Splinter in the Blood
Page 37
“She said it might help to kick-start my memory.”
Ruth recalled how sick and frail he’d looked the day after.
“Don’t feel bad,” he said. “The one good thing to’ve come out of this is I can’t be around alcohol anymore—that’s got to be good, hasn’t it?”
She heard a forced jollity in his tone.
“There are easier ways to go teetotal,” she said.
Carver smiled. His eyes drifted closed.
“Why did Pendinning pick on you?” he asked.
He kept his eyes shut, and she was grateful for that.
“To get at you.”
“I don’t need to see your aura to tell that’s a barefaced lie,” he murmured, that smile playing over his face again. “She wanted me back on the case, but she chose you, specifically, for a reason.”
Ruth couldn’t think of a reply and he opened his eyes again.
“You said yourself, it was all about secrets with her. So, what’s your secret?”
“The woman was crazy—who knows what she imagined she saw in me?” She shrugged. “Anyway, don’t you think some secrets are worth keeping?”
Ruth watched him search her face for hidden meaning and, emptying her mind of anything but the maddening itch from the tattoos on her forearm, she built a wall of white noise around herself and trusted that she was well concealed.
Acknowledgments
Many are owed a huge debt of gratitude in the genesis of this book. I am in awe of the truly spectacular work done by Felicity Blunt and foreign rights marvel, Melissa Pimentel, at Curtis Brown; your combined brilliance in putting the book in front of all the right people has been dazzling. Sincere thanks to Jennifer Joel at ICM, for finding the book such a splendid home at William Morrow in the United States. To James Gurbutt, my publisher at Corsair, thanks for being wonderful behind the scenes from the very early stages. Emily Krump, my editor at William Morrow, and rest of the amazing team at HarperCollins: your enthusiasm, energy, and attention to the finer details have made this book’s transatlantic voyage a pleasure from the start.
To Ann Cleeves, Sue Mortimer, Mo (Clare) Hayder, and Sara MacDonald, I will always be grateful for your kinship, support, advice—and laughter.
This novel would never have seen the light of day if it weren’t for the generous support of the Royal Literary Fund; thank you with all my heart.
Research is one of the joys of writing for a living, and Hallucinations, by Oliver Sacks, has been both an inspiration and a constant source of wonder in revealing the inventiveness, adaptability, and resilience of the human mind. John Robertson’s excellent poisons website, www.thepoisongarden.co.uk, proved a rich and reliable source of information; I guarantee that you’ll be astounded by how many apparently innocuous garden plants harbor deadly secrets. . . . Tattoos have always been an enigma to me, so I was delighted to discover anthropologist Lars Krutak’s website, articles, and YouTube talks, which were incredibly informative on the cultural heritage of tattoos and scarification.
Finally, I was recently asked to contribute to research on the importance of grit in achieving success (trust me, it’s a “thing”—just google “Grit, psychological factor”!). It’s certainly true that my own perseverance and passion have been crucial, but the grit and determination of others must also be factored in to this complex equation. So, a special thank you is due to you, Felicity, for your steadfast support over the years; I hope to fully justify your faith in me.
About the Author
Ashley Dyer is a writing duo based in the United Kingdom. This is their first book together.
Margaret Murphy is a Writing Fellow and Reading Round Lector for the Royal Literary Fund, a past chair of the Crime Writers Association (CWA), and founder of Murder Squad. A CWA Short Story Dagger winner, she has been shortlisted for the First Blood critics’ award for crime fiction as well as the CWA Dagger in the Library. Under her own name she has published nine psychological suspense and police procedural novels.
Helen Pepper is a senior lecturer in policing at Teesside University. She has been an analyst, forensic scientist, scene of crime officer, CSI, and crime scene manager. She has coauthored, as well as contributed to, professional policing texts. Her expertise is in great demand with crime writers: she is a judge for the CWA’s Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction Award, and is a forensic consultant on both the Vera and Shetland TV series.
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
splinter in the blood. Copyright © 2018 by Ashley Dyer. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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 hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Originally published as Splinter in the Blood in the United Kingdom in 2018 by Little, Brown.
first u.s. edition
Cover design by Alicia Tatone
Cover photographs © Plainpicture/Cultura/Aliyev Alexei Sergeevich (vines); © Felicia Simion/Trevillion Images (tree and thorns); © reisegraf.ch/Shutterstock (thorns)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dyer, Ashley author.
Title: Splinter in the blood : a novel / Ashley Dyer.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : William Morrow, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017061675 | ISBN 9780062797674 (hc)
Subjects: LCSH: Police--Fiction. | Serial murder investigation--Fiction. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction
Classification: LCC PR6104.Y44 S65 2018 | DDC 823/.92--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017061675
Digital Edition JUNE 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-279771-1
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-279767-4
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