Страница 79 из 80
It was a horrible way to go, Banks thought with a shudder, but so was Morgan Spencer’s death and its aftermath. He couldn’t dredge up a great deal of sympathy for a killer who liked to stub out cigarettes in a pig’s eye. Looking on the bright side, Atherton’s death saved them the expense of making a case against him and keeping him in prison for the rest of his life.
A
Back at the table, Burgess was chatting up AC Gervaise, so that ought to take her mind off Patricia Beddoes for a while, Banks thought. The thing about Burgess, Banks knew from experience, was that however crude and blokeish he was with the lads, he was still a handsome devil in his way, and he had the sort of manly charm that many women found attractive. Not exactly a bit of rough—he was too sophisticated for that—but world-weary with a hint of danger and a definite dash of the bad boy.
Banks and A
He thought about Oriana. He had phoned her the other night in Sydney, after working out what he thought would be a good time. She hadn’t sounded exactly over the moon to hear from him, had seemed distracted, as if she had somewhere to go, something else on her mind, things to do. She was busy, she said, and still tired from the jet lag. He understood that, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that she had resented his intrusion into her other life, and in the end he had hung up feeling much worse than when he had dialed the number.
“Pe
“Oh, nothing,” he said, snapping back to the giddy world of the group celebration. “Just life, you know.”
“Life, the universe, and everything?”
“Something like that. You doing OK?”
A
Burgess had just finished telling a fu
As he waited to be served, he looked back at the table, at his team, deservedly wallowing in the feeling of a job well done. Bobby Vee gave way to Fleetwood Mac’s “Man of the World.” Winsome looked hale and hearty despite her terrifying experience of the previous week. She leaned in close toward Terry Gilchrist, smiling at something he was saying. Banks was pleased for her. It was about time she found someone who recognized her rare and precious qualities, and Gilchrist seemed like a decent, solid bloke. Why Banks felt so protective, he had no idea. A
Burgess switched his attentions from AC Gervaise to Joa
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I WOULD FIRST LIKE TO THANK SHEILA HALLADAY FOR reading the manuscript when I thought it was finished and pointing out that there was still work to be done.
At Hodder, my thanks go to Carolyn Mays for such a terrific job on the editing, especially given the time constraints. Also thanks to Katy Rouse for all her assistance and to Justine Taylor for clear and clean copyediting. At McClelland & Stewart, I would like to thank Ellen Seligman and Kendra Ward for their editing, and at William Morrow, Carolyn Marino and Emily Krump.
Thanks to my agents Dominick Abel and David Grossman for their continuing support. Also thanks to the publicists—Kerry Hood at Hodder, Ashley Du
A special thank-you to Nicholas Reckert for the interesting walks that somehow always seem to suggest a possible crime scene.
Last but not least, thanks to the sales teams who make the deals and set up the special promotions, to the reps who get out on the road and sell the book to the shops, and to the booksellers themselves, without whom you wouldn’t be holding this volume in your hand. And thanks, of course, to you, the reader.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
ALSO BY PETER ROBINSON
GALLOWS VIEW
A DEDICATED MAN
A NECESSARY END
THE HANGING VALLEY
PAST REASON HATED
WEDNESDAY’S CHILD
THE FIRST CUT
FINAL ACCOUNT
INNOCENT GRAVES
BLOOD AT THE ROOT
IN A DRY SEASON
COLD IS THE GRAVE
AFTERMATH
CLOSE TO HOME
PLAYING WITH FIRE
STRANGE AFFAIR
PIECE OF MY HEART
FRIEND OF THE DEVIL
ALL THE COLORS OF DARKNESS
THE PRICE OF LOVE AND OTHER STORIES
BAD BOY
BEFORE THE POISON
WATCHING THE DARK
CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION
CREDITS
Cover design by Mary Schuck
Cover photograph © by Lisa Howarth / Trevillion Images
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.
IN THE DARK PLACES. Copyright © 2015 by Eastvale Enterprises, Inc. 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.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-224054-5
EPub Edition AUGUST 2015 ISBN: 9780062240583
15 16 17 18 19 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1