Chapters (61)
- Cover
- PRAISE FOR HELEN FIELDS
- PRAISE FOR THE SHADOW MAN
- Dedication
- Prologue
- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three
- Chapter Four
- Chapter Five
- Chapter Six
- Chapter Seven
- Chapter Eight
- Chapter Nine
- Chapter Ten
- Chapter Eleven
- Chapter Twelve
- Chapter Thirteen
- Chapter Fourteen
- Chapter Fifteen
- Chapter Sixteen
- Chapter Seventeen
- Chapter Eighteen
- Chapter Nineteen
- Chapter Twenty
- Chapter Twenty-One
- Chapter Twenty-Two
- Chapter Twenty-Three
- Chapter Twenty-Four
- Chapter Twenty-Five
- Chapter Twenty-Six
- Chapter Twenty-Seven
- Chapter Twenty-Eight
- Chapter Twenty-Nine
- Chapter Thirty
- Chapter Thirty-One
- Chapter Thirty-Two
- Chapter Thirty-Three
- Chapter Thirty-Four
- Chapter Thirty-Five
- Chapter Thirty-Six
- Chapter Thirty-Seven
- Chapter Thirty-Eight
- Chapter Thirty-Nine
- Chapter Forty
- Chapter Forty-One
- Chapter Forty-Two
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Acknowledgements
- Keep Reading …
- And if you enjoyed The Shadow Man, you’ll love the D.I. Callanach series from Helen Fields …
- On a remote Highland mountain, a body is burning …
- Welcome to Edinburgh.Murder capital of Europe.
- The worst dangers are the ones we can’t see …
- When silence falls, who will hear their cries?
- Your darkest moment is your most vulnerable …
- He had never heard himself scream before. It was terrifying …
- About the Author
- By the same author
- About the Publisher
The horrible truth was that his organs had begun rotting inside his body. Perhaps exacerbated by his gran’s passing, or perhaps it was just his time, a clock had begun to tick and the alarm was about to ring.
Sleep crept over him and he pinched the soft skin of his stomach fiercely. He didn’t have time to nap. There was so much more to do. A new bed had been delivered that he needed to put together. The bedding was still in its plastic wrappers and needed to be washed before it could be put on the bed. If it still had the folds from the packaging, it wouldn’t look nice at all. There were toys and games to put on shelves. The effort felt crushing. Swinging his legs off the bed, and bracing for the pain in his back as he rose, Fergus willed his shaking hands to comply with the need to grip screwdrivers and hammer nails. He took a photograph from the wall, and walked up the stairs to the upper apartment, checking the peepholes to make sure the hallway was clear before entering.
Inside, he took a moment to walk around and appreciate the place. The windows were bricked up, and each room was a fraction smaller than the original plans showed. A layer of soundproofing with plasterboard over the top had made a larger impact than he’d anticipated. But it was cosy. He’d painted the bedroom walls pink. The tiny kitchenette was summer morning blue, the lounge a sunny yellow. He peered into his and Elspeth’s bedroom. The lazy woman was still asleep, or perhaps just hung-over. Leaving her in silence, he entered the second bedroom.
Taping the photo on the wall first to motivate himself, he began unwrapping lengths of wood, cross slats, a bundle of screws and Allen keys.
A girl beamed at him from the photograph.
Not long now. This time it would all work out.
Chapter Seven
‘So to summarise, you have five people in custody, and in spite of that you have thus far been completely unable to ascertain where Elspeth Dunwoody actually is,’ Detective Chief Inspector O’Neill said, the sneer in her voice evidenced by her extended vowel pronunciation.
Connie looked across the desk at Baarda, who was cradling a steaming cup of coffee and maintaining a remarkable air of calm in spite of the hostility coming from the conference call speaker phone.