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Back The Other Daughter Save as PDF
Chapters (52)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. OCTOBER 2014 London, UK
  4. PART ONE
  5. FEBRUARY 1976 London, UK
  6. JUNE 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  7. FEBRUARY 1976 London, UK
  8. JUNE 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  9. MARCH 1976 Lausanne, Switzerland
  10. JUNE 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  11. MARCH 1976 Lausanne, Switzerland
  12. JUNE 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  13. MARCH 1976 Lausanne/Bern, Switzerland
  14. JUNE 2016 Lausanne, Switzerland
  15. MARCH 1976 London, UK
  16. JUNE 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  17. MARCH 1976 London, UK
  18. PART TWO
  19. APRIL 1976 London, UK
  20. JUNE 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  21. APRIL 1976 Oxfordshire/London, UK
  22. JULY 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  23. MAY 1976 London, UK
  24. JULY 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  25. MAY 1976 London, UK
  26. JULY 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  27. JUNE 1976 London, UK
  28. JULY 2016 Lausanne/Montreux, Switzerland
  29. JUNE 1976 Lausanne, Switzerland
  30. JULY 2016 Thun/Reichenbach, Switzerland
  31. JULY 1976 London, UK
  32. AUGUST 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  33. PART THREE
  34. AUGUST 1976 London, UK
  35. AUGUST 2016 Lausanne, Switzerland
  36. SEPTEMBER 1976 Lausanne, Switzerland
  37. AUGUST 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  38. SEPTEMBER 1976 Lausanne, Switzerland
  39. AUGUST 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  40. SEPTEMBER 1976 Lausanne, Switzerland
  41. AUGUST 2016 Montreux/Lutry, Switzerland
  42. SEPTEMBER 1976 Lausanne, Switzerland
  43. AUGUST 2016 Lutry, Switzerland
  44. SEPTEMBER 1976 Lausanne, Switzerland
  45. AUGUST 2016 Lutry, Switzerland
  46. OCTOBER 1976 London, UK
  47. AUGUST 2016 Vevey, Switzerland
  48. SEPTEMBER 2016 London, UK
  49. Author’s Note
  50. Acknowledgements
  51. More from the Author
  52. About the Author

I shake my head. ‘I think this is my therapy, being here in Switzerland. I need to find out the truth. I think that’s the only thing that’s going to help.’

He looks at me and his eyes make me shrivel. ‘You won’t find the truth in Julia’s drawers.’

‘I know.’ My cheeks burn and I hang my head. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’

He sighs, nods, seemingly convinced. ‘I won’t say anything. But if you mess up one more—’

‘I won’t,’ I interrupt him. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. No more snooping, I promise. And I’m going to watch Luca like a hawk.’

He gets up from the sofa and stands in front of me, his hands on his hips. ‘I have to go. I’m late for something. But look, Jess, I’m concerned about your state of mind with all this to deal with.’

‘I’m fine. I’ll be fine.’

He walks over to the kitchen and scribbles something on a bit of paper and comes back and hands it to me. ‘My number. If you ever feel like you’re going to throw yourself off a mountain or something, call me first, okay?’

When he leaves, I sit on the sofa, waiting for my pulse to slow. I feel winded, the breath knocked out of me by all I’ve said, all that’s taken place in the last few years. I don’t know how long I sit there in the silence, and so I’m startled when my phone throws out a short, sharp message alert, drawing me out of my thoughts. I pick it up and my heart jumps to see that it’s Daniel Buchs.

It’s brief, terse almost. Quite unlike his previous email.

May I ask why you want to find Brigitte Mela?

I drop the phone like it’s scalded me. He knows her. He knows my birth mother.

MAY 1976 London, UK

SYLVIA

They got the keys for the new flat in Kennington on a Wednesday evening after work. A two-bed garden flat in a Victorian terrace. It felt to Sylvia like a grown-up person’s home, a family home, far from the scruffy place she’d shared with Maggie for the past two years. It had a large double and a smaller room that was perfect as a nursery. A kitchen diner with plenty of space, a sitting room with a fireplace, original features, a patio. When Jim put his arm around her, smiled at the estate agent – ‘this is the one’ – she’d suppressed an urge to turn around and run out the door.