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       Copyright

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      Harper HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by

      Methuen London Ltd 1987

      under the author’s psuedonym Patrick Ruell

      Copyright © Patrick Ruell 1987

      Reginald Hill asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

      Source ISBN: 9780586205464

      Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2015 ISBN 9780007394739

      Version: 2015-09-15

Dedication

      This one for Billy and Choc – who else?

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

Part One

1

2

3

4

Part Two

1

2

3

4

Part Three

1

      2

      3

      4

      5

       Part Four

      1

      2

      3

      4

       Part Five

      1

      2

      3

      4

       Part Six

      1

      2

      3

      4

      5

      6

      7

       Part Seven

      1

      2

      3

       Part Eight

      1

      2

       Part Nine

      1

      2

       Part Ten

      1

       Keep Reading

       About the Author

       By Reginald Hill

       About the Publisher

Epigraph

      When one subtracts from life infancy

      (which is vegetation) – sleep, eating, and swilling

      – buttoning and unbuttoning – how much remains of

      downright existence? The summer of a dormouse…

      BYRON: Journal (December 7th 1813)

Prologue

      She was lying on a bare mattress in a darkened room. Her wrists and ankles were bound, but this was an unnecessary refinement. In her mind she had been here many times before and knew there was no escape. One strip of light there was which could not be blinked away. It lay on the floor, seeping in beneath the door, and beyond that door on bare stone flags she could hear the sound of footsteps getting nearer.

      She lay as still as the mouse which huddles in its cornfield nest, and hears the approach of the coulter, and knows what it means, but does not know how to fly.

      Nothing remained in her life, no spur to action, no prick of hope. Nothing of past, present or future touched her life, only that crack of light beneath the door and the footsteps which were approaching it.

      She had been waiting for them all her life. They belonged to the secret police who strike with the dawn; to the cruel rapist who lurks in the shadows; to the man she had loved, come here to kill her.

      Now they were close. Now the line of light beneath the door was broken by a growing shadow.

      Now the footsteps halted.

      Slowly the door handle began to turn. Slowly

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