Anouska Knight - Letting You Go

Since securing the top prize in a widely-publicised UK writing contest, ANOUSKA KNIGHThas become an international sensation with her debut novel, SINCE YOU’VE BEEN GONE, hitting both The Bookseller and Heatseekers bestseller lists and securing praise from the likes of Jackie Collins and Jenny Colgan. A former bakery owner, she has gone on to wide acclaim in her native England and now writes full-time. Anouska lives in Staffordshire close to the countryside where she grew up, with husband Jamie, her childhood sweetheart, their two growing boys and new baby son. When she’s not writing or wrestling small children, she’s still often found baking and will whip up a cake at the drop of a hat if asked nicely.

For Jim, who I love.

Always the same. Never changes.

Cover

About the Author Since securing the top prize in a widely-publicised UK writing contest, ANOUSKA KNIGHT has become an international sensation with her debut novel, SINCE YOU’VE BEEN GONE, hitting both The Bookseller and Heatseekers bestseller lists and securing praise from the likes of Jackie Collins and Jenny Colgan. A former bakery owner, she has gone on to wide acclaim in her native England and now writes full-time. Anouska lives in Staffordshire close to the countryside where she grew up, with husband Jamie, her childhood sweetheart, their two growing boys and new baby son. When she’s not writing or wrestling small children, she’s still often found baking and will whip up a cake at the drop of a hat if asked nicely.

Title Page

Dedication For Jim, who I love. Always the same. Never changes.

12 thSeptember 2004

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

2 ndNovember 2006

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

2 ndNovember 2006

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

12 thSeptember 2004

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

Autumn Term, 2007, Eilidh High School

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 47

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 49

CHAPTER 50

CHAPTER 51

CHAPTER 52

CHAPTER 53

CHAPTER 54

CHAPTER 55

CHAPTER 56

CHAPTER 57

CHAPTER 58

CHAPTER 59

CHAPTER 60

CHAPTER 61

CHAPTER 62

CHAPTER 63

EPILOGUE

Acknowledgements

Endpage

Copyright

Alex burst from the break in the trees frantically enough that, had she left the woodland a little way further up the roadside, she might have missed him altogether. Any other time it would’ve been odd, him just sitting there in his cab, pulled over awkwardly on the track running up towards the house. But not today. It was as if he were waiting for her, his unmistakable battered blue tow truck a beacon of hope where it sat in the dusty layby. Her burning lungs had gasped at this meagre stroke of luck, if luck had any part to play here. His being there had saved vital minutes. Precious time reclaimed by not having to make it all the way back up the lane to the house.

Ted Foster’s hands were already braced on the steering wheel, as if by some sixth sense he knew what was coming to find him moments before his daughter slammed herself, wild and startled, against his truck bonnet. Alexandra had looked crazed, unrecognisable when she’d sprung in front of his windscreen, the vein in her neck jumping with the emergency pulsing through her lean frame. Her eyes had been too white, as white as Ted’s knuckles had been while he’d sat there, solemnly regarding the truths he couldn’t take home.

Ted had made the call as they’d started through the small copse of trees and across the farmland beyond, calmly relaying to the operator the information Alexandra had managed to unscramble as her voice had cracked and her legs momentarily buckled.

Help is coming! The thought screamed through Alex’s head . Dad’s coming, Dill, Dad’s coming.

Her pumps were no longer squelching against the dusty earth. Alexandra Foster had been the fastest runner in her year group ever since St Cuthbert’s sports days, but she couldn’t swim like she could run, and Finn knew it. People didn’t run at all in college, she’d found. They ambled. Everywhere. To the cafeteria, the art block – allowing the effortlessly honed muscles of youth to slacken. Alex hadn’t run anywhere since leaving high school last year, but dormant muscles had responded to her demands and she was flying. Ted was flying too. His own burst of adrenalin allowing a man of over fifty to keep pace with his seventeen-year-old child as they rushed in panicked determination to where she had left them.

Alex could hear Rodolfo’s heavy barks guiding them back to the water’s edge, rudely echoing above the peaceful gushing of the river. The Old Girl, the locals called it, Mind the Old Girl and her changing moods. They’d all had it drummed into them as kids. Dill too. He knew, he knew ! Alex felt her throat tighten again, her heart twisting as they burst through the long grasses back into the clearing by the alder trees.

Finn had nearly reached Dillon further downstream when he’d turned and screamed at Alex across the water, screamed at her not to come in any deeper but to run! Run for help! So she had, back to the house, instead of floundering on uselessly against her own panic. She thought they’d still be in the water now, but they were back in the clearing, Finn kneeling in the dirt crouched over two wet gangly legs, dripping indifferently where they poked out from under him. Dill looked tiny beneath Finn’s teenage frame, as if the water had shrunk him. A mischievous little boy, playing possum.

Ted skidded in beside them on the floor, Finn moving instinctively from where he had been desperately pressing a rhythm into Dill’s sodden chest. Alex watched her father, useless again as Rodolfo’s barking turned to whimpers and Ted took over the task of thudding urgent hands into his boy’s chest.

‘You spit it out, son, you hear me? You spit it all up right now!’ he commanded.

Finn was standing over them both, his hands locked at the back of his head, motionless as he watched. The water hadn’t soothed the nettle stings angrily covering Finn’s legs where his long shorts hadn’t protected them just half an hour ago. Half an hour, when stingers and the end of the summer were their only cares in the world.

‘Son, you start breathing, son. Right now !’ Ted pleaded. Alex watched her father punctuating his need with every downward lunge against her brother’s skinny body. But Dill wasn’t doing what he was told.

Ted breathed into Dill’s bluing lips. Still, Dill’s legs didn’t move from where they peeped beneath his father’s body. One of Dill’s shoes was gone. Alex’s thoughts started to fire off like the cracker-bombs their mum had confiscated from Dill that morning. The world seemed to fall away then, numb beyond the mystery of that one missing red pump. Dill couldn’t walk home with only one shoe! Where was it? He had been wearing them both when Alex had followed Finn into the undergrowth, away and out of sight for just a few silly minutes. They needed to find that shoe, right now, right—