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

by Lucy Dawson

  I stand up and spontaneously hug her. ‘I love it, thank you.’

  ‘Christ, what’s the matter with you two?’ Hamish sweeps in, holding his ringing mobile phone and glares at us, shoving his bag down on his desk furiously. He’s had the most extraordinary haircut over the Christmas break, like someone used dirty bacon scissors, causing his pale straw hair to stick out in slightly greasy, blunt-edged clumps at random angles.

  ‘And what in God’s name is that?’ He squints bad-temperedly at my new mug on my desk. ‘“Visionaries, queens, women”,’ he reads aloud in disgust before flinging his phone, unanswered, into his bag. ‘Jesus wept.’

  I had been going to thank him for his presence at the search for Alex, but the words die on my lips. We seem to be back to ‘normal’ again. ‘Perhaps if you haven’t got anything nice to say, Hamish, don’t—’

  ‘Just shut up, Julia.’ He speaks over me, doesn’t even look up. ‘Know when not to push your luck.’ He yanks a laptop from his bag, peers at it, mutters and shoves it back in the bag before pulling another out instead. ‘Stay away from me today, all right? Or I’m going to end up doing or saying something I’ll regret.’

  Before I can respond, Michelle suddenly grabs my mug of tea and with a gasp of rage, flings the hot contents all over Hamish. Thankfully, he steps back, but it still hits his chest. Howling, he lurches instinctively towards Michelle. I reach out and pull her towards me.

  ‘Don’t you dare touch her!’ My eyes are wide with fear.

  ‘I had no intention of touching her!’ he exclaims. ‘I’m the one who has just had scalding liquid thrown in my face! Learn to bloody well control yourselves!’

  ‘It went nowhere near your face.’

  ‘I’m covered in it.’ He pulls the front of his shirt away from his skin as Michelle stares at the large tea stain, horrified. He makes a show of needing to pull the shirt tails from his trousers, briefly revealing a wobble of white, blond-haired stomach – like a side of raw pork. Michelle visibly retches, covers her mouth with her hand and turns away from him.

  He glares at her again. ‘That was a mistake. A huge mistake.’

  She looks back at him, visibly shaking. ‘What are you going to do to me that you haven’t already?’

  I come to my senses and step forward. ‘Michelle. Let’s leave the room now.’ I gently take the mug from her fingers and put it down, before starting to lead her away. ‘People will hear what you have to say, but let’s not do it this way.’

  ‘Oh really?’ Hamish starts to raise his voice. ‘People will hear! Because it’s Julia doing the shouting and everyone must listen?’

  I ignore him and lead her out. She’s trembling violently. ‘It’s OK, take a deep breath.’ I stand opposite her, my hands on her forearms as she clings on to me for support. ‘That’s it. Well done. And another… I look up to see Nathan rounding the corner in his overcoat and striding towards us, holding his mobile.

  ‘Is Hamish in there?’ he pants, pointing at the office. ‘Yes or no! I really need to speak to him!’ He glances at Michelle, noticing her tears. ‘Why are you crying?’

  She looks at the ceiling and gives a half laugh. ‘You mean he hasn’t told you? I thought you two share everything.’

  Nathan looks confused as Hamish appears in the doorway, wiping his front with a tea towel.

  ‘Don’t say anything you might regret.’ He points at Michelle. ‘And you, just get in here, now.’ He nods at Nathan, who pushes past him and the door closes in our faces.

  Michelle starts to shudder again. She seems to have gone into shock. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’ She has turned completely white; her skin is clammy. I look around for a bin, anything, as Tan arrives too, bike helmet swinging on his arm, backpack on his back. ‘Tan!’ I call. ‘Go and grab my rubbish bin! Quick as you—’ Before I can continue, the sound of muffled shouting from behind the closed office door reaches the three of us. I look at Tan worriedly and he frowns.

  ‘Who’s in there?’

  ‘Nathan and Hamish.’

  Tan draws back.

  ‘Ohhh!’ wails Michelle, looking at the ceiling. ‘I’m going to be…’ She gags and covers her mouth as we turn our attention back to her, Tan shoving his bike helmet under her mouth, while I hold her hair back. We are distracted from the noise on the other side of the door.

  Forty-Six

  Nathan

  ‘I don’t want to talk to you! I’ve told you that repeatedly! I have nothing to say to you. We are DONE, Nathan!’

  ‘You don’t just end a twenty-five-year friendship overnight, Ham. I know you’re pissed off with me, but—’

  ‘Pissed off?’ he repeats. ‘You simply don’t get it, do you? I’ve had enough. We are no longer friends.’

  ‘Oh come on!’ I retort. ‘That’s ridiculous. We’re not kids. You can’t just “stop” being my friend.’

  ‘I can and I have.’

  ‘No, you’re stuck with me!’ I joke, feeling panic rising in my chest. I’m about to tell him that I’m going to need his support as I face these allegations. I also want to ask his opinion of my moving to America, maybe for six months or so until this all calms down. ‘I’m not going to let you!’

  ‘You don’t have a choice!’ He rounds on me furiously. ‘You stay away from me or I will show them all of my files. You’re in pretty much every single one. Looking at the camera and laughing in some of them.’ He points at his laptop.

  It’s like someone yanking a dressing from skin it’s become stuck to. I gasp as I feel the scabs give way, exposing raw flesh beneath. ‘You kept the files? I thought you’d deleted them!’

  He shakes his head. ‘Don’t push me, Nathan. I mean what I say.’

  ‘Why are you being like this?’ I stare at him, trying to make sense of what he’s saying. ‘What’s happened? You’re not yourself. You’re threatening people left, right and centre. Michelle just now, for example.’ I jerk a thumb at the closed door. ‘What was she talking about, we “share everything”?’

  Hamish flushes bright red. He’s sweating profusely. ‘I’m not discussing that girl with you or anyone!’

  I hesitate, recalling him lurking in shadows of the bedroom, watching me with Michelle, staying there when I left her on the bed. ‘You didn’t…’ The penny drops and I’m horrified. ‘Shit, Hamish! Was it because everything else was stopping? You thought you’d go out with a bang? That’s why you haven’t wanted the police anywhere near you!’

  ‘Shut up!’ he hisses, glancing over his shoulder in panic at the door. ‘Someone will hear you! I swear to God, if you breathe a word to anyone… You were the one who cut her leg, remember?’ He reaches into his pocket and pulls out my knife. A trapdoor springs under me. I feel my legs going.

  ‘You said you’d take care of that!’ I whisper.

  ‘I have. Very good care. If you say a single thing about what happened after the club back at the house, I will put you right there with me, injuries to her inner thigh and all.’

  ‘Hamish, this is me you’re talking to!’ My voice cracks. ‘We’re family! I love you, pal!’

  ‘No, you don’t!’ He exclaims. ‘You only ever think about yourself. You hid a child in my sister’s hotel. You rang me in the middle of the night from the police station, when I told you to sort it out yourself!’

  I hold up my hands. The laptop is just sitting there on the table. I can see it out of the corner of my eye. ‘I’m truly sorry about that, but I didn’t know I was going to get arrested, did I? And it all worked out fine. You let him go.’

  He looks at me like I’m cracked. ‘What are you talking about? I drove all the way there, on my on-call night – just stop and think what would have happened if an emergency had come in at work – and he wasn’t there! Just a mattress in the cinema and loads of shitty chocolate wrappers everywhere that I had to tidy up! I checked every room, marched up every corridor before having to turn around and drive home again.’ He steps closer to me, scarlet in the face, his eyes bulgi
ng with rage. ‘I was going to put him in the sea, let his body wash up. That’s what I was going to do because of you!’

  ‘Calm down,’ I instruct him. ‘You’re just ranting now. You look like you’re going to have a heart attack or something.’

  ‘You don’t think, do you?’ His hand is gripping the closed knife. ‘Someone else always cleans up for you and you act like it’s no big deal. A kid hidden in the hotel that police forces up and down the country are looking for. Your recklessness beggars belief. You’re nothing but a child yourself!’

  ‘I didn’t understand why you were so afraid of the police getting close to you. If I’d realised that—’

  ‘No, Nathan. I don’t trust you anymore. We’re done. I know where your loyalty lies now and it isn’t with me.’

  He turns away, but I’m too quick for him. I dart over to grab the laptop, but he blocks my path. Stumbling slightly, we bash into the edge of the desk and he drops the knife, snatching up the laptop and wrapping his fat arms around it like a vice while I try to yank it from his grip. He’s surprisingly strong and shoves me back, but I manage to pull it clear. He gasps as I triumphantly step away with it, then grabs at his right arm, his face screwed up in pain.

  ‘Come off it. I didn’t touch you.’ I roll my eyes.

  He bends forward suddenly, taking a few staggering steps like he’s in an imaginary ruck – minus the rest of the pack – pausing before stepping back, straightening up and looking at me, his eyes wide with fright. Fuck, is he actually having a heart attack?

  ‘Hamish? Are you all right?’ Worried, I lower the laptop and step towards him, at which point he lunges for me. I twist away and elbow him, shoving him hard, but he loses his footing and stumbles sideways, crashing into one of the desks and hitting the side of his head on the corner, before falling to the floor, eyes closed.

  ‘Nice try.’ I scrabble for the knife and shove it in my pocket. I have everything now, thank God. Panting, I watch him for a moment… but he doesn’t move. ‘Hamish? Stop messing about!’

  No response.

  I put the laptop down and am next to him in seconds. ‘Hamish! Can you hear me? Hamish?’

  Forty-Seven

  Julia

  ‘What was that noise?’ I frown at Tan, who moves quickly to open the office door. Hamish is unconscious, with Nate kneeling over him calling his name. ‘Hamish? Hamish, can you hear me?’ He looks up panicked. ‘Call 2222! He hit the side of his head hard and he’s out cold.’

  I dart to the nearest phone. ‘We’ve got an unconscious adult. We need the cardiac arrest team.’ I give my location, name and extension number and, hanging up, I move over to Nathan, who is loosening Hamish’s collar and checking his breathing, muttering ‘don’t do this, pal! Can you hear me?’

  Michelle is in the doorway, hand covering her mouth, and more staff appear alongside her.

  ‘Don’t just stand there! Has it been more than two minutes, people?’ Nathan shouts. ‘Repeat the 2222, Julia! Tell them I said to get a fucking move on!’

  I move to the phone again, but the crash team are already arriving, spilling in through the door, asking what’s happened, getting a trolley, ringing Resus to say Hamish is on his way.

  In theatre, they open his skull, go in through the dura mater and remove a massive clot with suction… but there are complications. Acute subdural hematomas have one of the highest mortality rates of all head injuries, and Hamish is not one of the lucky ones. He dies mid-afternoon with his family and Nathan by his side.

  Later in the day, as it’s starting to get dark, I’m sitting outside on a low brick wall with Tan at the back of the car park by the entrance to A&E. We are holding lukewarm tea in takeout cups that neither of us is drinking. It’s cold and I’m trying not to shiver, but I’m not going to say anything because Tan is in tears and I just want to sit with him. It’s hard though, to comfort someone without touching them, or speaking. Eventually I crack.

  ‘I’m so sorry for your loss. It’s really shocking when someone you are close to dies in a location that you’re used to seeing through professional eyes.’ I wonder whether to tell him that Lise died in the hospital that I was working in at the time, and how difficult I found that to deal with for years afterwards, how complicated my grief became in my mind as a result, but like Jim earlier this morning, I’m wary of sharing – because I don’t want him to think I’m making this about me.

  He doesn’t reply, just looks at the network of industrial pipes snaking up the outside of the building, pumping fat clouds of steam into the grey sky. I can see him trying to find the sense in what has happened.

  I don’t know I’m going to say it. I’ve no idea if it’s my shock at witnessing a colleague dying in front of all of us only hours earlier – yet again seeing how quickly we can lose the opportunity to say important things to people on the twist of a sixpence – but I blurt: ‘thank you for joining the search for Alex on Saturday morning. I saw you on TV with Nate and Hamish. And thank you for rescuing him on Saturday night, because I think it was you.’

  The words are out of my mouth before I remember what I promised Alex. He said I always tell… and he was right. Horrified, I glance at Tan, who is now biting his lip, hard, and staring at the ground.

  ‘I should say Alex didn’t name you,’ I add immediately. ‘And I haven’t discussed what he said with anyone at all. He only told me that someone from the rugby weekend helped him. It was all my assumption after that.’ I am making this worse. ‘The thing is, Nathan spent Saturday night at Heavitree police station, so that ruled him out. I went to see you at home on Sunday morning, and Trish said you’d been called in to cover Hamish’s on-call. Only at the hospital they said you hadn’t been there?’ I shoot another tentative look at him. ‘And as Hamish was on call, it was unlikely to be him who went to rescue Alex, and he wasn’t exactly my number one fan in any case. Although – if it was Hamish, you’re going to be sitting there wondering what the HELL I’m talking about!’ I give a wobbly laugh and put my cup down on the floor so I can reach into my bag for a tissue.

  ‘Alex was hidden in the secret cinema at Fowles, the boutique hotel in Lyme Regis that belongs to Hamish’s sister,’ Tan says suddenly. ‘I found your son on a mattress, in the dark, on the floor in front of the screen, taped up and locked in.’

  I straighten back up very slowly and turn to face him. He doesn’t look at me. His eyes are closed, his cheeks wet. He’s put his drink on the floor. His hands are now pushing down onto the wall either side of him, as if he’s braced for impact of some sort. ‘There were no windows, no phone – just a loo off the main room. It was a good hiding place. Alex had some water bottles, a duvet, but he didn’t have any more food that I could see.’

  ‘How did you know he was there?’

  ‘Every year, the first weekend in January, Nate and Hamish quietly hold an “event” at the hotel for some selected male “friends”. We all have our own keys.’ Tan glances at me quickly. ‘Paid women, yeah?’

  I nod to show I understand, but I’m completely shocked. Tan?

  ‘I don’t participate; I want to make that very clear. I’m simply expected to attend, in case they need someone sober; a driver, a doctor – you get the picture. Nate cancelled it because he felt there was too much police activity. It was going to be a very,’ he pauses, ‘significant gathering this year. Hamish was agitated. I heard them talking – Hamish told Nate to sort something out by Sunday. I wondered, and I was right. When you saw us on television looking for Alex, we were actually discussing cancelling it all then. Nate felt the search was a good opportunity for us to talk in person without having to do it over the phone or via messages, in case anyone was monitoring our activity.’

  I gasp.

  ‘I know, it’s deplorable. That picture Nate has of you kissing him at the beach, the one Hamish took?’

  ‘Hamish?’

  Tan nods miserably. ‘They have a picture of me like that too, but more graphic. The first year I joined the depar
tment, Nate and Hamish asked me to come to their “select gathering” in the hotel. I was flattered to be asked. We had just moved to a new area. I wanted to ingratiate myself and make some friends. I imagined men playing cards, cigars, whisky – no wives. Too much testosterone and not really my thing, but I wanted to make an effort.’ He shrugs. ‘And at first it was like that. I got drunk. I’m not a drinking man. Then suddenly there were women arriving. I was very drunk… more than that; I was not really able to move. I was on a hotel bed, very confused.’ His eyes close again. ‘I remember hearing laughing and cheering. The next morning, Hamish shows me a picture of what appears to be me penetrating a naked woman straddling me. I don’t believe I possibly could have been doing anything, but that’s not what it looks like, what it would look like to Trish, to my family. I have never, ever committed adultery. I love my wife.’ His voice starts to shake. ‘I love my children.

  ‘Nate and Hamish would have destroyed everything for me. They bought my silence and I am ashamed. I am bitterly, bitterly ashamed. And I am so sorry I brought you and Alex into this.’ He seems unable to stop his confession now that he’s started it. ‘I really did want you to come here because I thought that perhaps you would stop them. You wouldn’t be weak like me. You had taken on a whole hospital before coming here. You wouldn’t turn a blind eye to the way these men operate… but I truly did not realise there was nothing they would not do. After you reported Nathan and Alex disappeared… I couldn’t stand by. He’s a child! I found him, I drove him to Budleigh and I told him to walk back along the coast road as if he had reappeared.’ He turns to me urgently. ‘But you understand why I couldn’t say anything, right? They still have that picture of me – they would use it if they knew what I’d done. They are monstrous men… but now to see Hamish dying like that in front of me and feel nothing but relief?’ He places his hand on his heart. ‘I am a doctor.’ He starts to weep again. ‘I am supposed to preserve life and all I could think was, please die!’