Prologue
He watches her struggle, her bloody head only partially visible. Gloved hands probe and encourage. Her face is now free; eyes scrunched shut.
The gloved hands ease her shoulders forwards and then Alice is out. She cries immediately. The midwife wraps her in a towel and thrusts her into his arms. He gazes at her face. She is beautiful.
* * *
A powdery film of frost covers the grass and the trees. The group huddles close. From an old copy of the Bible, the priest reads aloud. Next to him, a man trembles as a small coffin is gently lowered into the grave.
‘My baby …’
A firm hand holds his arm, supporting him. The priest begins sprinkling earth.
‘Lauren … I’m so sorry…’
The ropes are released and pulled up.
‘… I couldn’t help you …’
The man collapses to his knees and the group rush to him.
‘… I couldn’t help you … I couldn’t help you …’
Chapter 1
3.07 am. Magenta Rosti is half-way through the night shift, a quarter-way through the latest James Patterson thriller and a third of the way through a cup of lukewarm coffee. She uses her fingernails to rake short, feathery clumps of her hair, as she reads. Yesterday, Michael John – the hairdresser with two first names – gave her this cut on the pretext that it would ‘lift her face’. Bullshit. The bob makes her look like her father and he was an ugly man.
The red light above the lift engages, the doors open and the silence breaks. Richard Hart emerges and stalks towards her. A blue reefer coat hangs open, and a beaten-up document case swings at his side. His strides cover the ground easily, the clack-clack from his footfalls echoing against the marble floor tiles.
She releases a lock from the plate by the desk. ‘You know what time it is?’
He checks his watch. ‘Late.’
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘What’s it to you?’
She shrugs. ‘I’m just saying.’
He moves away from the security area to the door. ‘She gets poisoned by the way.’
‘What?’
‘Norma, in that book you’ve got. I’ve read it.’
He disappears from view, the door locking behind him. Rosti slams the novel shut.
Prick.
Snatching up the coffee, she takes a mouthful and rotates her chair to face the bank of monitors behind her; feeds from twenty-four security cameras stationed all over the Moorcroft Pharmaceuticals building. It’s camera five that covers James Street and within moments Hart appears on the screen. Under an orange tinge generated by the street lamps, he walks towards his parked Toyota. Rosti uses the joystick on the panel to follow him. Just before activating the central lock, he looks up to the camera and gives her the finger.
That’s when she notices the flicker at the edge of the screen. She leans forward and squints. Hart pulls open the driver’s door and throws in his case. She adjusts the camera, refocuses the lens. There it is again.
A shadow.
Hart fiddles with his keys for a moment, and suddenly the shadow moves into the light. Fully formed and travelling swiftly, it comes right up to him, smashing something heavy into the back of his skull.
Rosti drops the cup from her hand. Hart slumps forwards onto his car as dregs of coffee spill over her lap. Another blow crashes into the side of his head.
Her fingers, fattened by fear, try to work the camera, hitting the zoom just as the final blow explodes into Hart’s face, pulping his nose. The shadow turns three-quarters to the camera. That’s when she screams.
She knows who it is.
