Burial - Hardcover

Cross, Neil

3.69

781 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 076532587X ISBN 13: 9780765325877

Publisher: Forge Books, 2010

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Everyone makes mistakes.

But what if your biggest mistake was something you could never live down?

Something so awful and despicable that it weighs daily on your soul?

Nathan has never been able to forget the worst night of his life. Only he and an old acquaintance know what really happened and they have made a pact to keep silent.

Now, years later, a knock on his door brings terrifying news. Old wounds are suddenly reopened, threatening to tear Nathan's whole world apart, as he comes face to face with the bleak landscape of lies and deception that has become his life.

Burial is the story of one man’s obsession with redemption.

Can you ever really bury your guiltiest secret?

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About the Author:

NEIL CROSS is the author of the UK-published Christendom, Mr. In-Between, Holloway Falls, Always the Sun, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Heartland, and Natural History. He is the lead writer for the BBC's hit series Spooks, known as MI-5 on BBC America, and the creator of the upcoming BBC crime series Luther. Burial is his first work published in the United States. He lives in New Zealand with his wife and two children.

1The doorbell rang.Nathan had a feeling – but he dismissed it, muted the TV and went to the door. There stood Bob; hunched over, grinning in the darkness and rain. Saying: ‘Hello, mate.’Nathan said, ‘How did you find me?’‘I looked.’Nathan tried to slam the door, but Bob put out a big hand, stopping it. Then he removed the hand and said, ‘They’re digging up the woods.’‘They’re what?’‘Digging up the woods.’‘Why?’‘Does it matter? They’re building a housing estate.’‘Of course it doesn’t matter. What kind of housing estate?’‘The kind people live in. Are you actually listening?’‘Yes. Yeah, of course.’Nathan glanced backwards, as if somebody was standing at his shoulder. But nobody was; it was Tuesday night. That meant Holly would be back late.He said, ‘Look. Give me a call. Phone me at work.’‘I’m here. Right now.’‘You can’t come in. I’ll meet you somewhere. Tomorrow.’‘I’ll be gone in two minutes.’‘My wife will be home.’But Bob just stood there, waiting in the rain. So Nathan gathered his breath and moved aside. Bob stepped over the threshold and stood dripping on the wooden floor.He’d noticed the many framed photographs that hung in the hallway.Nathan waited while Bob took a squinting step forward, examining the photographs more closely. A baby girl, naked on a towel. A gap-toothed girl with a pageboy haircut. The fringe was blunt and a bit crooked – obviously trimmed by her mother. A holiday photograph in which the girl was a very young teenager, her hair short and bleached and spiky. She stood on the deck of a boat, wearing an orange life jacket. She was holding up a long, silver mackerel. In that photograph, she was laughing.Bob looked at the photographs for a long time.When he turned to Nathan, his voice had gone.‘What the fuck is this?’‘I told you not to come in.’Using the wall for balance, Bob lowered himself. He sat on the stripped Victorian floorboards. He looked wrong, like an optical illusion, like a drawing where the perspective and the scale have been altered.Fingertips brushed the hair on Nathan’s nape.In the living room, the TV flickered – and it seemed to Nathan that the lights dimmed, and flickered, then rose again.Copyright � 2009 by Neil Cross

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