I Spy. Claire Kendal

      

      

       Copyright

      HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

      Copyright © Claire Kendal 2019

      Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019 Cover photograph © John Cooper/Arcangel Images

      Claire Kendal 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: 9780008256838

      Ebook Edition © August 2019 ISBN: 9780008256852

      Version: 2019-05-23

       Dedication

      For my brother Robert

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

      Epigraph

      Prologue An Interview

      Now A Discovery

      Then Black Star Sapphire

Now The Girl with the Two-Coloured Eye

Then Human Asset

Now The Two Tunnels

Then The Plague Pit

Now The Backwards House

Then The Forgotten Things

Now The Woman in the Room

Then A Quarrel

       Now The Excursion

       Then Provocations

       Now Further Warnings

       Then Eavesdropping

       Now Persistence

       Then Concealment

       Now The Robin

       Then Startling Intelligence

       Now The Visit

       Then A Meeting

       Now An Assault

       Then April Fool

       Now An Ambush

       Then The Handkerchief Tree

       Now The Doors With No Knobs

       Then A Misadventure

       Now A Misdemeanour

       Then The Studio

       Now Further Intelligence

       Then The Spin Out

       Now Illegal Entry

       Then The Memory Box

       Now The Choice

       Then The Drowning Place

       Now Thorpe Hall

       Now The Miniature

       Now The Present

       Keep Reading …

       Acknowledgements

       For those affected by the issues in this novel

       About the Author

       Also by Claire Kendal

       About the Publisher

       Epigraph

      ‘You have almost completed your painting,’ said I, approaching to observe it more closely, and surveying it with a greater degree of admiration and delight than I cared to express. ‘A few more touches in the foreground will finish it I should think.—But why have you called it Fernley Manor, Cumberland, instead of Wildfell Hall, —shire?’ I asked, alluding to the name she had traced in small characters at the bottom of the canvass.

      But immediately I was sensible of having committed an act of impertinence in so doing; for she coloured and hesitated; but after a moment’s pause, with a kind of desperate frankness, she replied,—

      ‘Because I have friends—acquaintances at least—in the world, from whom I desire my present abode to be concealed; and as they might see the picture, and might possibly recognize the style in spite of the false initials I have put in the corner, I take the precaution to give a false name to the place also, in order to put them on a wrong scent, if they should attempt to trace me out by it.’

      Anne Brontë,

      The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,

      Chapter V, ‘The Studio’

       Prologue An Interview

      London, April 2013

      The clear glass table meant that I had to work extra hard to stop my knee from jerking up and down. It was not a time to show nervousness. Maxine was on one side of the table. I was on the other.

      ‘You are twenty-one, Holly. Correct?’ She started simply, but her use of my first name was a warning. She had only ever called me by my surname.

      ‘Correct.’

      ‘Do you have many friends?’

      ‘A few good ones.’

      She nodded. I had