A Part of Me
Anouska Knight
Also by Anouska Knight
SINCE YOU’VE BEEN GONE
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For my sisters, who I love more than Marmite
First and foremost, I have to thank Anna Scott, ITV producer extraordinaire, blonde bombshell and all-round good egg. No, you didn’t have a hand in this book; however, in my typical buffoonery I neglected to thank you in the last and, after all the laughs and fabulousness you brought with you, a thank you was the very least I owed you. Thank you!
As always, gargantuan thanks galore to my rip-roaring ever-enthusiastic, ever-encouraging editor Donna–The Don–Hillyer. I couldn’t possibly bust through the pain barrier without you. Well, you and an endless supply of chocolate-dipped confections and caffeine. The power of three, right there, folks.
Huge thanks also to the powerhouse of office ninjas at Mills & Boon/Harlequin UK for your massive support throughout the last twelve wonderful months. I must’ve caused at least one of you an epic headache so, to that person in particular, a very hefty thank you. And soz! I’m going to roll the lovely lot at Cherish PR into that too. Thanks gang! Aspirins are in the post.
To my agent Madeleine Milburn, thank you for coming aboard. It feels good already, Agent Milburn! (You might want to get some aspirins in too.)
Jim, thank you for always deserving a thank you, and thanks too for shrugging it off when you didn’t hear one as often as you should have.
To my other brilliant boys, Bodhi and Wolf, for letting me slip away quietly into my room and regress into grimy student-esque habits without raising too many complaints about missed bedtime stories and school projects, thanks, fellas–you’re more awesome than I know how to write.
Mena, thanks, kid, for lending me your ears and telling me which ideas are really too naff to write about. Taz, thanks for lending me your home so I have somewhere else I can shuffle my grimy student-esque habits around. I’ll replace the chocolate-dipped stuff … and the coffee. Mum, thanks for telling me that I can do it. And then telling me again.
Last but definitely not least, an enormous thanks to Clare and Podge. Clare, for helping me to understand a journey that has to be heard, not researched, and Podge for the memory of school-trip oysters, a trauma burned into my psyche. You both rock.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
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
THERE WAS SOMETHING innately foreboding about waking up at an unknown hour in an unfamiliar room. A childlike fear, fortified by pressing shadows and the mysteries they concealed. Revelations better left in the dark.
Against an unexplained sharpness nestled deeply within my throat, I inhaled the softness of my mother’s perfume from where she sat motionless beside me. Her presence was little reassurance amidst the thick heavy quiet.
As children, she’d once driven us, weeping, through the night to spend the remaining dark hours in the box room of my grandmother’s bungalow. I was reminded now of that long night in the darkness, lying in a bed that did not smell of home, listening to the sounds of my brother’s restless sleep from the fold-out bed next to me. I remember being not quite brave enough to risk disturbing so much as the air around me to call out for my mother.
She was here now, but still this felt a lot like that time. The air heavy with a palpable sense of change. The loss of something achingly irreplaceable.
I opened my eyes with another steadying breath. The pinch in my throat cut the action short. Mum shifted beside me.
It was too quiet.
Intuitively, a cool, soft hand tried gently to reassure with soothing motions over the back of my knuckles. The stirring anxiety in my chest blossomed in response. A warm wave of nausea rushed past the scratchiness