Wolf
Mo Hayder
MO
HAYDER
Mo Hayder has written some of the most terrifying crime thrillers you will ever read. Her first novel, Birdman, was hailed as a ‘first-class shocker’ by the Guardian and her follow-up, The Treatment was voted by The Times as one of ‘the top ten most scary thrillers ever written’. In 2012 she won the prestigious Edgar Best Novel award with Gone. In 2011 she won the CWA Dagger in the Library for her entire body of work.
Mo’s books are 100% authentic, drawing on her long research association with several UK police forces and on her personal encounters with criminals and prostitutes. She left school at fifteen and has worked as a barmaid, security guard, English teacher, and even a hostess in a Tokyo club. She has an MA in creative writing from Bath Spa University. She now lives in England’s West Country and is a full-time writer.
www.mohayder.net
HAVE YOU READ THEM ALL?
The thrillers featuring Detective Inspector Jack Caffery are:
BIRDMAN
Greenwich, south-east London. DI Jack Caffery is called to one of the most gruesome crime scenes he has ever seen. Five young women have been murdered – and it is only a matter of time before the killer strikes again …
‘A first class shocker’
Guardian
THE TREATMENT
Traumatic memories are wakened for DI Jack Caffery when a husband and wife are discovered, imprisoned in their own home. They are both near death. But worse is to come: their young son is missing …
‘Genuinely frightening’
Sunday Times
RITUAL
Recently arrived from London, DI Jack Caffery is now part of Bristol’s Major Crime Investigation Unit. Soon he’s looking for a missing boy – a search that leads him to a more terrifying place than anything he has known before.
‘Intensely enthralling’
Observer
SKIN
When the decomposed body of a young woman is found near railway tracks just outside Bristol, all indications are that she’s committed suicide. But DI Jack Caffery is not so sure – he is on the trail of someone predatory, and for the first time in a very long time he feels scared.
‘Warped … bloodthirsty …
Hayder is brilliant at making you read on’
Daily Telegraph
GONE
A car has been stolen. On the back seat was an eleven-year-old girl, who is still missing. It should be a simple case, but DI Jack Caffery knows that something is badly wrong. Because the car-jacker seems to be ahead of the police every step of the way …
‘Grips her readers by the scruffs of their necks’
The Times
POPPET
Fear spreads quickly at Amberly Secure Unit. When unexplained power cuts lead to a series of horrifying events, hysteria sets in amongst the inmates. AJ, a senior psychiatric nurse, seeks help from DI Jack Caffery. But will they be strong enough to stare pure evil in the eye and survive?
‘Hayder pushes the boundaries of what’s been said and written before’
Daily Mail
WOLF
Fourteen years ago two teenage lovers were brutally murdered in a patch of remote woodland. The prime suspect confessed to the crimes and was imprisoned. Now, one family is still trying to put the memory of the killings behind them. But at their isolated hilltop house … the nightmare is about to return.
‘Hayder’s work and characters are worth the unending nightmares they will inspire’
New York Times
Have you read Mo Hayder’s stand-alone thrillers?
THE DEVIL OF NANKING
Desperate and alone in an alien city, student Grey Hutchins accepts a job as a hostess in an exclusive club. There she meets an ancient gangster rumoured to rely on a strange elixir for his continued health; it is an elixir others want – at any price …
‘Left me stunned and haunted. This is writing of breathtaking power and poetry’
Tess Gerritsen
PIG ISLAND
When journalist Joe Oakes visits a secretive religious community on a remote Scottish island, he is forced to question the nature of evil – and whether he might be responsible for the terrible crime about to unfold.
‘The most terrifying thriller you’ll read all year’
Karin Slaughter
HANGING HILL
A teenage girl has been brutally murdered on her way home from school. The cryptic message ‘all like her’ is crudely written on her body. Headstrong DI Zoe Benedict knows she is getting close to the truth. But as she digs, she realises there are frightening parallels with her own dark past. Secrets that, if exposed, could destroy her …
‘An authentically disturbing, gripping winner’
Financial Times
WOLF
MO HAYDER
Table of Contents
Part One
Picking Elderflowers in the Evening, Near Litton, Somerset
Earlier that Day: the Pig Man
The Haunting
The Reflection Grove
Bear
Light
The Sickness
Minnet Kable
The Deer
The Chauffeur
The Donkey Pitch
What Angels Want
Knives
The Woman in the Yellow House
Ewan Caffery
A Party
The Last Stone
The House on the Hill
Revision
Dead Chickens
Dog Food
Normal and Healthy
The Peppermint Room
Half a Century
The Peppermint Room
Honig and Molina
The Rose Room
Part Two
The Walking Man
The Amethyst Room
Fire
The Scientist
Fishing
Tea
The Peppermint Room
The Vet
The Wolf
The Wait
John Bancroft
The Rose Room
Clues
Litton
Handcuffs
The Donkey Pitch
Sudoku
Jewellery
Mrs Robinson
Hatton Garden
Sunset
The Railway Cutting
The Peppermint Room
George Clooney
Think Like Me
Pietr Havilland
The Eye of Providence
Paper Tigers
The Colonel
Legacy
Dorset
The Smell
Hugo and Sophie
The Deer
Breanne
The Last Job
International Art Thieves
Alcohol
Tobacco
A Change of Plan
Heart Attack
The Police
Calling London
The Rose Room
Columbus HQ
Gauntlet Systems
Cheryl
Hog Roast
The Cellar
Eights Week
Ian the Geek
Headaches
The Killing of Ginny Van Der Bolt
Scissors in the Peppermint Room
Bubblegum Mania
Light Rays
The Chrysler
The Peppermint Room
Bug Screens
Sunrise
The Cob
The Peppermint Room
Back to the Start
A Man of Principle
Rose Cottage
Matilda
Mrs Frink’s Memory Box
Pig-Heart
Oliver Anchor-Ferrers
Lucia
Ian and Lucia
The Turrets
/>
Eyes
The Turrets
Emma
Ian Molina
Think Like Me
Lucia and the Detective
Good Guys and Bad Guys
Part Three
Amy
The Truth
Acknowledgements
Preview
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Part One
Picking Elderflowers in the Evening, Near Litton, Somerset
AMY IS FIVE years old and in all of those five years she’s never seen Mummy acting like this before. Mummy’s in front of her on the grass, standing in a weird way, as if she’s been frozen by one of those ice guns what the man in The Incredibles have got in his hand most of the time. She’s on one leg, with one arm out, like she’s been running and got told to stop and stay still as a statue. Her mouth is open too and her face is white. It would be really funny if her eyes weren’t all opened up and weird, the way her face goes when she’s looking at something scary on the television. Behind her is a line of fluffy white clouds in the sky – like on The Simpsons – except the sky’s a bit darker, because it’s nearly night-time.
‘Amy?’ After a while Mum puts her foot down. Stops balancing on it. She does this funny little sideways dance like a puppet what’s about to fall over, and when she gets her balance again her face changes. ‘AMY?’
She starts running and as she runs she’s screaming, ‘Brian!?! Brian, I’ve found her. Brian? Come NOW. I’ve found her. Over here in the trees.’
Before Amy can say anything Mum has grabbed her up. She’s still screaming out to Dad, ‘Brian Brian Brian,’ and she’s hugging Amy the way she hugged her that day she was about to go into the road and almost got squished by a bus, which Mum says is the most scary thing what ever happened to her, but Amy didn’t think was even half as scary as the Puzzler man off of Numberjacks on CBeebies.
‘Where’ve you been?’ Mum puts her back down on the ground with a bump. She squats and runs her hands up and down her arms and legs, straightening her blue dress and pushing her hair out of her face. Staring at her, all worried. ‘Amy? Amy, are you all right? Are you all right, darling?’
‘I’m all right, Mummy. Why?’
‘Why?’ Mum shakes her head, like the times when Dad says something really stupid. ‘Why? Oh baby, baby, baby. My baby.’ She closes her eyes, drops her head against Amy’s chest and squeezes her. It’s a really hard hug and Amy can feel her insides squishing up, but she doesn’t want to squiggle away coz it might upset Mum.
‘Amy!’ Dad comes running along the path. The field is very big and very green and sloping and all the people from the cars that were parked here before have got out and they’re all standing staring at her. ‘AMY?’ Dad’s not carrying the container they were putting their flowers into any longer, instead he’s got his phone in his hand. He’s taken off his nice jumper and his shirt’s all wet and yucky under the armpits. Mum says that’s where he leaks when he runs too fast so he must of been running for a long time. His face is just like Mum’s, all white and scared, and Amy wants to laugh a bit, coz they do look funny both of them, all white like Halloween masks, except it’s hard to tell if Dad’s really cross or really sad.
‘Where were you? Where have you been?’ His voice is really shouty. ‘How many times have I told you not to go out of our sight?’ He turns and yells at the people over at the cars. ‘We’ve found her. We’ve found her.’ Then he turns back to Amy. He’s cross, definitely cross – you can tell by how squinty his eyes have gone. ‘You’ve been ages, you’ve made your mother cry now. This is the last time we pick elderflowers. The last time.’
‘Brian, be quiet. She’s all right, that’s the main thing.’
‘Is she?’ He puts a hand on Mum’s shoulder and moves her out of the way so he can bend and look into Amy’s face. His eyes go up and down and side to side, taking in every inch. ‘Are you all right? Amy? Where’ve you been? Have you spoken to anyone?’
She bites her lip. Her head feels all nasty and hot and there are some tears in her eyes that fall out of under her eyelids and go running down her cheeks.
‘Amy?’ Dad shakes her arm. ‘Did you speak to anyone?’
‘Only the man. That’s all.’
Dad goes all funny when she says this. Suddenly his hands aren’t nice any more but are like bird’s claws, digging into Amy’s arms. ‘The man?’
‘Yes.’
Mum’s mouth starts quivering. The black make-up stuff on her eyes has gone runny and it’s all trickling down her face. ‘I told you we shouldn’t be out here at this time of day, Brian, this is when they all come out – all of them. And we’re not far from the Donkey Pitch. Remember? The Donkey Pitch?’
‘What man?’ Dad says. ‘Amy, tell me in the most grown-up way you can, because this is serious. What man?’
She turns towards the woods, lifting her hand to point. But as she does she sees that he’s gone – the man who likes dogs. He’s gone away. And he must of taken the puppy, coz that’s gone too.
‘He was really cute.’
‘Cute?’ Mum says. ‘Cute? ’
‘The puppy was called Bear.’
‘The puppy?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Dad rubs hard at his forehead. ‘There’s always a puppy. Always a shagging puppy.’
‘Brian, please.’
‘It’s the oldest trick in the book: I’ve got a poorly puppy – come into the woods and I’ll show you. We’re taking her to the police. She needs an examination.’
Amy frowns. The man in the woods didn’t say that the puppy was poorly, and he didn’t ask her to come into the woods to look at it. She was the one what found the puppy, before she met the man.
‘I don’t want no exam, Mum – I don’t want one of them.’
‘See, Brian, you’ve scared her. Now, Amy …’ Mum sits down on the grass. She pats her leg. ‘Come here, sweetie. Sit down.’
Amy sits on Mum’s lap. She wipes her nose with her hand. Sniffs up the rest of the snot, which is yucky. She wishes Dad wasn’t cross – she doesn’t understand why he’s cross, coz the man wasn’t horrid. He looked a bit funny, with a big hairy beard like a goblin, or like a Santa Claus in reverse, because his beard was black, but he spoke to her very very nice and made her a promise, a proper pinkie-promise which everyone in the world knows is the most proper. And another thing is that he called her Crocus, which was the bit she liked the best – when he said she was as pretty as a crocus. Because crocuses are really pretty and they’re sometimes purple and sometimes yellow and sometimes both. Miss Redhill at school says they’re the second flower of spring after the snowdrops have died and gone back into the ground.
‘Amy,’ Mum asks. ‘This man … was he nice to you?’
‘Yes. And he was nice to the puppy.’
‘Was it his puppy?’
‘No.’
‘Then whose puppy was it?’
‘I don’t know.’ She puts her finger in her nose and picks it thoughtfully. She thinks that maybe the puppy wasn’t a puppy for real but a grown-up dog – sometimes a big dog can be little if it’s a puppy and sometimes an old dog can be smaller than a puppy, even though it’s really lots older. It’s all about something called ‘breeds’ what can be small or big. ‘He came after I found the puppy. I just said that, didn’t I?’
Dad straightens up. ‘Come on. Show me where you found this puppy.’
Mum lets Amy jump off her lap. She holds her hand as they walk into the trees. It’s a bit more spooky in the wood coz it’s dark in here now. But she can see Dad’s white shirt, and Mum does that thing as they go, with her hand, where she squeezes Amy’s thumb to let her know everything’s OK. Amy squeezes her hand in return.
Amy takes Mum and Dad to the place she met the puppy. It’s getting really night-time now and the trees are all silent and dark. No puppy. The man made a promise to take the puppy somewhere sa
fe.
‘I was here,’ she says. ‘And I was putting the flowers in the … There it is!’ She sees the Tupperware container. She goes and picks it up and turns round to show Mum and Dad all the flowers inside. Which are the best flowers without none of them worms like the ones Dad found earlier.
‘I was only getting the flowers off of here and I was getting the flowers and this puppy comes up and he’s got a poorly paw.’
‘A poorly paw?’ Dad looks at Mum with his eyebrows all arched.
‘Yes, with blood and stuff. And the person of it wasn’t there and the man didn’t know who the grown-up of the puppy was neither, so I was going oh puppy puppy and I was going to bring it back to you, Daddy, because if it didn’t have a nowner, it needed to be—’
‘An owner,’ Mum says.
‘An owner,’ Amy repeats. ‘And if it didn’t have an owner then it needed one and I thought that it could of lived at our house, under the cooker – coz there’s that place that gets really warm, and I don’t mind giving it my pocket money, Mum, to buy it some milk.’
Mum wipes her eyes and laughs a little. Which is nice. She hasn’t laughed at all since all of this happened.
‘Amy …’ She gives her a hug. More gentle this one. ‘He didn’t touch you, Amy, did he? Did he ask you to do anything you didn’t like?’
Amy sucks her fingers for a while. They taste of grass and the stems off of the flowers. She wishes she could of kept the puppy.
‘Amy? Did he ask you to do anything you didn’t like?’
‘No. He didn’t do nothing. He was nice to me and he’s going to help the puppy. Honest, Mum. Honest.’
Dad lets out his breath in a long sound like a balloon what’s had a pin put in it. He shakes his head. He tucks the phone back in his pocket and stands up and walks around a bit with his back to Amy and Mum, shouting into the woods.
‘Hello? Hello – do you want to come and have a chat with me? Any puppies you want to talk about, you fucker?’
There’s a long long silence. Then he comes back and it’s amazing coz Mum doesn’t say anything about the rude word he just said.
