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‘If you loved Graeme Cameron’s Normal, you’d better hold on tight, because his exceptional follow-up hits it out of the park. Shot through with dry humour and darkness, and starring a female detective who will blow your mind, Dead Girls is an utterly compulsive read’
Fiona Cummins
‘Deeply creepy and very clever story’
Heat
‘An utterly compelling crime novel with an unforgettable heroine. I hope this is only the start of Ali’s story’
Elly Griffiths
‘Hypnotic and chilling – you won’t forget this in a hurry’
Lee Child
‘Blackly humorous …. Normal marks Cameron out as one to watch’
Daily Express
‘Original and gripping’
Clare Mackintosh
‘I didn’t like Normal. I loved it’
Michael Robotham
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018
Copyright © Graeme Cameron 2018
Graeme Cameron 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 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, downloaded, 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.
Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9781474046688
For Helen Cadbury, the best and bravest
and
For Derek
Contents
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Meanwhile . . .
Episode 3
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Episode 4
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Episode 5
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Episode 6
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Acknowledgments
About the Publisher
‘Something’s wrong.’
Detective Sergeant Eli Diaz, formerly of Thetford CID, latterly seconded to the Major Investigation Team at Police Headquarters, and until today engaged in the search for a number of young women missing from across the county, took a moment to consider the redundancy of his statement.
He was standing at the foot of a metal-framed single bed, bolted into the ground through the black rubber floor. The bed was in a steel mesh cage some twenty feet across, the