by Lucy Foley
Quite a coup for the Fort William police station. A murder and a drugs bust, all from the same serene almost-wilderness. A wilderness that, I’ve decided (and not just because of the murder and the drugs bust), isn’t for me. I’ll miss my morning swim in the loch, of course. And – a surprise even to me, this – I’ll miss my taciturn co-worker. Doug’s agreed to come and spend the weekend with me once I’ve settled back in to life in Edinburgh. I’ve bought myself a guest sofa bed, which may or may not be used. He has his own stuff to work out first, his own journey to go on. Both of us, I think, have been living in limbo. Both of us running from death, and in so doing fleeing from everything else. Now it is time to get on with the difficult business of living.
KATIE
I’m due to give birth in a few weeks. There was a worry that I might lose the baby, after being tackled to the ground like that – but she was fine. She: I’m going to have a girl. I’m working right up to my due date. I’ve been working hard, putting in longer hours and operating on less sleep than I should have had in my condition. But it’s been a distraction. My whole pregnancy has been tangled up with my grief for Miranda. Yes, grief. I know it might be almost hard to believe, considering what a terrible friend I had been to her of late. And the way she could be with me. It’s true, I didn’t always like Miranda. Sometimes I positively hated her. But I did love her. That’s what happens when you have known someone for such a long time. You see all their faults, yes, but you know their best qualities too – and Miranda had so many of those. No one could light up a party like her. No one would offer her best dress to borrow at the drop of a hat. And there aren’t many popular girls of thirteen who will stake all their social credit on the rescue of an outsider. She was, in her way, utterly unique. No one could be a fiercer ally. And yes, no one could be a more formidable enemy.
Apart from, perhaps, one person.
Emma was spectacular at the trial, very contrite and grief-stricken and very – though not too – well-dressed. Gone was the resemblance to Miranda, the seductive blonde, the femme fatale. I suppose you don’t particularly want to go for the fatale look when you’re on trial for murder. Her hair had been dyed back to a very modest shade of mouse, she wore a high-necked, almost Victorian pie-crust blouse: she looked like something between a choir girl and a schoolteacher. She wept as she explained that Miranda had started taunting her about her condition, despite her attempts to explain. Oh, she hadn’t meant to strangle Miranda, she said. There had been a tussle, yes, after Miranda had said some terrible – unforgivable – things. It was self-defence. Miranda had been drunk and vengeful, had come at her fighting tooth and nail. She’d shoved her away, and then, realising the consequences of the push, had tried to save Miranda by grabbing onto the nearest thing within reach … her neck.
No, doesn’t sound very likely to me – and the prosecution didn’t think so either. It should be impossible not to convict on the basis of so much evidence. But we live in a post-truth world. The jury lapped it up. They simply could not convict her of murder. Not this well-spoken, quiet, meek person who looked just like the daughter of a friend, or a girl they remembered from school. People like her didn’t commit murder. Not proper murder. They simply had unfortunate accidents.
The papers compared it to the case of that other Oxford alumnus, a few years ago, who stabbed her boyfriend with a breadknife. People like them just don’t serve time. The defence, meanwhile, gleefully painted a picture of Miranda as an unhappy person: someone whose life was falling apart beneath a glossy facade. A big drinker. A drug-taker – she, after all, had supplied our group with drugs on the first night of the holiday. Emma, importantly, had abstained from taking anything. And Miranda was prone to erratic, bullying behaviour, the defence claimed: the way she’d forced Mark to drink that champagne, coerced me into the freezing loch. Controlling, manic, unstable – she’d been seeing a psychotherapist, hadn’t she?
Manslaughter, that was the charge. And a four-year sentence. She – this woman who pushed my oldest friend to her death and who tried to kill me – will be out in four years’ time. I try not to think about it.
As for the rest of them – apart from Nick and Bo, of course – I was right in suspecting we had nothing in common. Miranda had really been the link. And history, I suppose: the laziness of habit. I am not here to try to acquit myself. I behaved no better than any of them, and far worse than some. But isn’t that just part of the problem? Old friends don’t challenge us on our faults. I have not been a good person. I needed something to show me that. I just wish it hadn’t been this.
The group has fragmented now. The inner circle has imploded from within. There is no centre to it, no high priestess. Samira and Giles are, I imagine, getting along very happily in Balham with all their NCT-class friends, who don’t take drugs or down bottles of champagne, or, for that matter, kill each other.
Nick and Bo are moving back to New York. Mark has already – make of this what you will – met another almost-but-not-quite Miranda substitute at the agency where he works. Julien’s path has been the most radical. He has gone off for a detox in Goa for a month – though with the lithe yoga instructor at the City gym he used to visit, so perhaps there’s more to it than a desire to become a Zen master. He’s told me he’ll be back in time for my due date … worse luck. If I could have this baby without ever having to see him again I don’t think I’d particularly mind. I’ll be for ever linked to him, now. My child’s father. Not quite the clean break I would have wanted – from him, and, by association, from the whole group. Still, at least I never have to go on another bloody holiday with any of them.
I’d like, now, to get to know people who know me for me – not for who I used to be. Who won’t expect me to step back into a role that I don’t quite fit into any more. Who won’t see me as a project, to be worked on … but will see me as whole, fully formed.
Last week, when we concluded our latest case at the firm, I decided to go for a rare drink (elderflower for me) with my colleagues. They actually aren’t all that bad – they might even be normal people when they’re not inside the fetid air of the office, hamster-wheeling their way through contracts. There is one guy, Tom, from the litigation team, who doesn’t actually look all that bad without his crumpled suit jacket, glasses, and the fear of God in his eyes.
Perhaps it’s time to make some new friends.
Acknowledgements
To Al – for taking me to the spot that first inspired the book, and for those long walks in the snow plotting and evenings reading … Twenty percent definitely earned!
To my dear Hoge – thank you for all your time and wise editorial input. This book would not be the same without you!
To my fabulous agents, Cath Summerhayes and Alexandra Machinist, who were highly supportive of this move to the dark side! And huge thanks to Luke Speed, Melissa Pimentel and Irene Magrelli.
To Kim Young, editor extraordinaire, and her fantastic team at HarperCollins – thank you for all the passion and imagination you are bringing to publishing this book: Charlotte Brabbin, Emilie Chambeyron, Jaime Frost, Ann Bissell, Abbie Salter, Eloisa Clegg.
To Katherine Nintzel, and her William Morrow Stateside dream team: Vedika Khanna, Liate Stehlik, Lynn Grady, Nyamekye Waliyaya, Stephanie Vallejo, Aryana Hendrawan, Eliza Rosenberry, Katherine Turro.
To Jamie Laurenson and Patrick Walters at See-Saw – I’m so excited by your vision for bringing the book to life on-screen!
About the Author
Lucy Foley studied English Literature at Durham and UCL universities and worked for several years as a fiction editor in the publishing industry, before leaving to write full-time. The Hunting Party is her debut crime novel, inspired by a particularly remote spot in Scotland that fired her imagination.
Lucy is also the author of three historical novels, which have been translated into sixteen languages. Her journalism has appeared in ES Magazine, Sunday Times Style, Grazia and more.
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Also by Lucy Foley
The Book of Lost and Found
The Invitation
Last Letter from Istanbul
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