Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
The News Building
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Copyright © Camilla Way 2019
Cover design by Ellie Game © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Cover photograph © Magdalena Russocka / Trevillion Images
Camilla Way 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.
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Source ISBN: 9780008280994
Ebook Edition © May 2019 ISBN: 9780008281014
Version: 2019-05-20
For my mum, Anna Way, with love
Contents
They stand there, the three of them, looking at the dead man, his blood creeping slowly across the floor. Despite the savagery of his death the room is very still, almost peaceful after the violence that has led to this.
Soon the police will come. They will charge into this nice expensive kitchen in this rather lovely London townhouse with their boots, their batons, their loud authority, and will want to know what happened, whom to hold responsible.
It’s Vivienne who speaks first. ‘What will we do?’ she asks, her teeth chattering with shock. ‘What will we tell them?’
The seconds drip by slowly until her mother at last replies. ‘We will tell them that this is the man who murdered Ruby,’ she says.
It’s