The Perfect Holiday

T. J. Emerson

Description

Perfect for fans of T.M. Logan's The Catch and The Couple at No. 9 by Claire Douglas.

'This taut, elegant thriller thrums with dark menace and dread. I couldn’t look away' Kate Riordan, bestselling author of The Heatwave

Olivia and Julian are enjoying lazy days in their Spanish villa, a well deserved break from their busy lives. Especially for Julian, who after a lifetime as a carer was thrust into the public eye following the tragic murder of his first wife.

The languid heat and peace of the villa is broken only by clifftop walks, sun drenched lunches and cooling swims. Until a chance encounter with Gabriel - an attractive man, many years their junior - changes everything.

Soon their idyllic break turns into a dangerous, high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse. Will any of them get out alive?

________

‘Wow! Beautifully written with a great sense of place that contrasts so well with what is going on behind doors’ Valerie Keogh

'Tense, daring and totally addictive' Emma Christie

'An immersive, multi-layered story that provokes and excites' T.L. Huchu

'An unputdownable journey into the human condition asking the reader at every turn - how good are we really? How good are you?' Louise Dean

'The last time I had this sort of reaction to a character was when I read The Talented Mr Ripley' Mark Wightman

'A gripping, atmospheric and addictive read' Lesley Glaister

'Original, surprising and absolutely brimming with menace' Amanda Block

Sujets

• Policier & Thriller
• Policier
• Thriller
• Vie de famille
• Relations familiales
• Soutien psychologique et conseils familiaux
• Mashups
• Psychological
• Hard-Boiled
• Holidays
• Thrillers
• The Girls
• Suspenso
• Daniel Hurst
• Psychological thriller
• Domestic
• Passenger (disambiguation)
• Girl (disambiguation)
• Spain
• Psychology
• The Catch
• Spain (groupe)
• The Holiday
• Crime
• The Passenger
• Family Life
• Suspense
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Boldwood Books
• Date de parution: 20 avril 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781804151563
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE PERFECT HOLIDAY


T. J. EMERSON
CONTENTS



Prologue

After

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Before

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

After

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Now

Chapter 50


Acknowledgments

More from T.J. Emerson

About the Author

About Boldwood Books
PROLOGUE
WHO CARES? A MEMOIR BY JULIAN GRIGGS



Introduction

Many of you will know me as the victim of a terrible crime. On a dark November night, someone broke into my Edinburgh home and murdered my beautiful wife, Helen. Smothered her with a pillow as she slept. The crime attracted nationwide coverage. Many of you sent me heartfelt messages of support, and I know you shared my disbelief that anyone could harm such a vulnerable woman. A woman who, in her forty-two years of life, had already suffered so much misfortune.
Ten years before Helen’s death, we were involved in a car accident. The spinal injury she sustained paralysed her lower body. Her head injuries left her with brain damage – her cognitive abilities severely impaired and her impulse control almost eradicated. But despite these traumas, she still had the same feisty personality, and she endured her merciless suffering with all the dignity she was capable of.
When I finally brought Helen home after months of hospitalisation, I had no idea of the difficulties that lay ahead. Like many people in similar situations, we lost everything. Our jobs, our home, our independence. Forced to live on benefits, we struggled through life, but, as I often pointed out to Helen, at least we had each other. Hard as it may be to believe, the accident made the bond between us stronger than ever.
As I write this memoir, sitting with my laptop in a fashionable café not far from my London home, it is difficult to accept that, to this day, her murder remains unsolved. It is an apparently motiveless crime. Money and jewellery were stolen from our ransacked home, and the police still believe a random stranger broke in, intending to burgle us. A stranger who ended up killing Helen in the process. Thoughts of this individual often keep me awake at night. I cannot help wondering what could have driven him or her to commit such a seemingly pointless act. In all honesty, I am still amazed that despite a thorough investigation, the police have been unable to find any leads or produce a suspect. This lack of closure has left questions that may never be resolved: who killed my wife and why?
AFTER
1

Julian Griggs woke at dawn. His bleary eyes took in the dark wooden beam in the ceiling above him and the rotating fan blades suspended from it. Turning his head, he saw a pair of green shutters outlined by the golden glow of the Mallorcan sun.
Olivia stirred beside him and snuggled her warm, solid body against his.
‘Happy birthday,’ he said.
‘What time is it?’ she asked in her raspy voice.
‘About six.’
‘I’m not ready to be fifty-four,’ she said. ‘Go back to sleep, little mouse.’ Little mouse because she said he rubbed his beard against his pillow when he slept, and the rustling sound reminded her of mice.
He shut his eyes and dozed until his aching bladder forced him awake. Untangling himself from his wife, he clambered out of bed and padded across the cold terracotta tiles. On his way to the en suite bathroom, he picked up Olivia’s black kaftan from the floor and draped it over the chair beside the wardrobe. He paused to inspect himself in the long, thin mirror on the wardrobe door. Not bad for a man of forty-nine. Streaks of grey had colonised his dark brown hair, but, although it had thinned at the temples, he still had plenty on top. A neat, grey goatee had replaced his once scruffy beard, and these days, his dark brown eyes were no longer bloodshot and dull from lack of sleep.
Almost four years had passed since Helen’s death, and he’d worked on his appearance a lot in that time. His body had grown stronger and more muscular thanks to regular gym visits and the training he’d endured for his fundraising marathon last year. His stomach had developed a slight paunch since then. Julian pinched this excess flesh as he looked at himself in the mirror. With his height, he could carry a few extra pounds, but he didn’t want to let himself go again.
In the bathroom, he opened the small window set into the thick white wall behind the toilet and gazed out as he emptied himself in short, noisy spurts. Last night, they’d arrived from London in the dark, and he hadn’t had a chance to enjoy the view from the villa. The sun had yet to rise over the top of the Teix mountain, and the lower flanks of the Serra de Tramuntana range were in shadow. In the distance, he could see the terracotta-tiled rooftops of Deià village. Beautiful. The air he drew into his lungs was cool, but the blue Mallorcan sky promised a hot day to come.
He spotted a large bird circling high overhead, wings outspread. The slow majesty with which it rode the currents identified it as a bird of prey. A hawk, he thought, or an eagle. Breath held, he watched the bird, compelled by its grace and menace.
When he returned to the bedroom, he found Olivia lying on her back, a pale, freckled calf sticking out from beneath the sheet. Standing beside the bed, he had the unsettling notion he might still be asleep. He feared his new reality might be a dream. A precarious dream that could be shattered at any moment.
He climbed in beside his wife, intending to rest his head on her heavy breasts, but she reached between his legs and took hold of him with her large dry palm.
‘Come here, little mouse,’ she said.
2

After Julian finished having pleasant, unadventurous sex with his wife, he rolled off her and lay spent in her arms, her heartbeat racing beneath his left ear.
‘Fifty-four,’ Olivia said. ‘Where do the years go?’
He refrained from insisting she looked younger than her age. She didn’t, and she couldn’t bear flattery. He admired her lack of vanity, one of her many good qualities. She’d given up dying her cropped auburn hair, content to let the grey take over. She had a long broad nose and heavy-lidded grey eyes, but she radiated a warmth Julian found comforting.
‘I think you’re a very attractive woman, Olivia Pearson,’ he said.
She kissed the top of his head. ‘And you, Julian Griggs, are a truly good man.’
The pumping of her heart made him suddenly uncomfortable, and he had to sit up. ‘How about we get the birthday girl some breakfast?’
‘I’ll drive into Deià and pick up some pastries.’
‘Good idea. I’ll come with you.’
‘No, you have your swim. I know how much you’ve been looking forward to it.’
True. He’d promised himself a swim before breakfast every morning.
‘What about your morning walk?’ he asked.
‘I’ll start tomorrow.’
Olivia took a shower, emerging after only three minutes. She didn’t approve of wasting water. Even if she had, the villa’s ancient, fickle boiler system wouldn’t have allowed her to linger. She gave her body a vigorous dry before dropping her towel on the floor. Julian watched his naked wife’s beauty routine through half-closed eyes – a brush pulled at speed through wet hair, a cursory smear of cheap moisturiser over her face.
‘Right.’ She picked up the black kaftan from the chair and slipped it on. ‘Won’t be long.’ She pushed her feet into black Birkenstock sandals and blew Julian a kiss. As she exited the room, the soles of her shoes slapped against the tiles, a sound Julian found reassuring. The soundtrack to his new life. Even at home, in their Bloomsbury townhouse, Olivia wore either sandals or clogs, and he could always hear her clopping about the place. He traced her passage along the hall and her descent of the staircase.
As soon as their hired Fiat 500 started up in the courtyard below, Julian hauled himself out of bed and put on the new swimming shorts he’d purchased from a fashionable shop in Covent Garden. The same store where he’d treated himself to the tortoiseshell Ray-Ban sunglasses he now perched on top of his head.
After grabbing a towel from the bathroom, he walked barefoot out of the bedroom and onto the terracotta tiles of the hallway. He passed another bedroom, the main bathroom and the upstairs sitting room with its cream sofas and colourful rugs. His feet trod the smooth dark wood of the staircase to the ground floor, where they met white marbled ceramic. He scampered across these icy tiles, past the guest room and turned left into another narrow hallway that led to the kitchen, a large room boasting traditional features – a rectangular stone sink and cupboards made from the same dark wood as the villa’s doors and window frames. From here, a set of steps led down into a shady dining room with a round oak table and a set of patio doors that Julian pulled open.
He stepped out onto the terrace. The terracotta tiles beneath his feet, smaller than the ones indoors, were already giving off heat. Overhead, a canopy of gnarled vines wound around a metal frame to create shelter from the sun. Only the first week of July, but he could already sense the heat as a separate entity he would have to share his holiday with.
He gazed at the view he could not believe was his to enjoy. The sky, vast and cloudless. The Mediterranean, stretching into the distance like a big blue dream. At a recent drinks party held by one of Olivia’s London friends, Ju