Let the Dead Speak: A gripping new thriller
From award-winning author Jane Casey comes a powerful crime thriller, with a delicious edge of psychological suspense that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the final page…If you only read one crime book this year, make it this one!A murder without a bodyEighteen-year-old Chloe Emery returns to her West London home one day to find the house covered in blood and Kate, her mother, gone. All the signs point to murder.A girl too scared to talkMaeve Kerrigan is determined to prove she’s up to her new role as detective sergeant. She suspects Chloe is hiding something, but getting her to open up is impossible.A detective with everything to proveNo one on the street is above suspicion. All Maeve needs is one person to talk, but that’s not going to happen. Because even in a case of murder, some secrets are too terrible to share…
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JANE CASEY
Let the Dead Speak
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Copyright © Jane Casey 2017
Cover design Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Cover photographs © Chiara Fersini/Arcangel Images (front);
Richard Nixon/Arcangel Images (back)
Jane Casey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
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.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008149017
Ebook Edition © March 2017 ISBN: 9780008149000
Version: 2017-07-05
For Ariella Feiner, with love and thanks.
Table of Contents
It had been raining for fifty-six hours when Chloe Emery came home. The forecast had said to expect a heatwave; it wasnât supposed to be raining.
And Chloe wasnât supposed to be home.
She came out of the station and stopped, shifting her big black bag from one shoulder to the other. The rain poured off the awning, splashing onto the pavement in front of her. It coursed into the gutters where filthy water was already swirling, dark and gritty, freighted with rubbish and twigs and dead leaves. Chloeâs T-shirt clung to her back and her stomach. She twitched the material away from her skin, self-conscious about the swell of her breasts. She hadnât ever really thought about them until her stepmother had mentioned them.
âBig girl like you, you need a better bra. Better support. You canât blame men for looking, you know.â A thin, spiteful smile. âYou might as well enjoy it, though. Theyâll be down to your knees in no time and no one will care then.â
It had taken Chloe a long time to understand what she meant, which had annoyed Belinda. She still didnât know why Belinda was angry with her about her body, or people looking at her. A wave of unease passed over Chloe, remembering â the familiar nausea of not knowing things that other people took for granted. It wasnât her fault; she did try.
There was no point in waiting for the rain to stop. Chloe bent her head and trudged away from the station. Her clothes and hair were saturated within a couple of minutes, her jeans cold and heavy, dragging against her skin. Every raindrop felt like a finger tapping on her head, her shoulders, her back. Her shoulder was burning where the bag strap rubbed it. There were no other pedestrians, except for a mother pushing a buggy on the opposite pavement, striding fast, the hood on her sensible anorak pulled down low over her face. Who would be out for a walk on a wet Sunday afternoon if they didnât have to be? Not Chloe, not feeling the way she did, sick and tired and still a bit sore. But there was no one to meet her at the station. No one knew she was there.
A car engine hummed on the street behind her and she didnât think anything of it, even when it got louder and closer. It wasnât until the car pulled in ahead of her with a jerk of the brakes that she noticed it in any detail. The driver was leaning forward to peer into the rear-view mirror, adjusting it so she could see his eyes staring into hers. The fear came first, a thud that shook her chest as if someone had kicked her. Then recognition: it wasnât a stranger watching her walk towards him. It was a neighbour. More than a neighbour: it was Mr Norris, who lived across the road from her, who always smiled and asked her how she was, who had very bright eyes and white teeth and was Bethanyâs father. Bethany was younger than Chloe but she knew so much more about everything.
Chloe went over to the car, peering in through the window heâd lowered on the passenger side.
