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Contents (26)
- PETER ROBINSON
- CLOSE TO HOME
- Contents
- 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
- About the Author
- Also by Peter Robinson
- Copyright
- About the Publisher
PETER
ROBINSON
CLOSE TO HOME
A NOVEL OF SUSPENSE
For Sheila
The glory dropped from their youth and love,
And both perceived they had dreamed a dream;
Which hovered as dreams do, still above:
But who can take a dream for a truth?
—ROBERT BROWNING, “The Statue and the Bust”
Contents
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Trevor Dickinson was hungover and bad-tempered when he turned up…
Chapter 2
Up in Yorkshire two days later, the sky was far…
Chapter 3
DI Michelle Hart locked up her dark gray Peugeot outside…
Chapter 4
On the surface, it had seemed a simple enough question…
Chapter 5
Nick Lowe’s The Convincer ended and Banks slipped in David…
Chapter 6
Showered and dressed in crisp, clean clothes, Annie presented herself…
Chapter 7
The Coach and Horses, about a hundred yards along the…
Chapter 8
When Banks arrived at Thorpe Wood the following morning and…
Chapter 9
Strictly speaking, you know,” said Banks, “this is your case.
Chapter 10
As Annie waited outside ACC McLaughlin’s office at county headquarters…
Chapter 11
Before he cut into Luke Armitage’s flesh, Dr. Glendenning made a…
Chapter 12
Norman Wells sat in the interview room with his folded…
Chapter 13
Lauren Anderson lived in a small semi not too far…
Chapter 14
Early in the afternoon, Annie showed the artist’s impression of…
Chapter 15
The Bridge Fair came every March. As a young boy,…
Chapter 16
You were late back last night,” Banks’s mother said, without…
Chapter 17
Glad you could come, Alan,” said Mrs. Marshall, sticking out her…
Chapter 18
All the way to Swainsdale Hall Annie worried about what…
Chapter 19
It didn’t take Annie long to drive to Harrogate and…
About the Author
Praise
Other Books by Peter Robinson
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
Trevor Dickinson was hungover and bad-tempered when he turned up for work on Monday morning. His mouth tasted like the bottom of a birdcage, his head was throbbing like the speakers at a heavy metal concert, and his stomach was lurching like a car with a dirty carburetor. He had already drunk half a bottle of Milk of Magnesia and swallowed four extra-strength paracetamol, with no noticeable effect.
When he arrived at the site, Trevor found he had to wait until the police had cleared away the last of the demonstrators before he could start work. There were five left, all sitting cross-legged in the field. Environmentalists. One was a little gray-haired old lady. Ought to be ashamed of herself, Trevor thought, a woman of her age squatting down on the grass with a bunch of bloody Marxist homosexual tree-huggers.
He looked around for some clue as to why anyone would want to save those particular few acres. The fields belonged to a farmer who had recently been put out of business by a combination of mad-cow disease and foot-and-mouth. As far as Trevor knew, there weren’t any rare pink-nippled fart warblers that couldn’t nest anywhere else in the entire country; nor were there any ivy-leafed lark’s-turds lurking in the hedgerows. There weren’t even any trees, unless you counted the shabby row of poplars that grew between the fields and the A1, stunted and choked from years of exhaust fumes.