Read an Excerpt
PROLOGUE
June 1969
The girl looked out of the window. They had come for her.
She watched the cars glide up the gravel drive towards the house, soundless, like the ghostly coaches of legend that fetched the souls of the damned.
The policewoman put a firm hand on her shoulder. It was time to go. Leaving the room, the girl caught sight of herself in the gilded mirror. A waif looked back; a pale copy of the carefree seventeenyear-old who had arrived at the house only six months before.
She walked down the fine oak staircase slowly, carefully, the policewoman hovering behind like a nurse watching her patient take her first convalescent steps. The girl swayed slightly and the policewoman put out an arm to steady her.
The silence hung like glass between the girl and the group of people waiting in the hall. They stood watching her descend the staircase. A man, a woman and a small child, a handsome, fair-haired boy of six or seven.
The girl could hear her own breathing; her own heart beating. But the people at the foot of the stairs made no sound. They stood like waxworks - even the boy - avoiding eye contact.
The girl allowed herself to be led past them to where the police cars waited. She sat in the back of the first car, staring ahead as they swept down the gravel drive.
A gaggle of locals had gathered by the ornate gates. As she passed they thrust their bitter, distorted faces at the car windows. The girl tried to cover her ears but she couldn't block out the word they spat at her.
`Murderer . . . murderer . . . murderer.'
