Read by Frances Barber

Mathilda Gillespie's body was found nearly two days after she had
taken an overdose and slashed her wrists with a Stanley knife. But
what shocked Dr. Sarah Blakeney the most was the rusted metal cage
obscuring the dead woman's face - a scold's bridle grotesquely
adorned with a garland of nettles and Michaelmas daisies. What
happened at Cedar House in the tortured hours before Mathilda's
death?

Detective Sergeant Cooper, an elderly policeman nearing retirement,
is under pressure from his superiors to bring in a verdict of suicide.
And even Mathilda's daughter and granddaughter insist that illness
drove her to commit the desperate, final act. Only Sarah and her
husband, Jack, refuse to believe that the Mathilda they knew would
have taken her own life. Then comes the reading of Mathilda's Last
Will and Testament, which shocks her family into a stunned and bitter
silence. For Dr Sarah Blakeney - Mathilda's GP for barely a year -
has inherited everything.

Already deeply troubled by recent events, Sarah is thrown into
turmoil as she suddenly becomes the target of some vicious local
gossip. Almost everyone in Fontwell, it seems, had loathed Mathilda
Gillespie - even enough to want her dead. With Sergeant Cooper her
only ally, Sarah decides to find out why. But only Mathilda's diaries
can fully explain the life she led before her terrible death. And
Mathilda's diaries have disappeared...

The reader
Frances Barber (born on 13 May 1958 in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire,
England) is an Olivier Award-nominated English actress with a long and
distinguished stage career. She has also worked extensively in BBC,
Granada and ITV television drama.

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