Now You See Me Read online

  Six went in...only one came out.

  The Standedge Tunnel, the longest canal tunnel in England, has become one of the rural village of Marsden’s main tourist attractions. Now it’s also a crime scene.

  Six students went into the tunnel on a private boat. Two and a half hours later, the boat reappeared at the other end of the tunnel carrying only one of the students, Matthew. He had been knocked unconscious and has no memory of what took place in the tunnel. The police suspect he killed his friends, hid the bodies and later moved them to an undisclosed location. But sitting in a cell awaiting trial, Matthew maintains his innocence.

  When Matthew contacts a famous author asking him for help in return for information he claims to possess about the author’s long-lost wife, it’s an offer that can’t be refused. But before the author can prove Matthew’s innocence, he must first answer a far more unusual question: How did five bodies disappear into thin air?

  Praise for Guess Who

  “When was the last time you stayed up way too late reading a book

  because you were locked so deeply into its grip? This is not your

  grandmother’s locked-room mystery.”

  —The Oklahoman

  “Packed with gripping twists and turns, Guess Who is an inventive,

  entertaining locked-room mystery that kept me utterly hooked.”

  —Adam Hamdy, author of Pendulum

  “An ingenious twisty mystery in a totally unique setting.”

  —Claire McGowan, author of The Lost

  “An impressive debut and a sign of great things to come.”

  —James Oswald, author of Natural Causes

  “Guess Who is an incredibly satisfying, intelligent thriller running

  at breakneck pace right until its closing pages. A marvelous debut.”

  —Fran Dorricott, author of After the Eclipse

  “A fresh take on the locked-room murder mystery. The plotting

  is intricate, the characters well drawn, and the pace never lets up

  as it drives headlong to the surprising end.”

  —David C. Taylor, Edgar Award–nominated, Nero Award–winning author of Night Life

  Also by Chris McGeorge

  Guess Who

  NOW YOU SEE ME

  Chris McGeorge

  A Novel

  to the lost and to the found...

  About the Author

  Chris McGeorge has an MA in creative writing from City University of London. He is the author of the novel Guess Who. He lives in England.

  Contents

  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

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Robin’s phone buzzed on the table and he looked up at the man standing over him apologetically. The man didn’t even seem to notice—he just kept staring at Robin with a blank expression, waiting for Robin to do his thing.

  Robin signed the book to a “Vivian,” writing his standard message and signing it with a quick flick of the wrist. He closed the hardback, sliding it back over to the man, who picked it up, grunted in something that resembled approval and made a break for the cashier. Robin hoped Vivian would appreciate his scrawl a little more.

  Suppressing a sigh, Robin looked down at his phone at the exact second it stopped buzzing. A bubble popped up on his locked screen indicating he had a missed call from an unknown number just before the display went to sleep. Probably just his sister using the surgery phone.

  He looked around. The signing event wasn’t going particularly well. Robin was sitting precisely in the center of Waterstones Angel Islington at a round table piled up with copies of Without Her. When he had first got there, thirty minutes previously, the stack had been ridiculously high. Now it was more realistic, but not because of sales. Robin had hidden most of the copies under the table, to make the pile seem less daunting. Still, though, people seemed to disperse when they saw him like paper clips flying away from the wrong side of a magnet.

  A plucky young Waterstones employee, who had introduced herself as Wren, came over with an enthusiastic bounce. She was full of energy, genuinely excited at the prospect of matching a good book with its owner. Robin wished he could summon up even half as much energy as her, but these days, his bones had started to creak, the gray flecks in his hair had turned into patches and he found himself out of breath with the mere prospect of a walk. Wrinkles had burrowed into his face in all the usual places and any spark of youth in his eyes had dimmed a long time ago.

  Often he wondered if Samantha would even recognize him anymore—if she walked into their flat tomorrow, she would shriek at the sight of the old man sitting on the sofa. Sometimes that thought made him laugh; sometimes it made him cry.

  “How’s it going?” Wren said, looking at the pile of books with delight. Robin shifted his body so the stack under the table wasn’t visible. He didn’t care about his own image—he just didn’t want Wren to feel bad. It wasn’t Wren’s fault that Without Her was a hard sell.

  “It’s fine,” Robin said, not able to summon up a more positive adjective. His phone bu
zzed, and without looking away from Wren, he reached and declined the call.

  “Right,” Wren said, her eyes flitting from him to the phone and back, losing some of her smile. “Well, if you need anything, you know where I am. I’ll try and direct some people over if they look the type.”

  “Thank you,” Robin said, making up for Wren’s fading smile with one of his own. “That would be great.” As Wren turned away and made her way to the front of the shop, he wondered how she would pitch his book to any unfortunate passerby. It wasn’t exactly a rip-roaring tale. Robin knew that when he wrote it, and had been ready to deem the whole project a therapy exercise and lock it in a drawer, never to see it again. He still wished he had done that. But his twin sister, Emma, had persuaded him to give it to an agent and it had gone from there.

  “It’s so good, Robin. You just don’t see it. It’s the pain. The real, genuine pain of it. It’s sumptuous,” Stan Barrows said, when they had first met at his high-rise agency office. He had never heard pain described as sumptuous before, as though the old, smart gentleman was going to take his heartbreak and carve it up like a steak before his eyes.

  Robin didn’t like Barrows but the man had got him a good deal. And his freelance journalism had hit a brick wall. A new wave of journalists were coming to take all the articles away from older guys like him—kids who couldn’t remember a time without the internet, and could bash out an article and sell it before Robin could even fire up his word processor. He needed something. So he signed the contract for the book, trying to think Sam would approve.

  And eighteen months later, here Robin was, still not knowing if it had been the right thing to do. He picked up one of the hardbacks and looked at it. The cover was a pale tinge of blue, with four photos of Sam—Polaroid-style—scattered across the background almost as though someone had thrown them. They overlapped, and in the spaces between, the title and his name were embossed in black letters. The topmost photo was of Samantha as a baby, six months old, sitting on a playmat with a toy Thomas the Tank Engine in her hands. The second was a photo of her in her school uniform on her first day of secondary school, looking apprehensive. The third photo was her graduation photo when she graduated from the University of Edinburgh—MSc in Psychology, top of her class. The last photo was of their wedding day—Robin and Samantha Ferringham, till death they do part. Robin didn’t like looking at the book but he wouldn’t have no matter the cover—the photos had been picked by the publisher and he had gladly relinquished that duty. He’d just sent them all the photos he had and they had obviously chosen the most heart-wrenching ones—the ones that would sell.

  To say Robin resented the book was too strong—he still felt a certain pride for writing it—but he didn’t ever want to look at it. It would always be a physical representation of pain, his pain, the pain of—

  That familiar sound. The buzzing. His phone again. He looked at it to see the familiar UNKNOWN NUMBER. What was this—the third time? If it was his sister, she wouldn’t be ringing without cause—she knew he was working. And if it wasn’t Emma, then someone really wanted to get hold of him. He let the phone buzz a few more times, looked around to see that the store was still quiet and picked up.

  “Hello,” he said, as soon as the phone got to his ear.

  He expected Emma to answer him, but instead a harsh robotic female voice crackled into life. “You are receiving a prepaid telephone call from—” a young man’s voice cut in “—Matthew—” before returning to the robot “—a resident of Her Majesty’s Prison New Hall. If you are on a mobile device, there may still be charges associated with accepting this call. In accepting this call, you are accepting that this call will be monitored and may be recorded. If you accept these terms, please press 1.”

  Robin’s mind scattered in many directions. Someone—some “Matthew”—calling him from a prison? He didn’t know anyone in prison—hadn’t ever known anyone who had gone to prison. Hell, he hadn’t even known anyone who had worked in one.

  His first thought was that it was a mistake. But then he remembered this person had rung him three times, one after the other. And by the sound of the robot, he had paid for it. Whoever this Matthew was, he really wanted to talk to him. But then, maybe poor Matthew had just got the number wrong?

  The robot lady started up again. “You are receiving a prepaid—” but Robin cut her off by pressing 1. And he waited.

  Any pretense that this was a mistake was shattered when the same small voice on the other end said, “Is this Mr. Ferringham? Mr. Robin Ferringham?”

  Robin looked around suddenly, in shock, as though he might catch the perpetrator of this weird call in his sight line. But no—the store was almost empty as before, and of course no one was watching him.

  This was wrong. Robin had been very careful to safeguard his mobile number. It had been one of the most beneficial suggestions Stan Barrows had ever offered when Robin had submitted his draft of Without Her with a plea for information at the end that included his phone number. “No,” he had said simply, not elaborating until he was asked. “People, sick people, will play with you. They’ll have some fun. They’ll call you and call you, trying to get a rise out of you. And they won’t stop until they do.” Robin argued at first and then Barrows said something he would always remember. “Don’t be the kind of person, Robin, who thinks everyone’s moral compass is as configured as theirs.” Ever since then he hadn’t put his personal number on anything—no online profiles, no contracts, not even take-out orders.

  “I’ve been calling,” the voice said, almost as if he were reminding Robin he was there.

  “Who gave you this number?” Robin said, so pointedly that one of the only customers in the shop—an old woman perusing the crime books section—looked around. Robin met her gaze for a split second before turning away. “Who?”

  “I’ve been calling.” The young man was fumbling for his words. “I didn’t think you were going to pick up.”

  Maybe I shouldn’t have, Robin thought, but instead said, “Tell me who gave you this number or I’m going to hang up.”

  Robin felt something in his gut, a hot rage that he hadn’t felt in a long time, and he wasn’t sure exactly why, until the speaker said, “She did. She said her name was Samantha.”

  Robin gripped the phone so hard the sides cut into his hand and his fingers went white. Sam. Sam had given some guy in a prison his number? When? Why? Wait, NO—this was a troll attempt, pure and simple. This Matthew was playing around with him. Maybe he wasn’t even calling from a prison—maybe that robotic voice was just part of some stupid prank, made to lower his guard.

  Robin’s finger moved to the red button, even as he still held the phone to his ear. It hovered there. Something was holding him back. The number—how had Matthew got the number? And then he remembered what his contact at the police had told him. To write everything down, to detail every interaction no matter how small because maybe the police could track down the idiot responsible for the harassment and stir up some trouble. Although the last time he’d talked with his contact was eighteen months ago and now he wasn’t returning Robin’s emails.

  Robin tapped his pockets with his free hand, finding his signing pen but no paper to write on. He looked around, searching, and his eyes fell on the book he had been looking at. With barely a thought, he opened the book, riffled through the opening pages, finding the page he usually signed his name on. He put the pen to paper, wrote HMP New Hall and Matthew and added a question mark.

  “Who is this?” Robin said, trying to keep his emotions in check.

  “Did it not...? I’m Matthew.” Matthew was close to tears. He didn’t sound like he was enjoying this, but then, Robin didn’t know the mind of someone so sick as to do something like this.

  “Full name.”

  And at that, Matthew did sob. He sounded like a wounded animal. Robin’s edge softened slightly. What was happening?

/>   So he tried a different question. “How have you rung me three times?”

  This worked. “What?”

  “If you’re in prison, how have you rung me three times? You only get one phone call.”

  Matthew sniffed loudly. “I... My lawyer sorted it out. I haven’t just been arrested—that’s when you’re... That doesn’t matter right now.”

  “It does,” Robin said.

  “No, what matters is—I didn’t do it, Mr. Ferringham. You have to believe me. I didn’t kill them.”

  “What?” Robin said, before he could stop himself. “What are you talking about?”

  “They think I did it. But I couldn’t. My friends.”

  “I...” Robin trailed off—there was something in the young man’s voice. Something so...familiar to him.

  “We went through. All six of us. And only I came out,” Matthew said, through sobs. “Only I came out.”

  What was this?

  “How do you know Samantha?”

  “You have to help me, Mr. Ferringham. Please, I just... I need you to say you’ll help me.” Matthew was openly crying now.

  Robin shivered. He wasn’t feeling angry anymore; he was unsettled. He felt as though he were communicating with a specter, having a conversation that was not possible. “I...I’m sorry but I don’t know you, and whoever gave you this number was not who you say it was, so I’m going to hang up now.” He stopped and then added, “I’m sorry.” And he was surprised to find that he was.

  Robin took the phone from his ear, and was about to terminate the call when Matthew shouted so loudly that it sounded as if it were on speaker. “Clatteridges. Um...7:30 p.m. August 18...1996.”

  Robin froze. The single shiver had turned into a cavalcade coursing through his body. He looked down at the phone in his hand and then past it, at the open book on the table. Something plopped onto the page, and it took a moment for him to realize it was a tear.

  Shut the pain away. And then the anger was back. He put the phone back to his ear. “Where the hell did you hear that?” That wasn’t even in the book; he’d omitted it purposefully. He’d wanted something to keep for himself.