Charles Maclean - Home Before Dark

Home Before Dark
by
CHARLES MACLEAN

Wealthy and urbane, with a thriving business and a beautiful wife, Ed Lister has all he could ever want except his daughter, who was cruelly murdered
while studying in Florence.Frustrated with the police inquiry, Ed sets out to discover who killed her, and why. His quest brings him ever closer to the
charming, lethal psychopath Ward and his website, Home Before Dark.And the closer he comes to Ward, the more apparent it becomes that there are some
things that Ed didnt tell the police. Or his wife.

'A thriller that gripped me by the throat and wouldnt
let go for 36 tortured hours, Home Before Dark chills
the eyes as well as the spine. I have never seen such evil
leak out of a computer screen. Maclean is a master of
electronic horror.Ferdinand Mount

'Like the best horror stories, Home Before Dark creates
a stifling, claustrophobic atmosphere; it catches you up
so you feel you are a player in the plot, not just an
observer. It doesnt let you rest: you wake in the night
and carry on reading and as more pieces of the jigsaw
fall into place, you begin to see the potential horror
just as the protagonists become aware of it. Marvellously
ingenious and unexpected.ScotchWhisky Review

'Intricately plotted and cast in understated prose, Home Before Dark kept me up long after midnight.
Bloomberg.com

'A very well written thriller, with moments of genuine
suspense and jeopardy, Home Before Dark is a modern
horror story full of very human demons.
Eurocrime. co. ukAbout the author
Charles Maclean is married with four children and lives
on the west coast of Argyll, where he runs a small estate
and holiday cottage business. An associate editor of Travel
and Leisure magazine, Maclean spent ten years in New
York, from where he wrote a column for the London Evening Standard. He was a founder member of the Ecologist magazine and with Edward Goldsmith helped
launch 'Blueprint For Survival, which became a handbook
for the environmental movement in the UK.
He has written several acclaimed works of fiction and
non-fiction including the prize-winning classic Island on
the Edge of the World.

HODDER
First published in Great Britain in 2008 by Hodder Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
First published in paperback in 2009
Copyright Charles Maclean 2008
The right of Charles Maclean to be identified as the Author
of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Lyrics from 'Jambalaya by Hank Williams Sr. SonyATV
Acuff Rose Music. Administered by SonyATV Music Publishing.
All rights reserved. Used by permission.

AU rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means
without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise
circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which
it is published and without a similar condition being imposed
on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 340 95151 4
Typeset in Plantin Light by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound by CPI Mackays, Chatham, ME5 8TD
Hodder Stoughton policy is to use papers that are natural, renewable
and recyclable products and made from wood grown in sustainable forests.
The logging and manufacturing processes are expected to conform
to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

Hodder Stoughton Ltd
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
www.hodder.co.uk

For Jeremy and JamieThere will be days, maybe not now but in the months and even
years to come, when she happens to be on your mind and the
phone will ring and without thinking youll pick up, wondering
if this could be her calling to let you know shes all right.
You dont stop worrying about your children when they grow
up and leave home. You dont stop even after theyre not there
any more to worry about and never will be again.
If there is an end to wishing you could turn back the clock, or
to hoping you will wake one morning to discover it was all a bad
dream, I havent reached it yet. Acceptance is harder to find, I
suspect, grief more difficult to resolve, when your family has been
violated. Since Sophie died we havent been the same. The murderer
doesnt just murder his victim, he murders a little part of the family
as well. He murdered a little part of Laura and me that night.
I dream about him, our murderer and yours a human being
with no conscience, no regard for the value of anothers life, who
is indifferent to the pain and havoc he leaves in his wake, who
isnt human, at least not in my book, yet is still walking around
free, still living his life.

I had advice for them, insights I felt it might be appropriate
to share with others, strangers, whose lives he destroyed. As
if my own experience had allowed me a unique understanding
of what they must have been going through. I felt so sorry for them. I felt and still feel what happened was partly my
fault. And I wondered if I should write. I wanted to write.
Something held me back me though.

Florence

When the telephone rang, Sam Metcalf was sitting, as she
preferred to sit, cross-legged on the floor in her underwear,
listening to Maria Callas pour heart and soul into Catalanis
'Ebben? ne andro lontana and thinking she should have got
out of this damned life a long time ago.
In four days she was leaving Florence, flying home to
Boston on a one-way ticket. Her stripped-down apartment
in the Oltrarno its ochre walls bare of pictures, most of the
furniture gone, a cardboard city of boxes and packing cases
ready to be shipped looked like some Third World departure
lounge, but Sam still felt the wrench, giving up a place that
held so many memories.
She removed her earpiece.
There was nothing to keep her here. Federico hadnt
been in touch for almost a month and she neither expected
nor wanted to hear from him again. And yet Sam closed
her eyes you never knew, the prick might feel like saying
goodbye.
The phone kept ringing, starting to get on her nerves. Any
normal person would have realised by now that she wasnt
home. But what if it was important?
She dried her eyes, her plump knuckles briefly dislodging
the frame of her glasses, then squinted up at the kitchen
clock, a gloriously tasteless fixture above the ancient gas
stove its familiar face, laminated in years of cooking grease,
was a reproduction of the Angel Gabriel from Leonardos Annunciation.
Eleven minutes to twelve.
She would remember the exact time of the call.
Getting up on her knees, Sam looked around for the phone,
followed the lead across the floor and retrieved it from under
a pile of papers. She couldnt help herself.
Her hand shook a little. Please... please God, dont let
it be Federico.
'Pronto
'Yes, hello is this Sam? Sam Metcalf?
She let out her breath in stages.
It was a young voice, friendly sounding, American accent,
no one she recognised her prayers, disappointingly, had
been answered.
'Who wants to know?
'I was given your number by a mutual acquaintance. Ed
mentioned you were leaving town soon, and I wanted to talk
to you about Sophie...
'You knew her? Wait a minute. Who is this?
'Yes, maam, I had that privilege. He gave a deep, slightly
theatrical sigh. 'An angel if ever there was one... Sophie
spoke, and I saw all the colours of the rainbow.
Something was wrong here.
'Look, Mr... Im sorry, who did you say gave you this