Sue Fortin - The Girl Who Lied

A division of HarperCollins Publishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Harper Impulse an imprint of

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Harper Impulse 2016

Copyright © Sue Fortin 2016

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Cover Design by Books Covered

Sue Fortin 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

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,

downloaded, 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.

Ebook Edition © April 2016 ISBN: 9780008194840

Version 2019-03-27

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page The Girl Who Lied SUE FORTIN A division of HarperCollins Publishers www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright Harper Impulse an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by Harper Impulse 2016 Copyright © Sue Fortin 2016 Cover images © Shutterstock.com Cover Design by Books Covered Sue Fortin 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 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, downloaded, 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. Ebook Edition © April 2016 ISBN: 9780008194840 Version 2019-03-27

Dedication For my mum and my daughters, with my eternal love.

PART 1 PART 1 ‘I can’t go back to yesterday – I was a different person then.’ Lewis Carroll

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

PART 2

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

PART 3

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

EPILOGUE

Author Note

Acknowledgements

Book Club Questions

A Q&A with Sue Fortin

Also by Sue Fortin

About the Author

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

For my mum and my daughters, with my eternal love.

‘I can’t go back to yesterday – I was a different person then.’

Lewis Carroll

London, England

This is the moment I’ve been dreading. It’s time for me to go back. I play with the Triskelion pendant around my neck, my finger rubbing each of the three edges in turn. Father. Mother. Child. I read the email once again.

From: Roisin Marshall

To: Erin Hurley

Subject: Meeting Up

Hello Erin

You can’t keep ignoring me. I’m sure you never really thought you could walk away from everyone and everything.

I have something that might interest you.

Call me.

Roisin

My finger hovers over the reply key. For a fleeting moment I consider deleting the message. If I ignore it, she may go away. She may give up. I sit back in my chair and let out a long, slow breath. The anxiety that has lain dormant for all this time, having now been stirred, stretches its hand, grips tightly and twists my stomach. No matter how many times I have anticipated this moment, prepared myself to confront my past, right now, it’s insufficient.

‘Aha! Caught you.’ A voice from behind startles me. Somehow I manage to click on the inbox icon, clearing the screen of the email. I plaster on a smile and spin round in my chair to face Ed.

‘You made me jump,’ I say, noting that I sound overly cheerful. ‘How long have you been there?’ My mind replays the last few minutes. How long had I been staring at the email? How long was it visible on the screen? Could Ed have read it from where he was standing?

Ed gives a small laugh. ‘What are you trying to hide?’

I know he’s only joking but he has no idea how true his words are.

‘Now, it wouldn’t do for a girl to tell her boss and her boyfriend all her secrets, would it?’ My turn to laugh. It sounds forced. Ed cocks his head to one side, weighing me up.

The phone on my desk rings and I offer a silent prayer of thanks that I am saved from having to continue the conversation.

‘Good afternoon, Hamilton’s Health and Beauty Spa.’ I glance back up at Ed, who winks before returning to his office.

The immediate danger has passed, but the ever-present fear remains, which only serves to convince me I must do something about it. I cannot afford to let chance or luck, bad luck even, take control. I can afford even less to let my old school friend be in charge.

I turn my attention to the call and quickly deal with booking an appointment for a back massage. Replacing the phone in its cradle, I peek back through to Ed’s office.

He’s busy looking at his computer screen. I return to mine, calling up Roisin’s email again. Instead of replying, I forward it onto my own private email address. One I will have to sacrifice giving to her. I don’t want her trying to contact me at work again. I check my phone and see the email has been received. Next job is to delete the email coming in and going out of the work computer. I know there will be some sort of cyber-footprint, but no one will be looking for that.

It takes less than a minute to carry out, just in time as my next client arrives for her full leg wax. ‘I won’t be a moment,’ I tell her as I double-check that all traces of the email have been eradicated.

For the rest of the day, try as I might, I can’t put the email and Roisin out of my mind. Up until now, I’ve been pretty good at ignoring her. Naively, knowing Roisin, I had hoped she would go away if I didn’t reply. That she would give up. Her first email had been unthreatening. The sort you’d send to someone you hadn’t been in contact with for a long time. The second, thinking back, had a more insistent tone. And now the third, well, she’s certainly not going away and the bait she’s dangling, the something that might interest me, how can I ignore that? Not after what I’ve done.