Persons Unknown: A Richard and Judy Book Club Pick 2018
SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER‘I loved it … Persons Unknown is like walking on quicksand, for reader and detective alike' VAL MCDERMIDSecond literary thriller from bestselling author of MISSING, PRESUMED.A brutal murder. A detective with no one left to trust.A YOUNG MAN MURDEREDA city banker bleeds to death yards from a Cambridgeshire police headquarters.A DETECTIVE OUT OF HER DEPTHDI Manon Bradshaw’s world is turned upside down when the victim turns out to be closer to her than she could have guessed.WHO SHOULD SHE BELIEVE?When even her trusted colleagues turn their backs on her, it’s time to contemplate the unthinkable: are those she holds dear capable of murder?
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PERSONS UNKNOWN
SUSIE STEINER
The Borough Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Copyright © Susie Steiner 2017
Susie Steiner 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
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Cover layout by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Cover photographs: Front © Henry Steadman. Back © Dave Wall/Arcangel
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 e-books
Ebook Edition © February 2017 ISBN: 9780008123352
Source ISBN: 9780008123338
Version: 2018-04-20
Table of Contents
Down. Dizzy. Pitching left. He is draining away like dirty water, round and round. Stumbling not walking, the ground threatening to come up and meet him. And yet he presses on. Somethingâs not right.
He is swampy, heavy-footed. His shin is throbbing. A scuffle â like being spun in blind manâs buff â so quick that when it was over he thought heâd been mugged, but he patted himself down and his wallet and phone were there all right.
His muscles are soupy, unresponsive. His legs wade, the landscape too broad for him to make headway. The air is close like a wet web. He can barely draw breath.
He stumbles to the right, into a muddy wooded area in a direction he hadnât intended to take and itâs as if the ground is reaching for him. Is it quicksand, not mud?
Heâs really scared now; nervously places a hand to his chest. His shirt is wet through but itâs not raining. He looks at his hand. It is glistening dark; the colour unclear because of the dark and the orangey street lighting.
He starts to panic, cannot fill his lungs. What is happening to him?
He falls into the mud, feels some arms take him up and cradle him, looks up to see blonde hair. The alien scent of perfume.
Saskia?
âSass?â he whispers, confused. Is she the cause of this, after all her stupidity? She went too far and he couldnât stop her.
âSass?â
His sight dims, he is too tired.
The world dips.
Crisp in one hand, sandwich in the other; the tickle and press of light internal kneading around her pelvis, like butterflies in a sack. Seems typical that pregnancy has brought zero in the way of nausea but has instead turbo-charged Manonâs appetite.
She becomes aware of Harriet and Davy talking, urgent and low, on the other side of the open-plan office. Somethingâs up. Theyâre quickening. Manon elongates her neck, craning to hear, but her colleagues are too far away.
As they pass her desk she says, âAnything up?â
âJobâs come in,â Harriet says, but itâs clear she canât be bothered to fill Manon in.
âOoh, who is it?â Manon says, full mouth.
They ignore her.
She looks at Davy, full of himself these days; Detective Sergeant Davy Walker, promoted by the super, Gary Stanton. He might as well call Stanton âDaddyâ. Well, heâs welcome to it. Manon is in hot pursuit of the workâlife balance: desk job, regular hours, house full of children. She wants to focus on whether to sign up for an organic veg box or whether this would be taking her personal reinvention too far. You can lead a horse to uncooked beetroot â¦
And yet she is straining out of her seat to overhear the conversation between Harriet and Davy.
âI could be special advisor at the scene, brackets, teas,â she offers.
When sheâd first begged Harriet for a job back in the Major Crime Unit, determined to leave behind the misery of the Met (awful boss, crushing workload) and the cost of London living, she said sheâd do anything, didnât care how boring. Cold cases.
