LITMIR.BIZ

       Prologue

       Oxford, England. 1st April 1961.

      It was a lovely Saturday morning, and less than three miles away as the crow flies from the city of dreaming spires, someone was contemplating how ironical it was that it should be April Fool’s Day.

      The daffodils were just beginning to bud in the small woods surrounding Briar’s Hall. Birds were busy building their nests, and a weak and watery sun was promising that spring really was on its way.

      But the person leaning against a still-bare ash tree, moodily observing the fine Georgian building below, cared little for the promise of bluebells to come.

      That person was thinking of only one thing: death, and how best to bring it about.

      Perhaps, not surprisingly, that person was feeling not at all happy. Not only was death on its own something that you would never consider in detail unless given absolutely no choice, contemplating cold-blooded murder was even more unpleasant.

      Not least, of course, because if you were caught at it, you’d be hanged. Which was terrifying.

      And yet death – and murder – there would have to be. The person in the woods could see no other way out.

      Which instilled in that person’s heart yet another, stronger emotion. Rage.

      It was simply not fair!

      But then, as the person in the woods had already learned very well indeed, life had no interest in being fair.

      A woodpecker struck up its rat-a-tat-tat drumming on an old dead horse chestnut tree deeper in the woods, its resonance vibrating through the air. But the human occupant of the wood barely noticed it.

      Tomorrow, the silent watcher in the woods thought, would be a good day for it. With so much happening, there was bound to be confusion, which would almost certainly provide the best opportunity for action.

      Yes. Tomorrow someone would have to die.