A Father’s Revenge
A mother must fight to protect all she holds dear…Thirteen years have passed since Kevin Dolby was sent to prison for robbery with violence.In the meantime, his ex wife Pearl Button has divorced him and remarried, determined to protect her son from knowing who his real father is.Then she hears two pieces of terrifying news – Kevin Dolby is up for parole and that her dear friend Bessie is gravely ill.Bessie has taken on Nora Dobbs, a young woman and she asks Pearl to take over her care when dies. Pearl, thinking that Bessie will recover from her illness and live for many more years, agrees, but less than a week later, Bessie passes away.Pearl will now have to take over Nora’s care and plans to take her to Winchester. However, when Bessie’s will is read, she has left the shop and premises to Pearl, yet with a proviso. Pearl not only has to take over Nora’s care, she must do it in Battersea, moving into the shop and premises and living there for the rest of Nora’s natural life. Then, and only then, can she sell up.While Pearl is persuaded to move back to Battersea, Kevin is granted parole but desperate for money, approaches his parents. Once he gets what he wants Kevin intends to see his son, and nothing is going to stand in his way.
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KITTY NEALE
A Father’s Revenge
Copyright
Published by Avon an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street,
London SE1 9GF
This ebook edition published by HarperCollins Publishers 2016
First published in paperback by HarperCollinsPublishers, 2011
Copyright © Kitty Neale 2011
Cover design © Debbie Clement 2016
Cover photographs: Corbis/Alamy
Kitty Neale asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
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.
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.
Source ISBN: 9781847562432
Ebook Edition © May 2016 ISBN 9781847563040
Version: 2016-04-14
Dedication
For Nobby Dack who sadly died earlier this year; a husband, father and grandfather who is sorely missed. My love and thoughts are with his family.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Keep Reading …
Acknowledgements
About the Author
By the same author
About the Publisher
Prologue
Wandsworth Prison, 1970
If he torched the place, how long would it take for their bodies to burn?
He wanted them to suffer a prolonged, painful death, and now, as Kevin Dolby imagined his parents’ screams, he chuckled. While serving his sentence, he’d had years to brood, his hate festering until it had become an obsession. It was his mother’s fault that he was serving time and to top that he’d been cut out of their will. Him, their only son and heir!
He would punish them. They’d suffer. He’d see to that.
In his dismal cell, Kevin had fantasised about the many ways he could end their lives, but twice so far the parole board had denied him early release. He’d been a mug, played the hard man, had time added on after attacking his cellmate, but at last he had begun playing the game. Now, after serving thirteen years of a fifteen-year sentence, Kevin had ‘found’ religion – or so they thought. He’d become a consummate actor with his meek and mild manner, a ‘reformed’ character.
He was sure that he’d be granted parole this time – that he’d soon be free and ready to exact his revenge. Another scenario began to form in Kevin’s mind, this time taking into account that it couldn’t reach its finale until his parents had changed their will in his favour again. To make that happen he’d have to lull them into a false sense of security … play the part of a loving son.
A scowl marred his handsome face. Love! It wasn’t love he felt for them. It was hate!
Chapter One
Dolly Dolby smiled at her secret. For so long she had been woolly-minded, medicated after her mental breakdown, but just lately she had surreptitiously stopped taking the pills that Bernie, her husband, fed her. She felt that her mind had come alive again, that she was in control and thinking clearly for the first time in years.
It was a lovely spring day in March and Dolly was looking forward to seeing John, her grandson. He was the image of his handsome and dark-haired father, so like Kevin that every time she saw him her heart jolted.
Kevin was in prison, serving a fifteen-year sentence for robbery with violence, and had refused to allow her to visit him. She had no idea why, but then, to her joy, he had at last replied to one of her letters. The first thing she’d noticed when she went to see him was that Kevin’s eyes now burned with religious fervour and it was as though her son had been reborn. He wrote regularly now, his letters full of his plans to help others when he was released, and though until then she hadn’t had much time for religion, Dolly had gone down on her knees and thanked God for her son’s religious conversion.
