Perfect Remains. Helen Fields
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Published by Avon an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street,
London, SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2017
Copyright © Helen Fields 2017
Cover photographs © Arcangel Images / Shutterstock
Cover design © HarperCollins 2017
Helen Fields asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
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 non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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 hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008181550
Ebook Edition © September 2016 ISBN: 9780008181567
Version: 2020-10-20
For David, Gabriel, Solomon and Evangeline,
who let me write in a time machine
where just five more minutes in my world
is always an hour or two in yours.
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Keep reading for a sneak peek of The Shadow Man …
Acknowledgments
Keep Reading …
About the Author
About the Publisher
He laid out the body with almost fatherly care, stretching each limb wide, allowing air to circulate freely around her skin. She was ashen but peaceful, her eyelashes bold against the greyness of her face, lips colourless. He preferred it to the way she’d looked when they’d first met. The nakedness was unattractive, splayed as she was, but it was necessary. There should be no part of her left. No aspect of her past, no link to the life she was leaving. This was, in many ways, a cleansing. Very precisely, he aimed his foot above the middle of her left humerus, letting his whole weight bear down on her arm, feeling the crackle and shatter of it vibrate through the bones in his own leg. Only when satisfied that the pyre was perfectly prepared did he take the small silk pouch from his trouser pocket. Tipping the white gems into his hand, he rolled them between deft fingers and palm, enjoying the contrasting smoothness and sharpness, dropping them like pennies down a wishing well into her mouth, saving just one. It seemed a shame to burn such immaculate work but no flesh could be spared. He had soaked the body in accelerant overnight, marinating her, he’d joked, just in case someone stumbled in earlier than expected, not that he was so amateurish that it would happen.
As a last touch before leaving the stone cabin, he allowed a fragment of bloodied silk scarf to drift to the floor. Planting a heavy rock over it, he ground it into the earth. The grate of a struck match, the screech of ancient rusty hinges,