C.J. Cooke - I Know My Name

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2017

Copyright © C.J. Cooke 2017

Cover design by Heike Schüssler © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2017

Cover Photograph © Josephine Pugh / Arcangel Images

C.J. Cooke 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: 9780008237530

Ebook Edition © June 2017 ISBN: 9780008237547

Version: 2020-03-12

For Summer

Little lover of horses

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

The Girl on the Beach

17 March 2015

17 March 2015

17 March 2015

18 March 2015

18 March 2015

18 March 2015

19 March 2015

18 March 2015

20 March 2015

18 March 2015

11 April 1983

23 March 2015

23 March 2015

24 March 2015

24 March 2015

24 March 2015

25 March 2015

21 January 1986

28 March 2015

27 March 2015

29 March 2015

29 March 2015

Red Wool

14 November 1988

31 March 2015

31 March 2015

1 April 2015

24 April 1990

2 April 2015

2 April 2015

31 March 2015

2 April 2015

1 April 2015

2 April 2015

1 April 2015

2 April 2015

2 April 2015

2 April 2015

2 April 2015

2 April 2015

2 April 2015

The Light That Moves Inward and Outward

3 April 2015

3 May 2015

25 June 2015

Three Years Later, 17 October 2018

Afterword

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

About the Publisher

I’m woken by the sounds of feet shuffling by my ears and voices knitting together in panic.

Is she dead? What should we do? Joe! You know CPR, don’t you?

A weight presses down against my lips. The bitter smell of cigarettes rushes up to my nostrils. Hot breath inflates my cheeks. A push downward on my chest. Another. I jerk upright, vomiting what feels like gallons of disgusting salty liquid. Someone rubs my back and says, Take it easy, sweetie. That’s it.

I twist to one side and lower my forehead to the ground, coughing, choking. My hair is wet, my clothes are soaking and I’m shaking with cold. Someone helps me to my feet and pulls my right arm limply across a broad set of shoulders. A yellow splodge on the floor comes into focus: it’s a life jacket. Mine? The man holding me upright lowers me gently into a chair. I hear their voices as they observe me, instructing each other on how to care for me.

Is that blood in her hair?

Joe, have a look. Has the bleeding stopped?

It looks quite deep, but I think it’s stopped. I’ve got some antiseptic swabs upstairs.

My head starts to throb, a dull pain towards the right. A cup of coffee materialises on the table in front of me. The smell winds upwards and sharpens my vision, bringing the people in the room into view. There’s a man nearby, panting from effort. Another man with black square glasses. Two others, both women. One of them leans over me and says, You OK, hun? I nod, dumbly. She comes into focus. Kind eyes. Well, Joe , she says. Looks like you saved her life.

I don’t recognise any of these people. I don’t know where I am. Whitewashed stone walls and a pretty stone floor. A kitchen, I think. Copper pots and pans hang from ceiling hooks, an old-fashioned black range oven visible at my right. I feel as though all energy has been sucked out of me, but the woman who gave me coffee urges me to keep awake. We need to check you over, sweetie . There’s an American lilt in her voice . I don’t think I noticed that before. She says, You’ve been unconscious for a while.

The younger man with black glasses tells me he’s going to check out my head. He steps behind me and all of a sudden I feel something cold and stinging on my scalp. I gasp in pain. Someone squeezes my hand and tells me he’s cleaning the wound. He looks over a spot above my eyebrow and cleans it, too, though he tells me it’s only a scratch.

The man who hoisted me into the chair sits opposite. Bald, heavy-set. Mid to late forties. Cockney. He takes a cigarette from a packet, plops it into his mouth and lights it.

You come from the main island?

Main island? I say, my voice a croak.

From there to here on her own? the younger man says. There’s no way she’d have managed in that storm.

I think that’s the point, Joe , the bald guy says. She’s lucky her boat didn’t capsize before it hit the beach.

The woman who served me coffee brings a chair and sits at my right.

I’m Sariah , she says. Good to meet you . Then, to the others in the room, Well, she’s awake now. Why don’t we stop being rude and introduce ourselves?

The guy with glasses gives a wave.

Joe.

George , says the bald man. I’m the one who found you.

Silence. Joe turns to the thin woman at his right, expectant. She seems nervous. Hazel , she says, her voice no more than an exhalation.

You got a name? George asks me.

My mind is blank. I look over the faces of the others, fitting their faces to these names, and yet my own won’t come. I feel physically weak and battered, but I’m lucid and able to think clearly.

It’s OK, sweetie , Sariah is saying, rubbing my shoulders. You’ve had a rough time. Take it easy. It’ll come.

You holidaying on the main island? George asks again.

My head feels like someone is pounding it with a hammer. I’m sorry … what is the main island?

Crete , Sariah answers. Whereabouts were you staying?

You staying with family? A group of girlfriends? the guy with glasses asks. Hey, she might have come from one of the other islands. Antikythera?

I don’t think so , offers the tiny woman with red curly hair – Hazel – in a low voice. The currents between here and Antikythera are worse than travelling to Crete. And Antikythera is further .