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VAL McDERMID
The Grave Tattoo
For Kelly – my blossom of snow
O Reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring, O gentle Reader! you would find A tale in every thing.
William Wordsworth, Simon Lee
Table of Contents
Praise
Copyright
September 2005
All landscapes hold their own secrets. Layer on layer, the past is buried beneath the surface. Seldom irretrievable, it lurks, waiting for human agency or meteorological accident to force the skeleton up through flesh and skin back into the present. Like the poor, the past is always with us.
That summer, it rained as if England had been transported to the tropics. Water fell in torrents, wrecking glorious gardens, turning meadows into quagmires where livestock struggled hock-deep in mud. Rivers burst their banks, their suddenly released waters