Cover

Title page

JESSIE

KEANE

FEARLESS

MACMILLAN

Dedication page

This book is dedicated to Cliff –

who still has a lot to put up with . . .

Epigraph page

Rikker it adrée tute’s kokero see an’ kek’ll jin

Keep it secret in your own heart,

and nobody will know it.

PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

2001

The torch was weaving back and forth in Aysha Flynn’s hand, which was shaking hard. Its cone of light, feeble in the country blackness of the night, was wavering all over the place.

‘Hold it steady, damn it,’ snapped Connor.

Aysha put both hands on the torch. Teeth chattering with nerves, she tried to do as her brother said. Connor was steady as a rock, usually, wise beyond his twenty-five years. But this time? Doing a thing like this? She really thought he was demented. He’d been acting strange and out of character ever since those two Milo bitches had arrived in England.

‘This is wrong,’ she told him.

They were inside a tiny church, way out on the far edge of nowhere in the south of England. No one came here any more. The place was near-derelict; no alarms, nothing. The church hadn’t been in use since Gilbert White trotted past it on his famous white horse in the eighteenth century. It had never been big enough to seat more than twenty people, tops. It had no electricity, no heating or light. It was a place of deep peace and tranquillity.

Tonight, it was being desecrated.

We’re going to be cursed for doing this, thought Aysha with a shudder.

Even at night, the place wasn’t locked up. No point. There was nothing here to steal; no altar cloths or silver candlesticks, no crucifix – even the pews were gone. Connor Flynn, with a pickaxe in one hand and a sledgehammer in the other, had led the way up to the big gravestone at the top of the aisle, in front of the disused altar; last resting place of Polly James, 1745–1762, fiancée of William Cody. The inscriptions had almost been worn away by footsteps over the years, but Aysha could still read them, just about.

MAY SHE REST ETERNAL

Jesus! Spooky, or what?

Polly James had died the night before her wedding, it said. And then there was the old wedding rhyme:

Something Old

Something New

Something Borrowed

Something Blue

Connor tried to get the pickaxe under the edge to lift the stone. But it was huge and too bloody heavy for one man to budge. So now Connor flung the pickaxe aside and took up the sledgehammer again. He was taking aim . . .

Oh shit, thought Aysha.

. . . and the hammer swung fast, up and then down. It hit the ancient stone and bounced off.

‘Fuck,’ said Connor, peeling off his shirt and tossing it aside.