A Double Life

Description

From the New York Times bestselling, Edgar-Award winning author of Under the Harrow and Northern Spy, a “breathtaking” (The New York Times Book Review) page-turner inspired by a shocking true crime

A better person would for­give him. A different sort of better person would have found him years ago.

Nearly thirty years ago, while Claire and her brother slept upstairs, a brutal crime was committed in their grand London home. The next morning, her father’s car was found abandoned, with bloodstains on the front seat. The first lord accused of murder in more than a century, he has been missing ever since.

Now a doctor living under an assumed name, Claire learns the police may have found him, and her carefully calibrated existence begins to fracture. She starts to infiltrate his privileged inner circle, who have never broken their silence about what happened that night. Soon, Claire will learn how far she’ll go to finally find the truth.

Named a Must-Read by Entertainment Weekly, Bustle, O Magazine, BBC, CrimeReads, and PureWow“Breathtaking . . . as shocking as it is satisfying . . . Berry writes thrillingly . . . about women raging against a world that protects cruel and careless men. . . . As desperate and consumed as our messy heroine may get in the process, Berry always lets her hold onto her humanity.” —The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) 
 
“[An] astute thriller . . . With exquisite pacing, Edgar Award-winner Berry guides us to a stunning conclusion.” —The Seattle Times

“[A] page-turner.” —Entertainment Weekly

“Thrilling.” —O, The Oprah Magazine  

“Heart-stopping.” —Bustle

“Impossible to put down.” —Suspense

“[A] standout . . . Beautifully paced and satisfyingly ominous.” —The Guardian

“Elegantly written [and] artfully structured . . . As her story unwinds, Berry reaches deep into the psychic wounds and social repercussions of the crime.” —BBC

“Suspense at its very best.” —CrimeReads

“Thrilling . . . Berry starts with a chilling, notorious unsolved true crime . . . and builds her story from there.” —Parade
 
“Engrossing.” —Good Housekeeping

“Psychological suspense has a new reigning queen.” —New York Journal of Books

“As well as confirming the promise of Berry’s debut…[A Double Life] demonstrates that fusing fiction and true crime…can be mesmerizingly effective.” —The Times (London)

“Satisfyingly ominous prose . . . Complex characters . . . are brought heartbreakingly to life while Britain’s unjust, and still prevalent, class system, which lies at the heart of this tale, lends the narrative some moral weight.” —East Hampton Star

“[An] engrossing psychological thriller . . . [that] builds to a shocking but satisfying conclusion. Berry tells this shattering story with surprising grace.” —Publishers Weekly

“A Double Life is that rare thing: a beautifully written page-turner.” —The Bookseller (London)

“A thrilling page-turner [and] a compassionate and angry book: with forensic precision, Berry picks apart lives derailed by violence and the ways in which class privilege protects the guilty.” —Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train and Into the Water

“A Double Life is more than just a taut thriller that will keep you poised at the edge of your seat: it’s also a deeply considered examination of women, violence, and memory. Do yourself a favor and read this astonishing novel.” —Rene Denfeld, author of The Child Finder

“Berry’s clever, thrilling writing wound me in and left me heartbroken when I turned the last page and realized it was over.” —Fiona Barton, author of The Widow

“What a book! A skillful and compelling exploration of families, crime, and class.” —Clare Mackintosh, author of I Let You GoFlynn Berry is a graduate of the Michener Center for Writers and the recipient of a Yaddo fellowship. Her first novel, Under the Harrow, won the 2017 Edgar Award for Best First Novel and was named a best book of the year by the Washington Post and The Atlantic.

1. Claire feels that her father’s affectionate treatment of her leading up to the night of the murder has made her somehow complicit. Discuss the way family members may feel guilty by association for a crime committed by someone close to them. How might inherited guilt and shame affect one’s character and the ways one thinks about blame, forgiveness, and atonement?

2. It is initially difficult for Claire to reconcile her memories of her father with the details of his heinous crime, prompting her obsessive search for the truth. What kind of evidence would you hope to find, if you were in her position? Would incontrovertible proof make you feel better, or worse?

3. Comparing London, where she lived as a child and lives now, with Scotland, where she relocated for the remainder of her adolescence after the murder, Claire concludes that London reminds her of her father and Scotland reminds her of her mother (page 51). Rather than becoming a doctor in London and pursuing her father’s case, she thinks, she should have stayed in Edinburgh and become a journalist or an editor. Do you think she made the right decision? What do her (real and imagined) life choices say about her?

4. Discuss Claire’s relationship with her younger brother, Robbie, who was fourteen months old at the time of the murder, and the individual ways they process their trauma. How has grief and anger manifested within both of them? Do you think Claire is right when she guesses that Robbie mistreats himself because he looks like their father, and “it’s the only act of revenge he can take” (page 70)?

5. Claire supposes her father “would think that he could be forgiven, that really he already has been” (page 21). How do you think he (and his privileged peers) conceptualized and rationalized the crime? Do you think forgiveness is always possible?

6. A Double Life was inspired by a true, unsolved crime: the Lord Lucan case, in which the nanny of the family of Lord Richard John Bingham, Seventh Earl of Lucan, was found murdered, and the earl subsequently disappeared without a trace. Popular belief indicates that he had intended to murder his wife but ended up killing the nanny by mistake in the dark. Some believe his wealthy friends assumed they would get away with helping him escape after the murder—and they did. Do you think that people with a certain amount of privilege are effectively above the law? How does class affect the justice system? What do you make of the enduring public fascination with this and other high society cold cases?

7. After the assault, the press immediately casts doubt on Claire’s mother when she blames her husband—the impending divorce proceedings, in which “she might have lost the house, custody, access to his money” (page 22), especially tarnish her credibility. Her father’s wealthy friend James says she was unstable and that no one ever knew “why he was with her” (page 22). How are gender and class dynamics at play here? Do you recall instances from real life in which a power imbalance cast doubt on a victim’s testimony? Are women victims judged differently or held to a different standard?

8. Discuss depictions of violence against women in popular entertainment and in the thriller genre specifically. Why do so many of novels in this genre fixate at length on detailed scenes of the abuse, mutilation, and humiliation of women’s bodies? Do you think these descriptions are an essential element of the storytelling, or unnecessary and voyeuristic? What are some alternative ways for writers to address gender-based violence in fiction?

***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof***

Copyright © 2018 Flynn Berry

1

A man comes around the bend in the path. I stop short when he appears. We’re alone. The heath has been quiet today, under dark snow clouds, and we’re on the part of the path where the oak trees form a tunnel.

The man is wearing a hat and a wool overcoat with the collar turned up. When he stops to light a cigarette, I’m close enough to see his knuckles rising under his gloves, but his face is hidden by the brim of his hat.

The dog is somewhere behind me. I don’t call for him, I don’t want the man to hear. Sparrows fly over our heads to the oaks, drawn into the branches like filings to a magnet. His lighter won’t catch, and the metal rasps as he tries again.

Jasper brushes past me. I reach for his collar but miss, almost losing my balance. The lighter flares and the man tips his head to hold the cigarette in the flame. Then he drops the lighter in his pocket and holds out his fist for the dog to smell. Jasper whines, and for the first time the man looks down the path at me.

It isn’t him. I call the dog, I say sorry in a strained voice. The path is narrow here, we have to pass within a few inches of each other, and I look at him again, to be sure. Then I clip the dog’s leash and hurry towards the houses and people on Well Walk. I wish it had been him, and that instead I was searching the ground for a heavy branch, and following him into the woods.

It’s been like this for the past three days, since the detective’s visit. I’ve been seeing him everywhere.

Last Thursday night, I came home from work and ran a bath before taking off my coat. While water filled the tub, I said hello to Jasper, kissing the crown of his head. His fur always smells like clean smoke, like he’s recently been near a campfire. I poured a glass of wine and drank it standing at the counter.

In the bathroom, I filled a small wooden shovel with Epsom salts and tipped them into the water. My friend Nell had sent me the salts because they help with aches, she said, and I’m always sore after work. I undressed, listening to the tap dripping in the quiet flat. I left the bathroom open, since the dog sometimes likes to come and sit next to the tub.

I dropped under the surface, feeling the water slide along the length of my body. I need to ask Agnes to try massage for her arthritis, I thought, then tried to stop thinking about patients. It would help her loneliness, too. Her shoulders relaxed when I checked her heart and she went still, like she was absorbing the touch.

I lay with just enough of my face above the surface to breathe, the water slipping over my chin. Pasta with pesto for dinner, I thought. A sound came through the liquid, and I raised my head to listen as water spilled from my ears. Someone was ringing the buzzer.

My order, finally, I thought. The book was meant to be delivered two days earlier. I pulled a sweatshirt and tracksuit bottoms on over my wet skin, nudged Jasper back from the door, and ran down the stairs.

There are two doors before the street, and I was in the icy space between them when I saw who it was. Not a courier. The inner door closed behind me. As I opened the next one, the woman lifted her badge. “Do you have a moment to talk, Claire?”

She followed me up the stairs, which seemed to take a long time. My fingers were stiff and I had trouble with the keys. Jasper greeted her, offering her a stick from the towpath. My chest was bare under the sweatshirt, and I left her on the sofa to find a bra.

When I came back, her expression was neutral, but I could tell she’d been studying the room. I wondered what she made of it, and if she’d expected worse, considering my background. It was warm and the lamps were lit. There were books on the shelves, invitations on the fridge, a holly wreath above the mantle. She might have thought I’d made the best of a bad hand.

Or she noticed the open bottle of wine on the counter. The dog, who is half German shepherd, and the number of bolts on the door. It’s only at home, I wanted to tell her. I’m not that careful outside. I walk around at night in headphones. I sometimes fall asleep in minicabs, though not often, if I’m honest.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“DI Louisa Tiernan,” she said, unwinding her scarf. Her voice was clear and composed, with an Irish accent. The pipes squeaked as the man upstairs turned off a tap. She said, “There’s been a sighting.”

“Here?”

“In Namibia.” DI Tiernan clasped her hands on her knees, but she didn’t continue. I didn’t understand why she had come. This wasn’t news, there have been thousands of sightings.

“Why do you believe this one?”

She handed me an old photograph of my father holding a silver flask engraved with a crest. “Your father bought it at a shop in Mayfair forty years ago. A man has been seen carrying it in Windhoek. He’s in his sixties, about six feet tall, and speaks English without an accent.”

“Has he been arrested?”

“We’re coordinating with Interpol,” she said. She looked to be in her forties, which meant she was a teenager when it happened. She must have heard about the case, it was in the news for weeks, and since then has only become more famous. He was the first lord accused of murder since the eighteenth century.

“When will they arrest him?”

“You’ll be notified if charges are filed,” she said. I wondered if she was surprised to find herself investigating him, after all this time.

“Why are they waiting?”

“I can’t share those details.”

“Who told you about the flask?”

“Our source wants to remain anonymous,” she said. To avoid the embarrassment, I thought, when he turns out to be wrong. My father has been missing for twenty-six years. People have claimed to see him in almost every country in the world, posting long descriptions of their encounters in the forums about him.

“We hope that you’ll be able to help us confirm if it is him,” she said. They needed a DNA sample from me. The detective started to explain the process, while my wet hair dripped onto my sweatshirt. I thought of the full bathtub in the other room. I hadn’t been out of it for very long, the water would still be warm, the surface perfectly smooth.

The detective put on a pair of surgical gloves. I opened my mouth and she ran the swab against the inside of my cheek, then screwed it into a sterile plastic vial.

“I’m sorry to have to ask,” she said, “but has your father ever contacted you?”

“No. Of course not.” The curtains were open behind her, and I could see a Christmas tree in the flat across the road. My mouth still tasted like rubber from the glove. I wanted to ask what she would do next, what else she needed to prepare.

After she left, I pulled the drain from the tub, dried my hair, and changed into warm clothes. I boiled water for pasta and opened a jar of good pesto. There was no reason not to eat well, not to watch a show, not to sleep. I didn’t need to change my plans, because it wasn’t him, it hadn’t been any of the other times.

Though the flask is the sort of thing he’d keep, to remind him of the Clermont Club. The click of the lighter, bending his head with a cigarette in his mouth, betting on hands of chemin de fer.

He is a hedonist. That’s part of my fury—during all of this, even now, he’s somewhere enjoying himself.

 

The last time I saw my father was the weekend before the attack. He’d taken me to Luxardo’s in Notting Hill. I had a scoop of ice cream covered in coconut, so it looked like a snowball, and my father ordered a peppermint ice cream. It came with a stick of red- and-white candy, which he gave to me.

Someone was angry with me that day, a friend of mine from school. I can’t remember why now, but I remember how heavily it weighed on me, how bruising it seemed, and I remember how reassuring it was to be with my father.

I’ve gone over this visit so many times. Him in a dark suit, against the parlor’s striped green walls. He had a scratch on the back of his hand, how did that happen? Did he get it during his preparations? I know from one of the forums that the police found a pulped melon at his flat. Since reading that, I’ve had the idea of him setting a melon on the counter and bringing the pipe down on it again and again, working out how hard he’d need to swing. The idea seems absurd, but no more than the rest of it. Was there a moment—while he was scooping the melon pulp into a bin, maybe, or walking to our house—when he realized what he was doing? Did he almost change his mind?

I’ve been over all of it, his work and his hobbies and interests, looking for the warnings. He liked bullfights, he brought Mum to one in Madrid once. Should that have been a cause for alarm?

He also watched horror films sometimes, but only the ones with good reviews, the ones most people ended up seeing. He didn’t seek them out, as far as I know. He said that I didn’t need to be afraid of them, he explained the different special effects, he told me it wasn’t real blood.

Now everything seems like a warning, but you could do this for anyone. Pick out a few odd interests, a few bad days, and build a theory around it. You could do it for me. You could consider the fact that I haven’t moved on as proof of something wrong with me.  I’m thirty-four years old and a doctor at a practice in Archway. This shouldn’t still consume me. It never goes away. It’s like living in a country where there’s been a war. Sometimes you forget; sometimes, on a normal road, in daylight, you’re too frightened to breathe; sometimes you’re furious that it’s fallen to you now to understand what happened, to clean it up.

But he planned it. He came to our house that night wearing gloves and carrying a length of steel pipe. He’d used a saw to cut the pipe down to the right size, and he’d wrapped gaffer’s tape around its base so his hand wouldn’t slip.

He might have already made the weapon before we sat together in a booth at Luxardo’s. It’s difficult for me to think about that visit. Not because I could have stopped him, exactly. I was eight years old. But the scene seems grotesque. The little girl, accepting a stick of red-and-white candy from him. It’s like he made me complicit.

US

Additional information

Dimensions	0.7100 × 5.0400 × 7.6000 in
Imprint	Penguin Books
ISBN-13	09780735224988
ISBN-10	0735224986
Author	Flynn Berry
Audience	General / adult
BISAC	FIC019000, FIC044000
Subjects	psychological thrillers books, wealthy, literary fiction, mystery books, thriller books, suspense books, suspense thrillers, based on true story, upper class, mystery thriller suspense, british mysteries, disguise, nanny, british gifts, true crime books, true crime gifts, undercover, mother son gifts, edgar award, John Bingham, Flynn Barry, FIC019000, united kingdom, british, london, crime, family, thriller, suspense, mystery, Secrets, england, murder, female protagonist, FIC044000, psychological thriller, thrillers, mysteries, doctor, edinburgh, britain