BooksBarbecue
Back The Shadow Man
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

Connie touched a close-up photo of Angela sitting on a park bench, both children on her lap, largest to smallest, like Russian dolls. A picnic was laid out beside them, complete with coloured plastic cups, tiny sandwiches and miniature cupcakes. They’d taken a series of images that day. These were the most recent photographs in the album. They’d had no idea what was coming.

She stood up, taking the photo albums with her. It required more time than she felt was reasonable in Angela’s house to go through every photo carefully, and that was what she needed to do. To immerse herself in Angela’s life and persona. To find the common link, if there was one, between her and Elspeth Dunwoody.

Sighing, she checked her watch then her mobile. The day had ended, and there was still no sign of Elspeth, or update on Meggy. No corpses either, which was the only good news. Hoping Baarda would be free soon, she decided to text him. It occurred to her that she hadn’t eaten for twelve hours, and breakfast had been fruit and coffee.

‘Meet me at my hotel bar,’ she messaged. ‘10 p.m. Debrief and plan for tomorrow over dinner and alcohol.’

The yoga studio on East Broughton Place in Edinburgh’s city centre – iYoga – was midway through one of its evening sessions when Connie arrived. The police had already retraced Elspeth’s steps on the evening of her abduction, taking statements from everyone in her class. Who’d last spoken to her. Who’d seen her leave. What CCTV was available. All the normal stuff. Connie wanted something more personal.

She roamed the hallways between studios, drank orange-and-cucumber water, and checked out the changing rooms as she waited for the classes to finish. It was a hypermodern space, dressed down to feel falsely cosy, in a period building on a street struggling to attract commercial tenants. The shiny hardwood floors and full-length mirrors were at odds with the grand facade and sense of history the place should have conveyed, and Connie liked that. Nothing had to be on the inside what you assumed it was from the outside. People certainly weren’t.