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

by Lucy Dawson

  ‘If I were her, I’d say the picture was a set-up anyway.’

  I shrugged and sat down opposite him. ‘At which point everyone is going to think she’s certifiable. Her whole story is going to reek of bullshit. They’ll all start talking about her, wondering if this is the same stunt she pulled in her last job – the one they tried to fire her from, remember? Meanwhile, I’ll be telling everyone it was clear from the start that she had a sexual interest in you and the picture proves it. I’ll remind them about the allegations her former colleague made. Gossip will do the rest. We’ll have her discredited, borderline destroyed within days of her reporting you – that’s IF she goes ahead with shooting her mouth off. You can argue the cameras are dummies, for God’s sake.’ I rubbed my lower back and grimaced.

  ‘I already told her they were installed to protect me.’

  I gave a tight sigh. ‘OK, well that’s not the end of the world. We’ll deal with your laptop.’

  He chewed on his lip. ‘My laptop? You’re not worried about yours?’

  ‘Well, right now, it’s you she’s got on the hook, isn’t it? They’ll only know you sent the films on if YOU tell them. There’s no trail at all. We’ve been very careful.’

  There was a pause while he looked at the now-redundant cameras, then up at me. ‘You’re not going to let me weather this alone, are you?’ He was frightened.

  ‘Of course not! I’ll be there every step of the way. Haven’t I always been?’ I reached out and briefly patted his arm. ‘But you don’t want them to know I’m involved? You’ll protect me like I’d protect you – won’t you?’

  Eventually, Nate nodded. ‘I think you should get rid of your bits and pieces though.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me.’ I smiled. ‘I’ll sort everything out my end. Just make sure you go for a run tonight so you can slip your laptop into the estuary.’

  ‘It’ll look like I have something to hide if it disappears.’

  ‘But you do have something to hide! Better than them finding a load of films of half-naked women and you shagging some of them. You can’t just delete the files. I think they leave ghosts on the hard drive. Someone who knows what they’re doing could get them back, is what I mean.’

  I glanced up at the clock. It was time for me to get back. Cecily was going out and I’d promised not to be long. ‘A mate of a mate in London knocked someone off a bike, deleted his dashcam and swore he was blameless, even though several witnesses said otherwise. The police took him to court; but not because he deleted the dashcam – they said if he’d admitted he panicked, they would have been fine with that – but because he still insisted he’d done nothing wrong after that point. So, what YOU do is this: slip the laptop in the Clyst, then when plod comes calling, admit you were filming the patient consultations to legally protect yourself – as you’ve already told Julia. You panicked when Julia challenged you, took the cameras down and shoved the laptop in the water, which you now realise was a really stupid thing to do. They’re not going to immediately think there were naked women on it and we’ve been having a happy private view any time we feel like it, are they?’

  ‘Except that’s exactly what Julia is going to allege.’

  ‘Well, she’s got no proof of that, has she? Pictures of the cameras themselves, yes. Pictures of what was on them, no. Anyway, you pull out the photo of her forcing herself on you and you say to plod: “yes, I’m sure that’s what she says and this is why. She’s very jealous. She doesn’t like her lover looking at other women, even when it’s my job. I had to end it with her. She’s unstable.” Plus, everyone is going to break up for Christmas in two days. Is Julia really going to report you as soon as tomorrow? And if she does, will they in turn tell the police before packing up shop for the festive season? Both very unlikely, in my view.’

  I stood up stiffly. ‘You’ve got the best of two weeks before the powers that be get back to work and on the case. Dump the laptop in the water tonight and don’t worry, Nate. We’ve got this.’

  I smiled at him again, keeping it in place until I’d closed the door quietly behind me and left him sitting in his room, still staring out of the window like the lovesick teenager he seemed determined to be.

  I was prepared to let him wallow in it a little bit longer, but after that, I was going to expect him to pull himself together, and take the gloves off.

  Twenty-Two

  Nathan

  ‘You’re going for a run now?’ Storm looked at the dark window, droplets running down it. ‘It’s freezing cold and raining!’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I replied absently, rifling through the washing pile on the spare room bed, looking for my skins.

  ‘They’re in your top drawer. I thought the girls were coming over tonight?’

  ‘I cancelled them.’ I yanked open the chest of drawers I kept exclusively for my sports gear, and sure enough she was right.

  Storm frowned. ‘I’m not Serena’s number one fan and I know the feeling is mutual, but I’d be pretty pissed off with you if I was her. This is the second time in a row you’ve ditched your daughters at short notice.’

  ‘I haven’t ditched them at all.’ I started to unbutton my shirt, and Storm looked away. ‘It’s perfectly normal for Child Arrangement Orders that were made when the children were toddlers to have less relevance when they become teenagers. Serena appreciates I’ve got a lot of work to cram in before Friday.’

  ‘But you’re not at work. You’re going for a run,’ Storm pointed out.

  I looked up at the ceiling and mentally counted to ten. ‘She doesn’t mind! The girls don’t mind! They’re fifteen and up to their eyeballs in parties at the moment. We’re going to see them next week anyway! The only person with a problem here is you.’

  ‘Shhh!’ She looked at the door. ‘Can you please not shout? Ben will hear you.’

  ‘I’m not shouting?’ I said, puzzled.

  ‘That’s the problem. You don’t even know you’re doing it anymore. Would you raise your voice to a female work colleague like this?’

  Er, yes, I would. But that obviously wasn’t the right answer. I had a feeling nothing would be. I pulled the skin over my head. ‘Are you due on?’ I waited patiently for her to answer.

  ‘Am I what?’ Her face hardened. ‘That’s your way of apologising for shouting at me? You know you’re teaching your son some really appalling patterns that are not OK?’ She was gathering steam, her skin angrily splotching with high colour. Maybe she was perimenopausal? I opened my mouth to suggest that, but she talked over me. ‘He hears you and this is how he learns to speak to women. As a father of two daughters, are you OK with that?’

  It was all so tedious I couldn’t be bothered to answer. Plus, I could defend myself all night, it wouldn’t make any difference, so I saved us both the trouble and simply left the room. I had things to do, places to go. Laptops to slip into rivers.

  Once I was finally on the path – my backpack shifting around uncomfortably – I started to pant, my eyes fixed on the beam created by my head torch bouncing up and down as I ran. Why was Julia so blinded by this apparent desire to search for the truth and expose it? Please God she was going to be sensible enough not to say anything. I didn’t want to have to hurt her.

  Are you threatening me?

  I pushed her voice out of my head, stopped running and turned off my light, pausing as my eyes adjusted to the dark. I was completely alone. I pulled off my backpack and unzipped it, lifted out my laptop and examined the surface of the inky-black water hesitantly. Was it deep enough? I crouched down and peered in. Would the evidence sink without trace? Julia just needed to get back to what she was really good at: patient care. She was a stunning surgeon – such a light touch.

  My headlight suddenly randomly flashed on again, making me jump. I reached up and fumbled with the switch, wobbling slightly on my haunches, but overbalanced forward onto my knees as I managed to switch it off, which was when I saw her quite clearly: Julia lying beneath the surface of the water. H
er eyes were wide and staring, mouth open, her dark hair floating eerily on unseen currents, pulling in the direction of the sea. I blinked in horror, but once I’d scrabbled to my feet, she was gone. A premonition? I felt sick and tried to steady myself.

  It began to rain again, breaking the quiet and shaking me out of my reverie as fat droplets smacked onto the surrounding reeds and plopped into the water. I swallowed uneasily and stepped away from the edge as I slid my laptop back into my bag. I needed more convincing depths… and for Julia to see sense.

  Twenty-Three

  Julia

  ‘I don’t want this fight for you.’ Ewan stared at the whisky in his glass as he swirled it around slowly, sitting at the kitchen table to my right. ‘I don’t want this fight, for us. The kids are settling, I like the school, there are opportunities. We’ve got a beautiful house.’ He gestured around him. ‘Your work is going well. Do you really have to report him?’

  ‘You know I do.’

  Ewan sighed.

  ‘We share patients. He’s been filming women semi-naked without their consent. I know he said it was to protect himself from litigation, but if that’s true, why didn’t he just tell them what he was doing? Or audiotape them? He’s abusing them! If a doctor had secretly filmed Cass half-naked, how would you?—’

  ‘Don’t!’ Ewan spoke through gritted teeth and with his eyes closed. ‘Please.’

  I shut up. All I could hear was the low noise of the TV from the kids’ den and persistent rain against the dark and still-bare kitchen window. Ewan put his head in his hands.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said sincerely. ‘I don’t want this all over again for us either, but I can’t turn away.’

  ‘I know.’ His face was still hidden. ‘I just wish it didn’t always have to be you.’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ I said truthfully. ‘This sort of stuff is everyone’s fight.’ I thought about Eleni’s potential replacement asking me how letchy the department was just yesterday, what I’d blithely told her in my ignorance. ‘I don’t want to draw attention to myself all over again, but now I’ve seen it, I can’t pretend it’s someone else’s responsibility and let Nathan hide in plain sight. That patient told me. What sort of doctor – or woman – would it make me if I ignored her? I’d be no better than everyone at the Royal Grace who tried to ignore what I told them.’

  Ewan looked up and eyeballed me steadily. ‘You’re going to do it tomorrow then?’

  ‘Yes. He’ll have taken the cameras down, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve got the images I emailed myself and sent to you. He can’t deny it.’

  ‘Who do you have to tell?’

  ‘The Medical Director at the Goldtree Hospital group. Nathan’s practice is affiliated to them and he does his private operations there, so it’s on their watch. It’s tricky though, because private hospitals aren’t regulated in the same way as NHS ones are. You’d be amazed how many of them don’t even offer patients the right to complain about their care. They should recognise that what Nathan is doing is a threat to patient safety, suspend and investigate him, but they don’t have to. It’s farcical, really.’

  ‘Hang on. They didn’t even act properly when you reported Richard Norris at the Royal Grace and he was endangering life in an NHS hospital.’ Ewan sat back in his chair. ‘You’re saying because this is a private hospital you could go through all of this for nothing?’

  ‘Potentially yes. People don’t like questioning “experts” like Nathan. They want to trust them; they don’t want to believe they’re up to no good. There’s also every chance that because he’s important to the business and makes them so much money, they won’t suspend him because he’s too valuable to them. Listen, there are a couple of other complications I need to tell you about too.’ I tried to ignore the faint heart Nathan had drawn on the back of my hand as I swallowed a large swig of my G&T. ‘Remember on that rugby weekend I went for a run before we left on the Saturday morning? Nathan found me on the beach. He told me he’d fallen in love with me and he tried to kiss me.’

  Ewan went very still. He put his glass down and waited for me to continue.

  ‘I pushed him away, obviously. One of the other surgeons at work, a woman called Eleni, had given me the heads-up that he tries it on with everyone, so it wasn’t a total shock when it happened. I made it clear that we are very happily married and after that, nothing more was said about it. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to get angry with a parent at the school, when I felt I’d handled it. In retrospect, I wish I’d told you, because this afternoon in his office he pulled out his mobile, and showed me an image of him kissing me, taken at the beach that Saturday. Only the way it’s been taken, it makes it look like I’m kissing him.’

  Ewan began to rub the back of his neck as if it was sore. He appeared calm, but I knew it was simply years of practise at keeping his temper with hundreds of unruly pupils. It didn’t mean he wasn’t feeling anything.

  ‘Obviously, I’m not kissing him, but Nathan basically went on to say that if I made any allegations about him, the picture would come out and it’d look like I was up to my old tricks.’

  ‘Blackmail?’ Ewan picked up his glass and drained it.

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘And who exactly took this picture?’ Ewan got up and reached for the whisky bottle again. I forced myself not to say anything. He wasn’t Dom. This was an altogether different situation.

  ‘Storm, I think. She appeared at the caravan moments after me, looking for Nathan and Ben. They didn’t know she was coming. Her visit was meant to be a surprise.’ I watched Ewan pour another large measure.

  ‘I can see this is making you anxious.’ He lifted up the glass. ‘I won’t if it bothers you?’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Cass!’ Ewan shouted so suddenly that I jumped.

  Seconds later she appeared in the doorway. ‘Yeah? What’s up?’

  ‘I need you to do something and not ask why. Is that OK?’ He leant on the side and looked at her as he crossed his arms. ‘Could you do that?’

  ‘What’s going on? You both look freaked out?’

  ‘I need you to stay away from Ben,’ Ewan said. ‘No more going round to his house.’

  ‘Why?’ she said immediately.

  ‘Sometimes, just the fact that I’ve asked you is a good enough reason to say yes.’

  ‘He’s my friend. That’s not fair!’

  Ewan took a deep breath. ‘OK. I forbid you to see Ben outside of school from now onwards, and if I see you talking to him socially at school, I’ll be coming over and splitting you up in front of everyone, so unless you want a very embarrassing scene, I suggest you do as you’re told.’ He grabbed his glass of whisky, slung the contents down the sink and walked out of the room.

  ‘Is he serious?’ Cass turned to me, her voice wobbling. ‘I’m not allowed to see Ben anymore? Why does HE get to decide? He’s not the boss of me!’

  ‘I appreciate this seems really unfair, but just at the moment, it isn’t a good idea for you to see Ben.’

  ‘Can’t he come here? I don’t always have to go to his? Does that help?’

  I shook my head gently. ‘I’m really sorry. Let’s see how things are after Christmas.’

  ‘Is it your fault?’ she asked outright, and I shook my head. ‘No. And it’s not Ben’s either, but for now, please can you do this for us? Dad doesn’t mean it when he says you can’t talk to Ben at school, that would be crazy, but he doesn’t want you near Ben’s dad for the time being. Is that OK?’

  ‘Oh. It’s Ben’s dad.’ Cass paused. ‘It would have been a lot easier if you’d just said that?’

  ‘We want to keep you safe, that’s all. It’s probably better we don’t talk about it anymore. If I don’t tell you, you won’t feel you ought to tell Ben what you know, do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her voice was small and she suddenly looked much younger and more vulnerable than her thirteen years. ‘Can I go now?’

>   I found Ewan in our room, lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. ‘I’ll support whatever you decide to do and I mean that,’ he said as I walked in. ‘I need to ask you something, though… what Dom said, that I’m too stupid to see that you and Nathan are having a thing right under my nose…’

  I climbed onto the bed and knelt next to him, picking up his hand, which sat lifelessly in mine. ‘Dom didn’t know up from down when he said that. He was just about to go into rehab. He accused you and me of starting up behind his back and you KNOW that’s not true. There is absolutely nothing in what he said. I promise you.’

  ‘You didn’t – I don’t know – meet Nathan at one of these conventions or lectures you all go on and start something up then?’

  ‘Ewan!’ I looked at him aghast.

  ‘He’s a good-looking guy.’

  ‘He’s a predatory deviant.’

  Ewan closed his eyes again. He squeezed my hand and pulled me towards him. I lay in his arms and he kissed the top of my head. ‘Sorry. You’re right.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I don’t blame you. You’ve only voiced what everyone will be whispering behind my back, once this gets out.’

  ‘I have never met two women as brave as you and Lise,’ Ewan said suddenly. ‘She would say you were doing the right thing. She’d be angry that this has happened to you all over again, and she’d agree that you don’t have any choice but to report him. I apologise that wasn’t my first reaction. I just don’t want you to get hurt. I want life to be easier for all of us. Lord knows we deserve it. What’s that?’ He peered at the back of my hand, noticing the sore skin where I’d scrubbed and scrubbed at the heart. ‘It looks painful.’

  ‘It’ll be fine.’ I sat up to look for my hydrocortisone cream. ‘I understand how you feel, but I can’t let him get away with it. That would only reinforce Nathan’s opinion that he’s untouchable – and he isn’t. Men like him go into medicine because they’re deeply insecure and they need a career that makes them feel superior to everyone else. They get to spend their whole lives being told by society that they’re amazing; grateful patients doffing their caps; everybody worshiping them because they “save lives”, doing something that “really matters”. Like that bloke at Stefanie and Steve’s dinner, remember? No one ever challenges them at work; they have whole teams hanging on their every word in theatre. They’re used to being indulged and given total control… and it’s so bad for them! Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that sooner or later all that’s left is a monstrous, narcissistic ego.’