Merrily Watkins 11 - The Secrets of Pain
Read Merrily Watkins 11 - The Secrets of Pain Online
Authors: Phil Rickman
PHIL RICKMAN
was born in Lancashire and lives on the Welsh border. He is the author of the Merrily Watkins series, and The Bones of Avalon. He has won awards for his TV and radio journalism and writes and presents the book programme Phil the Shelf for BBC Radio Wales.
DIANA GABALDON
‘No-one writes better than Rickman about the shadow-frontier between the supernatural and the real world’
BERNARD CORNWELL
‘Rickman writes mysteries in the classic sense, cleverly combining the supernatural and criminal elements to illuminate the darkest corners of our imaginations’
JOHN CONNOLLY
‘I like Merrily. She’s got vices, she likes a smoke, she swears, she’s not easily fooled and she’s nobody’s pushover’
BARBARA NADEL
‘A completely new approach to crime’
BARRY NORMAN
‘A haunting quality beyond crime fiction’
RUSSELL JAMES
‘First rate. We don’t praise our home-grown thriller writers enough. It’s high time we praised Phil Rickman’DAILY MAIL
‘Compassionate, original and sharply contemporary, one of the best crime series around’
SPECTATOR
‘The clever combination of modern idiom and the timeless echo of history leaps from every page. You are there with poor Merrily every step of the way’
DAILY EXPRESS
‘Feuds, intrigues and murder. A most original sleuth. Terrific’
THE TIMES
‘A first class thriller with a difference’
GUARDIAN
‘Conveys evil like no other writer… A major talent’
SFX
‘Tough-minded, atmospheric mystery’
BARRY FORSHAW
‘A dark no-man’s-land where murder mingles with superstition. Complex, absorbing, fascinating’
ANDREW TAYLOR
PHIL
RICKMAN
The Wine of Angels
Midwinter of the Spirit
A Crown of Lights
The Cure of Souls
The Lamp of the Wicked
The Prayer of the Night Shepherd
The Smile of a Ghost
The Remains of an Altar
The Fabric of Sin
To Dream of the Dead
The Secrets of Pain
The Bones of Avalon
RICKMAN
The Secrets of Pain
an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.
Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-84887-274-5
eBook ISBN: 978-0-85789-474-8
An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd
Ormond House
26-27 Boswell Street
London WC1N 3JZ
They came for me in darkness
They were black-eyed, grey and thin
Lol Robinson, ‘
Mephisto’s Blues
’
White Hell
T
HE HOUSE WAS
right next to the road, wherever the road was.
And out in front there was a woman.
Not exactly dressed for the weather, thin cardigan all lumpy with snow. Stumbling about in Bronwen’s lights and the blinding white hell, waving her arms. And they were going to run her down, cut her in half.
‘Gomer!’ Danny roared. ‘
No!
’
The snow was coming down like rubble now, had been this past four hours, and if Danny couldn’t see through it there was no chance that Gomer could. When Bronwen lurched and the snow sprayed up, Danny was thinking,
Oh Christ, it’ll be all blotched red
.
Then they’d stopped. Apart from Bronwen’s grumpy chuntering, there was silence. The front door of the house was wide open, yellow light splattered over the snow like warm custard on ice cream. Some of it reaching Gomer, sitting at the wheel in his old donkey jacket, with his cap and his sawn-off mittens and his muffler and the snowlight in his glasses.