Dead Beat. Val McDermid
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DEAD BEAT
Val McDermid
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
This ebook edition published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
First published in Great Britain by Victor Gollancz 1992 and Orion Books Ltd 1999
Copyright © Val McDermid 1992
Cover design by Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Cover photographs © Stephen Mulcahey / Trevillion Images
Val McDermid asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This 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 e-books
Source ISBN: 9780008344894
Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2019 ISBN: 9780007327645
Version: 2019-10-15
‘The queen of crime is still at the top of her game’
INDEPENDENT
‘No one can tell a story like she can’
DAILY EXPRESS
‘One of today’s most accomplished crime writers’
LITERARY REVIEW
‘McDermid remains unrivalled’
OBSERVER
‘Incredibly suspenseful’
SUNDAY MIRROR
‘This is crime writing of the very highest order’
THE TIMES
‘A gripping page-turner’
METRO
‘A terrific read’
DAILY TELEGRAPH
For Lisanne and Jane; can we just tell them that, then, darlings?
Contents
Copyright
Praise for Val McDermid
Dedication
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Part Two
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
About the Author
By Val McDermid
About the Publisher
I swear one day I’ll kill him. Kill who? The man next door, Richard Barclay, rock journalist and overgrown schoolboy, is who. I had stumbled wearily across the threshold of my bungalow, craving nothing more exotic than a few hours’ sleep when I found Richard’s message. When I say found, I use the term loosely. I could hardly have missed it. He’d sellotaped it to the inside of my glass inner door so that it would be the first thing I saw when I entered the storm porch. It glared luridly at me, looking like a child’s note to Santa, written in sprawling capitals with magic marker on the back of a record company press release. ‘Don’t forget Jett’s gig and party afterwards tonight. Vital you’re there. See you at eight.’ Vital was underlined three times, but it was that ‘Don’t forget’ that made my hands twitch into a stranglehold.
Richard and I have been lovers for only nine months, but I’ve already learned to speak his language. I could write the Berlitz phrasebook. The official translation of ‘don’t forget’ is, ‘I omitted to mention to you that I had committed us to going somewhere/doing something (that you will almost certainly hate the idea of) and if you don’t come it will cause me major social embarrassment.’
I pulled the note off the door, sighing deeply when I saw the sellotape marks on the glass. I’d weaned him off drawing pins, but unfortunately I hadn’t yet got him on to Blu-Tack. I walked