Kitty Neale - Desperate Measures

Published by Avon an imprint of

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street,

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

This ebook edition published by HarperCollins Publishers 2016

First published in paperback by HarperCollins Publishers , 2009

Copyright © Kitty Neale 2009

Cover design © Debbie Clement 2016

Cover photographs: Alamy/Getty

Kitty Neale 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: 9781847563514

Ebook Edition © May 2016 ISBN 9780007335626

Version: 2016-04-13

This book is for my adorable new great grandson, Michael Andrew Blofeld. May your life be a joyous one, my darling, full of love, laughter, and a smooth path to carry you forward on life’s journey.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

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

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Keep Reading …

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By the same author

About the Publisher

The woman knew that what she wanted to do was justified, not just for her, but for the others that she had managed to bring into her small circle. It was a lovely day, the sun bright, yet impatiently she tugged her small dog’s lead, too intent on finding her next recruit to appreciate her surroundings. Her life had been ruined and she’d been eaten up with bitterness – but now she had a mission.

She wasn’t the only woman who’d suffered and it wasn’t right, wasn’t fair that these men had got away with it. Her goal now was to make them pay – to make him pay.

To that end she got up every morning, went to work, functioned – but it was as though she were living her life on automatic. Her plans and schemes had become the focus of her whole life and she couldn’t rest until they’d been carried out. Since the day it had happened, since he’d destroyed her life, she’d wanted only one thing. Revenge.

Battersea, South London, 1969

Though it was early on Saturday morning there were already signs that it was going to be a lovely day and the sunshine drew Betty out of her poky flat to the park on the opposite side of the road.

She walked for a while, but it was unusually warm for June and, feeling hot, Betty sat on a bench. The park began to fill and she frowned as two young women walked towards her, still unable to get used to the way youngsters dressed nowadays. They were both in A-line mini-dresses, one blonde, one dark, their hair cut short in the geometrical shapes made popular by the hairdresser Vidal Sassoon. Make-up was skilfully applied – heavy, but at least they weren’t wearing the thick, black, false eyelashes that were at last going out of fashion.

Betty sighed. She was fifty-one now, but as a young woman a bit of powder and lipstick was all she’d been allowed to wear, and her clothes had been respectable, in the same style as her mother’s. And not only that – what about underwear? These young girls didn’t wear vests or corsets and, worse, sometimes they went without a brassiere. She shook her head. Anne, her twenty-nine-year-old daughter, accused her of being old-fashioned, saying that things were different now. Women were no longer shackled to men, Anne insisted. They had freedom, equality, the means to make their own way in the world.

The two young women walked past without sparing her so much as a glance, and Betty blinked away tears as a surge of loneliness swamped her. She watched a small, brown dog as it circled a tree, sniffing the trunk until, finally satisfied, it lifted its leg.

‘Treacle, come here,’ a woman’s voice called.

Betty saw the dog’s ears twitch, but intent on exploring fresh pastures the command was ignored. It trotted towards the bench she was sitting on, tail up, and obviously liking what it saw, reared up to place its paws on Betty’s lap.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Get down, Treacle.’

Whilst stroking the dog’s head, Betty looked up at his owner. She’d seen the elegant, middle-aged woman before, had noticed her dark brown hair, styled into a French pleat that emphasised her high cheekbones. ‘It’s all right, I like dogs,’ she assured her.

‘Not everyone feels the same and he’s a holy terror. I shouldn’t have let him off the lead, but I’m trying to get him to obey me,’ she chuckled. ‘As you can see, it isn’t working.’

‘He looks so sweet.’

‘Don’t let that fool you,’ the woman said as she sat down. Treacle immediately jumped onto her lap and she laughed as his tongue slobbered her face. ‘Oh, what am I saying? He’s a darling really but, as I said, he won’t obey my commands.’

‘What breed is he?’

‘He’s a Bitsa. You know, bits of this and bits of that.’

As Betty smiled, Treacle turned to look at her again, his head cocked, soft brown eyes intent on her face. He then left his owner, moving across to sit on Betty’s lap, his tongue soft and wet on her cheek.

‘He likes you,’ the woman said. ‘I’m Val by the way. Valerie Thorn.’

‘I’m Betty. Betty Grayson.’

Treacle jumped down, heading for the nearest tree as Val said, ‘It’s nice to meet you at last. We live in the same block of flats and since you moved in I’ve been meaning to introduce myself, but, well, you know how it is.’

‘Yes, all the tenants seem so busy and I hardly see them, but it’s nice to meet you too. You’re on the ground floor aren’t you?’