Our Little Secret: The most gripping debut psychological thriller you’ll read this year

by Darren O’Sullivan

  The neighbours would see us as a young happy couple and I would often wave to them as I got into my car to leave for work. Their acceptance of me replacing his ex-wife as if she didn’t exist at all, and I had been his spouse all along.

  As I closed the door I listened, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The only noise was the ticking of the clock. Its sound was hard, reminding me of that first moment I stepped over the threshold and into his life. His back to me, his knuckles white.

  I walked into his lounge and through to the kitchen. I could almost see him leaning on the draining board. Beside the kettle was a cup and as I stepped closer I could see a half-drunk tea. There was also a sandwich on the side near the fridge. For a moment I thought it was fresh, but the tea was cold and the bread hardened and stale.

  Doubling back on myself I went upstairs, first to the bathroom then the bedroom. Secure in the knowledge he wasn’t in, I went back down and opened the door to the cupboard under the stairs. The tool box he had snuck in from the shed was there, and as I grabbed its handle a surge of adrenaline shot through me. This was it: the secrets he held dearly I would begin to know.

  I was expecting it to be heavy, but it was light and as I lifted it things inside shifted and moved. Whatever was inside, it wasn’t tools. Once I had wrestled it free I took it back to the kitchen and put it on the dining table. I listened to the sound of blood rushing to my head before I opened it, hesitating only for moment, and looked inside.

  The book I saw him carrying was lying on the top. I opened the first page and my instincts were right – it was a diary. Reading the first few lines I learnt it was Julia’s. What I didn’t know was why he was hiding it in a tool box.

  There were other things in there too, wrapped in a black bin bag. I would look at them as well, but the diary was my first priority. Somewhere within it might be an answer to what had happened. If I could find that out I might be able to save him. But I stopped myself, feeling like I was doing something terrible by looking. The diary felt heavier in my hands and as I put it on the table I let myself ask the question that was hiding in the corners of my mind since Steve’s message the night before. Had I fallen in love with a man who had done something unimaginable to his wife?

  Standing, I leant over to see inside the black bin bag. Its contents made me feel sick. As I squeezed I could tell one of the things was a shoe, although I could only feel one. Setting the bag on the table I carefully pulled away the tape that held the folded top closed, tearing the bag as I did, splitting it completely down one side.

  There was no way I was going to be able to put the contents back inside without him knowing it had been tampered with. Although I was starting to feel that once I looked inside there was no going back to hiding anything. The first item I came across was a carefully folded note. I put it to one side. I couldn’t take reading something that mirrored what I had discovered that night under the bench I sat on.

  Tearing the bag further, one black evening shoe, size five from Topshop, fell out. There was nothing remarkable about it. Then I looked at the heel and I could see a dark stain on it. At first I thought it was mud but as I looked closer I saw it was in fact a very dark red, blood red.

  I jumped up, quickly moving away from what I assumed was a weapon. Creating some distance before I was sick. I knew I needed to call the police, but I needed to know what else was in the bag before I did. I needed answers. I deserved as much.

  Conscious my fingerprints were now all over the possible murder weapon I moved it away from me using just my thumb and forefinger, and then I tipped the rest of the bag’s contents carefully onto the table. Four more things fell out. A purse, a car jack, a passport, and a mobile phone. I opted for the purse first and as I opened it I still hoped it wouldn’t be hers. But it was Julia’s. Her driving licence in her married name, her bank cards and credit cards. Her Tesco club card. Then I looked at the passport. Again it was hers, valid and in date, all hidden with a bloodstained shoe and her mobile phone. I knew I needed to read the folded note. I picked it up and opened it.

  Lat: 52.5862 Long: 0.0140

  You will find a tree, under it wrapped within its roots you will find the remains of Julia Suzette Hayes. Killed on the 2nd of June 2015

  Ensure she is well cared for.

  I couldn’t hold the piece of paper in my hands any more. My fingers felt numb and I was sure any moment I would faint. I put down the note. I realized Steve had been right all along and I was in the worst place I could be.

  I grabbed my jacket and turned to head to the door but as I did a yelp escaped from me before I could catch it and hold it in. A man was stood in the doorway to Chris’s kitchen. Soaking wet, blood clearly splattered across the right side of his face. His shoulders were hunched; his breathing was hard. His eyes showed an anger I had never seen before. It wasn’t until he took a step forward and into the low kitchen light I realized it was Chris.

  Although I barely recognized him. His face was heavy and distorted like a monster’s.

  He looked from me to the table and back again. The look changed and for a moment neither of us moved. We just looked at each other. It was in that moment that I cursed myself for being so naive for so long. I was so wrapped up in trying to unravel the mystery I didn’t stop and question if I should. He even sounded different when he spoke.

  ‘You shouldn’t have opened that box, Sarah.’

  ‘What did you do, Chris?’

  ‘Chris did nothing.’

  ‘What?’ I looked at him in disbelief, utterly confused by what was going on.

  ‘What did you see?’

  I glanced to the table and the contents of the tool box then back at him.

  ‘Have you worked it out?’

  He was smiling at me as he said it, almost proud at making me say what was obvious.

  ‘Sarah, if you had to: take a guess.’

  I couldn’t look at him any more; he didn’t look like the Chris I knew.

  ‘Take a guess. Go on.’

  ‘You killed her,’ I said at barely a whisper, hoping if I said it quiet enough it wouldn’t be true.

  ‘Bingo.’

  I glanced back to the table, to see what was nearest to me, hoping something heavy was the closest but it was the shoe, just to my left, a reach away. It was only a second, if that, but when I looked back to his stare – cold, hard, frightening – I knew he saw the flick of my eye. Without looking away he closed the kitchen door behind him. His eyes fixed on me.

  I could feel fear begin to seep through me, working through my body until it was crawling up my throat, closing it as it travelled. It was what I thought an asthma attack would feel like. I knew I had to get out so grabbing the shoe I threw it at him as hard as I could as a distraction in order to bolt for the back door.

  I hadn’t anticipated him being so quick, and before I could touch the handle he was on me, one arm wrapped around my waist, forcing the air out of my lungs, the other over my mouth to catch my scream. I tried to fight but he was too strong and he pushed me to the floor, my face hitting the tiling hard. His full weight pressing down on me, his knees in my back. His hand was still over my mouth, covering most of my nose, making it difficult to breathe, his other hand pressing my skull. I tried to fight, but could only use my legs below my knees and as much as I flailed to kick him I could only move air.

  ‘If you fight, Sarah, it will be worse for you. Do you understand?’

  I nodded as best I could with my head still pressed hard into the cold floor, a pressure building in my eye as the swelling started to come out. But his grip didn’t lessen; instead, lifting me by the waist and wrapping his arm around my neck so tightly I could barely breathe, he dragged me towards the stairs. For some reason, I knew if I went upstairs I might never come back down so I struggled as much as I could, but his strength was too much for me and he quickly subdued me once more, dragging me into his bedroom. Once inside he closed the door and threw me onto the floor. Standing over me he leant in
close.

  ‘If you scream or shout, Sarah, I’ll have to silence you. Do you understand?’ His face was only inches from my own. His eyes bloodshot and glazed, his breath reeking of alcohol.

  I nodded, and I saw his guard lower slightly, so I bolted for the door, half crawling, half falling, screaming as I did. He grabbed me from behind and placed his wide hands over my mouth and nose, instantly supressing my screams.

  I tried to fight. I kicked and dug my nails into his hands so hard they bled, but he pressed harder and harder on my mouth, making it impossible to breathe. He leant in close to my ear and whispered, his voice sounding different, like he was another man.

  ‘He warned you not to come back. He told you to leave him alone, but you insisted on pushing your way into his world, and now I’m taking charge. What happens next is entirely your own doing.’

  Chapter 44

  2nd June 2016

  The last final day

  10.39 p.m. – March train station

  Eight minutes.

  Chris looked up at the train station clock. It read ten thirty-nine. Eight minutes. That was all he had to wait. In just eight small minutes he would be dead and everything would finally be over. Attempting to calm his inner storm he looked around. It seemed nothing had improved in the dilapidated station, and although it was warmer than in May there was still a dampness in the air, coming from the dark corners of the old station. It sent a shiver up his spine.

  Just a few nights ago he’d been in the same place, distracted with the thoughts and words of Julia’s diary. Her betrayal, leading to his. It, along with the other items, were back in the tool box – their catacomb. Along with his new note, showing where to find everything that would enable her to get a proper burial.

  Chris took his shoes off and threw them onto the tracks. He looked at them, lonely and out of place on the grey stones between the iron lines. He wondered why he didn’t do that last time. Throwing them down was a statement of intent. It said he would not put them back on. It said, this time he would not fail.

  He put his hand in his left trouser pocket and pulled out its contents. Three things: the picture of her, his suicide note, and the small black stone. He looked at his wife. It was the same picture he carried on his last attempt. Her crooked smile seeming bigger. Excited. He pressed her into his right palm, which also contained the stone, before putting them under the bench, in the same spot as he had before. The note, although similar to last time, also had new information. Or rather, an apology, both to the train girl and Steve.

  He tried to explain that the man who hurt them wasn’t him but someone else, a voice that he had long silenced as a young man, who had slowly forced his way back into his life. That man was now dormant but never gone.

  Stretching his back he stepped towards the edge of the platform, curling his toes over the end. He looked back to the clock.

  Seven minutes.

  He ran through his mental checklist, ticking off what he needed. He had checked the trains would still run in a similar manner. He had placed the note and lost the shoes. He had even organized his will this time, leaving most of his belongings to Steve. He had also left some for Sarah, although, both lives were still in the balance.

  With very little time left, he let himself remember the day Julia had died.

  ***

  He had found her diary whilst searching for something in the bedroom when she was out having lunch with a friend. His curiosity getting the better of him, he opened near the beginning and read a little about their date on the beach and smiled to himself. Sitting in their bed he read about their experiences through her eyes and remembered fondly the wonderful moments of their marriage. He shed a tear when he recalled Julia’s mother dying and his heart ached at reading the things his wife couldn’t say to him about her feelings afterwards.

  Then, flicking forward to a more recent entry, only three weeks before, he read about James. Her boss. A sickness washing over him, an anger that started in his chest and flooded to every part of his body like white light. Her words: ‘I am now a woman who is having an affair,’ turned his world blurry.

  Heartbroken and not knowing what to do, he continued his day as if he didn’t know her secret. Hoping she would say or do something when she saw he wasn’t himself. His anger bubbling inside growing in heat, needing to find a way to escape. What was even more heartbreaking was that she was still the same Julia he married when she came home. Bright, funny, caring. There was nothing to suggest she had been cheating and Chris didn’t know what was worse: her affair or the fact she hid it so well.

  After a quiet dinner he told Julia he was tired. He had to go do the routine monthly check at Julia’s mum’s house and seeing he was off she asked to come, saying she would wait in the car. His heart broke knowing she could go into the house with another man, but not her husband. They were on the way back along the A605 between March and Peterborough when the pressure pot finally spilled over. Tears blurred his vision, making it even harder to drive in the torrential rain that night.

  ‘Chris? Honey, what’s wrong?’

  ‘Julia, when are you going to talk about James?’

  ***

  Six minutes.

  Chris thought he heard something coming from outside the entrance to the station. A car pulling up perhaps, or a person walking to catch a late train, and he walked tentatively towards the source, trying to stay in the shadows as much as he could. His footsteps quieter than usual. Reaching the sandstone archway he peered out. There was no one there. He was alone as he should be, but he couldn’t relax.

  He wondered for a moment if he was having doubts but quickly dismissed it. His tension was because of what he’d had to endure over the past month. The person he had become, the things he had done. All for her. All for his wonderful wife.

  It wasn’t doubt, he was just being cautious. There could be no saboteurs to his plan this time round. He had made sure of that, as hard as it had been. He walked back onto the platform and perched himself on the aged and battered bench. He forced himself to remember that night once more.

  ***

  ‘Julia, when are you going to tell me about James?’

  She shifted in her chair and gripped the armrest. He waited for a response, watching the pounding window wipers to pass the silence. He knew that if he was patient for long enough she would speak. He knew that much about his wife.

  She asked if it couldn’t wait till they were at home; he said it couldn’t. She made him promise to stay calm so they could talk. He did, knowing he might not. Then she said it. She told him about her affair. For a while Chris sat in silence, listening to the whooshing of blade against windscreen and the hammering of rain. He had lost control of his love, and with it his life. The last thing he remembered was a red mist sinking over his eyes.

  He slammed on the breaks and turned the steering wheel hard to the left, making the car veer violently, the back end swinging out as the tires transferred from tarmac to mud before sliding to a halt. During the commotion the hazard lights had been hit and they began blinking: on, off, on, off.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Chris,’ Julia shouted, gripping the seat.

  ‘Are you still sleeping with him?’ Chris said, his voice low, his eyes piercing through her.

  ‘You could have killed us.’

  ‘Are you still fucking sleeping with him?’

  ‘Please, just calm down.’

  ‘Answer the question.’

  ‘Chris, please.’

  She tried to move, turning her body to go for the door handle, but he grabbed her by the shoulders and squeezed hard. His face inches from hers.

  ‘Please, you’re hurting me.’

  ‘Answer the fucking question.’

  ‘Yes, okay, yes. I am sleeping with him. But I was going to tell you; I was. I’m going to end it.

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘I promise, Chris. I promise. I’ve made a terrible mistake.’

  ‘You’re only saying that because I know
now.’

  ‘Please let me go.’

  He cried, and squeezed harder. Barely able to contain his rage. He knew she had been having sex with him, but hearing it from her mouth, a mouth that should have been his alone to kiss, changed something. She pleaded for him to calm down, to let her go, but her words had become a mumble of inaudible sound, underwater, distant.

  His mind drifted to images of her climaxing, another man between her legs, her biting her lip in a way that was only for him. She managed to shake him free, opened the door, and stepped out into the rain. Slipping in her heels. One falling off in the footwell of the car. The rain blinding her.

  He climbed over to the passenger side and fell out onto the soaking ground. As he stood he could see she thought about running but decided against it. Getting to his feet he slammed the door behind him. His breathing was erratic, his shoulders rolled, his teeth bared.

  ‘Chris, please, stay calm. Let’s talk about this.’

  Chris grabbed her again, screaming in her face, crying as he did. He pleaded with her to tell him why she had done it. Not listening as she tried to tell him she was scared and in pain.

  She slipped again and fell to the ground and he picked her up by her hair before he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. He looked and saw her remaining black heel was stuck in it. The pain shot through his chest as his arm went numb. He looked at his wife who stood in shock. She tried to say sorry and stepped forward to help but stopped at his expression.

  Pulling out the heel he dropped it to the ground and looked at his wife. Her body lit by the blinking hazards. Light, shade, light, shade. She was crying, begging for forgiveness. Chris looked through her at his reflection in the car. It was a different man who stared back at him. One fuelled by anger with a dangerous glint in his eyes. His arm hung limp by his side, the heel having done more damage than he thought it could.

  Looking back at him was a monster, one that had always been there. For Chris, it was like he was in a dream, a nightmare he couldn’t wake from as he watched himself lunge out with his left hand, catching her on her right ear, sending her falling against the side of the car. Her face hitting the glass, but not breaking it. It was unsatisfying. He needed more.