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belong to the man who owns the estate – the banker from London. He likes to have his way with them. You know what men are like. But some men are worse than others. And our lord of the manor has some strange tastes. He has his way with the girls, and when he’s finished with them, my boys clean up the mess.’
    ‘Oh God.’
    ‘I’m afraid God doesn’t spend time up in these parts, my love. It’s the Devil’s work that we do here. It’s not nice. Not for any of us. But needs must when he comes calling. And the lord pays us very well. Very well indeed. It was just unfortunate that you got caught up in it. A case of the wrong place at the wrong time, I’m afraid. That was Stuart’s fault. The girl should never have got away. The problem was, as soon as she ran into you, you all had to die. There isno way we can afford to let the secret of the manor get out, and have the police sniffing round here. We’re all too involved for that. Stuart’s paid the price for his mistake. And now it’s your turn.’
    Ash didn’t know what to say. It was almost impossible to believe there were people out there who could murder young women for pleasure, and others who protected their secrets for money. Maybe it happened far more than she was aware of. After all, Ash had led a sheltered, middle-class life. She knew nothing of the grim lives of the thousands of young foreign women in the country. Many of them were probably disappearing every day with no one to notice their absence.
    ‘What’s the matter, my love? Cat got your tongue?’
    ‘You’ll never get away with this,’ Ash told her, desperately hoping she was right. Someone had to be punished for this atrocity. For the murder of her beloved husband, for the murders of Guy and Tracy, for all the other unsolved killings. And for the murder of Ash herself, because right then she knew that she was going to die.
    Dora smiled. ‘Oh, we will get away with it, my love. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that.’
    ‘No one will believe you.’
    ‘Well, that’s our lookout, isn’t it? You should consider yourself lucky, my love. We were going to take you up to the estate to replace the girl who escaped, and let the lord have his way with you. That would have been a lot worse than this, I promise you. Rory and Stuart have told me what those girls look like after the lord has finished with them. I have to say, it makes very unpleasant listening.’
    She looked up at Ash, a mocking smile on her fat face. ‘But we thought it would be easier this way. Girl drinks too much. Girl goes mad with a knife. Girl kills her husband and friends. Girl hangs herself in shame. Hard to explain why something like that would happen, of course, but then …’ She shrugged, kicking the chair and sending it flying. ‘Who can explain such things?’

13
    ‘MESSY BUSINESS THIS one,’ said DCI Duncan Jarrett of Strathclyde CID, stepping out of the lodge and shutting the door behind him. He was keen to escape the stench of death and decay before it became obvious to his colleagues that it was making him feel sick. He took a deep breath, savouring the fresh forest air, and turned to DS Jimmy Gray, who’d been in charge of securing the scene. ‘Those bodies must have been in there for days.’
    ‘Four of them, according to the coroner,’ said Gray, scratching at his belly through his shirt.
    ‘And no one reported them missing? What is it with these English?’
    Gray shrugged. ‘One of the couples was from Singapore, and were here on their holidays, so no one noticed they’d gone. The other couple was from London, and you know what they’re like down there. They all ignore each other. It was only the woman’s school that finally raised the alarm after she hadn’t turned up at work for three days.’
    ‘Anyone got any idea what happened?’
    ‘Looks like they had some sort of argument, and the woman, Ashleigh Murray, attacked the others. Her fingerprints are all over the murder