Beneath the Skin

A stalker tackles three women in London. First 23-year old likable schoolteacher Zoe Haratounian, who beats off a thief and gets declared a local heroine by the press, gets scary anonymous letters, but because she runs off from the police station when the desk officer cheerfully calls her 'our poster girl' to a colleague when recognizing her on a press cutting, it takes days before the police can even send over PC Andrew Stadden, a detective in training. She breaks up with her 'not sensitively supportive' hunky boyfriend, gardener Fred, who even gets investigated as a suspect and only has his soccer mates Maurice 'Moz' 'Hack' Burnside and Jase to fall back on. When she thinks it's over, she gets killed at home. Next Jennifer Hintlesham, who lives in affluence with her husband, businessman Dominic 'Dom', and their sons Josh (13) and Kristo (6),complete with nanny, believes the first letter suggesting Dom is unfaithful, as he once was years ago, then rips open her fingers on a razor blade in one of the life-threatening next ones, and once her family is ripped apart sees the stalker but is unable to put up a good fight. The stalker moves on to pet shop salesgirl Nadia Blake, a friend of his and, like him, of the Hintlesham boys. She soon gets the benefit of close protection from Stadden, who also becomes her lover, and forces him to let her in on the investigation which his female superior DCI Grace Shilling handles miserably...