by Denise Mina
Mark Barratt was up. He lifted the woman at his side to her feet, yanking her out of the room with him.
Farmer shouted after them. ‘I never!’
But Simmons was at his side, taking his wrist, nodding a cop over to the man with his hand up. CI Pittoch sat still on the stage, trying hard to remain dignified for the camera. The audience were nodding, satisfied, agreeable.
But Morrow wasn’t watching the arrest. She was transfixed by the old women on stage. Anek and her niece. Annie and Eunice. They weren’t watching the arrest either. They were crying, holding hands, forehead pressed to forehead. Everything they said was amplified by both their mics, so loud it drowned the room.
Annie gasped for breath through her tears and Eunice sobbed, ‘Thank God! Thank God! Thank God!’
The room was a maelstrom of action, Tommy resisting arrest, the small man with his hand up being questioned, Boyd Fraser and his wife hugged in a corner. Groups of people swirled and ebbed, lives were changed and cliffs swept away, but Morrow wasn’t watching any of it. She was listening.
Through the big speakers on either side of the stage surged the sound of old women crying, reaching for each other, and the rasp of blouse against mic filled the room as surely as water.
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank Nicola White for inviting me to Hel often, and explaining the referendum politics of the area, though we were on different shores at the time. I’d like to apologise to Ms White if I have inadvertently misrepresented any of the nuances around the whole gazebo controversy. Any overt or covert implications on the use of gazebos for political purposes are inadvertent. I had strong opinions on this at one time but now I no longer care. To be clear: I will still fight ye, but the fun has gone out it for me.
Also thanks to the people who advise and guide and patiently explain why this bit is rubbish and that character wasn’t even in the story until page 274 and everyone in the book has glasses on: Jon Wood, Jemima Forrester, Peter Robinson. Also to Angela McMahon and Graeme Williams, and sorry about forgetting to go to things all the time. Also to Juliet Ewers and Susan Lamb. And the God-sent Susie Murray and Trudi Keir, both of whom wrangle with the chaos and leave me free to work.
You’re all bloody lovely and I wake up every morning grateful for you.
About the Author
Denise Mina is the author of the novels The Red Road, Gods and Beasts, The End of the Wasp Season, Still Midnight, Slip of the Knife, The Dead Hour, Field of Blood, Deception, and the Garnethill trilogy, the first installment of which won the John Creasey Memorial Award for best first crime novel. Mina has twice received the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award. She lives in Glasgow.
denisemina.com
ALSO BY DENISE MINA
ALEX MORROW NOVELS
STILL MIDNIGHT
THE END OF THE WASP SEASON
GODS AND BEASTS
THE RED ROAD
PADDY MEEHAN NOVELS
FIELD OF BLOOD
THE DEAD HOUR
SLIP OF THE KNIFE
GARNETHILL TRILOGY
GARNETHILL
EXILE
RESOLUTION
OTHER NOVELS
DECEPTION
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Epigraph
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
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Denise Mina
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2015 by Denise Mina
Cover design by Allison J. Warner; photograph copyright © Mark Owen/Trevillion Images
Author photograph by Neil Davidson
Cover copyright © 2015 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: December 2015
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ISBN 978-0-316-38055-3
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