I see it, the damp towel slung over the gate so the latch hasn’t caught. I see it, the toy ambulance on its side by the steel ladder, the tiny wet tracks its tyres have left, parallel lines seeping into the limestone.
The black glass. The water rises up around me. I do not know if I’ll be in time.
Acknowledgments
My editors Arzu Tahsin and Judy Clain; my agents Cat Ledger, Gráinne Fox and Karolina Sutton; Sophie Buchan; Rachel Thomas; Susie Steiner; Amanda Coe and Andrew Clifford; Morag Preston and Damian Whitworth; Lucy Darwin; Anna Mazzega; Daisy Cook and David Masters; Aisling Crowley, Chipo Mumba, Becky Crowley, Holly Kershaw and Zara Janmohamed; Anna Chrempinska; Elizabeth Loding; Deborah Dooley and Bob Cooper at Sheepwash; all the readers who enjoyed Alys, Always and took the trouble to tell me so.
David, Sara and Victoria Lane.
Stafford, Poppy and Barnaby Critchlow.
About the Author
Before the publication of her debut novel, Alys, Always, Harriet Lane wrote for the Guardian, the Observer, Vogue and Tatler. She lives in north London with her husband and two children.
Also By Harriet Lane:
Alys, Always
Copyright
A Weidenfeld & Nicolson ebook
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
This ebook first published in 2014 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Copyright © Harriet Lane 2014
The right of Harriet Lane 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, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 0 297 86507 0
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
www.orionbooks.co.uk
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