The Lies We Tell

by The Lies We Tell (retail) (epub)

  The weight of the past perhaps, she thinks, heady with expectation. Then, as their eyes meet, they laugh as one – a joyous sound which scatters memories like mice.

  Chapter 38

  There’s this Patti Smith track that means a lot to me, you know – and I’ve had plenty of time to listen to it recently. I heard it first when James was in nappies and, if you want to know the truth, Kat: it’s always helped keep me together, you know? So there’s this line from it I just can’t get out of my head. A line that now makes me think about you. ‘I don’t fuck much with the past,’ it goes, ‘but I fuck plenty with the future.’ Well the way I see it, Kat, I fuck with both, you know? Which is why if there’s one thing I could tell you now, face to face, it would be this: you still owe me. It’s not over, none of it, until it’s over, Kat. And that won’t be until I say so.

  Judith Davies

  HM Prison East Sutton Park

  September 2013

  Acknowledgements

  With thanks to my agent Sallyanne Sweeney and the team at Mulcahy Associates and also to the lovely people at Canelo.

  I’d also like to express my gratitude to the many friends who helped inspire, cajole, critique and keep me going along the way - notably Sophie McKenzie, but also Helen Meller and Helen Jones.

  Thanks, too, to the critical Zeb-Selina-Lisanne-Alexandra-Lizzy chain reaction and to my fellow Dark Angels from Moniack Mhor – an experience that lit the fuse.

  Above all, however, I’d like to thank Martin and Tom, and Fulham FC (without whose distraction I’d never have found the Saturday afternoon head space to start writing, for me).

  First published in Great Britain in 2015 by

  Canelo Digital Publishing Limited

  57 Shepherds Lane

  Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU

  United Kingdom

  Copyright © 2015 by Meg Carter

  The moral right of Meg Carter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781910859018

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Look for more great books at www.canelo.co