Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd The News Building 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by Preface Publishing 2009
This edition published by Harper 2017
Copyright © Kimberley Chambers 2009
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2017 Cover photographs © plainpicture/André Schuster (woman); plainpicture/Goto-Foto/Neville Mountford-Hoare (background).
Kimberley Chambers 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.
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Source ISBN: 9781409050049
Ebook Edition © Jan 2017 ISBN: 9780008228613 Version: 2016-12-05
In memory of my wonderful grandparents Daisy and Charlie Chambers.
A life is created
A child is born
A beautiful gift
Not one to mourn
A son for keeps
A love to gel
Unless that child
Belongs in hell
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
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
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Kimberley Chambers
About the Publisher
October 1990
‘LOOK, MUM, THERE’S no easy way for me to say this. You’re gonna go mental, so I’m just gonna give it to you straight. I’m pregnant.’
June Dawson felt bile rise from her stomach and reach the back of her throat. Dropping the dishcloth she’d been washing up with, she clung on to the worktop for physical support.
For a moment, she thought she was going to pass out. Breathing in deeply and blowing out slowly, she somehow managed to steady herself. As she turned around to face her daughter, she felt every hope and dream she’d ever nurtured for her fly straight out of the window.
Trying to speak, June found that her voice sounded anything but normal. She usually spoke loudly, but her words came out in no more than a whisper.
‘Is Billy the father?’
Debbie stood, hands on hips, staring defiantly into her mother’s eyes.
‘Of course he is. I love him, Mum.’
June fished around in the kitchen cupboards and found the bottle of brandy she kept there for cooking and medicinal purposes. She and her husband only ever drank socially.
June poured herself a large glass and downed it in one, then immediately knocked back another. She was in that much shock, she could quite easily have swallowed the