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
She didn’t know where Alfie slept. Her arms ached from holding him. She pushed at the door at the top of the stairs and it opened onto a bathroom. The bath was full, and a man was leaning over the sink. Jude muttered an apology and retreated. The door next to that was a small room with a lavatory and basin in it.
She took the landing to the left of the stairs. The door stood open and the light had been left on and Jude peered inside. It had unplastered walls and some of the boards had been ripped up so she could see copper pipes running the length of the room. Instead of curtains, blankets shielded the windows. It definitely wasn’t Alfie’s room; it couldn’t be Erika and Doc’s because she knew that they were at the top of the house, along with Jan. She looked at the canvas jacket and battered jeans chucked over a chair, the tools and manuals on the shelves, an empty bottle of vodka lying on its side, the overflowing ashtray: Vin’s.
She’d been to the study overlooking the garden when she was going through Liam’s papers, so she retraced her footsteps and knocked then pushed at the door on the other side of the bathroom, waited, stepped inside to darkness, fumbled with her hand for a light switch and found herself in a scene of vivid confusion. There were silky drapes that couldn’t quite cover the flowering damp spreading along the walls; someone had decorated the ceiling with purple and yellow blotches that from where she stood looked like violent bruises. Garments had been tossed every which way, in a riot of colors. The bed was heaped with them. A small piano near the window was covered in tubs and tubes of makeup. Jude spotted a green cape with a charred hem. Irina.
Danny and Liam had kept the largest room for themselves. It had two windows with old blue shutters in need of repair, and a vast mottled wardrobe with a smashed door. Wallpaper hung in strips from one of the walls. The large mirror had a spiderweb crack at its center. But the floorboards were beautiful polished wood, and taking up half of one wall was a charcoal drawing of a forest in winter that made Jude sigh with pleasure. The long rough shelves were dotted with tealights; clothes spilled out of drawers and a long linen coat hung over a chair. Jude could imagine Liam wearing it, loping along with his characteristic gait.