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KATE THOMPSON
That Gallagher Girl
Copyright
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.
Harper Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
Copyright © Kate Thompson 2010
Kate Thompson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9781847561015
Ebook Edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780007431083 Version: 2018-07-09
For Malcolm and Clara
I am not a friend, and I am not a servant. I am the Cat who walks by herself, and I wish to come into your house.
After Rudyard Kipling
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
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
Acknowledgements
Read on for A Reader’s Guide to Lissamore
A Reader’s Guide to Lissamore
Prologue - Summer 2001
About the Author
By the same author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
On the morning of her seventeenth birthday, Cat Gallagher learned how to break into a house. It was fourth on the list of ten things she wanted to accomplish before she was twenty-one. The first three things she had already achieved. She had learned how to sail single-handed, how to play a winning hand at poker, and how to paint with a seagull’s feather. She had also learned to conquer fear – although that particular lesson wasn’t itemised on Cat’s list of things to learn, for she had always been fearless. Apart, that is, from her fear of needles.
The house in question was a showcase that had never been lived in. It was the product of a former economy, a ghost house boasting brickwork so symmetrical and a roof so streamlined it appeared incongruous next to the un finished structures that surrounded it, their foundations mapping what was to have been an exclusive development of half-a-dozen luxury dwellings. Those houses would never be finished now. The showhouse stood alone and resplendent on a building site that was being reclaimed by bindweed, buddleia and feral cats.
Cat and her half-brother Raoul were sitting on a low wall, sharing a bottle of wine. It had a posh French name and a picture of a French château on the label, but Cat hadn’t paid for it. She’d nicked it from her dad’s collection of vintage Burgundy, along with a second bottle from his collection of vintage Bordeaux.
‘Cheers,’ said Raoul, touching his paper cup to hers. ‘Happy birthday, Cat.’
‘Cheers.’
‘I hope you didn’t expect a present.’
‘Are you mad? You’re as broke as I am,’ said Cat. ‘Anyway, isn’t teaching me the art of breaking and entering more valuable than any old giftwrapped crap? Passing on skills is the new birthday present.’
Raoul was ten years older than Cat. He was a student of architecture at Galway University, and had always indulged his little sister. He had been responsible for teaching her to row a boat and fix a bike chain and skip stones, and now he was mentoring her in the art of housebreaking. Their father, Hugo, had never mentored her in anything much, apart from how to tell the difference between a Burgundy and a Bordeaux.
Cat and Raoul both took after their father in looks. It was said that the Gallaghers were descended from shipwrecked survivors of the Armada, and that they had Spanish blood. Both Cat and Raoul were dark-haired and olive-skinned, with patrician noses and cheekbones like razor shells. Today, Cat’s vaguely piratical appearance was enhanced by the fact that she sported a bandana, and a small gold hoop in one ear. Her eyes were heavily rimmed with black kohl, but that was her only concession to cosmetics. Cat had never used lipstick in her life, nor had she ever painted her nails or GHD’d her mane of black hair.
‘I wonder what Hugo would say if he knew you were teaching me how to break into houses,’ Cat remarked as Raoul upended the bottle into their paper cups before sticking it in his backpack.
‘Being a champagne socialist,