Map © Collins Bartholomew

‘Tense and human, fast and authentic’ Lee Child

‘Relentless plot, evocative prose andcompelling portraits of the characters’

Jeffery Deaver

‘If The Murder Bag marks the launch of a major new crime series, count me in!’

The Times

‘A tense debut crime novel with a dry dose of wit’ Daily Express

‘Told with conviction and at an ever-increasing pace’ Daily Mail

‘The Murder Bag looks set to win Tony Parsons many new fans’

GQ

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Published by Arrow Books 2015

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Copyright © Tony Parsons 2014

Tony Parsons has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and

otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the

First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Century

Arrow Books

Falkirk, StirlingshirePrinted and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Stewardship Council®

For David Morrison, Barry Hoy and Kevin Steel. Somewhere East of Suez.

The Decline of the English Murder

Eton Boating Song

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1988

and laughed and congratulated each other on what

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back the tears and gritted her teeth and kept edging

the torn skin on her elbows and knees as she dragged

And when she looked, she saw they were all watching

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PROLOGUE

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THE MURDER BAG

Rotten bastards. Rotten bastards the lot of them.

cracked and bloody and suddenly stinging as she scrab

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PROLOGUE

thank God for the key

A leather strap slapped against her side, and she

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A solitary car had stopped by the road, headlights

please don’t go; and then the passenger door opened

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PROLOGUE

11

1

the entrance to the railway station and I drank a triple

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sitting patiently by her side, its lead loose, its intelligent

like a pilot talking to his passengers when all his

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OCTOBER: #KILLALLPIGS

place where you blink your eye and a hundred years

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The battery he probably already held in one hand would create an electric current connecting it to a

then pass down two wires and into that red backpack

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The Fed also suggested what possible terrorists

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their eyes, I thought that was a point well worth

And here was another thing the FBI agent could

tribal scars on his cheeks, and he reared back slightly,

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hard on the horn, keeping it there, scattering the stray

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‘Wolfe!’

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People thought it was to protect their identity but I

They were shouting into the radios attached just

Now. Now. Now. Do it now!

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Last chance! Do it now!

But they were not shaking as I tore open the red

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2

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I looked closer and saw the photograph was taken

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OCTOBER: #KILLALLPIGS