Val McDermid: A Place of Execution

A PLACE OF EXECUTION

Val McDermid

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers in 1999

Copyright © Val McDermid 1999

Val McDermid asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007217144

Ebook Edition © MAY 2009 ISBN: 9780007327591

Version: 2020-05-20

‘This book changed everything I thought I knew about crime fiction’ Belinda Bauer, bestselling author of Snap

‘Every now and then, a writer transforms the landscape of the literary canon: Val McDermid is one such writer … It both moves and shocks, and yet compels us to read on. A Place of Execution reveals her as a master of her craft’ Fiona Cummins, bestselling author of Rattle

‘From the first pages, we know we’re in the hands of a master. This book will earn its author a place in that rare pantheon – the truly literary suspense novel’ Jeffrey Deaver

‘One of the best detective stories I’ve read’ Ruth Rendell

‘Just mesmerizing’ Joseph Knox, bestselling author of Sirens

‘A brilliant book. Val McDermid develops each character and location exquisitely, while the story blazes to an astonishing ending’ Holly Watt, award winning author of To the Lions

‘Beautifully written … It may be that McDermid will write better novels than this in the future, but I do not see how’ Daily Telegraph

‘A substantial book and an impressive one, possibly the best McDermid has written and it takes this most accomplished writer into higher territory’ Sunday Telegraph

‘ A Place of Execution is a wake-up call to crime writers everywhere. A terrific and original novel, brilliantly executed’ Mirror

To my evil twin; laissez les bon temps rouler, cher.

You shall be taken to the place from whence you came, and thence to a place of lawful execution, and there you shall be hanged by the neck until you be dead, and afterwards your body shall be buried in a common grave within the precincts of the prison wherein you were last confined before your execution; and may the Lord have mercy on your soul.

The formal death sentence of the English legal system

LE PENDU: THE HANGED MAN

Divinatory meaning: The card suggests life in suspension. Reversal of the mind and one’s way of life. Transition. Abandonment. Renunciation. The changing of life’s forces. Readjustment. Regeneration. Rebirth. Improvement. Efforts and sacrifice may have to be undertaken to succeed towards a goal which may not be reached.

Tarot Cards for Fun and Fortune Telling S. R. Kaplan

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for A Place of Execution

Dedication

Epigraph

BOOK 1

Introduction

Prologue

PART ONE: The Early Stages

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

PART TWO

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

PART THREE

The Remand

The Murder Charge

The Committal

The Trial 1

The Trial 2

The Trial 3

The Trial 4

The Trial 5

The Trial 6

The Trial 7

The Verdict

A Place of Execution

BOOK 2

PART ONE

PART TWO

1 February 1998

2 October 1997 – February 1998

3 February 1998

4 February/March 1998

5 April 1998

6 May 1998

7 May 1998

8 May/June/July 1998

9 August 1998

PART THREE

1 August 1998

2 August 1998

3 August 1998

4 August 1998

5 August 1998

6 August 1998

7 August 1998

8 August 1998

9 August 1998

10 October 1998

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Val McDermid

About the Publisher

Like Alison Carter, I was born in Derbyshire in 1950. Like her, I grew up familiar with the limestone dales of the White Peak, no stranger to the winter blizzards that regularly cut us off from the rest of the country. It was in Buxton, after all, that snow once stopped play in a county cricket match in June.

So when Alison Carter went missing in December 1963, it meant more to me and my classmates than it can have done to most other people. We knew villages like the one she’d grown up in. We knew the sort of things she’d have done every day. We suffered through similar classes and cloakroom arguments about which of the Fab Four was our favourite Beatle. We imagined we shared the same hopes, dreams and fears. Because of that, right from the word go, we all knew something terrible had happened to Alison Carter, because something we also knew was that girls like her – like us – didn’t run away. Not in Derbyshire in the middle of December, anyway.

It wasn’t just the thirteen-year-old girls who understood that. My father was one of the hundreds of volunteer searchers who combed the high moorland and the wooded valleys around Scardale, and his grim face when he returned home after a fruitless day scouring the landscape is still sharply etched in my memory.

We followed the hunt for Alison Carter in the newspapers, and every day at school for weeks, someone would be bound to start the speculation rolling. All these years later, I still had more questions for George Bennett than the former policeman could answer.

I have not based my narrative solely on George Bennett’s contemporaneous notes and current memories. While researching this book, I made several visits to Scardale and the surrounding area, interviewing many of the people who played a part in the unfolding of Alison Carter’s story, gathering their impressions, comparing their accounts of events as they experienced them. I could not have completed this book without the help of Janet Carter, Tommy Clough, Peter Grundy, Charles Lomas, Kathy Lomas and Don Smart. I have taken some artistic licence in ascribing thoughts, emotions and dialogue to people, but these sections are based on my interviews with those of the surviving protagonists who agreed to help me to try to create a truthful picture both of a community and the individuals within it.