoping that she, too, was feeling for their little girl. But Holly knew that her mother no longer felt anything much for her daughter, except perhaps hate. In front of other people – Holly’s teachers, other parents, their friends – her mother often said that she was proud of Holly, but Holly knew she didn’t really mean it. Mother never talked about Eric’s death, had never actually come right out and said that she blamed Holly for what had happened, but Holly knew that she did. Which was okay, as much as anything was okay now, because though she’d done what Eric had told her to in her dream – though she’d explained that it had all been his fault – Holly knew the real truth.

  Everything important and good had been buried with Eric. All the laughter and the joy. All the scrapes they’d got into together. Big brother and little sister. Eric had always been so kind to her, so patient and giving – everything that a young girl could dream of in an older brother. Always stepping in to get her out of whichever jam she’d managed to get herself into. Like the time she’d thrown a stone through old Mrs Herbert-down-the-street’s bedroom window, and Eric had taken the blame. Or the time she’d slipped a packet of M&Ms into his coat pocket inside Van Zandt’s Drugstore, and Eric had accepted the tongue-lashing and the threats of prosecution, and had not given her away. Or the time Holly had slit holes into Mary Kennedy’s bicycle wheels with a penknife, and when Mary had accused her, Eric had sworn that she’d been someplace with him.

  Or the time she’d stolen a five-dollar bill from their mother’s wallet. Eric had really been mad at her that time, had sat her down and given her a real talking-to, had sworn that if he ever caught her stealing again he’d make sure she took the consequences. But then, after she’d pleaded with him a little, he had covered for her as always, had told their mother that he’d borrowed the cash to pay for a new pencil box because he’d lost his, and he was going to pay her back as soon as he could make up the money from extra chores. And their mother had believed him and had hardly punished him at all, because Eric was her favourite, and Holly didn’t blame her for that because she figured that Eric would be anyone’s favourite in any family.

  It was all over now. Eric was dead and so Holly was being good, because there was simply no point in being bad any more. There was no fun, no thrill to be had from breaking rules or taking risks without Eric there to share it with or to shock. Without Eric there to prove to Holly, over and over again, how much he loved her, by getting her out of trouble. So Holly was being good. Which, she thought, was probably much the same as being dead.

  Nobody talked about Eric any more. Nobody even mentioned his name if it could be avoided, but inside Holly’s head it rolled around and around like a hot, smooth marble. For a long time it hurt, a heavy, burning ache, but then she got used to the pain, and at least it stopped her from thinking too much, stopped her from caring as much, which was welcome. Holly didn’t care about anything much any more. She didn’t seem to feel anything much at all either – except the time she got her finger trapped in the window in her bedroom, and that hurt pretty badly for a while. But then that got easier, too, and before long there was nothing left of the pain, and her finger grew as numb as her mind.

  Until September 22nd. It was a Wednesday, and it was afternoon. Three-twenty, to be exact. Holly remembered the time, because the instant she saw him, she realized it was a red-letter moment, and turned her head to look at the clock on her wall.

  She was sitting on the window seat in her bedroom looking out of the window (the same window that had slammed down on her finger and made her see stars for a while) when the State-to-State removal truck came to a halt outside the house next door. The dark blue Chevrolet with two grown-ups in the front slid up smoothly behind the truck, and the boy got out from the back.

  He was tall and slim and his brown hair was tousled, and from her vantage point Holly could see his face as he gazed at the house that was about to become his home, and there was such a look of excitement in his expression that she could almost feel it herself. And it seemed to her the first thing – apart from her finger – that she had truly, actually felt, in a long, long time.

  Suddenly the boy looked up and saw her at the window up on the second floor of her house, and Holly didn’t know what she looked like to him, wasn’t even sure if she smiled down at him or not. But his mouth curved upwards at both ends, and his brown eyes seemed to spark at her, and no one had smiled at her that way since Eric had disappeared for the last time under the murky waters of the pond.

  That was the precise moment when the darkness went away, and when Holly realized that this boy had been sent to Bethesda, to that house, by a higher power.

  Had been sent to her – for her – to replace Eric.

  His name was Nick Miller, she would learn later that day, and he was just looking: at his new house and at the little girl at the window who he supposed was going to be his next-door-neighbour. But for Holly Bourne, not yet eight years old and dragged out of the darkness with all the suddenness and power of a Metroliner emerging from a black tunnel, everything was sealed for ever at that first moment.

  Nick Miller had come to change Holly’s life.

  He belonged to her.

  1996

  FEBRUARY

  Chapter One

  ‘I heard from Eleanor Bourne the other week,’ – Kate Miller said to her son, Nick, seizing a moment alone with him in the kitchen of his and his wife Nina’s San Francisco house – ‘that Holly’s doing so well at her law firm in New York, they’re pretty sure she’s going to be offered a partnership.’

  ‘Good for Holly.’ Nick’s brown eyes flickered, but his hands, carving a pineapple on a stone-topped counter, stayed completely steady. ‘Even better for me.’

  ‘Why say that?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Because success for Holly in New York means she’s more likely to stay thousands of miles away from me.’

  ‘Oh, honey, come on.’ Kate laughed at him. ‘It’s been years.’

  ‘I know it has.’ Nick carved the final slice, set it with the mangos, strawberries and cherries on the big pottery fruit platter, and went to rinse his hands under the cold tap.

  ‘You shouldn’t hold grudges,’ Kate said.

  ‘Why not?’ He felt his jaw clench, told himself to relax
, reminded himself that having his and Nina’s family under their roof was meant to be a joy in itself – particularly as they had all travelled to be with them today to celebrate the much greater joy of the end of the first trimester of Nina’s first pregnancy.

  ‘It’s unhealthy,’ Kate said.

  ‘Not as unhealthy as living in the same town as Holly Bourne.’

  ‘What’s the matter with Holly Bourne?’

  Nina Ford Miller, Nick’s British-born wife, entered the kitchen carrying a tray of empty glasses, followed by Phoebe, her sister, and their father, William Ford. Kate’s colour heightened a touch.

  ‘Nothing much,’ Nick answered lightly. ‘My mother was just telling me how well Holly’s doing in New York, and I said that was good because I like knowing Holly’s as far away as possible.’

  Ethan Miller came slowly in from the living room, looking at a folded copy of the San Francisco Chronicle. ‘What about Holly?’ he asked absently.

  ‘Just what Eleanor told us last week,’ Kate said.

  ‘Oh, that,’ Ethan said, sitting down at the big Mexican pine table and going on with his reading.

  ‘Ice cream, everyone?’ Nina asked, slipping an arm around Nick’s waist. ‘We have at least eight flavours and cheesecake.’

  ‘One of the bonuses of pregnancy.’ Nick said.

  He kissed his wife’s hair and felt his tension melting away. Nina’s hair was long and honey-coloured and she thought it her best feature, though Nick thought her eyes, legs and nose came close.

  ‘Whatever Nina craves,’ he explained, ‘I get to share.’

  ‘Lucky for you it’s ice cream, not coal,’ Phoebe commented. ‘What did Eleanor tell you last week, Kate?’

  ‘It wasn’t important,’ Kate said.

  ‘No, it wasn’t,’ Nick agreed, opening the freezer and taking out an armful of Häagen Dazs tubs.

  ‘Who is this Holly Bourne?’ William Ford asked, a touch irritably.

  ‘Just a woman Nick used to know,’ Phoebe said.

  ‘Is it absolutely necessary for us to be talking about Nick’s old girlfriends when we’re here to celebrate Nina’s pregnancy?’ Ford’s English voice, which still sometimes snapped of his years in the RAF, was only a few degrees warmer than the Cookies ’n Cream.