Kate Thompson - Secrets Between Sisters - The perfect heart-warming holiday read of 2018

Published by AVON

A Division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers in 2009

This ebook edition published by HarperCollins Publishers in 2018

Copyright © Kate Thompson 2018

Cover design © Becky Glibbery 2018

Cover photographs © Shutterstock 2018

Kate Thompson 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: 9781847560995

Ebook Edition © May 2009 ISBN: 9780007329021

Version: 2018-02-06

For Padraig

The light of evening, Lissadell,

Great windows open to the south,

Two girls in silk kimonos, both

Beautiful, one a gazelle.

W. B. Yeats

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue : Summer 2001

Chapter One : Several Years Later

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

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

‘Hey, you! What do you think you’re doing?’

It was a girl’s voice, brittle as cut crystal. Rio, daydreaming amongst sea pinks, wondered if the words were directed at her. Lazily, she turned over onto her tummy, pushed a strand of hair back from her face, and leaned her chin on her forearms. From her vantage point atop the low cliff she had a clear view of the shore, picture-postcard pretty today, with lacy wavelets fringing the sand. Below, on the old slipway that fronted Coral Cottage, a girl of around twelve years old stood, arms ramrod stiff, hands clenched into fists.

‘You!’ said the girl again. ‘Didn’t you hear me? I asked what you were doing.’

The boy squatting on the sandstone glanced up, took in the blonde curls, the belly top, the day-glo-pink pedal-pushers, the strappy sandals, then resumed his scrutiny of the rock pool that had been formed by the receding tide. ‘I’m looking for crabs,’ he told her.

‘Smartarse. I didn’t mean that. I meant – what are you doing on my land?’

‘Your land, is it?’ murmured the boy. ‘I don’t think so, Barbie-girl.’

‘You may not think so, but I know so. That’s my daddy’s slipway, and you’re trespassing. And don’t call me Barbie-girl, farm-boy.’

Río smiled, and reached for her sunglasses. Bogtrotter versus city slicker made for the best spectator sport.

‘Shut up your yapping, will you? There’s a donkey up in the field beyond trying to feed her newborn. You’ll put the frighteners on the pair of them.’

Río saw the girl’s mouth open, then shut again. ‘A donkey? You mean there’s a donkey with a baby?’

‘Yip.’ The boy rose to his feet. ‘I’ll show you, if you like.’

The girl looked uncertain. ‘I’m not supposed to go beyond the slipway.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘I’ve got new sandals on. I might get them dirty’.

The boy shrugged. ‘Take ’em off.’

‘Take my shoes off’

‘They’re not nailed to your feet, are they?’

From the field beyond came a melancholy bray.

‘What’s that?’ asked the girl.

‘That’s Dorcas.’

‘Dorcas is the mother donkey?’

‘Yip.’

‘What’s her baby called?’

‘She doesn’t have a name yet.’

‘What age is she?’

‘A week.’

‘A week! Cute!’

‘She’s cute, all right,’ said the boy, moving away from the slipway.

The girl gave a covert glance over her shoulder, then reached down, unfastened her sandals and stepped down from the slipway onto the sand.

‘My name’s Isabella,’ she said, as she caught up with him. ‘What’s yours?’

‘Finn. Do you want some liquorice?’

‘Hel l o? Don’t you know the rule about not taking sweets from strangers?’

‘Liquorice isn’t really a sweet. It’s a kind of plant. Have you clapped eyes on a donkey before?’

‘Yes, of course. On the telly. What’s that stuff?’

‘That’s spraint.’

‘What’s spraint?’

‘Otter poo.’

‘Ew!’

Finn laughed. ‘Wait till you see donkey poo.’

The children’s voices receded as they moved further down the beach. Río was just about to call out to Finn, to warn him to mind Isabella’s feet on the cattle grid, when new voices made her turn and look to her left.

Two men were strolling along the embankment that flanked the shoreline. One sported a shooting stick, the other had a leather folder tucked under his arm. Both were muttering into mobile phones, and both wore unweathered Barbours and pristine green wellies. City boys playing at being country squires, Río decided.

The men clambered down the embankment, then meandered along the sand until they came to a standstill directly below Río’s eyrie.

‘Get your people to call mine,’ barked one man into his Nokia, and: ‘I’ll get my people to call yours,’ barked the other into his, and then both men snapped their phones shut and slid them into their pockets.

As Isabella and Finn disappeared round the headland, Río heard Dorcas greet them with an enthusiastic bray. One of the men looked up, then raised a hand to shade his eyes from the sun. Leaning as he was on his shooting stick, he looked like a male model from one of the naffer Sunday supplements.

‘What’s that bloody racket, James?’ he asked.

‘A donkey. You’d better get used to it,’ said the man with the folder. ‘Noise pollution in the country is as rampant as it is in the city, only different. You’ll be waking up to the sound of sheep baaing all over the place.’