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Kate Hamer: The Girl in the Red Coat

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Kate Hamer The Girl in the Red Coat
  • Название:
    The Girl in the Red Coat
  • Автор:
  • Издательство:
    Faber & Faber
  • Жанр:
  • Год:
    2015
  • Язык:
    Английский
  • Рейтинг книги:
    4 / 5
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The Girl in the Red Coat: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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Kate Hamer's stand-out debut thriller is the hugely moving story of an abduction that will keep you guessing until the very last page. Carmel has always been different. Carmel's mother, Beth, newly single, worries about her daughter's strangeness, especially as she is trying to rebuild a life for the two of them on her own. When she takes eight year-old Carmel to a local children's festival, her worst fear is realised: Carmel disappears. Unable to accept the possibility that her daughter might be gone for good, Beth embarks on a mission to find her. Meanwhile, Carmel begins an extraordinary and terrifying journey of her own, with a man who believes she is a saviour.

Kate Hamer: другие книги автора


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Then there’s fake smiles plastered over Gramps and Munroe’s faces and I go sit on the steps of the stage to be quiet.

Then they come and it’s like they’re never going to stop — until all the seats are full and there’s people standing at the back and crowding into the aisle and Munroe’s rubbing his hands together. The sneaking cold is driven away and the tent feels like the roof is going to melt right off.

Finally, Munroe takes the stage and the coughing and the talking and the shuffling stops dead. He starts pacing up and down, silent — working himself up. When he goes past the microphone you can hear his breathing — heeeehaaaaw heeeeehaaaaw.

When he’s worked up enough he launches himself at the microphone all spitty and excited.

‘I can feel the holy spirit right here. Right now. Hey, I’m expecting the roof to blow off any second the power of it’s so mighty …’ There’s lots of shouting from the crowd but then the music changes. He times it all beforehand — I’ve seen him do it.

‘Now there was this little boy. Name of Chandler. One day when his parents were out back little Chandler decided to do a very wicked thing. He decided to play with a box of matches. Little children here — don’t you be doing this. It was also a foolish act and when you hear what happened next you’ll find out why. What Chandler didn’t know was that his pyjamas he was wearing — ’cos it was nearly bedtime — were of the flammable variety …’

I stick my fingers inside my collar and give my neck a good scratch. I see the girl that came in first, the one in the wheelchair, is staring at me, she’s parked up right at the front. She gives me a wispy smile. Her skinny knees in black tights are half covered with a red-and-white polka-dot dress so she looks like Minnie Mouse. She’s got the most gorgeous shoes; they rest on the metal platform of her wheelchair and they’re gold with red jewels on them and they even have really high heels but I don’t suppose it matters, she doesn’t walk on them anyway. They’re just for show.

I love her. I don’t know why but I love her on sight and she’s looking at me and smiling and I smile back and put my hand up and give her a tiny wave and she lifts a skinny hand and waves back.

Munroe’s finished his story about Chandler who went up in flames so even his fingers had a flame coming off each one so it was like his tenth birthday had come early with each finger lit like a birthday candle. He’s onto something else now.

‘… it’s like we’ve all got personal cell phones we can keep in our pockets and in the directory under G there’s a direct line to God and we can talk to Him any time, any time …’

Him talking about phones gets me thinking. There’s a secret pocket in my coat with some money Gramps doesn’t know about — an old lady gave me a couple of dollars extra for laying hands on her husband — because I’ve been planning one day to have my own phone. I haven’t got nearly enough but I might have when I’m older and then even he won’t be able to stop me. And maybe I could try and phone my dad. Can I remember his number? Only the very beginning bit but there must be a way of finding numbers out. And he might be pleased and he might not. He might have another little girl now with Lucy — but it could be just to say hello, surprise, how you doing?

But then the people facing me come back pin sharp into focus and all the steps I have to go through to phone Dad seem so big and confusing I wonder if I’ll ever be able to manage it.

It’s Gramps’s turn. As they change over I hear Munroe saying, ‘Keep it short, Dennis,’ and my cheeks burn for Gramps. He doesn’t say anything for a good while and the crowd gets restless. Get on with it, Gramps, I think, you’re losing them, and I nearly jump up and shout Hallelujah or Amen like I did this morning in the car. But finally Gramps has started.

‘Acts Eight. Twelve to sixteen — “so they carried out the sick on the streets and they laid them onto beds and pallets that, as Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on some of them”.’

His finger is pointing up to heaven and he gets carried away so he moves without thinking out of the white spotlight so he’s green again. I sigh.

And then the girl and me are staring at each other. We can’t stop it. It’s like we’ve fallen in love or something. Only not like it is with Nico. Not trembly and excited. I love her like I’m a knight on a horse and I want to gather her up and make everything better for her — to look after her and keep her safe. She peeps out under her long red fringe at me with her big soft brown eyes. Now my palms are burning, itching. I concentrate on her to see what light she has burning inside her but it’s hard with the spotlights being different colours. I think there might be light enough inside her, I’m not sure. Everything’s wrong today. What with the green lights and Munroe and his story about little Chandler who I’ve never heard of.

I feel a stab in my heart as a thought pierces — what if it’s all not true? What if this thing, this thing I think is a gift, is only an idea Gramps has put there? I bring the thought up to my face and look at it and it lies an ugly lump in my hands. I don’t want the thought to be right and I try to rub my hands together to squish it and make it disappear, but I get covered in it and it’s terrible. The one time I really want to feel the swelling warmth in my fingertips, the hum going through me — the one time when I want to reach out to this lovely girl and lay my hands on her and say, ‘You can get up now. Take off those high heels because they might be hard to walk in at first, but walk, walk right out of that wheelchair’ — I can’t because all I can feel in my hands are cold dead stars. I have to concentrate on not moaning I feel so bad.

Gramps must have finished now without me realising, the coloured spotlights are drowned out by big white ones and I hear him saying, ‘Whoa now, each will have their turn. You have to line up,’ because people are pushing and pressing forward and some have dollars in their hands that they’re waving about; Dorothy would’ve loved it.

They’ve let in too many people — the ones lined up at the back are pressing forward and I feel very tiny squashed against the stage. Where’s Gramps? I look round for him and catch a glimpse of his face, he’s come off the stage and he’s trying to fight his way through the crowd but he can’t and his face is all pushed out of shape. Then there’s a terrible screeching sound from the microphone and the crowd around me cover their ears and hang back and at least I can breathe a bit. I put my fingers up to my face and I must be crying, it’s wet round my eyes. Because I’ve realised the one person I need to heal — to lay hands on and rearrange the torn and twisted insides — is Mum. And I never will, but if not her, then it has to be this girl.

The feedback screeches again and then it’s Munroe’s voice booming out. ‘Stand back, folk. Stand back right now. Mercy will be seeing everyone today. You need to wait your turn.’

And the crowd turn from a pack of baying wolves to ones that are sniffing about and thinking what to do next. There’s a smell coming off them too. A smell of warm hair. I think, it’s not me that’s wrong — it’s this. If I could just be calm and quiet I’d be fine. I decide something: this is the last ever time I’m going to lay hands for Munroe or Gramps. I’m going to tell Gramps today and however much he wails and shouts he’s not going to change my mind because if I carry on like this it’ll go away.

Then Gramps is by my side and all I can say is, ‘Where is she? Where is she?’ Because I don’t want to see any of the wolves. I only want that girl with the gold stilettos and for everyone else to go away and leave us on our own.

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