The Last Goodbye

About the AuthorTim Weaver is the Sunday Times bestselling author of thirteen novels, including No One Home and The Blackbird, and a short story collection. He has been nominated for a National Book Award, selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club three times, and shortlisted for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. He is also the host and producer of the chart-topping Missing podcast and is currently developing an original TV series with the team behind Line of Duty. A former journalist and magazine editor, he lives near Bath with his wife and [email protected] Tim WeaverTHE LAST GOODBYE Contents Day 2: Wednesday, 7 DecemberDay 1: Tuesday, 6 DecemberPART ONE: The First Disappearance Chapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3DaughterChapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6The TouristChapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9HealyChapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13DevilPART TWO: The Informant Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17HealyChapter 18Chapter 19Room 634Day 2: Wednesday, 7 DecemberPART THREE: The Castle Chapter 20Chapter 21HoltChapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25HealyChapter 26Chapter 27WatcherPART FOUR: The Intruder Chapter 28HealyChapter 29Chapter 30Chapter 31Chapter 32Chapter 33Chapter 34ArgusChapter 35Chapter 36Chapter 37KianChapter 38Chapter 39Chapter 40HealyDay 3: Thursday, 8 DecemberPART FIVE: The Journalist Chapter 41Chapter 42PiecesChapter 43Chapter 44Chapter 45SafeChapter 46Chapter 47Chapter 48The Shrine: Part 1Chapter 49Chapter 50The Red Wolf: Part 1Chapter 51The Red Wolf: Part 2Chapter 52The EnvelopeChapter 53PART SIX: The Tokoloshe Chapter 54Chapter 55Chapter 56Chapter 57HealyChapter 58HealyChapter 59The Favour: Part 1PART SEVEN: The Cellar Chapter 60The Favour: Part 2Chapter 61Chapter 62Chapter 63The Shrine: Part 2Chapter 64Chapter 65The Red Wolf: Part 3Chapter 66Chapter 67Chapter 68The Red Wolf: Part 4Chapter 69Chapter 70The Days AfterPART EIGHT: The Wake Chapter 71Chapter 72Chapter 73Chapter 74Chapter 75The Secret: Part 1Chapter 76The Secret: Part 2Chapter 77Chapter 78Chapter 79Chapter 80Chapter 81Chapter 82PART NINE: The Last Goodbye Chapter 83Chapter 84Chapter 85Chapter 86MotherAuthor’s NoteAcknowledgements This book is dedicated to three amazing editors …Stefanie BierwerthEmad Akhtarand Maxine Hitchcock Day 2Wednesday, 7 December When the video starts, there’s no queue outside the ghost house.It’s early evening; only just opening time.It’s still an hour and a half before they vanish.It doesn’t take long for guests to start arriving. A couple of minutes in, two teenage girls walk-run through the snaking barriers to the front of the line and, when they see they’re the first on the ride, start to talk excitedly. A staff member, poised just inside the darkness of the entrance, comes out. He’s dressed to match the Himalayan theme of the ride: dark trousers, a battered snow jacket, woollen gloves, rope tucked into his belt, and a headtorch. He says something to the girls and they smile again – and then, a moment later, they disappear into the dark.More people follow.The queue builds.After a while, the same two girls emerge from the exit, laughing. One of them mimics the scream she must have made on the ride. The camera is about fifty feet away – far enough back that it can take in the entrance on the left, exit on the right, and a middle section, which, with the placement of its windows and its broken door, has been deliberately constructed to resemble a face.Slowly, over the next thirty minutes, the people who go in one side file back out the other. On average, the ride takes just under four minutes from beginning to end.At 5.51 p.m., Tom Brenner and his nine-year-old son Leo join the queue. Tom is tall and wiry, well over six foot, and has a black baseball cap on. His son comes up to the crook of his elbow and is wearing a bright yellow backpack and a pair of white Nikes, the red tick visible on them, even from a distance. Afterwards, park staff find a selfie of them on Tom’s mobile phone screen. They share the same eyes and nose.It takes them twenty-six minutes to get to the front of the queue. Preceding them are a group of four guys in their twenties: they’ve spent almost the entire time laughing. Behind the Brenners is a mother and her twin daughters.As they’ve been queueing, Tom and Leo have been chatting almost constantly. It seems to come easily to them. A couple of times, Leo says something that makes Tom laugh and, on one occasion, Tom ruffles Leo’s hair. Leo spends quite a lot of his time in the queue pointing at things off camera – other rides, other sights at the fun fair. When they get to the final part of the queue – where the line runs along the front of the ghost house – the two of them start gesturing to the middle section of the structure: the slanted windows that look so much like eyes; the punctures in the edifice which imitate the shape of flared nostrils; then the big, open doorway that looks like a mouth, broken at the sides to give it more of an oval shape.The group of four guys disappear inside the entrance further down and, when they do, the same member of staff beckons Tom and Leo towards him and says something to Tom. Tom smiles and looks at his son, and then speaks to Leo, but it’s impossible to make out what he says.Finally, the Brenners enter the ghost house.The four men exit three minutes and fifty-six seconds later. One of them does an exaggerated double-take as he tells a story and they all erupt into laughter. The clock in the corner of the footage ticks over for another thirty seconds.At this point, Tom and Leo should be exiting.But the clock keeps running.Another thirty-two seconds pass and then the mother and her twins exit. One of the twins is crying. The mother tries to comfort them as they move out of shot.Another half-minute and the people who’d been standing behind the mother and the twins come out of the ride. Then the ones behind them, then the ones behind them. It’s like a conveyor belt of people, one after the next, heading in and then coming out.Except two people haven’t come out.Another ten minutes pass.It’s around this time that Tom’s mobile phone is discovered on the floor inside the ride because,