Final Edition. V. McDermid L.

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COPYRIGHT

      HarperCollinsPublishers

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      London, W6 8JB

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      First published in Great Britain by The Women’s Press Ltd 1991

      Copyright © Val McDermid 1991

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

      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.

      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.

       HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

      Source ISBN: 9780007191765

      Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2014 ISBN: 9780007301829

      Version: 2014-12-08

      CONTENTS

       Cover

       Title Page

Copyright

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Epilogue

       Keep Reading

       Acknowledgments

       About the Author

       Other Books By

       About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

       Glasgow, Scotland, December 1989

      Jackie Mitchell stared down at the murdered body of Alison Maxwell, fear and horror mingling in equal measure. Alison was sprawled on the familiar bedroom carpet, limbs crooked, blonde hair spread round her head in a jagged halo. The ravages of strangulation had left her face barely recognisable. The scarf that was wound into a tight ligature round her neck was, however, only too easily identifiable. Jackie would know her own distinctive yellow tartan muffler anywhere. Slowly, with an enormous effort of will, she forced herself to look up.

      Jackie gazed round the crowded courtroom, only too aware of the accusing eyes that had already made their judgment about her guilt. The photograph she clutched in her sweating hands was her first sight of Alison Maxwell’s corpse. But she knew that the number of people in the stuffy courtroom who genuinely believed that could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Certainly the fifteen members of the jury, who were flicking through the prosecution’s photograph album with looks of shock, horror and disgust that mirrored her own emotions, were not among them.

      The СКАЧАТЬ