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Chapters (42)
  1. Chapter One
  2. Chapter Two
  3. Chapter Three
  4. Chapter Four
  5. Chapter Five
  6. Chapter Six
  7. Chapter Seven
  8. Chapter Eight
  9. Chapter Nine
  10. Chapter Ten
  11. Chapter Eleven
  12. Chapter Twelve
  13. Chapter Thirteen
  14. Chapter Fourteen
  15. Chapter Fifteen
  16. Chapter Sixteen
  17. Chapter Seventeen
  18. Chapter Eighteen
  19. Chapter Nineteen
  20. Chapter Twenty
  21. Chapter Twenty-One
  22. Chapter Twenty-Two
  23. Chapter Twenty-Three
  24. Chapter Twenty-Four
  25. Chapter Twenty-Five
  26. Chapter Twenty-Six
  27. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  28. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  29. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  30. Chapter Thirty
  31. Chapter Thirty-One
  32. Chapter Thirty-Two
  33. Chapter Thirty-Three
  34. Chapter Thirty-Four
  35. Chapter Thirty-Five
  36. Chapter Thirty-Six
  37. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  38. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  39. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  40. Chapter Forty
  41. Chapter Forty-One
  42. Chapter Forty-Two

‘The place by the water Mattie was talking about,’ he said. The idea had come to him suddenly, looking out over the sodden parkland. There was no reason for it, apart from his instinct that the killer was linked to Barnard Bridge. ‘Could it be Connie Masters’s cottage? We know it’s a holiday let now, but someone must have lived there once. A family? Mattie’s mother?’

‘No point guessing, is there?’ she said, dismissing the idea without even considering it. ‘Could be anywhere. I need to make some more phone calls.’

It seemed to him that her decision had been made. The dice had been thrown. He waited for her to elaborate, but she sat back in the deep chair, her eyes half closed. ‘What do you want me to do?’ he said after a while. He wanted to shake her. He wanted her fizzing with energy again, indomitable, taking on the world. He hated to see her so frail.

‘Go to Barnard Bridge,’ she said, ‘and keep an eye on Hannah Lister.’

‘You think she might be in danger?’

Vera didn’t answer directly. He wasn’t even convinced she’d heard the question. ‘Jenny Lister and Danny Shaw,’ she said. ‘Someone’s covering his tracks.’ She looked up at him and gave one of her old wicked grins. ‘Or her tracks. I thought I knew what had been going on here. Now I’m not so sure.’

In Barnard Bridge there was a sense of a community under siege. There were sandbags piled outside all the doorways in the main street. The burn that had been just a trickle outside Connie’s cottage was more than a foot deep and the Tyne was brown and fierce, frothing under the bridge, covered with a cream-coloured scum. The place was deserted. Ashworth phoned Connie’s mobile again and left a message. ‘If it continues raining tonight, the river will flood. You should come and move your belongings while you can.’

But, he thought, few of her belongings remained in the cottage. When he and Vera had checked her wardrobe, most of her clothes, and those of the child, had gone. The furniture was the property of the owner, not of Connie. After all, she had no reason to return. His message would have no effect, even if she picked it up.