Kimberley Chambers

The Betrayer


Скачать книгу

id="ub36d2da7-471d-556d-85fc-c1bc1f6fe2c9">

       Copyright

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd The News Building 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by Preface Publishing 2009

      Published by Arrow Books 2010 This edition published by Harper 2017

      Copyright © Kimberley Chambers 2009

      Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2017 Cover photographs © plainpicture/Mihaela Ninic (woman); plainpicture/Rick Porritt (background).

      Kimberley Chambers asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of 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.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9781409050070

      Ebook Edition © Jan 2017 ISBN: 9780008228637 Version: 2016-12-14

       Dedication

       In memory of

       Mathew Hoxby

       1973–2008

       Epigraph

      Goodnight you moonlight ladies,

      Rock-a-bye sweet baby James.

      Deep greens and blues are the colours I choose.

      Won't you let me go down in my dreams

      And rock-a-bye Sweet Baby James.

      James Taylor

      1970

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

      Epigraph

      Prologue

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

       Chapter Thirteen

       Chapter Fourteen

       Chapter Fifteen

       Chapter Sixteen

       Chapter Seventeen

       Chapter Eighteen

       Chapter Nineteen

       Chapter Twenty

       Chapter Twenty-One

       Chapter Twenty-Two

       Chapter Twenty-Three

       Chapter Twenty-Four

       Chapter Twenty-Five

       Chapter Twenty-Six

       Chapter Twenty-Seven

       Chapter Twenty-Eight

       Chapter Twenty-Nine

       Chapter Thirty

       Chapter Thirty-One

       Chapter Thirty-Two

       Chapter Thirty-Three

       Chapter Thirty-Four

       Chapter Thirty-Five

       Chapter Thirty-Six

       Chapter Thirty-Seven

       Chapter Thirty-Eight

       Chapter Thirty-Nine

       Chapter Forty

       Chapter Forty-One

       Chapter Forty-Two

       Chapter Forty-Three

       Chapter Forty-Four

       Epilogue

       Acknowledgements

       Keep Reading …

       About the Author

       Also by Kimberley Chambers

       About the Publisher

       PROLOGUE

       July 2006

      ‘I’m very sorry, Mrs Hutton, but we are talking weeks here, rather than months.’

      Walking away from the hospital, I feel calmness within. My cancer has returned and being told I’m riddled with it was exactly what I’d expected. Unless you’ve had the dreaded disease, you wouldn’t know where I was coming from. Tiredness, lack of appetite, an inability to do the simple things that you once found so easy. The signs are plentiful. To put it bluntly, you just know when you’re dying.

      As I sit on the bus, I gaze out of the window. Deep in thought, I watch the world go by. As strange as it may seem, I notice silly things. Mothers doing school runs in their luxury four-wheel drives, children as young as ten chatting away happily on mobile phones. Smiley, happy people, who wouldn’t know hardship if it smacked them in the face.

      Not wanting to become bitter, I turn away from the window and think about my own life. I take my pad and pen out of