Singing the Sadness. Reginald Hill
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REGINALD HILL
SINGING THE SADNESS
A Joe Sixsmith novel
Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1999
Copyright © Reginald Hill 1999
Reginald Hill 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
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.
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Source ISBN: 9780007334834
Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2015 ISBN: 9780007389179
Version: 2015-07-27
For POLLY without whose contribution this book would have been finished a great deal sooner
Table of Contents
The Boyling Corner Chapel Choir sped across the heart of England like a nest of singing birds and as they crossed the Welsh border there was a spontaneous outburst of ‘We’ll Keep a Welcome in the Hillsides’. Not even when the coach ground to a halt an hour or so later in a puff of smoke dark enough to hide a demon king did their spirits sink.
Not at first anyway.
‘No sweat,’ assured their driver, Merv Golightly, whose broad smile and cheerful manner had been honed at the wheel of a Luton taxi. ‘We’re only half an hour away and I’ll fix this in a jiffy.’