The Secret Within: A totally gripping psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist Read online

  ‘Shut up!’ he yelled. ‘Just shut up – all of you! SHUT UP!’ Then he leant across and thumped her hard on the arm.

  ‘OW!’ shrieked Cass in alarm and fright – shrinking back against the door, away from him. ‘He just hit me!’

  ‘Pull over!’ I shouted at Ewan. ‘Now!’

  Ewan swerved left into the verge and rammed on the brakes as we all jerked forward against our seat belts. Mercifully, the roads were so quiet nothing was coming in either direction. I swung round and grabbed Alex’s skinny little wrist. He yelped in fright.

  ‘That’s unacceptable,’ I said. ‘You never, ever hit a girl.’

  Cass was crying, holding her arm.

  ‘Especially your sister, who you love,’ I continued. ‘No matter how angry you get. Please tell her you’re sorry. Right now.’

  Alex stared at me, his eyes wide. ‘I’m sorry!’ he shouted.

  I shook my head. ‘Like you mean it. And not to me – to her.’

  Alex looked away then twisted to face her. ‘I’m sorry, Cass.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said in a small voice as I let him go.

  We drove in silence for the next ten minutes. The rain intensified as we passed the visitor centre and a few dejected people standing by their cars: hoods up, zipping coats, damp dogs on leads. Even the sheep were mournfully huddled against the gorse bushes. We pulled into a gravel clearing further on and Ewan finally stopped the car. Alex unclipped his seat belt immediately and shot out in his hoodie and jeans, running as fast as he could, up the side of the hill, away from us. I watched him slip slightly on the wet grass and stumble, but he kept going.

  I went to open my door and Ewan shook his head. ‘Leave him. Let him run it off.’

  Cass leant through the gap between us and watched Al scrambling up the slope. ‘He’s going to get soaked.’

  ‘I’m so sorry he hit you.’ I turned to her.

  She shrugged.

  ‘It wasn’t that hard, and he’s normally the kindest person I know, so…’

  ‘That still doesn’t make it OK, and I won’t let him behave like that, Cass. No one is allowed to do that to you.’

  She nodded. ‘Oh! He just fell over properly. Shouldn’t we go after him?’

  ‘No,’ Ewan said. ‘He’ll come back when he’s ready.’

  He was right – Al returned to find us eating our lunch. He shivered out of his sodden hoodie and huddled under the blanket I handed him without a word. I glanced at him starting to eat his pasty, only pausing to wipe his misted glasses. His usual happy smile was still missing.

  True to the forecast, albeit a little late, the clouds cleared as we drove further on after lunch, desperate for a glimmer of good weather. ‘Just enough blue to make a sailor a pair of trousers, as my granny would have said!’ I tried cheerfully, but no one answered. We drove to the stretch of road on top of yet another hill, alongside Hound Tor, and pulled up on the verge.

  Ewan pointed to the huge outcrop as we climbed out and pulled our coats on. ‘It’s called Hound Tor because according to local legend the rocks were created when a pack of dogs was turned to stone.’

  ‘That’s cool,’ said Cass generously and the two of them headed off to check it out. I walked for a couple of minutes behind them, gratefully breathing deep lungfuls of rich, damp air, then turned back to see where Al had got to.

  He was crouched down, staring at the grass. Sighing, I wandered back and smiled as I neared him.

  ‘What have you found, love?’

  ‘This,’ he said absently, pointing to a small, perfectly intact bird’s skull almost hidden within some gorse.

  ‘Oh wow!’ I watched as he picked it up carefully and balanced it on his palm. ‘The beak is quite long. I wonder if it’s a baby seagull?’

  He pulled a clean tissue out of his pocket and wrapped it up. I thought he was going to pass it to me to keep it safe for him until we got back to the car, but instead he dug a divot with his heel, chipping away at the soft earth until he had a deep enough hole. I passed no comment on the state of his shoes as he placed the skull tenderly in the ground, then pulled the tufts of grass back over it like a blanket, patting and squashing it down. He wiped his muddy hands on his trousers, said ‘Amen’ and walked off to join the others.

  I stared down at the disturbed ground, then up and around at the acres and acres of lonely land spreading out beneath the thickening cloud. Somewhere around here – Ewan knew where – were the remains of a medieval village: several longhouses and a few smaller dwellings. I watched Cass stomping off ahead, hands in her pockets, long legs striding, white blonde hair catching on the breeze. I could see her, with all of that wild, ethereal beauty, ruling moorland like this, hundreds of years ago. Dominic was right: she was turning into the image of Lise.

  I glanced at Ewan and remembered Lise holding my hand as she lay in bed, looking at me with those beautiful, but uncharacteristically tired eyes. Lise was always the last to leave the party, except for the one that really mattered.

  ‘I want you to be happy. I’ll be really cross if you don’t meet someone.’

  Someone, though. Not her actual husband… but she must know, wherever she is, that I never had feelings for him while she was alive. It never crossed my mind beyond thinking he was a nice man and I could see what she saw in him – but that was it. He belonged to her. The best thing had come from the worst. I sighed and looked around me again at the exposed landscape. What it must have been to sustain life up here as a young family?

  Perfect place to bury a body, though. I looked down at the shallow grave Al had made – and thought about Dominic again, blithely buggering off to London, my fifty quid burning a hole in his pocket. He wouldn’t be giving a second thought to Al right now. I watched our son, walking miserably across the exposed ground, and began to follow him, just as he stopped to rummage around in his coat pocket. I glanced up, noticing a circling flock of seagulls, wheeling high above his head, apparently innocuous but watching carefully from afar. Al pulled out his pasty bag, ate one of the larger bits and tipped the remains on the ground. The birds began to fly faster and cry to each other, the circle darkened as they moved more closely together.

  ‘Al!’ I called warningly, but it was too late. He unwittingly walked away.

  The effect was electric. They barely let him get two feet from the scraps before one broke and dived, and the rest followed. They weren’t interested in Al, but neither were they scared of him. It was so unexpected that he screamed and dropped to the ground, covering his head with his arms as the extraordinary flurry of flapping wings, bright eyes, and sharp beaks swirled on the ground next to him, tossing up the scraps. I started to run to him, and Ewan began to sprint from the opposite direction. Cass stood still with her hands covering her mouth. It was horrible. I couldn’t get there fast enough as Alex panicked.

  He didn’t stop screaming, even when they all took to the air, his cries echoing across the moor.

  Twelve

  Nathan

  ‘So, good weekend?’ Hamish asked her on Monday morning, not looking up from his computer as he scratched some livid stubble rash. God knows what he’d shaved with – his chin looked like salami.

  ‘Great, thanks!’ she replied, beaming. That was an outright lie, I could tell. Her eyes were puffy. She’d been crying on the way into work.

  She cleared her throat. ‘How about you, Hamish? Get up to anything nice?’

  ‘Had the mother-in-law for lunch yesterday – but I struggled to finish her.’

  She blinked then laughed. ‘Oh right, I get it. Good one.’

  I rolled my eyes and got up. How Hamish had ever had sex in his life was beyond me. ‘Julia, can I grab a quick word about Mrs Dowden before you disappear into theatre? That encapsulation on Friday?’

  ‘Sure. You can ask me now, if you like?’ She followed me over to the kettle. ‘Is there a problem?’

  I glanced across at Hamish who had picked up a ringing phone and started talking. ‘No. I actually
just wanted to ask if everything went all right on Friday with Dominic when you got home?’ I lowered my voice discreetly.

  ‘Oh right. Yes, thanks. All sorted.’

  ‘It’s just you look like you’ve been crying?’ I pushed it. It worked. Her eyes filled. ‘Excuse me.’ She exhaled. ‘I hope this doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable. You don’t need to say anything because I’ll be fine in a minute. Alex didn’t want to go to school this morning. We had quite a difficult drop-off and I’m still a bit upset.’

  I was actually very impressed. It was the most professional handling of crying at work I’d ever seen. I blinked, refusing to become distracted and recovered myself. ‘It’s completely my fault. I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry he’s having a rough time. Listen, after you left on Friday, Stef was asking if Ben does any good clubs out of school because you’re looking for some extracurricular stuff for Alex? By coincidence we’re doing a mini rugby tour this weekend and—’

  She blanched, probably imagining her son being mashed into the pitch by a load of heavily set teenagers. ‘Al’s not really a rugby sort of boy but thank you.’

  ‘It’s not geared towards contact and scrums when you’re kids. It’s more about running and letting off steam.’ I leant on the side and folded my arms. ‘I was like Alex at school – light and tall – so I was useful in the second row. The camaraderie made me feel good – and I used to get rid of a lot of pent-up anger running around in the mud.’

  She hesitated. I could see her considering that. So Alex was angry as well as upset? That smacked of issues with Dominic. Had to be.

  ‘Let me make you a cup of tea.’ I straightened up and touched her arm briefly. A shiver of anticipation rippled across my skin. ‘I’ve seen Alex a couple of times at the school gates now, and he so reminds me of myself at that age. It’s tough being thirteen and vulnerable. Like I told you the first day we met,’ I pointed at my dark eye, ‘I was not the cool kid at school! In fact, Storm’s right – I ended up an underachiever – and because I was bullied so much, I’m sure.

  ‘I remember being sent to a fifth form class once with a message for the teacher. I was terrified – the whole room stank of sweat, threat and testosterone – and someone threw a shoe at me. It hit me on the side of the head; actually knocked me over. They all pissed themselves and the teacher did nothing. Absolutely nothing, the bastard, just carried on reading the letter.’ I sighed and flicked the kettle on. ‘I got up, trying not to cry and after that, when any of them saw me, they thought it was huge fun to knock me off my feet. My nickname was shittle – a highly original version of skittle.’

  ‘That’s horrible,’ she said. ‘Was it a boarding school?’

  I laughed. ‘How did you guess? My mother was offered an opportunity in the States. I was at school over here. My father wanted me to have an English education, so they switched me to the kind of boarding school that creates a loneliness in your soul you never lose. They moved to Massachusetts with my brother. He was too young to board, lucky sod. Was Alex bullied at his last school?’ I reached for two cups.

  She nodded. ‘That’s partly why we moved.’ She took a deep breath. ‘A group of boys stamped on his head.’

  ‘Jesus! And this was while you were being bullied at work too?’

  She nodded. ‘I was very involved with the court case. I took my eye of the ball with Alex and I feel very guilty about that. We don’t think there has been any lasting physical damage, but it’s quite hard to be sure because he had some social challenges and additional needs anyway. They’re mild, but enough to make life difficult for him sometimes.’

  Tan was right; she had been through the mill.

  ‘Anyway,’ she tried to laugh, ‘can you stop being nice to me, please? I refuse to cry again.’

  ‘Sorry. For what it’s worth, it’s when we stop feeling stuff we need to worry. Especially in this game. I don’t think it’s a sign of weakness at all, just so you know.’ I smiled at her and she held my gaze… but then Hamish hung up and came lurching into our moment like a bison on ice skates as he swung round on his chair, stretching up to reveal faintly yellowed arm pits on his shirt. He yawned unnecessarily loudly.

  ‘Oh excellent! You’re making tea. I’ll have one, please!’

  Julia instinctively turned away so he couldn’t see her face, wiping her eyes as I shot him a look, but the stupid arse didn’t take the hint. ‘Everything all right?’ He looked between us.

  ‘Yes fine,’ I said smoothly. ‘We were just discussing Julia’s experiences at the Royal Grace, that’s all.’

  ‘Ah.’ Hamish hesitated. ‘Is it true that you were sent a dead animal in the post?’

  ‘Hamish!’ I admonished. He was going to undo all of my good work. And upset her again. ‘Come on, mate!’

  ‘No – it’s OK.’ She turned back to face him. ‘Yes, it is true. Not a whole one; bits of a rat – a not very subtle message. I also had a sex doll delivered to my home address with the face all cut up, mugs of urine left on my desk at the hospital, a used tampon placed on my chair, and bags of dog’s mess on the windscreen of my car while it was parked at the Royal Grace.’

  I was appalled. What a bunch of unimaginative arseholes. I’d have at least gone with something like a box of live locusts that would have jumped out at her when she’d opened it. A bag of dog shit never made anyone scream.

  She went back over to her desk and sat down. ‘A junior told me she’d witnessed a male colleague of mine remove a healthy breast before going on to remove the one with the malignant tumour in it. The junior was certain it was supposed to be a single mastectomy and even queried it during the op. The surgeon got shitty with her, told her it was evident that the cancer had spread and he’d had no choice but to perform a double mastectomy. She didn’t believe him and came to me.

  ‘He had a reputation for getting juniors to do his ops for him, not supervising them properly, and rushing surgery because he was always prioritising his private clients.’ She crossed her arms. Getting defensive. I leant on the side and watched her quietly.

  ‘Anyway, I reported what she’d told me. He went ballistic and said I was making trouble because he’d rebuffed my advances towards him,’ She laughed and I glanced briefly at Hamish. ‘He told the Medical Director that I was seizing my chance to make what was no more than a “bad day at the office” into a huge, unfounded negligence case because I was an angry, spurned woman. Clever, really – it turned it into a he said/she said when it ought to have been all about the facts; he removed a healthy breast in error. He should have been suspended immediately while they began an investigation to make sure he hadn’t done it to anyone else.’

  ‘They obviously didn’t?’ I guessed.

  ‘I was gobsmacked to see him at work two days later, actually operating. I kicked off about that too. I said the system was broken if we were going to let surgeons damage patients and not only not hold them to account but let them carry on doing it. I asked them what they were so afraid of; why they weren’t investigating him properly?’

  Hamish nodded emphatically. ‘Good for you!’

  ‘Which is when rumours started flying around about my aggression and my propensity to “throw my weight around” when I didn’t get my own way, all of which was crap, obviously. I was told everything was being looked into – my “conduct” as well. They hoped I’d be scared enough about my own future to leave it alone, so they could shove everything under the carpet… I threatened to go public – that’s when the hospital suspended me and I took them to court to force them to give me my job back.

  ‘I had my whole professional life looked at under a microscope, while he quietly retired – full pension – no further investigation, no action taken.’ She threw her hands up. ‘And now here I am. Was it all worth it, you ask yourselves?’ She laughed uncertainly. ‘Someone said to me afterwards the case shone a much-needed light on sexism in our workplace, but I disagree. I think it probably put a lot of young women off joining the profession and tha
t makes me really sad.’

  ‘Well, on behalf of the patients he didn’t get to butcher because you stepped in to prevent it, I’ll say an emphatic thank you.’ I made sure my smile was the correct blend of sympathy and reassurance.

  ‘Thank you.’ She flashed me a grateful glance. ‘I’m not a troublemaker, honestly I’m not – and I promise I won’t try it on with any of you.’

  Hamish laughed heartily. ‘Well then I feel safe to check that you’re coming to the rugby with us at the weekend? I take it Nathan’s asked you? Ah, Tan – just the man!’ he exclaimed as Tan walked in, looking slightly harassed. ‘Friday – there’s still another space, isn’t there? And a spare caravan now that the Mottrams aren’t coming?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’ Tan dumped some papers on his desk. ‘I’ll double-check later. Why?’

  ‘Julia’s coming!’ Hamish turned back to her. ‘When I say caravan, don’t panic. It’s more a static home in a holiday park next to the beach. There’s an indoor swimming pool and “nightly entertainment”, but don’t let that put you off. It’s fun. The kids love it.’

  ‘Tan’s coming with his wife, son and two daughters. Ben and I will be there, and Hamish is bringing his stepson,’ I said. ‘An informal departmental social! Just do one night if you prefer? Head on over after school and work on Friday, back on Saturday. Bring Ewan and Cass with you too. We’d be delighted to have your company. Ben really likes Alex – he’d be made up to have you all come along.’

  ‘I’ll ask Ewan but thank you for the invite – that’s really kind of you. Whoa!’ She looked at the clock and jumped up. ‘I must get on! Thank you for letting me vent.’

  ‘No problem! Have a good morning!’

  We waited until we were sure she wasn’t coming back, and the smile fell from Hamish’s face. ‘She’s a lunatic. Although you’re right, Nate, the Royal Grace lot also sound certifiable. Bags of shit and mugs of piss… bloody amateurs. That’s not how you get things done. Anyway – all set. Nicely played.’