Kate Thompson - That Gallagher Girl

KATE THOMPSON

That Gallagher Girl

Copyright

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.

Harper Press

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Kate Thompson 2010

Kate Thompson 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

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 e-books.

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9781847561015

Ebook Edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780007431083

Version: 2018-07-09

For Malcolm and Clara

I am not a friend, and I am not a servant. I am the Cat who walks by herself, and I wish to come into your house.

After Rudyard Kipling

Contents

Cover

Title Page KATE THOMPSON That Gallagher Girl

Epigraph I am not a friend, and I am not a servant. I am the Cat who walks by herself, and I wish to come into your house. After Rudyard Kipling

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

Acknowledgements

Read on for A Reader’s Guide to Lissamore

A Reader’s Guide to Lissamore

Prologue - Summer 2001

About the Author

By the same author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Prologue

On the morning of her seventeenth birthday, Cat Gallagher learned how to break into a house. It was fourth on the list of ten things she wanted to accomplish before she was twenty-one. The first three things she had already achieved. She had learned how to sail single-handed, how to play a winning hand at poker, and how to paint with a seagull’s feather. She had also learned to conquer fear – although that particular lesson wasn’t itemised on Cat’s list of things to learn, for she had always been fearless. Apart, that is, from her fear of needles.

The house in question was a showcase that had never been lived in. It was the product of a former economy, a ghost house boasting brickwork so symmetrical and a roof so streamlined it appeared incongruous next to the un finished structures that surrounded it, their foundations mapping what was to have been an exclusive development of half-a-dozen luxury dwellings. Those houses would never be finished now. The showhouse stood alone and resplendent on a building site that was being reclaimed by bindweed, buddleia and feral cats.

Cat and her half-brother Raoul were sitting on a low wall, sharing a bottle of wine. It had a posh French name and a picture of a French château on the label, but Cat hadn’t paid for it. She’d nicked it from her dad’s collection of vintage Burgundy, along with a second bottle from his collection of vintage Bordeaux.

‘Cheers,’ said Raoul, touching his paper cup to hers. ‘Happy birthday, Cat.’

‘Cheers.’

‘I hope you didn’t expect a present.’

‘Are you mad? You’re as broke as I am,’ said Cat. ‘Anyway, isn’t teaching me the art of breaking and entering more valuable than any old giftwrapped crap? Passing on skills is the new birthday present.’

Raoul was ten years older than Cat. He was a student of architecture at Galway University, and had always indulged his little sister. He had been responsible for teaching her to row a boat and fix a bike chain and skip stones, and now he was mentoring her in the art of housebreaking. Their father, Hugo, had never mentored her in anything much, apart from how to tell the difference between a Burgundy and a Bordeaux.

Cat and Raoul both took after their father in looks. It was said that the Gallaghers were descended from shipwrecked survivors of the Armada, and that they had Spanish blood. Both Cat and Raoul were dark-haired and olive-skinned, with patrician noses and cheekbones like razor shells. Today, Cat’s vaguely piratical appearance was enhanced by the fact that she sported a bandana, and a small gold hoop in one ear. Her eyes were heavily rimmed with black kohl, but that was her only concession to cosmetics. Cat had never used lipstick in her life, nor had she ever painted her nails or GHD’d her mane of black hair.

‘I wonder what Hugo would say if he knew you were teaching me how to break into houses,’ Cat remarked as Raoul upended the bottle into their paper cups before sticking it in his backpack.

‘Being a champagne socialist, he’d applaud the fact that I’m encouraging you in the redistribution of wealth.’

‘I told you, Raoul – I’m not doing this to steal stuff. I just need to know how to get into places.’

‘Why, exactly?’

‘I have a feeling in my bones that it’s going to be useful some time. My bones tell me loads of things, and they’re usually right.’

‘When you become a fugitive from justice, you mean?’

‘When I become a fugitive from our father, more like.’

‘You’ll let me know, won’t you, when you decide to run away? I’ll worry if you don’t keep in touch.’

‘You’ll be the only person I’ll tell,’ she told him, kissing his cheek. ‘You’ll be the only person who’ll worry.’

Cat drained her cup, then got up from the wall and stumbled sideways as her foot clipped the edge of a pothole and the earth crumbled beneath her boot. ‘Yikes! Look at the size of that pothole. I wouldn’t like to be negotiating this place at night.’

‘Better get used to it. Good cat burglars – excuse the pun – need extrasensory night vision.’

‘Let me say it again – I ain’t in the business of burgling, Raoul.’

‘Never say never.’ Raoul took Cat’s cup and drained his own before stowing them and the bottle in his backpack. ‘Let’s go recce,’ he said.

Together they made their way along the path that led to the front door of the unoccupied house. It was fashioned from solid oak, and had an impenetrable air.