Chapters (78)
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Sixty-Six
- Sixty-Seven
- Sixty-Eight
- Sixty-Nine
- Seventy
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Remarkable Praise for Nicci French
- Also by Nicci French
- About the Publisher
When she woke on Saturday, she was aware of two things: the first was the cat was loudly coughing up a fur ball by the side of her bed. The second was that her mobile was ringing.
She reached out a hand and found it, seeing as she did so that it was nearly ten o’clock.
“Yes?”
She felt as if someone had hit her over the head with a brick. She needed several mugs of tea.
“Jude, it’s Danny.”
“Hello.”
Jude struggled to a sitting position. The cat retched air violently. Maybe it was ill; maybe it was dying, like the plants seemed to be.
“I’d like you to come round.”
“Round to yours?”
“How about midday?”
“I can’t do that,” said Jude.
She could, but Danny’s peremptory tone grated on her.
“What about later?”
“I can probably get to you about three-thirty or four,” said Jude. “If it’s important.”
“That’s great.”
Danny finished the call without saying goodbye or thanking her.
Jude made herself a pot of tea, and then, when she had finished it, a pot of coffee along with two pieces of toast and honey. She fed the cat and tried to stroke it, and she watered the drooping plants; maybe she was over-watering them. She cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed, and then lay in a bath, half-listening to a podcast.
Leila Fox had told her to sort out her own life, not the mess that Liam had left behind, and she was right. Liam was dead and beyond rescue.
She thought of the muddy ground where his body had lain, the shriveled bunches of flowers and messages. Liam had been so gorgeously, menacingly alive and now he was in a morgue somewhere. Jude had seen many dead bodies. Her work was among people at the end of their lives and much of what she did was to help them have a good passing. But she had never seen the dead body of someone she had loved and had held in her arms.
The rain of the past days had stopped and the skies had cleared to a milky blue. Jude walked briskly all the way to Walthamstow, stopping only to buy a little paper cone of roast chestnuts, and arrived shortly before four, blown clean by the east wind.
She rapped on the door and it opened almost at once. Danny stood in front of her. She was wearing leggings and an orange zip-through jacket, tight and high-necked. Her feet were bare. Jude saw a geometric tattoo on her shapely ankle. She had piled her hair on top of her head, which made her look even taller than she was.
“We’ve just finished doing a workout,” she said. “Haven’t we, Alfie?”