Every family has its secrets…
Two dead bodies. A lifetime of secrets.
When Rachel Porter’s estranged mother dies, she returns to her family home filled with dread about having to face her past, and the people who populated it.
Little does she know that there are dead bodies waiting to be discovered, and a lifetime of secrets are about to unravel.
Secrets kept by her mother, the liar.
The Lost Child
The Silent Girls
The Forgotten Room
My Mother, The Liar
Ann Troup
ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES
Contents
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
Copyright
ANN TROUP
Lives by the sea in Devon with her husband and dog. Two children have been known to remember the house, which they call home, but mainly when they are in need of a decent roast dinner, it’s Christmas or when only Mum will do. In a former incarnation she was a psychiatric nurse, an experience that frequently informs her writing and which supplies a never-ending source of inspiration. You can contact Ann on Facebook or at anntroup.wordpress.com
As always it’s the readers and reviewers who make it all worthwhile so my thanks go to them first. I won’t name names, the list would be longer than the book and you know who you are.
Gratitude to Charlotte Mursell and Nia Beynon at HQ for some awesome author wrangling and telling me I’m a pleasure to work with and (almost) making me believe it.
Last but not least, to the usual suspects for all the virtual gin and hugs!
To Julia, Lesley and Sue — sisters of the less psychotic kind…
Rachel’s mother had been fond of blanket statements that set others indelibly in their places. Proud of her insights into the characters of others, she had set out her children’s traits like a script. As if they were pickles in jars, all three of her daughters had been permanently labelled and preserved by her assertions. Frances was the clever one, Stella was useless, and Rachel was just downright difficult.
Did all parents like to define their offspring, leaving their children floundering and typecast? Rachel felt imperfectly moulded by her family, an inconvenient, bit-part player in the sometimes drama that had been her life. It had made her bitter.
Now her mother was dead. Valerie was no more and Rachel wasn’t feeling much of anything except antipathy.
She would have known about Valerie’s death weeks before, but she’d quietly ignored the first letter from Frances, knowing that it couldn’t contain good news. The Porters didn’t trade in good news. The slanting, deeply etched handwriting on the envelope had said enough: Frances could ooze anger even when writing a simple address. She’d