Too Close
Page 42
For us it will be more or less the way we planned it. A family holiday. Zoë’s first Christmas.
Phoebe is staying with us. She’s in great shape. We’ve all been eating a lot of junk food since she arrived. The kitchen’s still being fixed up, but even if it was fit for use, no one but me feels like cooking, and however much I nag the women to eat more healthily, Nina’s hunger pangs are currently pitching towards hot dogs, sandwiches and burritos, and Phoebe – for whom knives and forks still represent almost impossibly hard work – has always loved few things more than sitting on a clean floor eating pizza.
Chris Field was right about them dropping the charges against me. He heard a rumour that Richard Bourne may have had something to do with that.
I feel such pity for that man.
Eleanor wrote a letter to Nina right after the funeral.
She said that she deeply regretted everything that had happened to Nina and to Phoebe and Zoë, but that she felt nothing but contempt for me.
Eleanor blames me for Holly’s death, just as she always blamed me for all the troubles in her daughter’s life.
I ought to have understood – she said in the letter to Nina – how much Holly loved me. I ought to have been grateful to have been loved by someone so special. So unique.
I ought, according to Eleanor Bourne, to have loved Holly back.
Maybe I did love her once, for a little while.
But that was a very long time ago.
››› If you’ve enjoyed this book and would like to discover more great vintage crime and thriller titles, as well as the most exciting crime and thriller authors writing today, visit: ›››
The Murder Room
Where Criminal Minds Meet
themurderroom.com
By Hilary Norman
(titles that appear in bold are published by The Murder Room)
Sam Becket Mysteries
Mind Games (1999)
Last Run (2007)
Shimmer (2009)
Caged (2010)
Hell (2011)
Eclipse (2012)
Standalone Novels
In Love and Friendship (1986)
Chateau Ella (1988)
Shattered Stars (1991)
Fascination (1992)
Spellbound (1993)
Laura (1994)
If I Should Die (1995) (originally published under the pen name Alexandra Henry)
The Key to Susanna (1996)
Susanna (1996)
The Pact (1997)
Too Close (1998)
Blind Fear (2000)
Deadly Games (2001)
Twisted Minds (2002)
No Escape (2003)
Guilt (2004)
Compulsion (2005)
Ralph’s Children (2008)
For Hedwig and Felix Neumann
Grateful thanks to (in alphabetical order) Jon and Barbara Ash; Howard Barmad; staff at the Beverly Hilton; Jennifer Bloch; the California State Bar Office; Howard Deutsch; Sara Fisher; staff at the Grand Hyatt, San Francisco; John Hawkins; Yobanna Higuera; David Kalmanson, M.D., F.A.C.E.P., who spared precious time from his E.R. work to answer my questions; Detective James Kelly of the New York Police Department; Jonathan Kern ( especially for trekking with me up and down the hills of San Francisco); Elenore Lawson; Herta Norman (as always my daily ‘reviewer’); Judy Piatkus; Helen Rose; Sally Rosenmann of Hill & Company, San Francisco; Nicholas Shulman; Dr Jonathan Tarlow; Michael Thomas. And extra special gratitude for their expertise, kindness and amazing patience, to Officer Sherman Ackerson and Mr Dewayne Tully of the San Francisco Police Department (and thanks, also, to Marianne Coggan for setting things up for me there, and, of course, to Chief Lau for letting me in).
Hilary Norman
Hilary Norman was born and educated in London. After working as an actress she had careers in the fashion and broadcasting industries. She travelled extensively throughout Europe and lived for a time in the United States before writing her first international bestseller, In Love and Friendship, which has been translated into a dozen languages. Her subsequent novels have been equally successful. She lives in North London, where she has spent most of her life, with her husband and their beloved RSPCA rescue dog.
An Orion ebook
Copyright © Hilary Norman 1998
The right of Hilary Norman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook first published in Great Britain in 2013
by Orion
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 4719 0827 9
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