The Runaway (7 page)

Stella works well with her classmates. I overheard her give a girl a concise, unhurried explanation of how to tackle a long division. Stella's apparently detached behaviour has irked some children. I witnessed Stella being teased about her boots. Stella's self-contained personality protected her. One of the girls teasing her was Jane Masters, mentioned in Mrs Myers' retirement report. Seeing it had no effect, Jane stopped. She is now one of the children who treat Stella with respect.

The Darnell parents' impending separation is distressing to their daughter. Stella is wary of forming attachments – with classmates or with me – she knows that they will end. She will be leaving us to forge new bonds with strangers. Stella deals with anxiety by cleaning (ref. the I.L.E.A rubber in Mrs Myer's report). I occasionally ask her to help me tidy the classroom after lunch because it calms her to engage in a practical task with a clear outcome.

As stated in my predecessor's report, Stella plans to be a detective like her father to whom she is deeply attached. She may well find the separation from him hard; this could detrimentally affect her behaviour in her new class.

I asked Stella about the ‘Harry Roberts' assignment. She was born on the day of the shooting, in her house it's ‘family legend'. She had read about it in her mother and father's Daily Mirror. While her parents were arguing in the kitchen, Stella watched a news item on the anniversary of the shooting. In her adventure story, Stella is the girl who catches Harry Roberts and hands him to the police (her father). She didn't copy it but with a mix of fiction and fact tried to control the tragedy by providing resolution.

With her gritty determination and painstaking approach, I have confidence that Stella will fulfil her ambition. I wish her every luck for her future.

An exclusive short story from the bestselling author of
The Detective's Daughter
.

Stella Darnell understands that her mum and dad don't want to live together anymore. But she wishes she didn't have to say goodbye to her bedroom, or pack her hateful pink suitcase that bangs against her legs. Her mum says she'll have special weekends just to see her dad – but Stella knows that when her dad is solving crimes, there's no time for her.

And so, aged seven and a half, the detective's daughter decides to run away…

‘Lesley Thomson is a class above.'

Ian Rankin

‘A wonderful, absorbing, intelligent detective story,
The Detective's Daughter
takes you on a journey through time, loss and memory. The characters – particularly Stella – will stay with you for a very long time.'

Elly Griffiths

‘A thoughtful, well-observed story about families and relationships and what happens to both when a tragedy occurs. It reminded me of Kate Atkinson.'

Scott Pack

‘This book has a clever mystery plot – but its excellence is in the characters, all credible and memorable, and in its setting in a real West London street, exactly described.'

Literary Review

‘A gripping, haunting novel about loss and reconciliation, driven by a simple but clever plot.'

Sunday Times

‘The strength of the writing and the author's brilliant evocation of how a child's mind works combine to terrifying effect.

A novel one cannot forget.'

Shots

‘Skilfully evokes the era and the slow-moving quality of childhood summers, suggesting the menace lurking just beyond... A study of memory and guilt with several twists.'

Guardian

‘This emotionally charged thriller grips from the first paragraph, and a nail-biting level of suspense is maintained throughout. A great novel.'

She Magazine

L
ESLEY
T
HOMSON
was born in 1958 and grew up in London. She went to Holland Park Comprehensive and the Universities of Brighton and Sussex.

Her first novel,
A Kind of Vanishing
, won the People's Book Prize in 2010. Her second novel,
The Detective's Daughter
, was published in 2013 and sold over 300,000 copies.

www.lesleythomson.co.uk

Stella Darnell must clean. She wipes surfaces, pokes her cloth into the intricate carving of an oak table, whisks a duster over a ceiling rose. She keeps the world in order. Her watch is set three minutes fast for punctuality – a tip she learned from her father – and the couch in her sterile apartment is wrapped in protective plastic, though she never has guests. In her mid-forties, six foot tall, Stella is pleasant but firm, helpful but brutally pragmatic. The detective's daughter has time for neither frivolities nor fools.

Jack Harmon is everything Stella deplores. Fanciful and unpredictable, his decisions rely on random signs. He will follow a paper bag blown along a pavement by the wind; a number on a train will dictate his day. Jack is the best cleaner Stella has ever known. Jack sees that Stella makes sense of his intuitive ponderings. Together, as unofficial detectives, these two misfits solve mysteries that have left the police confounded.

1 – The Detective's Daughter

It was the murder that shocked the nation. Thirty years ago Kate Rokesmith went walking by the river with her young son. She never came home.

For three decades her case file has lain, unsolved, in the corner of an attic. Until Stella Darnell, daughter of Chief Superintendent Darnell, starts to clear out her father's house after his death…

The Detective's Daughter
is available
here
.

2 – Ghost Girl

It is a year since her father's death, but Stella Darnell has not moved on. She visits his house every day and cleans it, leaving it spotless as if he might return.

Stella's father was Detective Chief Superintendent at Hammersmith police station, and now she has discovered what looks like an unsolved case in his darkroom: a folder of unlabelled photographs of deserted streets. But why did Terry Darnell – a stickler for order – never file them at the station or report them to his colleagues?

The oldest photograph dates back to 1966. To a day when Mary Thornton, just ten years old, is taking her little brother home from school in time for tea. That afternoon, as the Moors Murderers are sent to prison for life, Mary witnesses something that will haunt her forever.

As Stella inches closer to the truth, the events of that day begin to haunt her too...

Ghost Girl
is available
here
.

3 – The Detective's Secret

TO
LET
:

Apartment in Water Tower.

A cosy home with detailed views.

Jack Harmon craves silence and a bird's eye view. From his new home in Palmyra Tower, he can raise binoculars to watch over west London. He can see pictures in people's houses, read epitaphs in the cemetery. If he watches for long enough, he will learn who has secrets. He will learn who plans to kill.

But Jack does not see everything. A man has died beneath a late-night train, and Jack's friend Stella, the detective's daughter, suspects it could have been murder.

Now Jack and Stella are stirring up the past with questions that no one wants answered – questions that lead to an unsolved case nearly twenty years old. And up here, in the tower's strange, detached silence, Jack won't hear danger coming until it's too late...

The Detective's Secret
is available
here
.

Jump to free preview
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