This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers in 2003
Copyright © Val McDermid 2003
Cover design by Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018 Cover photograph © Roy Bishop/Arcangel Images
Val McDermid asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Source ISBN: 9780007344659
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2014 ISBN: 9780007327652 Version: 2018-06-26
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âShe has created some of the most appealing figures in current crime fiction. Val McDermid has used the crime genre to write a novel that, above everything else, celebrates life and loyaltyâ
TLS
âA real page-turner and another McDermid triumphâ
Observer
âMcDermidâs plot is a classic, and she pulls out all the stops to achieve a sense of mounting anguish, as her hero juggles multiple red herrings, mixed loyalties, differing police agendas and complicated family ties. Impeccableâ
Guardian
âReminiscent of one of Ruth Rendellâs Barbara Vine thrillers â a few more sly, old-fashioned whodunits like this and sheâll join the sturdy ranks of the queens of crime, on course to become Dame Val or Baroness McDermidâ
Sunday Times
âThe real mistress of psychological gripping thrillersâ
JENNI MURRAY, Daily Express
âA powerful story of murder and revenge ⦠an exciting page-turnerâ
Sunday Telegraph
âMcDermidâs capacity to enter the warped mind of a deviant criminal is shiveringly convincingâ
MARCEL BERLINS, The Times
For the ones who got away; and for the others, particularly the Thursday Club, who made the getaway possible
I now describe my country as if to strangers
From Deacon Blueâs âOrphansâ, lyrics by Ricky Ross
November 2003; St Andrews, Scotland
He always liked the cemetery at dawn. Not because daybreak offered any promise of a fresh beginning, but because it was too early for there to be anyone else around. Even in the dead of winter, when the pale light was so late in coming, he could guarantee solitude. No prying eyes to wonder who he was and why he was there, head bowed before that one particular grave. No nosy parkers to question his right to be there.
It had been a long and troublesome journey to reach this destination. But he was very good at uncovering information. Obsessive, some might say. He preferred persistent. Heâd learned how to trawl official and unofficial sources, and eventually, after months of searching, heâd found the answers heâd been looking for. Unsatisfactory as theyâd been, they had at least provided him with this marker. For some people, a grave represented an ending. Not for him. He saw it as a beginning. Of sorts.
Heâd always known it wouldnât be sufficient in itself. So heâd waited, hoping for a sign to show him the way forward. And it had finally come. As the sky changed its colour from the outside to the inside of a mussel shell, he reached into his pocket and unfolded the clipping heâd taken from the local paper.
FIFE POLICE IN COLD CASES REVIEW
Unsolved murders in Fife going back as far as thirty years are to be re-examined in a full-scale cold case review, police announced this week.
Chief Constable Sam Haig said that new forensic breakthroughs meant that cases which had lain dormant for many years could now be reopened with some hope of success. Old evidence which has lain in police property stores for decades will be the subject of such methods as DNA analysis to see whether fresh progress can be made.