THE STAND-ALONE THRILLERS

SACRIFICE

Tora Hamilton, a newcomer to the remote island of Shetland, discovers a woman’s body preserved in the mud of her field. Who is she, and why is Tora so unwelcome here?

‘If she carries on like this she will have worshippers in their millions’ The Times

AWAKENING

A series of unnatural events are occurring in Clara Benning’s village. The reclusive vet discovers a connection to an abandoned house, and a fifty-year-old tragedy the villagers would rather forget . . .

‘This book writhes and glides and slithers its way into the reader’s psyche’ Guardian

BLOOD HARVEST

Harry, the new vicar in town, is subjected to a series of menacing events. What secret is his parish hiding from him, and who is the young girl lingering in the graveyard?

‘Well-crafted, original and spooky’ Daily Mail

LITTLE BLACK LIES

Living in a small, island community, Catrin can’t escape the woman who destroyed her life. How long before revenge becomes irresistible?

‘Creeps under your skin and doesn’t let you go’ Paula Hawkins

DAISY IN CHAINS

Hamish Wolfe is handsome, charismatic – and a convicted murderer. He wants bestselling true-crime writer Maggie Rose to prove his innocence. But will she be able to resist his charms?

‘Utterly suspenseful. A terrific, twisted read’ Paula Daly

Prologue

Eleven years ago

LEAVES, MUD AND GRASS DEADEN SOUND. EVEN SCREAMS. The girl knows this. Any sound she might make can’t possibly travel the quarter-mile to the car headlights and streetlamps, to the illuminated windows of tall buildings that she can see beyond the wall. The nearby city isn’t going to help her and screaming will just burn up energy she can’t spare.

She’s alone. A moment ago she wasn’t.

‘Cathy,’ she says. ‘Cathy, this isn’t funny.’

Difficult to imagine anything less funny. So why is someone giggling? Then another sound. A grinding, scraping noise.

She could run. The bridge isn’t far. She might make it.

If she runs, she leaves Cathy behind.

A breeze stirs the leaves of the tree she’s standing beside and she finds she can’t stop shaking. She dressed, a few hours ago, for a hot pub and a heated bus-ride home, not this open space at midnight. Knowing that any second now she may have to run, she lifts first one foot and then the other and takes off her shoes.

‘I’ve had enough now,’ she says, in a voice that doesn’t sound like her own. She steps forward, away from the tree, a little closer to the great slab of rock lying ahead of her on the grass. ‘Cathy,’ she says, ‘where are you?’

Only the scraping answers back.

The stones look taller at night. Not just bigger, but blacker and older. Yet the circle they make seems to have shrunk. She has a sense of those just out of her line of sight slipping closer, playing grandmother’s footsteps; that if she spins round now, there they’ll be, close enough to touch.

Unthinkable not to turn with an idea like that in her head; not to whimper when a dark shape plainly is moving closer. One of the tall stones has split in two like a splinter of rock breaking away from a cliff. The splinter stands free and steps forward.

She runs then, but not for long. Another black shape is blocking her path, cutting off her route to the bridge. She turns. Another. And another. Dark figures make their way towards her. Impossible to run. Useless to scream. All she can do is turn on the spot, like a rat caught in a trap. They take hold of her and drag her towards the great, flat rock and one thing, at least, becomes clear.

The sound she can hear is that of a blade being sharpened against stone.

Part One

Polly

‘The brutality of the murder is beyond conception and beyond description.’

Star, 31 August 1888

1

Friday 31 August

A DEAD WOMAN WAS LEANING AGAINST MY CAR.

Somehow managing to stand upright, arms outstretched, fingers grasping the rim of the passenger door, a dead woman was spewing blood over the car’s paintwork, each spatter overlaying the last as the pattern began to resemble a spider’s web.

A second later she turned and her eyes met mine. Dead eyes. A savage wound across her throat gaped open; her abdomen was a mass of scarlet. She reached out; I couldn’t move. She was clutching me, strong for a dead woman.

I know, I know, she was on her feet, still moving, but it was impossible to look into those eyes and think of her as anything other than dead. Technically, the body might be clinging on, the weakening heart still beating, she had a little control over her muscles. Technicalities, all of them. Those eyes knew the game was up.

Suddenly I was hot. Before the sun went down, it had been a warm evening, the sort when London’s buildings and pavements cling to the heat of the day, hitting you with a wave of hot air when you venture outside. This was something new, though, this pumping, sticky warmth. This heat had nothing to do with the weather.

I hadn’t seen the knife. But I could feel the handle of it now, pressing against me. She was holding me so tightly, was pushing the blade further into her own body.

No, don’t do that.

I tried to hold her away, just enough to take the pressure off the knife. She coughed, except the cough came from the wound on her throat, not her mouth. Something splashed over my face and then the world turned around us.

We’d fallen. She sank to the ground and I went with her, hitting the tarmac hard and jarring my shoulder. Now she was lying flat on the pavement, staring up at the sky, and I was kneeling over her. Her chest was still moving – just.

There’s still time, I told myself, knowing there wasn’t. I needed help. None to be had. The small car park was deserted. Tall buildings of six- and eight-storey blocks of flats surrounded us and, for a second, I caught a movement on one of the balconies. Then nothing. The twilight was deepening by the second.

She’d been attacked moments ago. Whoever had done it would be close.

I was reaching for my radio, patting pockets, not finding it, and all the while watching the woman’s eyes. My bag had fallen a few feet away. I fumbled inside and found my mobile, summoning police and ambulance to the car park outside Victoria House on the Brendon Estate in Kennington. When I ended the call, I realized she’d taken hold of my hand.

A dead woman was holding my hand, and it was almost beyond me to look into those eyes and see them trying to focus on mine. I had to talk to her, keep her conscious. I couldn’t listen to the voice in my head telling me it was over.

‘It’s OK,’ I was saying. ‘It’s OK.’

The situation was clearly a very long way from OK.

‘Help’s coming,’ I said, knowing she was beyond help. ‘Everything’s going to be fine.’

We lie to dying people, I realized that evening, just as the first sirens sounded in the distance.

‘Can you hear them? People are coming. Just hold on.’ Both her hand and mine were sticky with blood. The metal strap of her watch pressed into me. ‘Come on, stay with me.’ Sirens getting louder. ‘Can you hear them? They’re almost here.’

Footsteps running. I looked up to see flashing blue lights reflected in several windows. A patrol car had pulled up next to my Golf and a uniformed constable was jogging towards us, speaking into his radio. He reached us and crouched down.

‘Hold on now,’ I said. ‘People are here, we’ll take care of you.’

The constable had a hand on my shoulder. ‘Take it easy,’ he was saying, just as I’d done seconds earlier, only he was saying it to me. ‘There’s an ambulance on its way. Just take it easy.’

The officer was in his mid forties, heavy set, with thinning grey hair. I thought perhaps I’d seen him before.

‘Can you tell me where you’re hurt?’ he asked.

I turned back to the dead woman. Really dead now.

‘Love, can you talk to me? Can you tell me your name? Tell me where you’re injured?’

No doubt about it. Pale-blue eyes fixed. Body motionless. I wondered if she’d heard anything I’d said to her. She had the most beautiful hair, I noticed then, the palest shade of ash blonde. It spread out around her head like a fan. Her earrings were reflecting light from the streetlamps and there was something about the way they sparkled through strands of her hair that struck me as familiar. I released her hand and began pushing myself up from the pavement. Gently, someone kept me where I was.

‘I don’t think you should move, love. Wait till the ambulance gets here.’

I hadn’t the heart to argue, so I just kept staring at the dead woman. Blood had spattered across the lower part of her face. Her throat and chest were awash with it. It was pooling beneath her on the pavement, finding tiny nicks in the paving stones to travel along. In the middle of her chest, I could just make out the fabric of her shirt. Lower down her body, it was impossible. The wound on her throat wasn’t the worst of her injuries, not by any means. I remembered hearing once that the average female body contained around five litres of blood. I’d just never considered quite what it would look like when it was all spilling out.

2

‘I’M OK, I’M NOT HURT. IT’S NOT MY BLOOD.’

I wanted to stand up; they wouldn’t let me move.

Three paramedics were huddled around the blonde woman. They seemed to be holding pressure pads against the wound on her abdomen. I heard mention of a tracheotomy. Then something about a peripheral pulse.

Shall we call it? I think so, she’s gone.

They were turning to me now. I got to my feet. The woman’s blood was sticky against my skin, already drying in the warm air. I felt myself sway and saw movement. The blocks of flats surrounding the square had long balconies running the length of every floor. A few minutes ago they’d been deserted. Now they were packed with people. From the back pocket of my jeans I pulled out my warrant card and held it up to the nearest officer.

‘DC Lacey Flint,’ I said.

He read it and looked into my eyes for confirmation. ‘Thought you looked familiar,’ he said. ‘Based at Southwark, are you?’

I nodded.

‘CID,’ he said to the hovering paramedics who, having realized there was nothing they could do for the blonde woman, had turned their attention on me. One of them moved forward. I stepped back.

‘You shouldn’t touch me,’ I said. ‘I’m not hurt.’ I looked down at my bloodstained clothes, feeling dozens of eyes staring at me. ‘I’m evidence.’

*

I wasn’t allowed to slink off quietly to the anonymity of the nearest police station. DC Stenning, the first detective on the scene, had received a call from the DI in charge. She was on her way and didn’t want me going anywhere until she’d had chance to speak to me.

Pete Stenning had been a colleague of mine at Southwark before he’d joined the area’s Major Investigation Team, or MIT, based at Lewisham. He wasn’t much older than me, maybe around thirty, and was one of those lucky types blessed with almost universal popularity. Men liked him because he worked hard, but not so hard anyone around felt threatened, he liked down-to-earth, working-class sports like football but could hold down a conversation about golf or cricket, he didn’t talk over-much but whatever he said was sensible. Women liked him because he was tall and slim, with curly dark hair and a cheeky grin.

He nodded in my direction, but was too busy trying to keep the public back to come over. By this time, screens has been erected around the blonde woman’s body. Deprived of the more exciting sight, everyone wanted to look at me. News had spread. People had sent text messages to friends, who’d hot-footed it over to join in the fun. I sat in the back of a patrol car, avoiding prying eyes and trying to do my job.

The first sixty minutes after a major incident are the most important, when evidence is fresh and the trail to the perpetrator still hot. There are strict protocols we have to follow. I didn’t work on a murder team, my day-to-day job involved tracing owners of stolen property and was far less exciting, but I knew I had to remember as much as possible. I was good at detail, a fact I wasn’t always grateful for when the dull jobs invariably came my way, but I should be glad of it now.

‘Got you a cup of tea, love.’ The PC who’d appointed himself my minder was back. ‘You might want to drink it quick,’ he added, handing it over. ‘The DI’s arrived.’

I followed his glance and saw that a silver Mercedes sports car had pulled up not far from my own car. Two people got out. The man was tall and even at a distance I could see he was no stranger to the gym. He was wearing jeans and a grey polo shirt. Tanned arms. Sunglasses.

The woman I recognized immediately from photographs. Slim as a model, with shiny, dark hair cut into a chin-length bob, she was wearing the sort of jeans women pay over a hundred pounds for. She was the newest senior recruit to the twenty-seven major investigation teams based around London and her arrival had been covered officially, in internal circulars, and unofficially on the various police blog sites. She was young for the role of DI, not much more than mid thirties, but she’d just worked a high-profile case in Scotland. She was also rumoured to know more about HOLMES 2, the major incident computer system, than practically any other serving UK police officer. Of course, it didn’t hurt, one or two of the less supportive blogs had remarked, that she was female and not entirely white.

I watched her and the man pull on pale-blue Tyvek suits and shoe covers. She tucked her hair into the hood. Then they went behind the screens, the man standing aside at the last moment to allow her to go first.

By this time, white-suited figures were making their way around the site like phantoms. The scene-of-crime officers had arrived. They would establish an inner cordon around the body and an outer one around the crime scene. From now on, everyone entering the cordons would be signed in and out, the exact time of their arrival and departure being recorded. I’d learned all this at the crime academy, only a few months ago, but it was the first time I’d seen it in practice.

A gazebo-like structure was being erected over the spot where the corpse still lay. Screens has already been put up to create walls and within seconds the investigators had a large, enclosed area in which to work. Police tape was set up around my car. Lights were being unloaded from the van just as the DI and her companion emerged. They spoke together for a few seconds then the man turned and walked off, striding over the striped tape that marked the edge of the cordon. The DI came my way.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said my minder. I handed him my cup and he moved away. The new DI was standing in front of me. Even in the Tyvek suit she looked elegant. Her skin was a rich, dark cream and her eyes green. I remembered reading that her mother had been Indian.

‘DC Flint?’ she asked, in a soft Scottish accent. I nodded.

‘We haven’t met,’ she went on. ‘I’m Dana Tulloch.’

3

‘OK,’ SAID DI TULLOCH. ‘GO SLOWLY AND KEEP TALKING.’

I set off, my feet rustling on the pavement. Tulloch had taken one look at me and insisted that a Tyvek suit and slippers be brought. I’d be getting cold, she said, in spite of the warm evening, and I’d attract much less attention if the bloodstains were covered up. I was also wearing a pair of latex gloves to preserve any evidence on my hands.

‘I’d been on the third floor,’ I said. ‘Flat 37. I came down that flight of stairs and turned right.’

‘What were you doing there?’

‘Talking to a witness.’ I stopped and corrected myself. ‘A potential witness,’ I went on. ‘I’ve been coming over on Friday evenings for a few weeks now. It’s the one time I can be pretty certain not to see her mother. I’m trying to persuade her to testify in a case and her mother isn’t keen.’

‘Did you succeed?’ asked Tulloch.

I shook my head. ‘No,’ I admitted.

We reached the end of the walkway and could see the square again. Uniform were trying to persuade people to go home and not having much luck.

‘Guess there isn’t much on TV tonight,’ muttered Tulloch. ‘Which case?’

‘Gang rape,’ I replied, knowing I could probably expect trouble. I didn’t work on crime involving sexual assault and earlier that evening I’d been moonlighting. A few years ago the Met set up a number of bespoke teams known as the Sapphire Units to deal with all such offences. It was the sort of work I’d joined the police service to do and I was waiting for a vacancy to come up. In the meantime, I kept up to speed on what was going on. I couldn’t help myself.

‘Was the passage empty when you came out of the stairwell?’ Tulloch asked.

‘I think so,’ I said, although the truth was I wasn’t sure. I’d been annoyed at the response I’d got from Rona, my potential witness; I’d been thinking about my next move, if I even had one. I hadn’t been paying much attention to what was going on around me.

‘When you came out into the square, what did you see? How many people?’

Slowly, we retraced the last time I’d walked this way, with Tulloch firing questions at me every few seconds. Annoyed with myself for not being more alert earlier, I tried my best. I didn’t think there’d been anyone around. There’d been music, some sort of loud rap that I hadn’t recognized. A helicopter had passed overhead, lower than normal, because I’d glanced up at it. I was certain I’d never seen the blonde woman before tonight. There had been something, for a second, as I’d looked at her, something niggling, but no, it had gone.

‘I was looking back at this point,’ I said, as I turned on the spot. ‘There was a loud noise behind me.’

I met Tulloch’s eye and knew what she was thinking. I’d looked back and had probably missed seeing the attack by seconds. Split seconds.

‘When did you see her?’ she asked me.

‘I was a bit closer,’ I replied. ‘I was fumbling in my bag as I was walking – I thought I might have left my car keys behind – then I looked up and saw her.’

We were right back in the thick of it. A white-suited figure was taking photographs of the blood spatter on my car.

‘Go on,’ she told me.

‘I didn’t see the blood at first,’ I said. ‘I thought she’d stopped to ask directions, that maybe she thought there was someone in the car.’

‘Tell me what she looked like. Describe her to me.’

‘Tall,’ I began, not sure where this was going. She’d just seen the woman in question for herself.

She sighed. ‘You’re a detective, Flint. How tall?’

‘Five ten,’ I guessed. ‘Taller than both of us. And slim.’

Her eyebrows went up.

‘Size twelve,’ I said quickly. ‘From the back I thought she was young, probably because she was slim and well dressed, but when I saw her face, she seemed older than I expected.’

‘Go on.’

‘She looked good,’ I went on, warming to my theme. If Tulloch wanted endless detail I could oblige. ‘She was well dressed. Her clothes looked expensive. Simple, but well made. Her hair had been professionally done. That colour doesn’t come out of a bottle you buy at Boots and there was no sign of roots. Her skin was good and so were her teeth, but she had lines around her eyes and her jawline wasn’t that tight.’

‘So you’d put her age at …’

‘I’d say well-preserved mid forties.’

‘Yes, so would I.’ There was movement all around us, but Tulloch’s eyes weren’t leaving my face. There could have been just the two of us in the car park.

‘Did she have ID?’ I asked. ‘Do we know who she is?’

‘Nothing in her bag,’ said a man’s voice. I turned. Tulloch’s companion of earlier had joined us. He’d pushed his sunglasses on to the top of his head. There was scarring around his right eye that looked recent. ‘No ID, no car keys, some cash and bits of make-up,’ he went on. ‘Mystery how she got here. We’re some distance from the Tube and she doesn’t strike me as a bus type.’

Tulloch was looking at the large blocks of flats that surrounded the square.

‘Course, her car keys could have been stolen along with the car. A woman like that probably drives a nice motor,’ he said. He had a faint south London accent.

‘She had diamond studs in her ears,’ I said. ‘This wasn’t a robbery.’

He looked at me. His eyes were blue, almost turquoise. The one with the scarring around it was bloodshot. ‘Could have been fake,’ he suggested.

‘If I was slitting someone’s throat and cutting open their stomach to rob them, I’d take any visible jewellery on the off-chance, wouldn’t you?’ I said. ‘And she had a nice-looking wristwatch too. I could feel it scratching against my hand as she died.’

He didn’t like that, I could tell. He raised his hand to rub his sore eye and frowned at me.

‘Flint, this is DI Joesbury,’ said Tulloch. ‘Nothing to do with the investigation. He only came out with me tonight because he’s bored. This is DC Flint. Lacey, I think, is that right?’

‘Which reminds me,’ said Joesbury, who’d barely acknowledged the introduction. ‘Lewisham want to know when you’re bringing her in.’

Tulloch was still looking at the buildings around us. ‘I don’t get it, Mark,’ she said. ‘We’re surrounded by flats and it isn’t that late, dozens of people could have witnessed what happened. Why would you murder someone here?’

From somewhere near by I could hear a dog barking.

‘Well, she wasn’t here by chance,’ replied Joesbury. ‘That woman belongs in Knightsbridge, not Kennington. Thanks to DC Flint’s knowledge of jewellery, we know that robbery seems unlikely, although we do need to find her car.’

‘Kids round here wouldn’t kill for a car,’ I said as they both turned to me. ‘Oh, they’d steal it, no question, but they’d just snatch the keys, give her a shove. They wouldn’t need to—’

‘Slash her throat so deeply they cut right through her windpipe?’ finished Joesbury. ‘Cut her abdomen from the breastbone down to the pubic bone. No, you’re right, DC Flint, that does seem like overkill.’

OK, I was definitely not getting good vibes from this bloke. I took a step back, then another. For some reason, probably shock, I’d talked much more than I would normally. Maybe I just needed to quieten down for a while. Keep a low profile.

‘How?’ said Tulloch.

‘Sorry?’ said Joesbury, who’d been watching me back away.

‘She was still on her feet when DC Flint saw her,’ said Tulloch. ‘Still alive, although horribly injured. That means she was attacked seconds before. Probably even while Flint was wandering around fumbling in her bag for her keys. How did he do it? How did he inflict those injuries then disappear completely?’

Wandering and fumbling? Tulloch had made the attack sound like it was my fault. I almost opened my mouth again and remembered just in time. Low profile.

‘There are no CCTV cameras in the square,’ said Joesbury. ‘But the high street is just yards away. Stenning has gone to round up any footage. If our villain left the estate, he’ll have been picked up on one of them.’

Maybe it had been my fault. If I’d had my wits about me, I might have seen the attacker before he struck. I could have yelled for help, summoned local uniform on my radio. I could have stopped the attack. Shit, that sort of guilt trip was all I needed.

‘Whoever did it would be covered in blood,’ said Joesbury, still looking at me. ‘They’ll have left a trail.’ He glanced behind. ‘Sounds like the dogs are here.’

We looked towards the car park. Two dogs had arrived. German Shepherds, each with its own handler.

‘Not necessarily,’ I said, before I could stop myself. They both turned back to me. ‘If her throat was cut from behind, whoever did it might have escaped being splashed. All her blood spattered forward. On to my car.’

‘And then on to you,’ said Joesbury, his eyes dropping away from my face to the bloodstains that were just about visible through the Tyvek. ‘Are we done here, Tully?’ he went on. ‘You really need to get DC Flint back to the station.’

Tulloch looked uncertain for a moment. ‘I just need to make sure Neil—’

‘Anderson knows exactly what he’s doing,’ said Joesbury. ‘He’s got six officers taking witness statements, the traffic has been redirected and they’ll start the door-to-door as soon as the dogs are done.’

‘Can you take her back?’ asked Tulloch. ‘I want to have a good look round when things quieten down.’

Joesbury looked as though he were about to argue, then smiled at her. He had very good teeth. ‘Do I get to drive the Tully-mobile?’ he asked.

Shaking her head, Tulloch pulled down the zip of her pale-blue suit and dug into her pocket. Glaring, she handed over her car keys. ‘Prang it and I prang you,’ she warned.

‘Come on, Flint, before she changes her mind.’ Joesbury had put a hand on my elbow and was steering me towards the DI’s silver Mercedes.

‘And make sure she keeps that suit on,’ called Tulloch, as Joesbury held the passenger door open and I climbed inside. The interior looked showroom new. I sank back against the leather seat and closed my eyes.

4

IT WAS GONE NINE O’CLOCK BY THIS TIME, BUT THE STREETS were still busy and we didn’t make great progress. I was still smarting from Tulloch’s comments about wandering and fumbling, so I kept my eyes closed and asked myself what I could have done differently. Joesbury said nothing.

After ten, maybe fifteen minutes of silence, he switched on the car stereo and the eerie notes of Clannad filled the car.

‘Oh, you are kidding me,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Is there anything in the glove compartment?’

I opened my eyes and, still wearing latex gloves, pulled out the only CD in the small compartment. ‘Medieval plainsong,’ I said, reading the cover.

Joesbury shook his head. ‘If you get chance to speak to her about her taste in music, go for it,’ he said. ‘She had me listening to Westlife the other night.’

He lapsed into silence again as we reached the Old Kent Road. Occasionally, as the streetlights caught the car windscreen at the right angle, I could see his reflection. Nothing out of the ordinary. Late thirties, I guessed, brown hair cut short. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days. His face and bare forearms were suntanned. His teeth, I’d already noticed, were even and very white.

Another ten minutes passed without either of us speaking. I had a sense, though, partly from the way his head kept tilting, that he was watching me in the car windscreen too.

Wandering and fumbling.

‘If I’d got to her sooner, would she have lived?’ I asked, as we turned off Lewisham High Street and into the car park behind the station.

‘Guess we’ll never know,’ replied Joesbury. There were no spaces left so he parked directly behind a green Audi, completely blocking it in.

‘She was still alive seconds before the ambulance arrived,’ I said. ‘I should have put something against the wound, shouldn’t I? Tried to stop the bleeding.’

If I was hoping for any sort of comfort from this guy, I was wasting my breath. ‘I’m a police officer, not a paramedic,’ he replied, switching off the engine. ‘Looks like you’re expected.’

The station’s duty sergeant, a scene-of-crime officer and a police doctor were waiting for us. Together we walked through the barred rear door of Lewisham police station and my arrival was officially recorded. I’d worked for the Metropolitan Police for nearly four years, but had a feeling I was about to see it from a very different perspective.

Some time later, I sat staring at dirty cream walls and grey floor tiles. My left shoulder was sore from where I’d fallen on it earlier and I could feel a headache threatening. Over the past hour, I’d been asked to undress completely before being examined by a police doctor. After a shower, I’d been examined again, and photographed. My fingernails had been clipped, my saliva swabbed and my hair combed thoroughly and painfully. Then I’d been given a pair of orange overalls normally issued to prisoners in custody.

I hadn’t eaten that evening and, whether it was due to low blood sugar, shock or just a cold room, I was finding it hard to stop shivering. I kept seeing pale-blue eyes, staring at me.

I could have saved her. If I hadn’t been in my own little world, we might not be kicking off a murder investigation right now. And everyone knew that. It would be my legacy, for as long as I stayed in the service: the DC who’d let a woman be stabbed to death right in front of her.

The door opened and DI Joesbury came in. In the small room he seemed taller than he had on the street or even in DI Tulloch’s car. DC Gayle Mizon, the detective who’d assisted the police doctor in examining me, was with him. The two of them had been laughing at something in the corridor outside and he was still smiling as he held the door open for her. He had a great smile. Then he turned to me and the smile faded.

‘Still bored?’ I asked, before I could stop myself.

I might not have spoken. I got no reaction whatsoever.

Mizon was an attractive blonde woman of around thirty-three or -four. She’d brought me coffee. I put my hand on the mug for warmth but didn’t dare pick it up. I was shaking too much. Joesbury continued to study me, my hair still wet from the shower, my face dry and pink because it hadn’t been moisturized, and my prisoner-in-custody uniform. He didn’t look impressed.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s take a statement.’

By the time he called a halt, I’d barely the energy left to sit upright in my chair. If I’d wanted to be tactful about DI Joesbury’s interviewing technique, I’d have said he was thorough. If honesty had been the order of the day, I’d have called him a sadistic shit.

Before we started, they explained that Gayle Mizon would be taking the statement, Joesbury only sitting in on an advisory capacity. They’d even given me chance to request he leave the room. I’d shrugged and muttered something about it being fine. Big mistake, because the moment the interview kicked off, he took charge.

What followed didn’t feel like any witness statement I’d ever been a party to before. More like I was about to be charged. He made me go over every detail several times, until even Mizon was looking uncomfortable. And he kept going back to the same point. How could I not have seen something? How could I have missed the attack and yet been close enough for her to die in my arms? Every second I was waiting for him to say that the blonde woman would still be alive if I hadn’t messed up.

Finally, he terminated the interview and switched off the recording equipment. The clock on the wall said ten past eleven.

‘Is there someone you’d like us to call?’ asked Mizon, as Joesbury took the disc out of the recording machine and labelled it.

I shook my head.

‘Will there be someone at home when you get there?’ she asked me. ‘Flatmate? Boyfriend? You’ve had a nasty shock. You probably shouldn’t be on your own.’

‘I live on my own,’ I said. ‘But I’m fine,’ I added, when she looked concerned. ‘Is it OK if I go now?’

‘Family?’ Mizon wasn’t giving up easily.

‘They don’t live in London,’ I said, which was true, if a bit disingenuous. They don’t live anywhere. I have no family. ‘Look, I’m tired, I haven’t eaten, I just want to get home and—’

Joesbury looked up, frowning. ‘Did nobody offer you food?’ he asked, and really, you had to admire the way he made it sound like it was my own fault.

‘Really not a problem. Can I go now?’ I stood up. ‘Sir,’ I added, for good measure.

Joesbury turned to Mizon. ‘Gayle, if we’d brought the killer in red-handed, knife dangling from his teeth, we’d have fed him. One of our own, we leave to starve.’

‘I thought someone else was …’ Mizon began.

‘It’s really not …’ I tried.

‘Sorry,’ she said to me. I shrugged, managed a smile.

Joesbury stood up and crossed the room. ‘Come on,’ he said, holding the door open.

‘Where are we going now?’ I hadn’t the energy to even try being polite any more. Not that previous efforts had been all that successful.

‘I’m getting you fed, then I’m getting you home,’ he replied. He nodded at the disc on the table. ‘Can you get that processed?’ he said to a rather surprised-looking Mizon. Then he walked me out of the station.

Tulloch’s silver Mercedes had already been moved and Joesbury opened up the green Audi we’d blocked in previously. He turned on the engine, put the car into gear and began flicking through a stack of CDs.

‘Got any Westlife?’ I asked, as he reversed the car out of the parking space and turned it round. When he didn’t reply, I made a mental note that a sense of humour wasn’t high on this guy’s list of attributes. And that I could probably cross out fair-minded and compassionate as well. In fact, so far, the only box I could tick was a healthy respect for a woman’s need to eat. He pushed a CD into the stereo. Back on Lewisham High Street, he turned the volume right up and rhythmic, percussion-based club music filled the car. Message received and understood, DI Joesbury, I wasn’t meant to talk.

5

THE GARDEN IS LONG AND NARROW. AND VERY DARK. Whilst high walls on three sides keep out most of the street-light, the dense foliage of over-mature shrubs seems to soak up any light that does seep through. The garden is overlooked by several windows, but the intruder moving slowly down the slim gravel path is dressed entirely in black and is unlikely to be seen.

The garden is scented. The intruder stops for a moment and takes a deep breath, before stretching out a hand to a tiny, star-shaped flower. Jasmine.

At the bottom of the garden is a small, neat wooden shed, partially hidden by vegetation. Ivy creeps up its walls and overhanging tree branches rest on its roof. The door is locked, but the intruder thinks for a moment before reaching up to run a hand along the rim of the low, flat roof. After a few seconds the hand finds what it is looking for. A key.

The door opens easily. The intruder starts back with a muttered curse.

For a moment, a human form appears to be hanging in the shed. It swings gently, turning on the spot. Human in form, but not human. This has a soft, cylindrical torso, it wears clothes but is limbless. Its head – male – once stared out from a shop window.

The intruder touches it lightly. It spins on the chain that suspends it from the shed roof and the head lolls like that of a drunk. Or a crazy man.

‘What a good idea,’ says the intruder. ‘Oh Lacey, what a brilliantly good idea.’

6

‘ARE YOU VEGGIE, LACTOSE INTOLERANT, ALLERGIC TO sesame seeds …?’ Joesbury was asking me, practically the first words to come out of his mouth since we’d left the station. We were in a small Chinese restaurant, not far from where I live, that I didn’t think I’d ever noticed before. The owner, a slim Chinese man in his fifties called Trev, had greeted Joesbury like an old friend.

‘If it stays still long enough I’ll eat it,’ I replied.

Joesbury’s eyes opened a little wider. He and Trev shared a look, had a short, muttered conversation and then the Chinese man disappeared. Joesbury took the seat opposite mine and I waited with something like interest. He was going to have to talk to me now.

He picked up a fork and ran the prongs down a paper napkin, before leaning back to admire the four perfectly straight lines he’d made. He glanced up, caught my eye and looked down again. The fork made its way down the napkin once more. It was becoming blindingly obvious that DI Joesbury and I weren’t of the same mind on the talking issue.

‘If you’re not part of the MIT, what do you do?’ I asked. ‘Traffic?’

If you want to insult a fellow cop, you ask him if he works on traffic. Quite why I was insulting a senior officer I’d only just met was, of course, a good question.

‘I work for SO10,’ he replied.

I thought about it for a second. SO stood for Special Operations. The divisions were numbered according to the particular function they served. SO1 protected public figures, SO14, the royal family. ‘SO10 do undercover work, don’t they?’ I asked.

He inclined his head. ‘Covert operations is the term they prefer these days,’ he said.

‘Then you’re based at Scotland Yard?’ I asked, slightly encouraged at getting a whole sentence out of him.

Another brief nod. ‘Technically,’ he said.

Now what did that mean? Either you’re based somewhere or you’re not.

‘So how come you ended up at the scene tonight?’

He sighed, as though wondering why I was bothering him with this tiresome conversation business. ‘I’m convalescing,’ he said. ‘Dislocated my shoulder and nearly lost an eye in a fight. Officially, I’m on light duties only until November, but as both you and DI Tulloch have been at pains to point out, I’m bored.’

Trev arrived back with drinks. He put a bottle of South American beer down in front of each of us. I hadn’t been asked what I wanted.

‘The look on your face says you’re not a beer drinker,’ said Joesbury, reaching across and pouring the contents of my bottle into a glass. ‘And the look on mine should tell you, I know that – you’re far too skinny to be a beer drinker – but it’s good for shock.’

I picked up my glass. I’m not a beer drinker, but alcohol of any description was starting to feel like a very good idea. Joesbury watched me drink nearly a third of its contents before coming up for air.

‘What brought you into the police?’ he asked me.

‘An early fascination with serial killers,’ I replied. It was the truth, although I didn’t usually advertise the fact in quite so blunt a fashion. I’d been intrigued by violent crime and its perpetrators for as long as I could remember and it was this that had led me, through a long and circuitous path, into the police service.

Joesbury raised one eyebrow at me.

‘Sadistic, psychopathic predators specifically,’ I went on. ‘You know, the type who kill to satisfy some deviant sexual longing. Sutcliffe, West, Brady. When I was a kid I couldn’t get enough of them.’

The eyebrow stayed up as I realized my glass was now more than half empty and that I really needed to slow down a bit.

‘You know, if you’re bored, you should think about golf,’ I said. ‘A lot of middle-aged men find it fills the hours quite nicely.’

Joesbury’s lips tightened, but he wasn’t about to dignify such a cheap jibe with a response. And I really had to get a grip. Winding up a senior officer, however unpleasant, just wasn’t me. I was low-profile girl.

‘Sir, I apologize,’ I said. ‘I’ve had one hell of an evening and—’ Movement at my side. The food had arrived.

‘Don’t call him Sir,’ said Trev, putting a plate of noodles with prawns and vegetables in front of me and something with beef and black beans in Joesbury’s place. ‘Young female officers calling him Sir turns him on something rotten.’

‘I’ll remember that,’ I muttered, thinking it probably shouldn’t be too hard. Joesbury was definitely not my type. I didn’t actually have a type. But if I had, he wouldn’t be it.

‘Now this is for Dana,’ Trev went on, putting a covered plastic dish on the table. ‘Give her my love, tell her to come and see me soon, and if she ever gets tired—’

‘Trev,’ drawled Joesbury. ‘How many times …?’

‘A man can dream,’ said Trev, as he made his way back to the kitchen. When I looked up, Joesbury was intent on his food.

‘How did he know I’m police?’ I asked, picking up my fork and pushing a prawn around in a circle.

‘You’re wearing an orange Andy Pandy suit with PROPERTY OF THE METROPOLITAN POLICE on the collar,’ said Joesbury, without looking up.

‘I could be a villain,’ I said, putting the prawn in my mouth. It sat there, large and uncomfortably dry, on my tongue.

‘Yeah,’ said Joesbury, putting his fork down and lifting his eyes. ‘The thought had crossed my mind.’

7

I LIVE JUST OFF THE WANDSWORTH ROAD, LESS THAN FIVE minutes’ walk from Trev’s Chinese restaurant, in part of an old Victorian house. The letting agent who rented it to me called it the garden flat. In truth, it was the basement, accessible via a dozen stone steps that led down from the pavement, just to the right of the house’s front door. Out of habit, I checked the small area of shadow in the under-well of the steps. If I was unlucky (and careless) one night, someone could be waiting. It had never happened yet and I rather hoped tonight wouldn’t be the first time; I was hardly in the mood. The stairwell was empty and the padlock on the door of the shed where I keep my bike hadn’t been disturbed. I slipped my key into the lock and went inside.

I walked through my living room, past the tiny galley kitchen and into my bedroom. I’d changed the sheets that morning, as I always do on Friday. They were crisp white cotton, one of the very few luxuries I allow myself. Normally, getting into bed on a Friday night is one of the highlights of my week.

But I had just the worst feeling that if I lay down on them, when I got up again, they’d be stained the dark red of another woman’s blood. Stupid, I’d showered until my skin felt raw, but …

I carried on walking, through a sort of lean-to conservatory and into the garden. It’s long and very narrow, like lots of gardens behind London’s terraced streets, attracting practically no direct sunlight. Luckily, though, whoever designed it knew what they were doing. All the plants thrive in the shade and it’s full of small trees and dense shrubs. High brick walls on either side give me privacy. There’s a side door that leads to an alley. I keep it locked.

I closed my eyes, and saw pale-blue ones staring into mine. Oh no.

DI Joesbury, objectionable git that he was, had actually taken my mind off the events of earlier. Being with him, trying to find something to talk about, trying even harder not to say anything inappropriate, had given me something to focus on. Now, on my own, it was all coming back.

London is never quiet, and even at this hour I could hear the constant hum of traffic, the sound of people walking past in the street and high-pitched yelling from very near by.

There is a park not a hundred metres from my flat. When the sun goes down the teenagers of south London claim it for their own, swinging around the play equipment like monkeys, screeching and howling at each other. They were on form tonight. From what I could hear there was some sort of chase going on. Girls were squealing. Music playing. They were letting off some steam.

Which, exhausted or not, was exactly what I needed to do. And I had a playground of my own I could go to.

8

CAMDEN TOWN HAS LONG BEEN ONE OF THE TRENDIEST places in north London and especially so since the development of the Camden Stables Market. Once an extensive network of tunnels, arches, viaducts and passageways, the area was sold off to developers some years ago and transformed into a vast complex of shops, bars, market stalls and cafés. It’s popular in the daytime as a place to browse, eat and just hang out. At night, people flock here. At least once a week, usually on a Friday, I’m one of them.

My car had been taken away by the scene-of-crime officers so I’d had to travel by bus. As I approached the Horse Hospital, once stabling for sick or tired horses that worked on the railways, I took off my jacket and tucked it into the small rucksack I was carrying over one shoulder.

Horses, or rather their replicas, are the predominant feature of the Stables Market. Back in the days of the railway’s construction, hundreds of them were kept to transport goods and equipment to, from and around the site. Nothing so unusual in that, but in Camden the working horses led a largely subterranean life, moving from one area to another through tunnels, built specifically to allow them a safe and convenient passage around. At one time they were even stabled underground.

These days, the living, working beasts are long gone, but equine images are everywhere you turn. There are wall hangings, massive free-standing statues, motifs built into railings, on lamp posts, even on bins. I like horses, but even I’m inclined to feel the developers have overdone it a bit.

The heat hit me like a wall when I stepped through the main door of the Horse Hospital. Violet lights twinkled on either side as I made my way through the central passageway, past the original layout of loose boxes and stable furniture. Even at this hour the place was full and the air was thick with the smell of alcohol and humanity.

A party was going on in one of the boxes and for a second I considered gate-crashing. Then I noticed red helium balloons around the iron grilles. They swayed, gleaming, in the hot air. Like blood droplets. I carried on, pushed my way to the bar and bought a Bombay Sapphire on ice. I can’t bear the taste so I drink it very slowly, but if I need a quick shot, it does the job. The clock behind the bar told me it was five to one in the morning. The place closed at two.