What July Knew

About the AuthorEmily Koch is an award-winning journalist and author of two previous novels, If I Die Before I Wake and Keep Him Close. Her debut was shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award, won France’s Prix du Bureau des Lecteurs Folio Policier, was longlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and was selected as a Waterstones Thriller of the Month. She lives in Bristol. Emily KochWHAT JULY KNEW Contents Chapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26Chapter 27Chapter 28Chapter 29Chapter 30Chapter 31Chapter 32Chapter 33Chapter 34Chapter 35Chapter 36Chapter 37Chapter 38Chapter 39Chapter 40Chapter 41Chapter 42Chapter 43Chapter 44Chapter 45Author’s noteAcknowledgementsCredits For Gwen The bravest are the tenderest;The loving are the daring. Bayard Taylor 120 July 1995July Hooper was always hot because she was born in a heatwave. This rare ribbon of information was handed over by her grandma, who promptly realised she had pulled it loose from the forbidden fabric of conversation that was July’s mother, and pinned her lips shut.Nobody ever talked about Maggie Hooper’s life, or the awful way it had ended.But this rare ribbon could not be woven back into the secrets, re-threaded into the silences, or even fixed into place with an embroidery of deceits. So Yaya cut it free with a sharp change of conversation (‘Time we opened the Rich Teas, don’t you think?’) and July slipped it into her pocket to twist around her fingertips. Many years later, July would wonder how else the day of her arrival had affected her. Was her habit of not telling the truth due to the fact that she was born into a world of lies? Did the violence around her birth destine her to commit an act of it herself?But she wasn’t thinking these things today. Because right now she was only ten. And she didn’t know about the lies, or the violence – not yet. In fact, she wasn’t ten for another two hours and twelve minutes, but nobody had ever told her the exact moment of her arrival. It was one of the things on the Big List of Questions in her notebook, where her mother’s identity was cleverly disguised with celebrities’ names in case her father ever flicked through. There were important topics on the list, like the time of day she was born, but also lower-level queries that occurred to her at a rate of about two a day. So ‘What time did Princess Di give birth to Prince William?’ was sandwiched between ‘Was Frank Bruno right- or left-handed?’ and ‘Did Celine Dion prefer skirts or trousers?’Right now July Hooper was sitting on the shady edge of the playground, her notebook in her lap, as her long auburn waves were twisted into a tight coil by her best friend, Katie-Faye. ‘Did Eric Cantona like mint choc chip ice cream?’ July scribbled when Katie-Faye stopped tugging at her hair to glance across the playground and refer to the backs of Sylvie Rose and Helen Knight’s heads. Those two girls had identical buns at the napes of their necks, held in place with nets and bobby pins, and encircled with bright yellow scrunchies, which made them resemble a pair of sunflowers, though July wasn’t sure any part of Helen Knight deserved comparison with something so friendly and cheering.‘How do they make them look so perfect?’ Katie-Faye asked.‘They have good genes. Straight, silky hair.’ July dropped her pen and winced as Katie-Faye resumed yanking her own locks into submission. ‘And Elnett.’ She gagged a little at the thought of the hairspray’s overpowering scent. Her stepmother loved it, which was one of many reasons to be suspicious of her. ‘Can we stop now?’ she asked. ‘My feet are in the sun.’Katie-Faye released July’s hair and made space for her to shuffle backwards.For the past few weeks July had been racing out into the playground straight after lunch to secure their place next to the wall in a coveted strip of shade which diminished as the afternoon bell drew nearer. ‘This heat is deafening,’ Yaya had said last night on the phone when she called to wish July a happy birthday eve. ‘Don’t you think?’ July had nodded into the mouthpiece while her lips circled around a question. She had no idea what her grandmother meant, but that was not unusual. And whether or not it was deafening, this heat certainly was something. Relentless, exhausting, suffocating.It was the kind of heat that would cause blood to boil in the weeks that followed; the kind of heat that would convert irritation to rage and sadness to madness. But most of the other kids didn’t seem to notice its weight pinning them down – especially not the likes of year five’s self-designated queens, Sylvie and Helen, who grew more tanned and blonde with every day that carried them closer to the end of term.‘Who are they playing now?’ Katie-Faye put her hand over her eyes as she squinted into the sun.‘I can’t see.’Sylvie and Helen were crouching on the other side of the playground where a steady stream of other children had been taking them on at pogs.‘You’re kidding,’ July said, standing to get a better view. ‘It’s Darren Emerson.’Darren had stacked his collection of bottle-top-sized cardboard discs in front of Helen, who was preparing to attack his carefully arranged tower with her metal slammer.‘Have you seen the way she throws it down?’ Katie-Faye imitated the motion with a flick of her wrist. ‘Maybe that’s why she wins so many.’July lifted her baseball cap and wiped the sweat from her forehead. ‘Helen wins so many because she cheats. You realise you’re only meant to keep the ones you flip over?’‘That’s not how she plays it. She takes an extra—’‘Three. Exactly. Those aren’t the rules.’‘But she has the special Three Slammer. So she can have … oh.’ Katie-Faye stood up too. ‘She made that up?’‘Why is he playing