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Back Before You Were Gone
Chapters (58)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-one
  24. Twenty-two
  25. Twenty-three
  26. Twenty-four
  27. Twenty-five
  28. Twenty-six
  29. Twenty-seven
  30. Twenty-eight
  31. Twenty-nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-one
  34. Thirty-two
  35. Thirty-three
  36. Thirty-four
  37. Thirty-five
  38. Thirty-six
  39. Thirty-seven
  40. Thirty-eight
  41. Thirty-nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-one
  44. Forty-two
  45. Forty-three
  46. Forty-four
  47. Forty-five
  48. Forty-six
  49. Forty-seven
  50. Forty-eight
  51. Forty-nine
  52. Fifty
  53. Fifty-one
  54. Acknowledgements
  55. An Eastbourne Murder Mystery
  56. Canelo Crime
  57. About the Author
  58. Also by Sheila Bugler

Dee’s laptop was open on the table in front of her. Until now, she’d put off searching for the inevitable news story about the man thrown from a block of flats in south London. But three quarters of a bottle of wine had given her the courage she needed to look it up. So far, only the local south London news had picked up the story, although Dee guessed it would hit the national news within the next twenty-four hours.

There was nothing on the news sites that she didn’t already know. The victim, not yet formally identified, was a sixty-five-year-old man who’d been living alone in his flat. Police had confirmed they were treating the death as ‘suspicious’ and there was one ‘significant witness’ helping with their enquiries.

That would be me, Dee thought, draining what was left in her glass and going inside to refill it. As she put another bottle in the fridge, she felt it. The flicker of something at the furthest edges of her mind. What was it? She tried to focus on it, but it kept slipping out of reach.

She went back over everything she knew about Kitty and Lucy and Annie. Two girls in a small town in Ireland. Another girl in a small town in Sussex. A town ten miles from where Dee was standing right now. Annie Holden, who might be Kitty Doran – Dee’s cousin. Her father’s niece.

And there it was. The thing that had been staring her in the face all along. Her father. She hadn’t seen it before, because she hadn’t wanted it to be true. But it was the only thing that made sense. Because Dee knew her dad. No matter how he’d felt about his brother, he wouldn’t have been able to sit back and do nothing if his niece needed help.

Carrying her glass outside, Dee paced back and forth along the deck, needing to move because her mind was racing and her body couldn’t sit still. Her footsteps were hollow and loud on the wooden boards as she reworked Kitty’s story in her mind.

In June 1997, Lucy Ryan disappeared. Whatever happened to Lucy that night, it had involved her best friend, Kitty Doran. Three weeks later, Kitty’s parents faked her drowning and managed to get Kitty out of Ireland. At some point, Eamon Doran asked his estranged brother, Frank, to help him hide his daughter. Somehow, Frank – Dee’s father – had persuaded Michael and Fiona Holden to take the eleven-year-old girl and pretend she was their daughter.