Val McDermid

Dead Beat


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      DEAD BEAT

      Val McDermid

HarperCollinsPublishers Logo

       Copyright

      HarperCollinsPublishers

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      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

       Praise for Val McDermid

      ‘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

       Dedication

       For Lisanne and Jane; can we just tell them that, then, darlings?

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Praise for Val McDermid

      Dedication

      Part One

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

       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

Part One

       1

      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