Anna
Glasgow, 1984

White.

Nothing but white.

No sense. No awareness. Only white.

Nothing.

Then breathing.

Rhythmic breathing.

Nothing more than the ebb and flow of life.

She slept.

*

Pain picked at her as she emerged slowly from the depths. Her hands were strapped to her sides and she could feel bindings cutting into her wrists. The pain in her face – cracking, burning – was unbearable.
Thirsty. She was thirsty.

She tried to lick her lips but her tongue was swollen, and immobile as leather. Something rigid filled her mouth; she could taste chloroform and rotten meat. She sensed her face was covered, her mouth and nose blocked. Panic rose until she could not breathe, and she tried to roll her shoulders to break free. Deep-seated agony skewered her stomach, and she lay still, thinking she might die if she moved again.

A voice, indistinct, insistent, was repeating words over and over.

There was a distant memory… somewhere… too far away to be recalled…

She felt a prick in her forearm, and sank down deep into the dark once more.

*

PC Alan McAlpine climbed the concrete stairs to the DCI’s office, past the rusty filing cabinet which had been stuck on the first floor landing for two years. The yucca that crowned it, never a vital specimen at the best of times, had died in his absence.

‘Alan?’

He hadn’t noticed DI Forsythe pass him on the stairs, and looked back at the sound of his voice.

‘Good to see you, McAlpine. How are you? We weren’t expecting you back for a while yet.’

‘I’m fine,’ he said bluntly.

‘Sorry to hear about your brother, Bobby was it?’

‘Robbie,’ answered McAlpine mechanically.

‘No matter how heroic he was, it’s still a terrible accident.’

McAlpine’s only response was a casual shrug of thin shoulders.

‘How is your Dad coping?’ Forsythe persisted.

McAlpine flicked his eyes up the stairs, wanting to get away. ‘He’s as you’d expect.’

‘And your mother?’

McAlpine looked past him to a powdery, white patch of damp plaster. An image of his mother screaming burned into his consciousness, sobs racking her emaciated body so violently he heard her rib crack, as loud as rifle fire. The doctor holding up the syringe, tapping it to draw clear fluid into the plastic chamber, putting his knee on her chest to hold her still as he exposed bare wasted flesh to the needle…

He glanced at his watch. ‘My mother’s fine,’ he said flatly.

Forsythe tapped him on the arm, a touch, nothing more. ‘If there’s anything I can do, just let me know. We’ve missed you in the office.’

McAlpine nodded up towards the DCI’s office. ‘Do you know what he wants me for? Graham?’

‘DCI Graham to you,’ corrected Forsythe. ‘There was an acid attack on Highburgh Road, about two weeks ago, the 26th.’

‘I know. So?’

‘Surveillance at the Western, a watching brief. The lassie got it right in the face, very nasty. She’s been in a coma until now but there are signs of recovery. The minute she talks, we want somebody there.’

‘So I’m bloody baby-sitting.’

‘Think of it as a gradual return to work. You start tomorrow, day shift for now. All those pretty nurses in black stockings, they’ll be all over a handsome wee laddie like yourself,’ Forsythe chuckled. ‘Gives a new meaning to getting back into uniform.

*

On the twelfth day she woke. She lay, not moving, and knowing she could not move, her face dry and crusty, so tight she could feel it crack. Something had happened, something so painful, she couldn’t remember. And something else had happened – something wonderful…

Her brain gently probed each of her senses.

Her eyes were covered; she had a feeling of daylight from somewhere, yet all she could sense from her eyes was cold emptiness, a void where something warm and comforting used to be.

Her ears were full of fog, but she could hear somebody trying to move around and not cause disturbance, the flick of newspaper pages, swing doors opening and closing, soft bleeps and pings, the constant low hum of fluorescent lights, whispers…

She couldn’t breathe through her nose, but she could still smell burned flesh, and fresh air tinged with the tart smell of anaesthetic.

There was a tube in her mouth. Something was keeping her breathing, wafting air in and out of her lungs, pain on the breath in and pain on the breath out, a peaceful calm in between.

She sensed somebody, someone else breathing, their face close to hers, a touch on her arm. She couldn’t tell them she was awake. She wasn’t sure she wanted them to know…

*

PC Alan McAlpine was bored, more bored than he’d have thought possible while still breathing, and he’d only been on duty for ten minutes.

Glasgow, July, and midday on the hottest day of the year. The sun streamed in through the high Victorian windows of the Western Infirmary to highlight the dancing dust motes. It was his own fault. He’d told DCI Graham he’d rather be back at work than sitting at home watching dust settle.

And here he was, back at work – and watching dust settle. On a Saturday.

The cheap plastic seat was making his bum numb and his brain wasn’t far behind. Five minutes finished the Daily Record quick crossword. He made a start on the Herald’s little stinker, and got stuck at five down. He started doodling ampersands in the margin, waiting for inspiration.

Nobody spoke to him. He was invisible. Though he’d been smiled at a few times by a slim redheaded nurse, her light blue cotton skirt swinging as she passed. Her shoes squeaked annoyingly on the lino, leaving a little trail of marks.

She had fat ankles, ugly feet. His interest died.

His glance kept returning to the clock, the jerky long black hand showing how slowly time moves for the living.

He thought he’d better phone home and find out how his mum was doing. Not that he really wanted to be told.

*

When she woke for the third time, they were close by, waiting for her to come round. A voice spoke – a man’s – low, monotone. She picked up the words baby, daughter, doing fine…

She heard a scream, a strangled cry that rose to a howl; felt skin rip from the roof of her mouth, blood swamp her throat. The tide of air stopped. She choked.

The ventilator tube was abruptly removed, and something else was thrust into her mouth, something that gurgled and bubbled as it sucked the blood out.

A hand patted her as if comforting a frightened horse. Another voice – female – spoke kindly as the needle went in, and she felt herself floating again…

A baby. A daughter.

Their daughter.

They had almost made it…

Penguin Most Wanted are getting excited about Absolution by Caro Ramsay

Calling all Ian Rankin fans…

In June 2007 we publish a fantastic debut crime novel – Absolution by Caro Ramsay – and we’re billing it quite succinctly as the launch of the ‘female Ian Rankin’!

However Caro is a very special author in her own right – and this is one of the most exciting debuts of a British crime series for a long time, probably since Mark Billingham burst onto the scene in 2001. It’s a wonderfully dark and intelligent crime novel set in Glasgow and featuring a vivid cast of police characters in DCI McAlpine, DS Anderson and DS Costello. Normally for a British crime series we take a measured approach to building sales slowly, but this novel is so outstanding we’re going out all guns blazing from the word go. And, I’m pleased to say, the launch is now backed by a fantastic endorsement from Val McDermid:

‘Glasgow comes alive in Caro Ramsay's dark, vivid and daring thriller debut’ Val McDermid

Scottish crime writing is very much in vogue at the moment, with the recent success of Stuart MacBride and Denise Mina. But I have no doubt that very shortly Caro Ramsay will be at the head of this pack.

Caro Ramsay talks about writing Absolution

Absolution started life as a few ideas jotted down in a battered leather notebook. It was so old the inner leaf showed a map of the British Empire. The spark of the story came from the Waterboy's song – A girl called Johnny – about a girl who discovered her ‘choice was to change or to be changed.’ That line has always fascinated me, a choice that is, really, no choice at all.

In the whole book, the girl who has the choice utters not one word, but she’s like a whirlpool, drawing in those around her, whether they notice it or not.

Even with the idea of a premise, writing for me was a passive process; it flows through me, from fountain pen to paper. The characters do what they do as the situation demands. I’m not sure I have much say in it. It was a bit of a surprise to me when my detective stumbled across a dead body early on in the novel. It turned out to be the first of many, but it balanced the book beautifully.

Then, in my own life, I ended up in hospital. I had to stay still for a very long time, and I scribbled in that note book every minute I could. It was my constant companion, my constant fascination. When home, and a little better, I lay on the floor for two months and typed the entire script with one hand on to a battered old laptop borrowed from a war correspondent.

At the end of all that, I had 150000 words, roughly in the right order but had no idea if it was any good or not. Equally, I had no real idea of publishing it – I was writing for the fun of it, just enjoying the creative process for what it was. But having printed it out, I looked at the bundle of paper and decided to take it along to the local writers group. It was a cold blustery Thursday night; it took me two weeks to pluck up the courage to read any of it out loud. The first two pages were greeted by stunned silence, and a few sharp intakes of breath.

But they taught me my craft, about viewpoint, about narrative flow and pace – and how to take criticism! After the writer in residence, a journalist called Ajay Close, had heard the whole book piecemeal, she asked for the typescript to read. Around this time, the writers group did a public reading in Borders Bookshop in Glasgow and two Scottish publishers approached Ajay, asking if I was signed by anyone. She said no, but it confirmed her suspicions that she had something good on her hands. I remember her coming into the library a week later, I was arranging the chairs as usual, and she handed me a piece of paper with a name on it.

Send that to her, she said, she likes nasty women like you.

It was Jane Gregory’s name.

I asked who she was.

She just happens to be one of the best agents on the face of the planet.

It all happened very quickly after that. Jane got back to me asking to see the full script, and then phoned me – well, she didn’t, she phoned a girl in Aberdeen with the same name because I hadn’t included my phone number…and I had submitted the typescript under a pseudonym. In fact, it’s a miracle she tracked me down at all. She invited me to London for a ‘chat’, as she put it.

I flew down to have lunch with Jane and one of the editors. My first vision of Jane was as she came through the door of the restaurant, dressed in a purple cape, red haired and carrying a huge rucksack. She plonked the rucksack on the ground. What was a rather glam lady like this doing carrying a rucksack? She showed me the huge pile of papers that lay within, the submissions for the previous four days. She told me that they might sign one or two authors a year, if they were lucky.

That’s when it hit home, I excused myself and went to the loo and bit my fist really hard.

It was also the first experience of something I still find very surreal, hearing two perfectly sane adults talk about characters I have created as if they are real people. It’s like sharing your imaginary friends with somebody else.

Jane loved the book, absolutely loved it – but could they just change everything about it? Or so it seemed to my rather innocent ears. It was my first attempt and deeply flawed. The editing started. I know now that other writers read their pages of suggested edits, then sulk for 24 hours, then buckle down and get it done. I think that’s excellent advice. 99% of the time the editor is right.

But it took me a while to understand that they were on my side, helping me, sometimes pushing me to write in a way I didn’t have the confidence to do. Then lots of pats on the back when I pulled it off.

Jane didn’t tell me when she sent it out to be sold but I know now it was a Thursday. On the following Monday, a really busy Monday morning, my osteopathy practice was full of screaming children, toys everywhere, the odd Alsatian putting its tuppence worth in, and Jane phoned. I went outside to the car where I could hear myself think and phoned her back. We chatted about the smoking ban that had just been made law in Scotland, chatted about the weather. Then she said, ‘And by the way, we have had real interest in the book already.’ Not much else was said, I didn’t ask who by or what that meant. I went back into work, floating on cloud 9. My next patient promptly fainted. Back to earth with a thump.

Jane phoned back on the Tuesday to ask if I wanted to accept the offer. It was a pre-emptive offer that would close at five o’clock. I had no idea what she was talking about but it sounded good. I thought about it for all of three milliseconds before I said yes.

It was on the second phone call, about two hours later, that she told me how much was being offered – ten times what I had thought – and that it was Michael Joseph, Penguin. I had to go and bite my fist again. The whole practice went mad, those who knew were ecstatic, those that didn’t thought I had sold a house!

Then I went home and I celebrated by eating a whole tube of Sour Cheese Pringles to myself.

Penguin sent me a welcome pack with books of the writers in my stable…I had to bite my fist again. These were Nicci French, PJ Tracey, Jonathan Kellerman and Nick Stone: proper writers.

A week after Absolution was accepted, Beverley Cousins, the editor at Penguin, took Jane and I out for lunch. I always think that these situations are easier for a guy to dress for than a girl. I choose a black linen suit. I remember Victoria Wood saying that no matter how hard she tries, she always looks as though she had stumbled up an embankment after a derailment. Me too! I dressed very carefully for that meeting, but the Ukrainian taxi driver got confused, and Jane and I had to run the last hundred metres down the Strand, in the wind and rain to arrive at Penguin looking on the bedraggled side of ‘wind swept and interesting’. I had a brief intro to lots of members of my ‘team’, all with job titles that were totally alien to me, but I was assured, as Absolution made it’s way into the big wide world, I would meet them all again.

Then we had lunch, mostly playing fantasy by casting the film with all our favourite actors, and gossiping a fair amount. I was just settling down to my rather excellent macaroni cheese when Beverley pulled the edit notes from her handbag – ‘just a few changes’ she assured me. I took a huge gulp of water to remove the look of panic from my face.

She assured me she had just edited a much more experienced writer than me and he had thirty pages, so I was getting off lightly at a mere thirteen.

The editing was sympathetic; again it was more encouraging me to push myself a little bit more technically, the usual plot glitches, typos. Her suggestions fitted very naturally, which is always a good sign, but it was a big job, adjusting one word in a 400 page novel can have repercussions, like flinging a stone into calm water – you never know where the ripples will end. I view writing a novel as I do running a marathon – don’t worry about the whole thing, just worry about the bit directly in front of you. It’s a good way to edit as well, follow each ripple as it goes.

Beverley was kind. And kind enough to acknowledge when she’s wrong. Not that I was right but characters resisted, I was getting a square peg in a round hole feeling. A brief chat and it was sorted. Then another, finer edit arrived, another 13 pages of small changes, typos etc.

Then to the copy editor who pulls out all sorts of question from the text. If that place is real change it. Change that name. Move that house round the corner. Now I know why cityscapes change in novels. When that was over we played another round of fantasy casting.

Another fist biting moment came when I opened a file called Absolution on my PC. It was the cover; it said it all: atmospheric and slightly chilling. I would pick it up in a bookshop.

Then I had to have my photographs done. Two hours of ‘stand there’, ‘look here’, ‘do this’, ‘do that’, ‘look scary’. I managed to do the last perfectly fine. 86 pictures, three of which were useable. Loads of faffing about with lights and some woman kept appearing and dusting my cheekbones. My long blonde hair caused him trouble. ‘It’s easy to look like Pamela Anderson,’ he said. Girly but threatening, I insisted. He pulled it off magnificently.

Around this time I got an email saying I had been chosen as one of the great eight of 2007 and, yes, it was back to the fist biting thing. Penguin are flinging the entire weight of their marketing team behind my book. I had visions of going round the supermarkets dressed as a fairy like Jordan, but Beverly assured me this would not be the case. (I hope.) I have the same marketing team as Jamie Oliver and Victoria Beckham. I’m not sure yet what they want from me, but I’ll be up for it.

That was another lunch having a fascinating conversation with a woman whose job it is to liaise with WH Smith. It’s a whole different world, and all the people round that table are focused on promoting something that is a product of my own warped imagination.

I feel I’ve done my apprenticeship in reverse – I’ve never started a novel and not completed it. No training in writing or journalism. No rejection letters. I was dropped into a very big pond and I had to sink or swim, I was lucky to get such generous help from both agent and editor who must have found it trying, at times, to deal with such a complete novice.

By next June Absolution will be out in the big wide world. Its sequel is at 120,000 words, books three and four are still in a battered notebook, still scribbled in fountain pen, waiting their turn.