Born in the North, Mallory Thwaites grew up in the shadow of a notorious local hit man and a chilling serial killer. Crime fiction filled the family bookshelves, alleged crimes blot the family escutcheon. On the spear side, one ancestor was executed for treason. Others merely slaughtered their neighbours. The distaff line could be unruly too, refusing to swear allegiance to the monarch.

Number-crunching graduates of premier league universities can become indecently rich. Mallory’s career has taken a different but so far less lucrative direction, from exhumations in Oxford to filling cream horns. Working for a Government agency on alarmingly confidential data, staff learned to be creative. The investigation of various unnatural deaths and unmentionable afflictions couldn’t be discussed. Victorian censuses became a useful source of day job titles. Mallory Thwaites is married with a son and two daughters.

The child must die. Tom shuddered. How many hours till morning? Hired hack, no longer dicing with death, he knew the code. Life-threatening injuries? That meant order the small white coffin. If you can bear to, think about organ donation. Sophie Grey was five, attacked as she walked to school, holding her mother’s hand. Eye witnesses saw exactly what happened, crude and bloody as the murder of Thomas Becket. Broken glass made a knife, sliced into the child’s skull, spilling brains and blood.

‘Frenzied’, said the newsreader, his wince of pain too visible… The cliché hurt. Street attack on a five year old? What else would it be? Calm, measured, controlled? Not murder, yet… Machines breathed for Sophie… She couldn’t live. Other children too, left battered and bleeding… So far, all the victims were under ten.

Stella hadn’t said a word. Surely she knew? Grief and pain were her job. Every GP in the county must know, and north of the Border too. Stella fought to keep her daughters safe, especially from the news. Too much reality, she said, the news a Shakespearean gore fest, laced with all the worst Greek myths. The woman was still at large. Dangerous, said the police. Do not approach. A woman? All witnesses agreed. Tall, haggard, wearing ragged combats, she’d been drinking. Inspector Mark Lazonby battled with his own fear, fear for his baby daughter.

 

Working in rural Cumbria, GP Stella Morland and Inspector Mark Lazonby risk being pigeonholed as rural noir. In Eden, Lazonby and Morland meet in the no-man’s-land between madness and badness. Wary at first, their partners accept that this is a different kind of bond. Lazonby’s only sister died at twenty-two. Stella’s brother was thirteen, killed in a half term accident. Single mother medic, ex-climber, Stella spent years in forensic. Dead patients kept regular hours. Remarried, she’s a country GP, on hire to the cash-strapped police. Postgrad psychologist, Lazonby used to know all the causes of crime. Then he joined the police, married Nicki, came to this demi-paradise, where there shouldn’t be any.

A motiveless murder… The victim fell to the ground in Lincoln Square, right at Abraham’s feet. CCTV missed critical seconds. Married, two daughters, newborn son, only nice people knew Malachy. For one day, before the police and the news moved on, his quiet life made headlines.

Country GP, Stella was the last person on earth to commit murder. On the other hand, she had three daughters, loved them like a tigress, and Tom, of course, father of Alice and Jane. And Zoe? At her birth, their eyes met, mother and daughter. Martin never knew he’d be a father. Framed in silver, Martin was Zoe’s hero. One December night, Zoe’s student housemate rang, urged Stella to come at once. Zoe wouldn’t report the rape. Holding Zoe, begging her to name him, Stella knew she must kill this man. Avenging her daughters, Boudicca torched London.

‘Malachy.’ said Zoe. Malachy who?

Retired judge and Stella’s oldest patient, Tadek had known Zoe all her life, guessed the truth, Stella talked of tracing the rapist. Working so often with the police, she found him easily. Tadek said: ‘Thou shalt not kill.’

Weeks later, Zoe tried to kill herself. Stella had seen so many broken girls, heartbreaking, every one of them.

In Zoe’s university city, the conference on domestic violence was pure serendipity. Driving home, Stella listened calmly to the news. If the police had discovered more about blameless Malachy, they’d know where to find his killer. Hired minion, Malachy was nothing.

In a recycled Manchester convent, angry centenarian Mary rarely spoke, refused to eat, wouldn’t attend daily Mass. Her only relative, a granddaughter, hadn’t visited for weeks.

Ploughing through a morass of ruthless fraud, Inspector Mark Lazonby longed to be a country bobby on the beat, rescuing lost walkers and cragfast sheep. In the Hills of the North, why not? On a really tough day, he’d sort out warring Cumbrian neighbours (funded as ‘conflict resolution’) or deliver impatient babies (the NHS never paid up). In his M.Sc thesis, criminals were needy creatures, victims of abuse, raised on sink estates. No pets, no cuddly toys. Pit bulls and bedbugs don’t count. In the officially beautiful North, villains had no excuse. Half the little girls had ponies. Seven up, boys preferred wheels, driving their quads on and off road. Younger generations knew the old had money. Prodigal sons and daughters wanted their share, now. This time, they didn’t even ask. Fraud was the new growth industry, along with elder abuse, filed unofficially as ‘How to Flog Your Granny’.

A hundred miles away, Sheffield historian Daniel Kent reread the extraordinary e-mail. A childhood friend, now a GP, insisted she’d found his mother. Wrong name, and the woman was more than thirty years too old. Why was Alison so certain? Care staff said Mary had no qualifications. Daniel’s mother was an Oxford don. Daniel knew the gaunt old woman at once and she knew him. Then he lied.

In Melkin, the ruined Elizabethan hall had been lavishly rebuilt. Arriving to stay, the Virgin Queen would be well satisfied. The new couple didn’t register with a Melkin doctor. Heavily pregnant, the woman often walked her dogs. Not officially a banned breed, the mastiffs were alarming. Dr Stella Morland found Daniel by the river, in deep shock. Slowly, Lazonby and Stella unfold the monstrous truth.

‘Mamzer…’ The old man’s voice was faint, broken by tears. Taking the call, at the surgery, Stella heard one word, repeated until the tears won. Mamzer? What language was that? What did it mean? Some crimes have always been unspeakable.