Am I Guilty?
JACKIE KABLER
A division of HarperCollins Publishers
www.harpercollins.co.uk
KillerReads
an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019
Copyright © Jackie Kabler 2019
Cover design Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019
Cover images © Shutterstock.com
Jackie Kabler 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.
Ebook Edition © April 2019
ISBN: 9780008328405
Version: 2018-12-12
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page Am I Guilty? JACKIE KABLER A division of HarperCollins Publishers www.harpercollins.co.uk
Copyright KillerReads an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019 Copyright © Jackie Kabler 2019 Cover design Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019 Cover images © Shutterstock.com Jackie Kabler 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. Ebook Edition © April 2019 ISBN: 9780008328405 Version: 2018-12-12
Part One PART ONE
1 : Thea
2 : Flora
3 : Annabelle
4 : Thea
5 : Annabelle
6 : Thea
7 : Flora
8 : Thea
9 : Annabelle
10 : Flora
11 : Annabelle
12 : Thea
13 : Annabelle
14 : Thea
15 : Flora
16 : Thea
17 : Flora
18 : Annabelle
19 : Thea
20 : Flora
21 : Thea
22 : Annabelle
23 : Flora
24 : Thea
25 : Flora
26 : Thea
27 : Annabelle
28 : Thea
Part Two
29 : Thea
30 : Isla
31 : Thea
32 : Greg
33 : Annabelle
34 : Thea
35 : Rupert
36 : Thea
37 : Nell
38 : Thea
39 : Annabelle
Part Three
40 : Flora
41 : Thea
42 : Annabelle
Epilogue: Croft Park Hospital
Acknowledgements
About the Author
About the Publisher
PART ONE
They were staring again. I shivered, curling my fingers tightly around the handle of the pram, and walked quickly past them, my eyes not meeting theirs. It was two women this time, around my age, late thirties, standing outside WHSmith. I’d only stopped for a moment, to adjust my scarf, but I knew instantly that it had been a mistake. Never stop, keep moving. Keep your head down. Don’t give them a chance to recognize you. I was usually so careful, on the rare occasions I ventured out. Tried to avert my gaze from store assistants, cashiers, other shoppers, looking down into my purse or at the pram, so they didn’t get a good look at me. It was easier that way, safer. But today, with the scarf slipping, I’d risked it, just for a moment, stopping to wind the stupid thing back into place. Idiot. It was January, the sky a bleak grey, a biting wind whistling down Cheltenham High Street and whipping loose strands of hair across my cheeks, a crisp packet scudding across the road in front of me as I hurried past the shopfront, eyes fixed firmly ahead, not looking at their faces. I heard them, though, their voices sharp and full of disgust. Full of loathing.
‘It is her, isn’t it? Look at her. What a freak,’ said one.
‘Evil bitch, more like,’ said the other.
A sob caught in my throat and I walked faster, suddenly desperate to get home. I shouldn’t have come out today, I shouldn’t . I’d been feeling all right earlier, almost sprightly, after a good night’s sleep for the first time in weeks. Seven hours. Seven. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept for that long and it had done wonders, made me feel that today I could cope, that it would be fine to go out, get some fresh air, pick up a few bits and pieces in town before I started work. I did most of my shopping online now, but it had seemed silly to pay delivery charges when you only needed some cotton wool, wrapping paper, a pack of pens. And sometimes, it was fine. Sometimes I got away with it, and nobody recognized me, nobody stared or commented or shouted abuse across the street. Not often though, and not today, clearly.
It had started to rain now, fat drops spattering the clear plastic cover I’d put over the pram before going out. Beneath it, a white cashmere blanket was pulled up high, but I could picture Zander’s sleeping face, his ludicrously long lashes resting softly against his delicious pink and cream cheeks, see in my mind’s eye the gentle rise and fall of his little chest as he dreamed his baby dreams, oblivious. At the thought of him, my darling boy, I sobbed again, aching to hold him in my arms, look into his bright blue eyes, hear his adorable chuckle as he reached up to grab my hair, the chuckle that made everything bad in the world simply melt away.
I bent my head against the wind, wiping my tears away fiercely with one hand as I steered the pram round the corner onto the Prom, heading for home. Everything would be fine, I told myself. I’d get back, have a nice cup of tea, something soothing – camomile? – and then get to work. I didn’t really like camomile tea, but Isla said it always calmed her down, and Isla knew about these things. She was my best friend, one of the few who had stuck by me.
We were more like family really, me and Isla, discovering soon after we met all those years ago that both of us were only children who’d craved siblings, jokingly offering to be each other’s substitute sister, bonding quickly, irreversibly. From day one we hated to be apart for long, and it was the same even now, now that we were both all grown up with homes and jobs and responsibilities, and even though our everyday lives were so different. She was a real party girl, Isla, but she balanced out the excesses of her crazy work and social life, the boozy nights and junk food lunches, by being into all that healthy stuff too – Pilates, meditation, mindfulness, smoothies, funny teas. She’d only managed to persuade me to go as far as the tea, but she was persistent.
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