THE CROW ROAD Iain Banks

ABACUS

An Abacus Book

First published in Great Britain by Scribners

This edition published by Abacus 1993

Reprinted 1993 (twice), 1994, 1995 (twice), 1996 (three times),

1997 (three times), 1998

Copyright (c) 1992 Iain Banks

The right of Iain Banks to be identified as

author of this work has been asserted by

him in accordance with the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All characters in this publication are ficticious

and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,

is purely coincidental

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any

form or by any means, without the prior

written permission of the publisher, nor be

otherwise circulated in any form of binding or

cover other than that in which it is published

and without a similar condition including this

condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book

is available from the British Library

Typeset by Leaper amp; Gard Ltd, Bristol

Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

Abacus

A Division of

Little, Brown and Company (UK)

Brettenham House

Lancaster Place

London WC2E 7EN

Again, for Ann,

And with thanks to:

James Hale,

Mic Cheetham,

Andy Watson

And Steve Hatton