Wide awake and focused, Di Tom Thorne sits and studies death. He's seen hundreds, maybe thousands of photographs like these. The photographs on the table in front of him are no more sickening than any he has seen before, but keeping his eyes on the image of the dead woman is like staring hard into a flame and feeling his eyeballs start to melt. Carol Garner was a single mum, twenty-eight years old. Her husband had died three years earlier in a road accident. She was a teacher. It's an horrific case, but that doesn't follow that it should be passed on to Thorne's Team 3, Serious Crime Group - except that the police think the killer went out and murdered again that same afternoon.
It is Thorne who sees the link between the simultaneous murders. This is not a serial killer the police are up against. This is two of them. Finding the body used to be the worst part of his job. Not any more. Now each time a body is found, Thorne lives with the knowledge that somewhere out there is a second victim waiting to be discovered. But while the methods might be the same, the manner of the killings is strikingly different. Thorne realises that he is hunting two very different men; one ruthless and in control, his partner submissive, compliant, terrified . . .
In 1984, a letter was sent to Mr and Mrs Palmer informing them that their son Martin, despite his excellent academic record, had been expelled from King Edward IV Grammar School It was accepted that he had been led astray by another pupil, but Martin Palmer was not prepared to implicate him ...