Sophie's fifth psychological crime novel
You never forget the first time...
On the day that TV producer Fliss Trinder discovers she will be working on a documentary about miscarriages of justice involving cot death mothers, she receives an anonymous card at work. The card has nothing on it but sixteen numbers, arranged in four rows of four - numbers that mean nothing to Fliss.
The documentary she has reluctantly taken over from a colleague is about two women, Helen Yardley and Rachel Hind, who have been released from prison after having their convictions overturned. Both were convicted of killing their babies by shaking or smothering them. Both consistently protested their innocence, but were found guilty as a direct result of the expert testimony of Professor Judith Duffy, a child protection zealot who believes many deaths attributed to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) are murder in disguise. After the women won their appeals, Professor Duffy was struck off the medical register.
A few days into filming, Helen Yardley is found murdered at her home. In her pocket is a card with sixteen numbers on it, arranged in four rows of four - the same sixteen numbers Fliss was sent. A week later, Rachel Hind is threatened, and an identical card shoved into her pocket by her attacker. To Detective Constable Simon Waterhouse and his colleagues, it looks obvious on the motive front: someone wants to kill the freed women, someone who believes they've escaped justice and wants to make sure they pay for their crimes. But then another body is found, killed in exactly the same way as Helen Yardley and left with the sixteen numbers in her pocket, and suddenly it's impossible to work out whose side the killer's on, because the third victim is Professor Judith Duffy. What does it all mean, and is Fliss also in danger?