Expectant, page 24
‘Oh, and just so you know, your mum rang me in the middle of everything, said something about knitting, and that it was important she talk with you, but you weren’t answering your phone.’
‘Ha,’ I laughed. ‘The old girl came through. What did you tell her?’
‘I said I was a bit tied up right now, and that you were out but that I’d get you to give her a ring as soon as you were free.’
‘You lied to my mother?’
‘It was easier than telling the truth.’
‘You’re learning.’
The light-hearted banter was a relief after the intensity of everything that had happened, but it was still skirting around the elephant in the ambulance. I knew I had to address it, and it needed to be now if I was to follow through with a promise.
‘Paul,’ I said. ‘The samples.’
He sighed then. ‘I’ve got them here, the ambulance guy has put them in a chilly-bin.’
Naomi had waited quietly for the police to arrive and had given herself up. But in the bustle and madness of the aftermath I had lost track of where the samples had got to.
‘Thank you.’
I thought about how I was going to word the next bit.
‘Paul, it’s not just my call on what happens next. You have to be okay with it too, give your consent.’
He sat there, elbows on knees, looking at the floor, rubbing his hands together.
‘After everything that happened, what she did to Aleisha Newman, what she did to you, you let her in? You did that?’
The scene replayed in my head, the extremes of emotions that surged within me, and I couldn’t suppress the shudder.
‘I put myself in her shoes.’
After a minute, he finally looked back up at me, reached out and put his hand over mine.
‘You did the right thing.’
I finally let myself cry.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This novel felt like it had the gestation period of an elephant – actually it was longer, so immense gratitude to those who carried me along through often difficult and turbulent times.
Huge thanks to my amazing publisher and friend Karen Sullivan for her continued support and faith in my work, and to her incredible team at Orenda Books: West Camel for his thoughtful editing, and Cole Sullivan and Anne Cater for their hard work in promoting my work so it can find its audience.
Craig Sisterson, you are New Zealand writers’ greatest cheerleader. Thank you for your unwavering flying of the flag and being my number-one fan. Good on ya, mate.
Thank you to the incredible writing and reading community out there. Your warmth and enthusiasm makes all of the hard work worthwhile. Bless ya!
Support comes from so many places, and I am so grateful for my fabulous work team at the Va’a o Tautai – Centre for Pacific Health at the University of Otago. You guys rock.
In writing crime fiction there are a number of people you call on to make sure you haven’t completely stuffed up the facts. My immense thanks to Jan and David Checketts, Dom Flatley and Erolia Rooney for fielding with such good grace and humour my weird questions. All stuff-ups are completely my own.
Sometimes you need help wrangling the software, so thank you to Rachel Amphlett for showing me the ins and outs of Scrivener. I’m getting better at it!
This novel was underpinned by a profound sense of grief. In the course of writing it I lost so many loved ones. It is dedicated to the ones we lost: my mum, Heather, my mother-in-law, Sue, my brother Norman, my brother Vernon and my sister Laura. By its very topic and nature it also brought back to me thoughts for my four babies lost to miscarriage. Completing this work felt like a loving acknowledgement of all of these lives and hope for the future.
Family is so incredibly important, and I give thanks for the continued support and belief of my husband, Glenn, and my two fabulous sons, Riley and Corey. Your gentle trolling and digs at my procrastination kept me on the path … mostly.
Thanks to the anonymous alleyway poet, whose haiku made me stand and marvel.
And to my writing companion, Louis the cat, whose snoring has been the soundtrack to this work.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Vanda Symon is a crime writer from Dunedin, New Zealand, and the President of the New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa. The Sam Shephard series, which includes Overkill, The Ringmaster, Containment and Bound, hit number one on the New Zealand bestseller list, and has also been shortlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Award. Overkill was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger. All four books have been ebook bestsellers. Vanda currently lives in Dunedin, with her husband and Louie the cat.
Vanda Symon
@vandasymon
@vandasymon
Amazon author page: Vanda Symon
Other titles by Vanda Symon available from Orenda Books:
The Sam Shephard Series
Overkill
The Ringmaster
Containment
Bound
Faceless
COPYRIGHT
Orenda Books
16 Carson Road
West Dulwich
London SE21 8HU
www.orendabooks.co.uk
First published in the United Kingdom by Orenda Books 2023
Copyright © Vanda Symon 2023
Vanda Symon has asserted her moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publishers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagina-tion or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–1–914585–57–-9
eISBN 978–1–914585–58–6
Typeset in Garamond by typesetter.org.uk
Also by Vanda Symon, and available from Orenda Books:
Overkill
When the body of a young mother is found on the banks of New Zealand’s Mataura River, young female police constable Sam Shephard begins an investigation, with horrifying and very personal implications. Book one in an addictive, atmospheric new series.
When the body of a young mother is found washed up on the banks of the Mataura River, a small rural community is rocked by her tragic suicide. But all is not what it seems.
Sam Shephard, sole-charge police constable in Mataura, soon discovers the death was no suicide and has to face the realisation that there is a killer in town. To complicate the situation, the murdered woman was the wife of her former lover. When Sam finds herself on the list of suspects and suspended from duty, she must cast aside her personal feelings and take matters into her own hands.
To find the murderer … and clear her name.
A taut, atmospheric and page-turning thriller, Overkill marks the start of an unputdownable and unforgettable series from one of New Zealand’s finest crime writers.
The Ringmaster
When a student is murdered in Dunedin’s university district, newly transferred young female police officer Sam Shephard is drawn into the investigation … The heart-stoppingly tense next instalment in the page-turning, international bestselling Sam Shephard series
Marginalised by previous antics, Sam Shephard is on the bottom rung of detective training in Dunedin, and her boss makes sure she knows it. She gets involved in her first homicide investigation when a university student is murdered in the Botanic Gardens, and Sam soon discovers this is not an isolated incident. There is a chilling prospect of a predator loose in Dunedin, and a very strong possibility that the deaths are linked to a visiting circus…
Determined to find out who’s running the show, and to prove herself, Sam throws herself into an investigation that can have only one ending…
Rich with atmosphere, humour and a dark, shocking plot, The Ringmaster marks the return of passionate, headstrong police officer, Sam Shephard, in the next instalment of Vanda Symon’s bestselling series.
Containment
Dunedin’s favourite young police officer, Sam Shephard, is drawn into a perplexing investigation when a series of shipping containers wash up on a sleepy New Zealand beach, and then a body is discovered…
Chaos reigns in the sleepy village of Aramoana on the New Zealand coast, when a series of shipping containers wash up on the beach and looting begins.
Detective Constable Sam Shephard experiences the desperation of the scavengers first-hand, and ends up in an ambulance, nursing her wounds and puzzling over an assault that left her assailant for dead.
What appears to be a clear-cut case of a cargo ship running aground soon takes a more sinister turn when a skull is found in the sand, and the body of a diver is pulled from the sea … a diver who didn’t die of drowning…
As first officer at the scene, Sam is handed the case, much to the displeasure of her superiors, and she must put together an increasingly confusing series of clues to get to the bottom of a mystery that may still have more victims…
Bound
When the official investigation into the murder of a respectable local businessman fails to add up, and personal problems start to play havoc with her state of mind, New Zealand’s favourite young detective Sam Shephard turns vigilante…
The New Zealand city of Dunedin is rocked when a wealthy and apparently respectable businessman is murdered in his luxurious home while his wife is bound and gagged, and forced to watch. But when Detective Sam Shephard and her team start investigating the case, they discover that the victim had links with some dubious characters.
The case seems cut and dried, but Sam has other ideas. Weighed down by her dad’s terminal cancer diagnosis, and by complications in her relationship, she needs a distraction, and launches her own investigation.
And when another murder throws the official case into chaos, it’s up to Sam to prove that the killer is someone no one could ever suspect.
Faceless
A stressed, middle-aged man picks up a teenage escort and commits an unspeakable crime, unaware that a homeless man – her only real friend – will do anything to find her. A shocking, race-against-the-clock, standalone thriller from the Queen of New Zealand Crime.
Worn down by a job he hates, and a stressful family life, middle-aged, middle-class Bradley picks up a teenage escort and commits an unspeakable crime. Now she’s tied up in his warehouse, and he doesn’t know what to do.
Max is homeless, eating from rubbish bins, sleeping rough and barely existing – known for cadging a cigarette from anyone passing, and occasionally even the footpath. Nobody really sees Max, but he has one friend, and she’s gone missing.
In order to find her, Max is going to have to call on some people from his past, and reopen wounds that have remained unhealed for a very long time, and the clock is ticking…
Hard-hitting, fast-paced and immensely thought-provoking, Faceless – the startling new standalone thriller from New Zealand’s ‘Queen of Crime’ – will leave you breathless.
Vanda Symon, Expectant
