THE CUTTING PLACE
Jane Casey
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020
Copyright © Jane Casey 2020
Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020
Cover photographs © Mark Owen / Trevillion Images (woman in tunnel), Shutterstock.com (all other images)
Excerpt from The Killing Kind © Jane Casey 2021
Jane Casey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008149086
Ebook Edition © April 2020 ISBN: 9780008149109
Version: 2021-03-24
For Claire Graham
‘Ask yourself “Am I satisfied that I have done all I can?”’
from the Domestic Abuse, Stalking and Harassment and Honour Based Violence (DASH 2009)
Risk Identification and Assessment Checklist for Police Staff Laura Richards, BSc, Msc, FRSA
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Two years earlier
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Two years earlier
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Two years earlier
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Two years earlier
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Two years earlier
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Two years earlier
Chapter 17
Two years earlier
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Now
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Now
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Keep Reading …
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Jane Casey
About the Publisher
For a few moments, it was the quietest place in London. The area under the footbridge was as hushed as a chapel while the black mortuary van was pulling away. A little group of us had gathered there to show our respects, photograph-still: uniformed officers, forensic investigators, a team from the Marine Police unit in their wetsuits, a pair of detectives and a small grey-haired woman in waterproofs and rubber boots standing to one side, her arms folded. Then the van disappeared from view and the picture dissolved into movement. Back to work. Life goes on.
The woman in waterproofs turned to me.
‘Is that it, then? Can I go?’
‘Not yet, if you don’t mind. I need to hear your account of what happened.’
Kim Weldon gave a deep, testy