LITMIR.BIZ

      PROLOGUE

      CROWTHORNE, BERKSHIRE

      In the village of Crowthorne is an alarm.

      A direct copy of a World War Two air-raid siren, it is bright red, and sits atop a pole two metres above the ground.

      The alarm is connected by an underground network of wires to Broadmoor Hospital, the sprawling estate of red-brick buildings that sits above the village, and which is home to almost three hundred of the United Kingdom’s most dangerous, damaged citizens.

      It is designed to alert anyone within a twenty-five-mile radius to an escape from the hospital, and has been sounded only five times in earnest in more than fifty years.

      Ben Dawson had been asleep for about forty-five minutes when the siren burst into life. He jerked up from a dream about sleep, the kind of long, deep, uninterrupted sleep that had been impossible in the six weeks since Isla was born, and felt his wife raise her head slowly from her pillow.

      “The baby OK?” she slurred.

      “It’s not Isla,” he replied. “It’s the siren.”

      “Siren?”

      “The bloody Broadmoor siren,” he snapped. It was deafening, a two-tone scream that made his chest tighten with anger.

      “What time is it?” asked Maggie, forcing her eyes open and looking at him.

      Ben flicked on his bedside lamp, wincing as the light hit his eyes, and checked the clock.

      “Quarter to four,” he groaned.

      Not fair, he thought. It’s just not fair.

      Then he heard a second sound, in between the peals of the alarm; a high, determined crying from the room above their bedroom. Ben swore and swung his legs out from under the duvet.

      “Stay there,” said Maggie, pushing herself to the edge of the bed. “It’s my turn.”

      Ben slid his feet into his trainers and pulled a jumper over his head. “You see to Isla. I’m going outside, see if anyone else is awake.”

      “OK,” said Maggie, stumbling through the bedroom door. She was barely awake, moving with the robotic lurch of new parents everywhere. Ben heard her footsteps on the stairs, heard her begin to gently shush their daughter.

      Ben felt no fear at the sound of the siren.

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