Phoebe Morgan - The Wild Girls

‘A cracking page-turner from Phoebe Morgan’

Cara Hunter, bestselling author of All the Rage

‘Well-paced … Morgan has a particular skill for creating a vivid sense of place’

Daily Mail

‘Dark, twisty plotting, compelling characterisation and an ending I didn’t see coming at all’

Harriet Tyce, bestselling author of Blood Orange

‘Smart and sophisticated’

John Marrs, bestselling author of The One

‘Utterly absorbing’

C.L. Taylor, bestselling author of Strangers

‘Insightfully written’

Gillian McAllister, bestselling author of How to Disappear

‘A spine-chilling tale’

The Sun

‘Sublimely dark’

Woman & Home

‘Morgan knows how to ramp up the tension’

Woman

‘Kept me guessing until its chilling conclusion’

Lucy Clarke, author of You Let Me In

PHOEBE MORGANis a bestselling author and editor. She studied English at Leeds University after growing up in the Suffolk countryside. She edits commercial fiction for a publishing house during the day, and writes her own books in the evenings. She lives in London and you can follow her on Twitter @Phoebe_A_Morgan, or find her blog about publishing and writing at www.phoebemorganauthor.com. Her books have sold over 150,000 copies and been translated into nine languages including French, Italian, Polish and Croatian. They are also on sale in the US, Canada and Australia. Phoebe has also contributed short stories to Afraid of the Light , a 2020 crime writing anthology with proceeds going to the Samaritans, Noir from the Bar , a crime collection with proceeds going to the NHS, and Afraid of the Christmas Lights , with all profits going to domestic abuse charities. Her four thrillers can be read in any order: The Doll House (2017), The Girl Next Door (2019), The Babysitter (2020), and The Wild Girls (2021).

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2021

Copyright © Phoebe Morgan 2021

Phoebe Morgan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © April 2021 ISBN: 9780008406950

Version 2021-03-29

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Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008406967

For my agent Camilla,

for always believing in me

Cover

Praise

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

After

Part One

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Part Two

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Part Three

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Acknowledgements

About the Publisher

The police tape looks unnatural in the lush green surrounds of the safari lodge complex. The doors are all open, now, as the forensics team come in and out, their clinical white uniforms catching the light of the sun as it burns down on the empty, parched plains. Dotted on the wooden walkways and inside the five lodges are numbered yellow markers – that’s where they found the first body, that’s where they found the second. Over there is where one of the more junior officers uncovered the first victim’s shoe. On the edge of the Limpopo river, in amongst the sticky, thick mud and the shiny-backed insects, that’s where the blood spatter was, bright and viscous. They were lucky it didn’t get washed away.

Above, a helicopter circles, the drone of it loud and relentless, a harsh man-made noise disrupting the constant hum of the cicadas. From the cockpit, you’d be able to see the whole site, in all its glory – here, the main lodge, able to sleep twelve people. At each corner, a smaller lodge, set up for one guest, alone. The four glistening plunge pools, one of which contained the missing knife, the blade of it circling lazily around the drain. The wooden walkways that connect the lodges look like a maze from this height – or an elaborate board game, designed to catch you out.

In this game, though, half the players are dead.

The forensic officer thinks this place will be shut down, now, forever haunted by the events of one hot, dreadful weekend in March. He feels the loss; it seeps from the windows of the lodges, rises up from the river, rustles with the wind through the gum trees, whispering a warning to anyone who might come near Deception Valley. Briefly, a white butterfly lands on his arm, weightless against his uniform, but just as quickly, it is gone. He stares at the patch on which it landed, remembering the imprint of its tiny limbs.

How easily beauty can be destroyed.

14th February

London

Grace

The invitation lands like a grenade on my doormat early on Friday morning : You are invited to celebrate Felicity’s 30th birthday. Date: 28th March. Place: Botswana, Southern Africa . I stare at it for a few moments; the swirly, smug font, the thick, expensive card it’s printed on, the way her name sits elegantly on the page. The edge of the invite is embossed with gold foil; it must have cost her a fortune. I imagine them shooting through letterboxes all over the country, pretty missiles just waiting to detonate. Her friends scooping down to pick them up, fingers slitting open envelopes, eyes running over the words. Who else will come? I think to myself, who else will be invited?

My watch beeps, signalling to me to get up even though I’m well awake now. My eyes flicker across the date – of course, Valentine’s Day. Sending out invitations to arrive today is so very Felicity that I almost want to laugh, despite the curl of anxiety percolating in my stomach. Although I haven’t seen her for almost two years, I still know Felicity inside out. At least, I think I do.