Tell Me A Secret

by Samantha Hayes

  Tell Me a Secret

  A gripping psychological thriller with heart-stopping mystery and suspense

  Samantha Hayes

  Also by Samantha Hayes

  The Reunion

  Tell Me A Secret

  Contents

  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

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  The Reunion

  Hear More From Samantha

  Also by Samantha Hayes

  A Letter From Samantha

  Acknowledgements

  This one’s for…

  Actually, this one’s for me

  Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead

  Benjamin Franklin

  Prologue

  1983

  I didn’t realise it was an actual dead body at first. I thought he was just standing there, his feet hovering off the ground. His torso was round-shouldered and sagging, with his head limp and bent to one side. Not much different to when I’d seen him drunk and lolling about. For a moment, I even thought he was hunched over his workbench, pondering a woodwork project or poring over some sketches for a new bookcase. He was always making things; always tinkering, as Mum said.

  But he’d never done it naked before.

  He’d been on a shoot several days before and was surrounded by pheasants and ducks, perhaps a partridge or two, their plucked bodies all skinny and pale like his, as they hung on wires from the ceiling of the workshop. One or two still had iridescent greeny-blue feathers on their wings. But while the birds were meant to be dead, suspended by their claws, making them look as though they were nosediving mid-flight, Dad wasn’t. He was hanging by his neck.

  I screamed.

  I cupped my hands over my mouth, my body shuddering. I couldn’t take it in: a smashed-up jigsaw puzzle with a thousand muddled pieces. The radio was on – he always had music playing when he was out in his shed – and I jiggled about, but not to the music. I was trying to stop the pee trickling down my legs. But I couldn’t. It dribbled hot down to my ankles, soaking into my slippers.

  I blinked hard, unable to take my eyes off him.

  My father was hanging by an electrical cable from a crossbeam in his shed wearing only his watch. I’d only ever seen his thing down there once before when I’d gone into his room late one night a few weeks ago. Mum was away for a long weekend with her sister, and Dad had sent me to bed early because I wasn’t feeling very well. He’d insisted I stay there. But I’d been sick in my bed, and my body was sweating and cramping, so I’d got up and crept across the landing. There were noises coming from his bedroom. Noises that made me wonder if he was poorly too – all those grunts and moans.

  But when I’d gone in, it turned out Dad wasn’t sick at all. Paula, the woman who rented a room from us, was in there with him, both of them naked. Her face was pressed sideways against the wall, and he was standing right up close behind her, ramming his hips against her and smacking her bum like she’d been naughty. But then I realised it was because Dad liked her. I’d seen people doing it on the telly enough times to know what was going on. Mum always told me to close my eyes and look away, but sometimes I’d peek between my fingers.

  I knew Mum wouldn’t like it; knew that Paula shouldn’t be in there, that they shouldn’t be naked together. I was just about to creep back to bed, pretend I’d never seen them, but then Dad made this really big roaring sound, the tendons standing out on his neck, his face all screwed-up. And that’s when he saw me standing in the doorway in my sicky pyjamas.

  Fuck… fucking hell… but his words were all mixed up with groans.

  I covered my face, but the next thing I knew his hand was tight around my arm, grabbing me, pulling me into the room.

  ‘What the hell are you doing, spying on us?’ Sweat was running down his bare chest.

  He shoved me down on the bed, and I buried my face in the sheets. They smelt funny, maybe of Paula. I was scared.

  ‘I wasn’t spying, honest,’ I said, daring to look up, stifling a sob. Then my eyes flicked down to his thing, all big and angry. ‘I don’t feel well.’ Then I sobbed again, but it turned into a retch and sick came up into my mouth, spilling down my front.

  Dad pulled on his shirt and hopped into his jeans, cursing the whole time. Paula grabbed Mum’s gown from the back of the door and wrapped herself in it. Her breasts were huge, and her body was slim, nothing like Mum’s spongy middle. The gown swallowed her up.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Dad said, pacing about, red-faced and seething. ‘You should be asleep, not snooping, you little wretch.’ Then he punched the door, his fist lashing out over and over until his knuckles bled and there was a hole in the wood. Dad liked punching things.

  Tears and snot were streaming down my face.

  ‘Leave it, Jeff,’ Paula said, touching Dad’s shoulder. ‘She didn’t know.’ She was kind, even though I hated her now – hated that she lived in our house because my parents needed the money. Hated what she was doing with my dad. I bet Mum didn’t even know.

  Dad came right up close to me then, breathing heavily. ‘OK. You were in bed, weren’t you? You didn’t see anything at all, did you? Did you?’

  I shook my head again, snivelling.

  ‘Did you?’ he yelled.

  ‘No,’ I whispered.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘No, I didn’t see anything, Dad.’

  He hauled me up and marched me through to my bedroom, swearing when he saw the pool of sick on my sheets. He shoved me into bed.

  ‘Clean this up in the morning,’ he said, crouching down next to me as I huddled under the duvet. ‘You don’t tell anyone about what you saw tonight, right? Nothing. You understand?’

&nbs
p; I nodded.

  ‘You never woke up, you never came into my bedroom, and you never saw Paula in there.’ His voice was quiet now but intense, driving into me. Veins stood out on his temples. When Dad was this angry, he meant it. He prodded my shoulder.

  That was when I knew he loved Paula way more than me. I loathed her as much as I now loathed him.

  I nodded until I thought my head would fall off. He stared at me, scrutinising my face, deciding if he believed me or not. After what seemed like ages, he stood up and left. Then I heard voices, footsteps on the stairs, and the front door eventually opening and closing.

  Afterwards, I lay awake all night, shaking, crying, forcing myself to forget. But I couldn’t. I’d been so very, very bad.

  Another scream tore out of me as I stood in the workshop, my father’s body only feet away, hanging from the beam, the bright yellow cable digging into his neck. His face was ghostly pale, his eyes bulging open while his tongue was purple and poking out. The skin on his body was mottled with red patches, getting darker and darker right down to his feet, which were blown up like angry balloons.

  But it was his thing – standing upright again, just like it was when he’d been with Paula – that I couldn’t take my eyes off. It was as though it was the only part of him left alive.

  Then I was thinking about it all again. I couldn’t help it. Her smarting bottom, Dad’s moaning, the straps of muscle across his back, her huge bobbing breasts, even the taste of sick in my mouth and the smell of his breath as he yelled up close in my face. It wouldn’t go away.

  Then a few days afterwards, Mum and Dad had had their biggest fight ever. That’s when everything got worse.

  I swear I didn’t mean to tell her, but she forced it out of me like a madwoman – said I must have been in the house when it happened, that she could see it written all over my face, that I was nothing more than a dirty whore like Paula for keeping secrets. She made me tell her everything. She drank gin as she listened, smashing the empty bottle against the wall when I’d finished.

  ‘This was all your fault!’ she yelled at me. Her hysteria doubled her up, making her stagger as the tears and rage poured out. She went upstairs, yanked her towelling gown off the back of her bedroom door and chucked it in the incinerator outside, dousing it in lighter fuel. When she threw in a match, it lit up the entire garden. The next day, my mother was gone. Packed up and left without a word. After everything, I ended up staying with my aunt and didn’t see Mum for months.

  And then I vomited again, spewing mess all over the feather-strewn workshop floor at the sight of my naked father hanging, swaying gently as Elton John’s ‘Tiny Dancer’ played on the radio. I’d always loved that song, imagining it was me at my dance class on a Wednesday. I began to sway and move to the music, my feet slipping in all the stinky wood oil spilling from an overturned can on the floor, whispering the words as best I could – anything to take away the sight of my father. Anything to make things normal.

  Even though they weren’t.

  As sure as the hot piss running down my legs, I knew that my father had done this to himself because of what had happened.

  Because of me.

  And then I spotted the note on the workbench, surrounded by his tools and sitting in a sea of sawdust. It had my name on it.

  This is what happens when you watch people, when you tell secrets. It’s your shame now…

  A neighbour burst through the shed door. He’d heard my screams and come running. He stood frozen for a moment before swearing and grabbing a Stanley knife from the workbench. He stood on a wooden box and hacked at the electrical cable, jumping back as my father’s body dropped to the floor. Then, frantically, he sliced the cable away from his neck as I watched in horror.

  My nine-year-old body then did what bodies do best – it protected me. Or so I thought. I don’t remember who found me passed out on the floor, my face slick from lying in the oil when I woke, or anything about what happened right afterwards. It was missing time. Everything locked away. Where it belonged.

  Guess Dad was right in the end. Watching people is what I do. But telling secrets?

  Never.

  Chapter One

  Lorna

  March 2018

  I’m awake. I glance at the clock. It’s 4.02 a.m. and won’t be light for a couple of hours yet. I take a long, slow breath in, counting to seven. Then I let it out, counting to eleven. I repeat this ten times, relaxing my body at the same time.

  I’m still awake.

  Still tense.

  Mark lies beside me, the soft purr of sleep escaping his lips. I envy his oblivion, but then I remind myself that it’s my fault I can’t sleep, that I haven’t been able to for months.

  I slide from between the sheets – changed yesterday because I always do the beds on a Friday – and tiptoe across the room. There’s only one creaky floorboard between here and the bathroom, and I know how to avoid it. I don’t want to wake Mark, don’t want him asking why I can’t sleep yet again. He wouldn’t understand.

  Afterwards, I don’t flush. Instead, I stare at the basin, desperately wanting to wash my hands but knowing the tap will make too much noise. I catch sight of the unexpected smile on my unmade-up face in the mirror – a smile that has very little right to be there. Perhaps it’s more a grimace.

  I slip back into bed, my fingers still itching to be washed. It doesn’t feel right, things not being done a certain way. Leaves too much room for catastrophe. Mark stirs, turning over and draping his arm across my middle, weighing down on my ribs, making it hard to breathe. I try to shift it, but he grumbles so I leave it where it is. I daren’t disturb him.

  For the next two hours I lie awake, watching it get light. When my thoughts go places they shouldn’t – the forbidden landscape of last year – I force myself to think about the mundane, the everyday, the little things that keep me sane. I consider going for my run early, to get it out of the way, but I couldn’t do it on an empty stomach and the juicer would wake the whole street, let alone Mark. Besides, it’s way too early yet. My Saturday run is always at 8 a.m.

  ‘Do you have to do that, Jack?’ My stepson scrapes burnt toast over the sink, specks of black showering the white porcelain. I don’t like nagging him, but sometimes it’s necessary. And I know Mark won’t like the mess. ‘Just chuck it out and make some more, love,’ I say less sternly.

  Jack turns, staring at me over his shoulder for a moment before starting to scrape again. He doesn’t say a word.

  I open the window and back door, flicking on the extractor fan before checking my phone to see if there are any texts from Annie, Lilly’s mum. I tell myself that’s what I’m checking for, anyway, but old habits die hard. The screen is blank. Freya’s not been keen on sleepovers lately but agreed to stay with her best friend after school yesterday. I’m worried that she’s become so clingy, that something’s troubling her.

  Jack shoves the blackened knife into the peanut butter jar, watching my expression as he slathers it on the toast. He’s blank-faced, waiting for me to say something, expecting the criticism that he knows is stinging the back of my throat. I turn back to the juicer, jiggling the components, trying to make it fit together properly. It won’t turn on.

  ‘People are starving, you know,’ Jack says, perfectly timed for Mark to hear as he comes in the kitchen. ‘Waste not, want not.’ He chokes out a laugh – his not-so-long-ago little boy voice now a manly growl.

  ‘Not sure anyone would want that,’ I say, my cheeks flushing as I tussle further with the juicer. I flick the switch back and forth, feeling tears welling as the stupid machine remains lifeless. It was already in the kitchen when I moved in, and we could really do with a new one, but Mark insists that this one, the one that Maria bought years ago, works fine. Anyway, right now I need the noise of it to drown out my thoughts way more than I need the juice. He’d said that once, the comment Jack just made, as he’d grinned and forked up the chips I’d left on my plate. People are starving, you know�
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  ‘Mark, what’s wrong with it?’ I give the juicer a shove, making it wobble, hoping he can’t read my face. He knows every nuance, every line and blemish, every shade of blue my eyes take on depending what’s on my mind. I glance at the clock. Nearly eight. I’ll be late leaving for my run at this rate, then the whole day will be thrown out of kilter.

  ‘You need a mechanic?’ he says, coming over and grinning as he fiddles with the machine. He knocks a carrot onto the floor, inspecting every inch of the juicer carefully as if it’s a patient in for a check-up. I lunge for the carrot.

  ‘That should do it,’ he says, squeezing me around the waist. I love him. For always mending things. For always keeping things going. For keeping me going even though he doesn’t know he is.

  ‘Genius,’ I say above the noise, shoving a load of carrots into the chute, adding in an apple, a stick of celery and a knuckle of turmeric. I pour it out, sitting down to join Mark and Jack at the table. ‘What?’ I say, giving a little smile, noticing their conspiratorial looks. Though Jack’s is more scornful than anything. I wipe the bottom of the glass, so it doesn’t drip on my white robe. Mark’s trying not to grin, while Jack shoves a fistful of burnt toast into his mouth, his usual doleful stare boring out from beneath his too-long fringe.