An audio book, set in Cambridge
Initially there’s an alternation of court action and past-tense narration of the evening of the crash.
Nicki had been on the same uni crime course as Ellie, who’d seen something. She was thinking of leaving the course. Callum and Ellie were lodgers with Celia, who'd been a reporter for 22 years. Jamaican roots. She's a part-time lecturer. She knows the youths involved. Nicki had been driving when an accident killed Charlie, Jack's younger brother, and Ellie. Nicki and Charlie had been friends for years. She was found guiltly but didn't recall significant details. 3 years later she comes out of prison. Celia rents out a house to her. Her remarried father’s a detective. She reads criminology books in the public library. She comes home drunk at 11. Celia follows her one night and finds that she meets drinkers/druggies in Mill Road cemetery. Celia saves her from an assault.
Celia's PoV and Nicki's PoV dominate.
They try to track all the surviving occupants of the car because Nicki thinks she was attacked in the car or just after the accident. Nicki goes to Jemma, who lives in Tenison Road. She's an invalid, on painkillers.
Jack returns to Cambridge to live in his father's vacated house on Celia's street, Mawson Rd. He was married and had a child. Now he's separated. He's an architect.
By now Nicki's been with Celia for a year. She has trained as a tattoo remover. She steals Jack's DNA and finds a newspaper cutting about Becky, a woman who'd been murdered and dumped in water. Callum claimed friendship with her. Callum has a history of inappropriate sexual behaviour. Emily Moore was another case. Both had been held captive for a while before being drowned. Celia tries to get her police friend Briggs to follow the clues of the old cases.
We jump to a captive woman's PoV - mouth taped. He has sex with her. She's Louise.
Jack suspects that Nicki has broken into his house. Celia talks to him, trying to convince him otherwise, convincing him that there's no point him reporting the event to the police. They go to Hot Numbers in Gwydir St to talk. Jack says that his daughter Maya was the result of her wife's affair. He says he'd been sent other clipping too, about women who'd disappeared. Some later reappeared alive. He dropped Callum off once at a place beyond Norwich, near where a woman's body had been found. The 2 drive off for Norwich. He wants to case closed - he doesn't want Nicki pestering him. They go to Yarmouth and search the room where Callum lives (though he's been away for a while). True crime books, anatomy books, more news cuttings. One about Louise.
We learn that Gemma supplies drugs (her painkillers) to Callum. Then suddenly Gemma's nasty brother Rob appears (Celia had visited his local workplace when he was absent). She doesn't want to tell Rob where Callum is because she wants to protect Callum. Rob says he keeps women - Ellie had known his secret. Nicki might be next. He forces Gemma to take an overdose while Nicki was unconscious next door.
Jack goes round to Gemma's, suspicious. He'd been there several times as a kid. From outside he sees Gemma in trouble. He phones 999. Ambulance. Too late.
Rob drives off with Nicki in the boot. He takes her to his gym. Another woman's there. Jack saves them.
Callum is recovering in Addenbrooke's. Briggs is interviewing him. Callum fancied Gemma when they were on a paramedic course. He recounts what happened on the day of the crash. Ellie had been hysterical. A car had come at them, maybe with its lights out. Charlie had yanked the wheel to avoid the car. They hit a tree. Rob had been driving the other car. Gemma made Callum promise not to tell. At the trial there seemed to be no evidence against Rob, so Callum thought that if he told the trust it would only have been his word against the evidence. Without any proof he thought that all missing women in the press had been taken by Rob.
3 weeks later - Nicki receives 2 letters. One is offering her a place on the Anglia Ruskin University course she gave up. Another is the results of a DNA on Maya - proof that Maya is Jack's daughter after all.
In an attempt to keep the plot tidy, credibility is rather strained.
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