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The Betrayer
Kimberley Chambers
If you can’t trust your family…A family at war. A mother who comes out fighting…Maureen Hutton’s life has never been easy. Married to an alcoholic and stuck on a council estate in East London, she scrimps and saves to bring up her three children alone.Murder, the underworld, drug addiction – over four decades, Maureen sticks by her blood through thick and thin. But then the unforgivable happens. Maureen is told a terrible secret which threatens to rip her family apart. She can’t say anything. She is too frightened of causing a bloodbath.The only thing Maureen can do is to get rid of the betrayer, before it is too late.
Copyright (#u2559c8c0-c8fb-564a-8d44-615ed90fb27d)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd The News Building 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by Preface Publishing 2009
Published by Arrow Books 2010
This edition published by Harper 2017
Copyright © Kimberley Chambers 2009
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2017 Cover photographs © plainpicture/Mihaela Ninic (woman); plainpicture/Rick Porritt (background).
Kimberley Chambers 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: 9781409050070
Ebook Edition © Jan 2017 ISBN: 9780008228637
Version: 2016-12-14
Dedication (#u2559c8c0-c8fb-564a-8d44-615ed90fb27d)
In memory of
Mathew Hoxby
1973–2008
Epigraph (#u2559c8c0-c8fb-564a-8d44-615ed90fb27d)
Goodnight you moonlight ladies,
Rock-a-bye sweet baby James.
Deep greens and blues are the colours I choose.
Won't you let me go down in my dreams
And rock-a-bye Sweet Baby James.
James Taylor
1970
Contents
Cover (#u8c58fa22-5769-5398-9f34-ddafc72b5443)
Title Page (#u6d17239d-c736-54f6-8201-37e3e6c83309)
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author
Also by Kimberley Chambers
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE (#u2559c8c0-c8fb-564a-8d44-615ed90fb27d)
July 2006
‘I’m very sorry, Mrs Hutton, but we are talking weeks here, rather than months.’
Walking away from the hospital, I feel calmness within. My cancer has returned and being told I’m riddled with it was exactly what I’d expected. Unless you’ve had the dreaded disease, you wouldn’t know where I was coming from. Tiredness, lack of appetite, an inability to do the simple things that you once found so easy. The signs are plentiful. To put it bluntly, you just know when you’re dying.
As I sit on the bus, I gaze out of the window. Deep in thought, I watch the world go by. As strange as it may seem, I notice silly things. Mothers doing school runs in their luxury four-wheel drives, children as young as ten chatting away happily on mobile phones. Smiley, happy people, who wouldn’t know hardship if it smacked them in the face.
Not wanting to become bitter, I turn away from the window and think about my own life. I take my pad and pen out of my bag and begin to make notes. Unlike most sufferers of cancer, I’m not that bothered about dying. Part of me would even go as far as saying that in some ways leaving this life will be a relief.
Happy people don’t want to die. They are the lucky ones who are blessed with good times. I was happy once, but not now. For people like me, death spells an end to all of the suffering. I don’t mean to sound like a manic depressive, but I’ve had years full of stress and turmoil and I can’t take any more. I’ve had enough with a capital E.
I had a terrible upbringing. I’m an only child, and my father left home when I was three years old. I don’t remember him and have never set eyes on him since. My mother was a dear soul, but died when I was ten, a victim of the same bastard disease that has now got hold of me.
My aunt kindly offered me a home and then gave me a dog’s life. Living with a violent alcoholic, I was regularly beaten senseless. She treated me as her slave and I had to beg for my dinner, like a dog on all fours. At sixteen, desperate to escape her, I married the first bloke I laid eyes on. Tommy Hutton was his name. He was twenty-one, and in my eyes cool, brash and handsome. I thought he was my saviour; how bloody wrong was I?
Approaching my stop, I gingerly get off the bus and start the short walk home. I unlock my front door and put the kettle on. I’m tired, but determined not to sleep. There are questions I need answering, things I need to plan, stuff I need to tell. So many secrets and so many lies. To rest in peace, I need to tell and know the truth. Picking up my pen and paper, I talk out loud as I try to remember the past.
I don’t know how to start. Will I read this to anyone? Or even show them? I choose my first line with care.
My name is Maureen Hutton and this is my story …
ONE (#u2559c8c0-c8fb-564a-8d44-615ed90fb27d)
1975
