Val McDermid is a number one bestseller whose novels have been translated into more than thirty languages, and have sold over fifteen million copies. She has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and the LA Times Book of the Year Award. She was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame in 2009, was the recipient of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2010 and received the Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award in 2011. In 2016, Val received the Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 2017, she received the DIVA Literary Prize for Crime. She writes full time and divides her time between Edinburgh and East Neuk of Fife.
By Val McDermid
A Place of Execution Killing the Shadows The Grave Tattoo Trick of the Dark The Vanishing Point TONY HILL/CAROL JORDAN NOVELS
The Mermaids Singing The Wire in the Blood The Last Temptation The Torment of Others Beneath the Bleeding Fever of the Bone The Retribution Cross and Burn
Splinter the Silence Insidious Intent KAREN PIRIE NOVELS
The Distant Echo A Darker Domain The Skeleton Road Out of Bounds
Broken Ground
LINDSAY GORDON NOVELS
Report for Murder Common Murder
Final Edition
Union Jack
Booked for Murder Hostage to Murder KATE BRANNIGAN NOVELS
Dead Beat
Kick Back
Crack Down
Clean Break
Blue Genes
Star Struck
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
The Writing on the Wall Stranded
Christmas is Murder (ebook only) Gunpowder Plots (ebook only) NON-FICTION
A Suitable Job for a Woman Forensics
My Scotland
LITTLE, BROWN
First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Little, Brown Copyright © Val McDermid 2019
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-4087-1227-6
Little, Brown
An imprint of
Little, Brown Book Group
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK Company
www.hachette.co.uk
www.littlebrown.co.uk
To our friends in the East Neuk
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Acknowledgements
Prologue
We are all creatures of habit. Even murderers. When things work out for us, we fix on some talisman to credit for the success. Lucky pants; not shaving; performing the same actions in the correct sequence; having the identical breakfast; walking on the right side of the street. When murderers reveal their talismans to us, we call it a signature.
From Reading Crimes by DR TONY HILL
Eight years previously
Murder had been far from Mark Conway’s mind that Saturday afternoon. Although he liked to consider himself an expert on the subject, he was also capable of compartmentalising the different elements of his life. And today, he was all about football. He stood in front of the glass wall of Bradfield Victoria’s boardroom, absently swirling the red wine in its generous goblet, gazing down at the crowds pouring into the stadium.
He knew what they were feeling. Conway had been one of the rank and file himself once. Match day meant superstitious rituals. Since the afternoon twenty years ago when the Vics had won the League Cup, he’d always worn the same pair of black socks with Snoopy dancing on each ankle. He still did, though these days he hid the inappropriate graphic beneath thin black silk. Multi-millionaire businessmen didn’t wear novelty socks.
Match day also meant a low thrum of anticipation in the chest and the stomach. Even for games that had no bearing on league position or the next round of the cup, the excitement fizzed inside him, electric in his blood. Who would be picked for the team? Who would referee the game? What would the weather hold? Would the end of the afternoon bring rapture or stinging disappointment?
That was what it meant to be a fan. And although Mark Conway was now a member of the board of the club he’d followed from boyhood, he remained just that – a fan. He’d shouted himself hoarse as they climbed up – and memorably once, tumbled down – through the divisions to their current position in sixth place in the Premier League. There was only one thing that thrilled him more than a Vics’ victory.
‘Fancy our chances today?’
The voice at his shoulder made Conway turn away from the view. The club’s commercial director had come up behind him. Conway knew the motive; the man was already trying to confirm pitchside advertising for next season and he’d want to get Conway’s name on a contract and his money in the bank sooner rather than later. ‘Spurs are a tough side to beat these days,’ Conway said. ‘But Hazinedar is on great form. Four goals in the last three games. We’ve got to be in with a shout.’
The commercial director began an exhaustive analysis of both teams. He had no gift for small talk and within a couple of sentences, Conway’s attention had drifted, his gaze moving round the room. When he caught sight of Jezza Martinu, his lips twitched in the ghost of a smile. Now there was a man who could have served as the avatar of fandom. Jezza was his cousin; their
