Val McDermid - Fever of the Bone

Synopsis FEVER OF THE BONE

You should have been a detective. If theres one thing the last year has proved, its how good you are at finding things out. Not simple things. Hard things. Things that nobody is supposed to be able to find out. Things that are buried so deep nobody even thinks twice about them. The sort of things that turn peoples lives inside out once theyre exposed. Meet Tony Hills most twisted adversarya killer with a shopping list of victims, a killer unmoved by youth and innocence, a killer driven by the most perverted of desires.
The murder and mutilation of teenager Jennifer Maidment is horrific enough on its own. But its not long before Tony realises its just the start of a brutal and ruthless campaign thats targeting an apparently unconnected group of young people. Struggling with the newly-awakened ghosts of his own past and desperate for distraction in his work, Tony battles to find the answers that will give him personal and professional satisfaction in his most testing investigation yet.

Dr Gillian Lockwood sparked the first idea for this book with a chance remark. Kelly Smith made a crucial connection on the beach that opened up all sorts of possibilities. Professor Sue Black was invaluable as ever on all things relating to pathology and identity. Thanks also to Brian and Sue from Huddersfield whose blog of their canal boat trips is the kind of site that makes me love the internet.

I want to thank everyone at Little, Brown who has made this new adventure so satisfying, particularly my unflappable editor, David Shelley. Anne OBrien the Mistress Yoda of copy-editing continues to be. Jane Gregory and her team at Gregory & Co have steered me through choppy waters to safe harbour.

And finally, thanks to Kelly and Cameron, who make me laugh.

It all comes down to blood in the end. Some wrongs you can get past. File under lessons learned, dangers to avoid in future. But certain kinds of betrayal need to be answered. And sometimes only blood will do.

Not that you take any pleasure in the killing itself. That would be twisted. And youre not twisted. Theres a reason for what youre doing. This is about healing your life. This is about you needing to do this so you can feel better.

People talk a lot about starting over. But not many of them actually do it. They think just moving house or switching jobs or changing lovers will make everything different. But you understand what it really means. Dealing with your list, its a cleansing. Its like someone going into a monastery and burning their worldly goods, watching what holds them earthbound going up in flames. And once that history has turned to smoke, you can truly start over. A whole new set of aspirations and ambitions. An acceptance of whats possible and whats past.

And this is such perfectly balanced payback. Betrayal matching betrayal, life balancing life, loss corresponding to loss. It feels like liberation when the last breath fades and you can be about your work with the knives and scalpels. And as the blood oozes steadily, you feel like youre finally doing the right thing, the only logical thing you could do in the circumstances. Of course, not everybody will see it like that.

Some might say NOBODY will see it your way. But you know thats not true either. You know other people would applaud you for taking this line if they were ever to find out what youve done, what youre doing. People whove had their dreams trashed like you have. Theyd totally get it. And theyd wish they had your resources so they could do the same thing.

If this gets out, you could start a trend.

The vaulted ceiling acted as a giant amplifier for the conversation bouncing round the room. A jazz quartet was putting up a filigree fight, but the competition was too strident. The air was thick with a broth of smells; cooked food, alcohol, sweat, testosterone, cologne and the exhaled breath of a hundred or so people. Not so long ago, cigarette smoke would have deadened most of the human tang, but as publicans had discovered since the ban, people were a lot less fragrant en masse than they liked to think.

There were few women in the room and most of them were toting trays of canaps and drink. As would have happened at this stage of any police retirement do, ties had been loosened and faces had reddened. But the hands that might once have wandered were stilled by the presence of so many senior officers. Not for the first time, Dr Tony Hill wondered how on earth hed ended up where he was. Probably not for the last time, either.

The woman making her way through the throng towards him was probably the only person in the room he actively wanted to spend any time with. It had been murder that had drawn them together, murder that had led them to their mutual understanding, murder that had taught them respect for each others mind and morality. Nevertheless, for years now Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan had been the single colleague who had crossed the border into what he supposed hed have to label friendship. Sometimes he conceded to himself that friendship wasnt an adequate word for the bond that held them fast in spite of their complicated history, but even with his years of experience as a clinical psychologist, he didnt think he could come up with an adequate definition. Especially not now, not here in a place he didnt want to be.

Carol was much better than him at avoiding things she didnt want to do. She was also very good at identifying what those were and acting accordingly. But she had actually chosen to be here tonight. For her, it held a significance that Tony couldnt buy into. Sure, John Brandon had been the first senior cop to take him seriously, to lift him out of the world of treatment and research and put him on the front line of live criminal profiling. But if it hadnt been him, it would have been someone else. Tony appreciated Brandons championing of the value of profiling. But theyd never progressed further than a professional relationship. He would have avoided this evening if Carol hadnt insisted that people would find it odd if he didnt turn up. Tony knew he was odd. Still, he preferred other people not to realise quite how odd. So here he was, a thin smile in place whenever anyone caught his eye.

Carol, conversely, looked born to the breed, slipping easily through the crowd in a shiny dark blue dress that emphasised all the right curves, from shoulders through breasts to hips and calves. Her blonde hair seemed lighter, though Tony knew this was because of the increasing strands of silver among the gold rather than the ministrations of a hairdresser. As she moved through the room, greetings animated her face, lips smiling, eyebrows rising, eyes widening.

Finally she made it to his side, passing him a glass of wine. She took a swig from her own. Youre drinking red, Tony said.

The whites unspeakable.

He took a wary sip. And this is better?

Trust me.

Given how much more she drank than him, it was tempting. Are there going to be speeches?

The Deputy Chief Constables saying a few words.