The Torment of Others (55 page)

Authors: Val McDermid

BOOK: The Torment of Others

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Tony could hardly believe the evidence of his eyes.

There are few things more moving than the full pomp of a police funeral. Dozens of officers in dress uniforms, family and friends stunned with grief and carried along on the formal wave of an organizational farewell, the full solemnity that the Church of England can muster. Carol stood surrounded by her team, eyes front, chin tucked in, cap under her arm. John Brandon read the encomium she’d written to honour Don Merrick’s memory while his boys clung to their mother, the only familiar element in this extraordinary scene.

Tony stood off to one side, his eyes never straying far from Carol and, next to her, a hollow-eyed and twitchy Paula. When he’d shown Tyler’s note to Carol, she’d descended on the building where he’d had a ground-floor bedsit like one of the Furies. All her grief and rage at Merrick’s death had manifested itself in the absolute determination to nail Jan Shields.

The tapes had still been there, three floors up, rammed down between the water cistern and the angle of the roof. And their chilling message was irrefutable and inescapable. The only person who didn’t recognize the fact was Jan herself. But that didn’t matter. No jury would free her now. Tony felt a shudder of pity for whichever establishment was unlucky enough to acquire her as an inmate.

The past few weeks had been a baptism of fire for Carol, he thought. There had been several points where he’d feared she wasn’t going to make it. But she’d proved him wrong, and for once he was glad to be wrong.

Brandon reached the end of his eulogy and bowed his head. The twenty-one-gun salute crackled out across the graveyard. Carol turned her head to meet Tony’s eyes. A small, almost imperceptible nod passed between them. It was, he thought, amazing how little we needed to survive.

Acknowledgements

As usual, I owe a debt of thanks to those who generously give of their time and expertise in a bid to keep me within the bounds of accuracy. I am grateful to the Greenfield Girls for letting loose the dogs of narrative; Angus Marshall for advice on the forensic aspects of computing; Dr Ray Murray for geological assistance; Dr Sue Black for matters pathological; Brigid Baillie for legal procedure; and the late Kathy Wilkes for first introducing me to the mind/body problem.

For their perennial support, Julia Wisdom and Anne O’Brien at HarperCollins; Jane, Broo, Anna, Claire and Terry at Gregory & Company; Trina Furre at Riverdale; and Sandra, Ken and Robson at Coastal.

About the Author

Val McDermid grew up in a Scottish mining community then read English at Oxford. She was a journalist for sixteen years, spending the last three years as Northern Bureau Chief of a national Sunday tabloid. Now a full-time writer, she divides her time between Cheshire and Northumberland.

The Torment of Others
is Val McDermid’s fourth book featuring criminal profiler, Tony Hill. The first,
The Mermaids Singing
, won the 1995 Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year. The series has now been adapted for television under the generic title Wire in the Blood, starring Robson Green as Tony Hill and Hermione Norris as DCI Carol Jordan.

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Praise for
The Torment of Others:

‘A long awaited return to the scene of the crime for Dr Tony Hill. No one compares to McDermid when it comes to the deviant side of human nature’

Maxim Jakubowski,
Guardian

‘This is a disturbing high-tension book, unstinting in its portrayals of psychological distress. One of McDermid’s finest, which is saying a lot’

Marcel Berlins,
The Times

‘Val McDermid is an intelligent, supremely talented novelist and with this latest tale she is writing at the height of her power. It may not be comfortable, it may be neither pretty nor pleasant, but it is utterly compelling’

Allan Laing,
Glasgow Herald

‘Even as Hill and Jordan are unravelling the truth, McDermid intersperses their efforts with the hideous insights into the deviant megalo mania of the voices. Serial killers, though meat and drink to crime writers, are thankfully rare. It is a tribute to the power of Val McDermid’s imagination that she made this one seem so believable’

Daily Telegraph

‘This is McDermid on top form – pass the Valium’

Daily Mail

‘It’s hard to know what to praise first here: the impeccable plotting or the sharp social relevance of the narrative. Most of all, though, it’s the relationship between her two central characters that makes [it] work so well. This is a real, adult relationship; complex, combative and nuanced’

Barry Forshaw,
Express

‘Val McDermid, as ever, is adept at engendering irresistible suspense, as the fearsome attractiveness of the ever more benighted and bloody predicament works its effect on readers’

Patricia Craig,
Times Literary Supplement

‘Convincing and intelligent’

Cath Staincliffe,
Manchester Evening News

‘Some excellent writing from an author who is building a formidable reputation. There are some terrific twists: just as the reader feels something has been securely settled, McDermid gives a new jerk to the storyline and the chase is on again’

Jane Jakeman,
Scotland on Sunday

‘This story is a cracker, complicated – with two enquiries run in harness – genuinely surprising, often upsetting, ultimately credible and intellectually satisfying’

John Bowen,
The Oldie

By the Same Author

The Grave Tattoo
The Distant Echo
Killing the Shadows
A Place of Execution

TONY HILL NOVELS
The Last Temptation
The Wire in the Blood
The Mermaids Singing

KATE BRANNIGAN NOVELS
Star Struck
Blue Genes
Clean Break
Crack Down
Kick Back
Dead Beat

LINDSAY GORDON NOVELS
Hostage to Murder
Booked for Murder
Union Jack
Final Edition
Common Murder
Report for Murder

NON-FICTION
A Suitable Job for a Woman

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.

HarperCollins
Publishers
77–85 Fulham Palace Road, London, W6 8JB

The HarperCollins website address is: www.harpercollins.co.uk

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins
Publishers
in 2004

Val McDermid asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Extract from
The Four Quartets
by TS Eliot (published by Faber and Faber Ltd) reproduced by kind permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.

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