Cover

About the Author

Tim Weaver is the Sunday Times bestselling author of ten thrillers, including I Am Missing and You Were Gone. Weaver has been nominated for a National Book Award, selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club, and shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Dagger in the Library award. He is also the host and producer of the chart-topping Missing podcast, which features experts in the field discussing missing persons investigations from every angle.

A former journalist and magazine editor, he lives near Bath with his wife and daughter.

Praise for Tim Weaver

‘Terrific’ Sunday Times

‘Thrilling’ Richard and Judy Book Club

‘Packed with twists’ Daily Express

‘I couldn’t put it down’ Sun

‘Serpentine and satisfying’ Daily Mail

‘Impressive’ Guardian

‘Dark, complex and visceral’ Financial Times

‘So many twists and surprises’ The Times

‘Full of clever twists’ Dead Good Books

‘Little short of brilliant’ Crime Fiction Lover

‘It had me racing to the end’ Fiona Barton

‘Enthralling’ Liz Nugent

‘Kept me guessing until the final page’ Jane Corry

‘The rising star of British crime’ Tony Parsons

‘Tense and twisty, with an emotional punch’ Karen Perry

Dedication

For The Linscotts

Part One

THE VILLAGE

1

The sign said: Welcome to Black Gale.

It was weather-beaten, rinsed pale over the time that it had stood guard at the gated entrance to the village. Purple crocuses were dotted like jewels along the grass bank it was on, and beyond the sign was a mud track littered with stones, leading to three homes in a semicircle and a farm. The farm itself was modest, surrounded by a crumbling drystone wall dotted with moss and half covered by weeds, which also hemmed in the other homes. But on the other side of the wall, the farm’s fields unfurled across the moors like a huge patchwork quilt.

I’d met Ross Perry just outside Grassington, a market town twenty miles south of Black Gale, and had followed him up here. The further I drove, the higher I climbed, daffodils dotted along the banks of the narrow, one-lane roads. Even in March, though, winter hadn’t quite vanished. As I pulled my Audi in next to Ross’s Range Rover, I looked north, towards the heart of the moors, and could see hills still painted with ribbons of snow.

Ross waited for me next to his vehicle, dressed in a smart black suit and a bright red windbreaker. Stitched into the breast pocket of the windbreaker was CONNOR & PERRY PROPERTY | YORKSHIRE. I’d done a little reading up on Ross: he was young, twenty-six, but already the co-owner of an estate agency, and one of West Yorkshire’s most eligible bachelors according to a list in a local magazine. He was stocky, dark-haired and olive-skinned, the latter an endowment from his mother, Francesca, who had been born and raised in Florence.