Tracy Buchanan - Her Last Breath - The new gripping summer page-turner from the No 1 bestseller

Published by Avon

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2017

Copyright © Tracy Buchanan 2017

Cover Design © Lisa Horton 2017

Tracy Buchanan 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: 9780008175177

Ebook Edition © June 2017 ISBN: 978000817514

Version: 2017-05-22

For Dad, who told me to dream big

Table of 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

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

Extract from Section 7 Report on Estelle Forster prepared by social worker Jean Biden

2 May 1994

This report has been prepared for the court and should be treated as confidential. It must not be shown, nor its contents revealed, to anyone other than the party or a legal adviser to such a party.

4.1 Description of the child’s daily life and experience at the time harm was identified

Estelle is a seven-year-old white British girl born to parents with long-standing drug addiction issues. Estelle lives with her parents in a two-bedroom local authority flat.

My observation during visits is that the flat is kept in an untidy state. Unclean plates are often left out, carpets are stained and filled with debris, and discarded bottles of alcohol can be seen. Estelle’s bedroom is kept in a reasonably tidy state with a small single bed and a wardrobe. On closer inspection, however, her duvet appears to have not been cleaned for several weeks.

Estelle has informed me in private on several occasions that her parents are still asleep when she wakes. She learnt to dress and feed herself in the morning from the age of six. A typical breakfast is toast and butter, or leftover dinner from the evening before. Estelle noted that she would prefer cereal, but the milk she finds is often sour.

Estelle attends school at Greyswood Primary, a ten-minute walk from her home. Her head teacher, Mrs Jenny Pyatt, informs me Estelle is rarely accompanied by her parents on the short walk from her flat, and parents report having seen her walking to the school alone since she began at the age of four, something Estelle’s mother denies.

Mrs Pyatt informs me Estelle arrives at school dishevelled and unclean on a regular basis. On first starting school at the age of four, she arrived wearing a nappy. But with the help and care of her teachers, she is now able to go to the bathroom.

Estelle’s attendance rate is below average and her parents have only attended one parents’ evening. On this occasion, the police had to be called due to Mr Forster’s abusive behaviour towards the teachers.

In the evenings, Estelle informs me she eats dinner – often chips bought from the local fish and chip shop by her parents or a microwave meal – while watching TV. As detailed in previous reports, there have been two occasions where she has been reported as being left alone while her parents were at the local pub. Her average bedtime is 11 p.m. This continues into the weekend where Estelle spends the majority of her time indoors watching TV or reading.

Estelle does not benefit from any extended family due to both her parents being solo children and her grandparents having passed away.

Estelle has struggled to form friendships due to her low attendance rate at school and her generally shy and reserved nature. Her teachers inform me she takes comfort in retreating to the school library during breaks and has shown a keenness in improving her reading and writing skills. She takes particular joy in any lessons involving food.

The last time I visited Estelle before the distressing incident that led to her being removed from her parents, she was attempting to teach herself how to bake a chocolate cake. It is clear she is a bright girl who could thrive given the right circumstances. But when I mentioned this to her, she informed me her father laughed at her when she told him she wanted to be a chef, and told her the closest she’d get would be ‘working at the local chippie’. I detected a real sense of sadness and pain when she said this.

Combined with the terrible recent incident, I strongly recommend Estelle is permanently removed from her parents before long-lasting emotional damage occurs. It is my professional opinion that we may already be too late.

Tuesday, 2 May

Estelle’s dinner party was going perfectly. A soft breeze filtered in through the chiffon curtains, lifting the corners of the organic cotton napkins she’d so carefully chosen. There was the distant tinkle of a police siren above the acoustic guitar music drifting out from her speakers, adding to the ‘sophisticated get-together in the city’ ambience.

On the wall was the painting she’d bought with some of the advance she’d received for her book: a minimalist canvas featuring a simple apple tree against brilliant white. And, of course, laid out on the large misshaped driftwood table were her signature dishes: a vast cauliflower pizza sprinkled with locally sourced lamb cubes; zucchini fritters with Greek yoghurt; carrot quinoa muffins; and chunky chickpea dips with crunchy vegetable crisps.