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KATE THOMPSON
That Gallagher Girl
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Harper Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
Copyright © Kate Thompson 2010
Kate Thompson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9781847561015
Ebook Edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780007431083 Version: 2018-07-09
For Malcolm and Clara
I am not a friend, and I am not a servant. I am the Cat who walks by herself, and I wish to come into your house.
After Rudyard Kipling
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Acknowledgements
Read on for A Reader’s Guide to Lissamore
A Reader’s Guide to Lissamore
Prologue - Summer 2001
About the Author
By the same author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
On the morning of her seventeenth birthday, Cat Gallagher learned how to break into a house. It was fourth on the list of ten things she wanted to accomplish before she was twenty-one. The first three things she had already achieved. She had learned how to sail single-handed, how to play a winning hand at poker, and how to paint with a seagull’s feather. She had also learned to conquer fear – although that particular lesson wasn’t itemised on Cat’s list of things to learn, for she had always been fearless. Apart, that is, from her fear of needles.
The house in question was a showcase that had never been lived in. It was the product of a former economy, a ghost house boasting brickwork so symmetrical and a roof so streamlined it appeared incongruous next to the un finished structures that surrounded it, their foundations mapping what was to have been an exclusive development of half-a-dozen luxury dwellings. Those houses would never be finished now. The showhouse stood alone and resplendent on a building site that was being reclaimed by bindweed, buddleia and feral cats.
Cat and her half-brother Raoul were sitting on a low wall, sharing a bottle of wine. It had a posh French name and a picture of a French château on the label, but Cat hadn’t paid for it. She’d nicked it from her dad’s collection of vintage Burgundy, along with a second bottle from his collection of vintage Bordeaux.
‘Cheers,’ said Raoul, touching his paper cup to hers. ‘Happy birthday, Cat.’
‘Cheers.’
‘I hope you didn’t expect a present.’
‘Are you mad? You’re as broke as I am,’ said Cat. ‘Anyway, isn’t teaching me the art of breaking and entering more valuable
