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Chapters (61)
  1. Cover
  2. PRAISE FOR HELEN FIELDS
  3. PRAISE FOR THE SHADOW MAN
  4. Dedication
  5. Prologue
  6. Chapter One
  7. Chapter Two
  8. Chapter Three
  9. Chapter Four
  10. Chapter Five
  11. Chapter Six
  12. Chapter Seven
  13. Chapter Eight
  14. Chapter Nine
  15. Chapter Ten
  16. Chapter Eleven
  17. Chapter Twelve
  18. Chapter Thirteen
  19. Chapter Fourteen
  20. Chapter Fifteen
  21. Chapter Sixteen
  22. Chapter Seventeen
  23. Chapter Eighteen
  24. Chapter Nineteen
  25. Chapter Twenty
  26. Chapter Twenty-One
  27. Chapter Twenty-Two
  28. Chapter Twenty-Three
  29. Chapter Twenty-Four
  30. Chapter Twenty-Five
  31. Chapter Twenty-Six
  32. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  33. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  34. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  35. Chapter Thirty
  36. Chapter Thirty-One
  37. Chapter Thirty-Two
  38. Chapter Thirty-Three
  39. Chapter Thirty-Four
  40. Chapter Thirty-Five
  41. Chapter Thirty-Six
  42. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  43. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  44. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  45. Chapter Forty
  46. Chapter Forty-One
  47. Chapter Forty-Two
  48. Chapter 1
  49. Chapter 2
  50. Acknowledgements
  51. Keep Reading …
  52. And if you enjoyed The Shadow Man, you’ll love the D.I. Callanach series from Helen Fields …
  53. On a remote Highland mountain, a body is burning …
  54. Welcome to Edinburgh.Murder capital of Europe.
  55. The worst dangers are the ones we can’t see …
  56. When silence falls, who will hear their cries?
  57. Your darkest moment is your most vulnerable …
  58. He had never heard himself scream before. It was terrifying …
  59. About the Author
  60. By the same author
  61. About the Publisher

A woman with a baby on her lap. Pushing him in a pram. In the hospital minutes after he was born. Standing at the bottom of a slide, arms outstretched and ready to catch him. Looking admiringly the day he’d started school, his hair brushed and shining, smart new shoes that she’d saved up for all summer. Splashing in the freezing cold waves at the beach, oblivious to the cold as she played. In her best clothes at a family dinner.

There were other images not on the wall. Ones he tried to push away. What was the point in recalling pain? The day he’d realised he’d lost her. When he was told that his mother and brother were dead. Sometimes he forgot what she looked like and would have to reinvent her image in his mind.

Now, both legs were numb and he could smell urine from within the cover. Not that his mother would be cross under these circumstances. How could he control himself if he couldn’t even feel his lower limbs? The cover would be burned, presumably, when his body was found.

How long had the woman and the girl been upstairs? Not long, he thought. How many days? Was it weeks already? Time was dancing inside his head, and it wouldn’t stay still.

He coughed, spat up a mouthful of blood, and two more teeth landed on the carpet. Whether they were casualties of his illness or the blows from the staircase didn’t matter any more. His stomach clenched tight, leaving him gasping for breath. Still some pain, then. Just enough to guide him home. Without pain, how could you ever let go of life? The pressure in his neck was building, and he could feel his eyes bulging. The photos on the wall were too hard to see now. He let himself roll onto his back. Who needed photographs when he could join his mother in person.

He felt her kiss on his brow, her breath on his cheek. His heart slowed so that its beat was no more than an occasional speed bump. His pulse, that slave ship drum beat to the endless misery of his life, had lost its potency. His eyes slipped shut, and behind them there was light and warmth. His jaw fell open, relaxing, as his head fell to the side. There was a hand outstretched for him to take. His mother was there, at the bottom of the slide of his life.

Fergus Ariss waited to see if this time, at last, he would stay dead.

Chapter Fourteen