The Girls Beneath
‘Quirky, offbeat, stylish and original. I loved it.’ Mick HerronTom Mondrian is the last person you want on your case. And the only one who can solve it, in this quirky psychological thriller.Tom Mondrian is watching his life ebb away directing traffic as a PCSO, until a bullet to the brain changes everything. With a new unusual perspective, including an inability to recognise faces and absolutely no filter between what he thinks and what he says, Tom’s career is suddenly shifting gear.Tom’s new condition gives him an advantage over other police officers, allowing him to notice details that they can’t see. Now, with his new insight and unwavering determination, Tom is intent on saving three missing girls, before more start to disappear…PRAISE FOR THE GIRLS BENEATH‘Absolutely lovedHead Case. Couldn’t put it down. Tragic, funny and frightening. Ross Armstrong has written another cracker’ Chris Whitaker, CWA New Blood Dagger winning author of Tall Oaks‘Ross Armstrong has created a brilliant hero in Tom, and this novel is an enjoyable addition to the psychological thriller genre. Five Stars’ HeatThe Girls Beneath was originally published as Head Case.
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âAddictive and eerie, youâll finish the book wanting to chat about itâ â Closer Magazine, Must Read
âA twisted homage to Hitchcock set in a recognisably post-Brexit broken Britain. Tense, fast-moving and with an increasingly unreliable narrator, The Watcher has all the hallmarks of a winner.â â Martyn Waites
âRoss Armstrong will feed your appetite for suspenseâ â Evening Standard
âUnreliable narrator + Rear Window-esque plot = sure-fire hitâ â The Sun
âBrilliantly written⦠this psychological thriller is definitely one that will keep you up to the early hours. Five Stars.â â Heat, Book of the Week
âA dark, unsettling page turnerâ â Claire Douglas, author of Local Girl Missing.
âCreepy and compellingâ â Debbie Howells author of The Bones of You
âThe Watcher is an intense, unsettling read⦠one that had me feeling like I needed to keep checking over my shoulder as I read.; â Lisa Hall, author of Between You and Me
ROSS ARMSTRONG is an actor and writer based in North London. He studied English Literature at Warwick University and acting at RADA. As a stage and screen actor he has performed in the West End, Broadway and in theatres across the UK, where he has worked opposite actors such as Jude Law, Joseph Fiennes, Kim Cattrall and Maxine Peake. Rossâ debut title The Watcher was a top twenty bestseller and has been longlisted for the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger.
The Girls Beneath
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018
Copyright © Ross Armstrong 2018
Ross Armstrong asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
First edition published with the title Head Case in Great Britain in 2018
A catalogue record for 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.
Ebook Edition © January 2018 ISBN: 9780008182267
Version: 2018-10-29
For all those who
think differently
âHush little baby
Hush quite a lot
Bad babies get rabies
And have to be shotâ
CONTENTS
Documented Telephone Conversation #1
Documented Telephone Conversation #2
Documented Memory Project #2: Tape
Documented Telephone Conversation #3
I remember, a note, she passed⦠Documented Memory Project #4
âDee. Dah dah dah dee dah, dah dah, dee dahâ¦â
It was a year of miracles. The year I learned how to walk and talk again, the year I met Emre Bartu and the year the girls went missing.
But first came December.
The weekend before my first week as a Police Community Support Officer began. The last week in which my brainâs valleys, ridges, streets and avenues remained in perfect working order.
Back when I thought a lot differently. Before I became âBetter Than Normalâ as Ryans says. He says that because in some ways I definitely am. Better than you, I mean. No offence.
Itâs a Christmas gift that will lie under my brain stem, wrapped in the folds of my cerebellum, romantically lit by my angular and supramarginal gyrus, for the rest of my grateful life.
So letâs go back to the last week when the inside of my skull was anatomically âcorrectâ and aesthetically as it had been since the day I was born.
When my brain functioned as it does for the ânormalsâ. The others. The ones devoid of irregularity or uniqueness. No offence.
Before the fractures. Before the accident.
If it was an accident.
âSo itâs you
The one I thought I knew, I knew,
No matter what we put the other through
Itâs always youâ
The truth about Gary Canning is revealed to me by Anita herself. Like most things, I donât see it coming.
I imagine Gary as a P.E. teacher, displaying his sporting prowess and gym-earned physique to the kids of Tower Hamlets as he coaxes the unwilling into exertions like rugby, basketball or maybe even worse. But in actuality, Gary is a Geography teacher with a fair to middling beard. It has pretty good coverage but is patchy in a way that suggests inconstancy of character, a fatal lack of conviction in his genes, or a rather flawed grooming technique. I know this because I find his picture on social media. Thatâs when I first see the face of Gary Canning.
