WHAT READERS ARE SAYING ABOUT

IN THE DARK

‘This will be one of the best thrillers you will read this year. Gripping, intense, complicated, thrilling, twisted – SO GOOD’

Abby, Netgalley

‘One of the best books I have read this year’

Elaine, Netgalley

‘WOW – what a fabulous read. I could not put it down’

Caron, Netgalley

‘If you choose only one book to read in your life then make it this one’

Steve, Netgalley

‘Cara Hunter joins my list of favourite authors’

Susan, Netgalley

‘I LOVED this book’

Penny, Netgalley

‘I couldn’t put this down … a definite must-read!’

Aine, Netgalley

‘DI Fawley is one of my favourite detectives!’

Laura, Netgalley

‘I only put this book down to go to sleep!’

Alison, Netgalley

Acknowledgements

There’s a wonderful group of people now on ‘team Fawley’, all of whom have helped me make, shape and refine this novel. Most notably my fabulous, patient and supportive agent, Anna Power, and my two editors at Penguin – the equally delightful and insightful Katy Loftus and Sarah Stein. I also want to thank my fantastic PR teams, both in the UK – Poppy North, Rose Poole and Annie Hollands – and in the US – Ben Petrone and Shannon Kelly.

I also want to say a very big thank you to my expert advisers – Joey Giddings, CSI extraordinaire, who also drew up the crime scene sketches here; Nicholas Syfret QC for his advice on the legal side; and Detective Inspector Andy Thompson for invaluable help on police procedure. Also Dr Ann Robinson and Nikki Ralph. I have tried to make the story as accurate as possible, but as in all works of fiction there are a few places where I have exercised a degree of artistic licence. For example, the procedures involved in questioning vulnerable adults are very complex, and I do not pretend to have captured every single detail 100 per cent. Needless to say, if there are any errors or inaccuracies these are down to me alone.

Thanks too to my ‘first readers’ – my husband, Simon, and my dear friends Stephen, Elizabeth, Sarah and Peter. And also to my superb copy editor, Karen Whitlock.

And finally it seems odd to thank a city, but I couldn’t have written this book without drawing on the special ‘genius of the place’ of Oxford. It’s an endlessly inspiring and surprising town, and I’m very lucky to live there. However, needless to say, my characters are entirely the products of my imagination, and not based on any real individuals. Many of the places are my inventions too, though some are not. The Wittenham Clumps are real, as are the Cuckoo Pen, the Money Pit and the legend of the raven. The Iron Age remains of a man, a child and part of a dismembered female have indeed been discovered at the Clumps in recent years, and one theory is that the female was part of a human sacrifice. But there has never, to my knowledge, been a proposal to build a housing estate in the area.

For ‘Burke and Heath’
For many happy days

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cara Hunter is a writer who lives in Oxford, in a street not unlike those featured in her series of crime books. Her first book, Close to Home, was a Sunday Times bestseller and was picked for the Richard and Judy Book Club. This is her second featuring DI Adam Fawley and his team of detectives.

PENGUIN BOOKS

UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia

India | New Zealand | South Africa

Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

First published 2018

Copyright © Cara Hunter, 2018

The moral right of the author has been asserted

© Margie Hurwich/Arcangel Images

ISBN: 978-0-241-28322-6

Prologue

She opens her eyes to darkness as close as a blindfold. To the heaviness of old dank air that hasn’t been breathed for a long time.

Her other senses lurch awake. The dripping silence, the cold, the smell. Mildew and something else she can’t yet place, something animal and fetid. She moves her fingers, feeling grit and wet under her jeans. It’s coming back to her now – how she got here, why this happened.

How could she have been so stupid.

She stifles the acid rush of panic and tries to sit up, but the movement defeats her. She fills her lungs and shouts, flinging echoes against the walls. Shouts and shouts and shouts until her throat is raw.

But no one comes. Because no one can hear.

She closes her eyes again, feeling hot angry tears seeping down her face. She is rigid with outrage and recrimination and conscious of little else until, in terror, she feels the first sharp little feet start to move across her skin.