Secrets of the Dead

Chapter XLIV

Chapter XLV

Chapter XLVI

Chapter XLVII

Historical Note

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Book

Some secrets should stay buried forever…

Abby Cormac spent ten years trying to put the world’s worst criminals behind bars. Burned out, she thinks she’s left it all behind – until a terrible act of violence shatters her life once more. In a luxurious villa on the Adriatic coast, her lover, Michael, is murdered and Abby is left for dead.

Terrified and alone, Abby vows to bring Michael’s killer to justice. But when her investigation takes her across Europe and in contact with one of the Balkans’ most notorious gangsters, she soon realises that Michael wasn’t the man she thought she knew. He had discovered a secret – a legacy of betrayal and murder hidden by a conspiracy of silence – and Abby’s convinced that unravelling this secret will lead her to the truth. But powerful enemies are watching her every move and they will stop at nothing to ensure the secrets of the dead never come to light…

About the Author

Tom Harper has written ten novels including Lost Temple, The Book of Secrets and The Lazarus Vault. He is a past Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association, and his books have been translated into twenty languages worldwide. He lives in New York with his wife and two sons. For more information, visit www.tom-harper.co.uk

Also available by Tom Harper

The Mosaic of Shadows

Knights of the Cross

Siege of Heaven

Lost Temple

The Book of Secrets

The Lazarus Vault

For

Dusty and Nancy Rhodes

and

Patrick and Mary Thomas

IN MEMORIAM

Every man seeks peace by waging war,

but no man seeks war by making peace.

– St Augustine, City of God

The dead keep their secrets, and in a little

while we shall be as wise as they.

– Alexander Smith

I

Pristina, Kosovo – Present Day

ESCAPING WORK ON a Friday afternoon was still a luxury Abby hadn’t got used to.

For ten years, work had been long days in the dark places of the Earth, listening to shattered people relive brutality on an unimaginable scale. Then evenings at a laptop in rooms converted from shipping containers, freezing or baking with the seasons, wringing all the blood and tears out of the stories until they became dry pieces of paper that would make presentable evidence for the International Court in The Hague. She never escaped. She’d lost count of the nightmares, the times she’d found herself kneeling over the chemical toilet deep in the night, desperate to purge the things she’d seen. Among the casualties over the years had been several promising relationships, a marriage, and finally her ability to care. But always, next morning, straight back to work.

Now all that was history. She’d transferred to the EU mission in Kosovo – EULEX – teaching the Kosovars how