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       Copyright

      The Borough Press

      HarperCollinsPublishers

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

      Copyright © Beth Lewis 2018

      Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018.

      Cover illustration © Alexandra Gurtner/Bridgeman Studio

      Beth Lewis 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

      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 e-books

      Source ISBN: 9780008145507

      Ebook Edition © JUNE 2018 ISBN: 9780008145521

      Version: 2018-04-24

       Dedication

       For Neen

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

      He walks broken …

      Part One: Summer, 1971

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Part Two: Summer, 1972

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Part Three: Summer, 1973

       Chapter 22

       Chapter 23

       Chapter 24

       Chapter 25

       Chapter 26

       Chapter 27

       Chapter 28

       Chapter 29

       Chapter 30

       Acknowledgements

       Loved Bitter Sun? Enjoy another incredible literary thriller from Beth Lewis …

       About the Author

       Also by Beth Lewis

       About the Publisher

       *

       He walks broken. Barefoot in the dust. Middle of the road, asphalt shimmering in the heat, he walks like one of the returning soldiers. The ones with plastic legs. Limp. Shamble. Limp. Shamble. He’s too young for the jungle so he’s here. On the long road to town, rimmed with cornfields. The stalks heavy with gold on one side. Mangy and rotten on the other. A good year and a bad year, shoulder to shoulder.

       He’s forgotten his name.

       Smoke streaks across the asphalt from burning fields. Driving away the blackfly and maggots, refreshing the soil with ash. Next year will be better, they’ll say. Next year we’ll forget this ever happened.

       He’s forgotten his home.

       His t-shirt flicks in the breeze. Scarlet smears across his chest and arms, diluted to pink and brown at the hems. Thick blood thinned by dirty water.

       A car slows, then swerves when the driver sees the blood. Foot down hard on the gas. Gone into a cloud.

       The dust coats his skin and prickles his eyes but he doesn’t feel it. The road is too long, stretching endless. Sharp gravel digs into his bare soles. Threatens to cut.

       His head sways side to side with every step, a metronome without its tick.

       The blood, on his arms, his stomach under his shirt, his legs down to the knees, feels tight and sticky.

       He’s forgotten his family.

       A horn blasts behind him. A truck sidles alongside. He never heard it coming. A man leans across the empty passenger seat and winds down the window.

       ‘Hey, you.’

       He wavers at the sound of another person.

       ‘Hey, don’t I know you?’ the driver says. ‘Are you all right, son?’

       The voice, the life, pulls him. He turns but doesn’t see. His vision blurred by grit and glaring sun and exhaustion. He opens his mouth but the words seem to come from another throat. The air to make them from another chest. The brain to form them from another head. An innocent head. Three simple, perfect words float off his tongue and into the truck.

       ‘I killed her.’

PART

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