I Spy

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Copyright © Claire Kendal 2019

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019 Cover photograph © John Cooper/Arcangel Images

Claire Kendal 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: 9780008256838

Ebook Edition © August 2019 ISBN: 9780008256852

Version: 2019-05-23

For my brother Robert

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue An Interview

Now A Discovery

Then Black Star Sapphire

Now The Girl with the Two-Coloured Eye

Then Human Asset

Now The Two Tunnels

Then The Plague Pit

Now The Backwards House

Then The Forgotten Things

Now The Woman in the Room

Then A Quarrel

Now The Excursion

Then Provocations

Now Further Warnings

Then Eavesdropping

Now Persistence

Then Concealment

Now The Robin

Then Startling Intelligence

Now The Visit

Then A Meeting

Now An Assault

Then April Fool

Now An Ambush

Then The Handkerchief Tree

Now The Doors With No Knobs

Then A Misadventure

Now A Misdemeanour

Then The Studio

Now Further Intelligence

Then The Spin Out

Now Illegal Entry

Then The Memory Box

Now The Choice

Then The Drowning Place

Now Thorpe Hall

Now The Miniature

Now The Present

Keep Reading …

Acknowledgements

For those affected by the issues in this novel

About the Author

Also by Claire Kendal

About the Publisher

‘You have almost completed your painting,’ said I, approaching to observe it more closely, and surveying it with a greater degree of admiration and delight than I cared to express. ‘A few more touches in the foreground will finish it I should think.—But why have you called it Fernley Manor, Cumberland, instead of Wildfell Hall, —shire?’ I asked, alluding to the name she had traced in small characters at the bottom of the canvass.

But immediately I was sensible of having committed an act of impertinence in so doing; for she coloured and hesitated; but after a moment’s pause, with a kind of desperate frankness, she replied,—

‘Because I have friends—acquaintances at least—in the world, from whom I desire my present abode to be concealed; and as they might see the picture, and might possibly recognize the style in spite of the false initials I have put in the corner, I take the precaution to give a false name to the place also, in order to put them on a wrong scent, if they should attempt to trace me out by it.’

Anne Brontë,

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,

Chapter V, ‘The Studio’

The clear glass table meant that I had to work extra hard to stop my knee from jerking up and down. It was not a time to show nervousness. Maxine was on one side of the table. I was on the other.

‘You are twenty-one, Holly. Correct?’ She started simply, but her use of my first name was a warning. She had only ever called me by my surname.

‘Correct.’

‘Do you have many friends?’

‘A few good ones.’

She nodded. I had never seen her nod before. Nodding is a gesture that suggests interest, and that wasn’t something she normally allowed herself to show.

‘It’s good to be selective.’ She smiled. I hadn’t seen her do that before either.

‘I’m glad you think so.’

‘And your grandmother raised you?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s sad about your parents. What a thing to happen.’

‘It was a long time ago.’

‘You were two?’

She’d got it wrong on purpose. I was certain of it. ‘Three.’ Was I right to correct her? Should I have let it go? What was the best response? I needed to quit second-guessing what she wanted to hear and just say what was true.

‘It was a car crash?’ Maxine didn’t have any notes. She didn’t need any notes. She was in command of my ‘facts’ without having to write them down.