Later, Carol Chamberlain would convince herself that she had actually been dreaming about Jessica Clarke when she got the first call. That the noise of the phone ringing had dragged her awake; away from the sound and the smell of it. The fuzzy picture of a girl running, the colours climbing up her back, exploding and flying at her neck like scarves of gold and crimson.

Whether the dream was imagined or not, she'd begun to see it all again the moment she'd put down the phone.Sitting on the edge of the bed, shivering; Jack, who had stirred only momentarily, dead to the world behind her.

X murks the spot - and when thnt spot is n corpse's nnked buck and the X is curved in blood, DI Tom Thorne is in no doubt that the dead mnn is the latest victim of n particularly vicious contrnct killer This is turf wnrfare between Horth London gangs. Orgnnised-crime boss Billy nynn is moving into someone else's patch, and thnt someone is not best plensed. For Thorne, n tenuous link between two cases becomes two pieces of the sume puzzle; pnst nnd present fuse together to form o new and very nasty riddle.