The Secret: The brand new thriller from the bestselling author of The Teacher

There was a message there already. Lying next to the words was a metal spoon, the end of it worn down to almost nothing. Her name was carved into the floor, again and again, the handwriting growing more and more manic as the words stacked up. She had been here for a while. She had done this before. What was wrong with her memory?

Bridget got down on her knees and started to scribble her name once more. Over and over. Her hand began to ache. Her head hurt and she felt nauseated. Who the hell was that man? The man that had made her feel so good, who she had wanted to stay with her. Who she had wanted to sleep with? She searched her mind for a name. Nothing happened. She couldn’t find it. Was he another hallucination? What the hell were those pills? She hoped to God she would remember. She didn’t want to go to sleep again for fear of forgetting everything. God knew how many times she had forgotten all this before. She lay down and clutched at her head, hoping to stop the spinning. Her eyes grew heavy and sleep drew closer. It was pulling her down, down into the darkness …

Chapter 10: The Scarred

The present

Imogen stumbled around the bathroom in the morning half-light. She thought about running herself a hot bath, but she didn’t want to lie in the water looking at the remnants of her stomach wound. Since leaving Plymouth, she’d found baths harder, preferring to shower so that she couldn’t see her body. Although the scar was pink and faded she liked to pretend it wasn’t there. The scar wasn’t the only thing: if she looked down, she could just see the bullet wound she’d sustained in the schoolteacher case too. It had healed in the last few weeks, forming a neat plum circle. Somehow, that one hurt less; it didn’t give her the same amount of trauma as the injury she’d sustained in Plymouth. She closed her eyes, the memory of what had happened rushing back. Leaving Plymouth. Transferring to Exeter. Sam. The scar.

Imogen turned on the shower. She had to keep going. These days, she spent hours every morning smacking the shit out of the punching bag she’d installed in her garden. Rain or shine, she was out there kicking and punching her way back to work. Still, she couldn’t look at herself until the towel was securely around her, hiding her embarrassment. Twice now she had almost been killed. Twice she had failed at her job. Twice she had needed rescuing. Never again. She picked up her baggy combat trousers and loose-fitting raglan t-shirt and got ready for work.

When Imogen arrived at Adrian’s house there was no answer. She knew he was home; his bike was still chained up to the front railings. She banged on the door again and saw the blinds upstairs twitch before hearing thumping on the stairs. The door swung open and he appeared, shielding his eyes from the sunlight that poured through the door.

‘Have a good night?’ She smiled. Adrian groaned.

‘What time is it?’

‘Time to go, Miley, get dressed.’ She looked down at his trousers, pulled up but not done up, socks and shirt in his hand.

‘How’s my car?’ Adrian had given Imogen his car after crashing in her own at the end of the last case they’d worked on together. The sort of thing Sam would never have done. Adrian was a better partner in so many ways.

‘Hideous, Miley, but I do appreciate it. I need to get something a little less middle-aged-travelling-salesman though.’

‘You leave her alone.’ He pulled his shirt over his head, still buttoned up from the day before.

‘I’m going car shopping this weekend; you’re welcome to help me out.’ Imogen heard the toilet flush upstairs and Miles looked away sheepishly. Imogen raised an eyebrow. She knew exactly what had made him sleep in late this morning. He pulled on his boots and grabbed his keys.

‘I think I’ve got Tom this weekend.’

‘Bring him along, he probably knows more about cars than you.’

‘Hey! I’ve taught my son everything he knows.’

‘If you say so.’ She walked over to his car and got in.

‘Didn’t you lock it?’ Miles asked.

‘Trust me, I could leave the engine running and the door open and no one would steal this piece of crap, Miley. No offence.’

Adrian and Imogen walked into the station to find DCI Fraser trying to catch their attention without anyone else noticing, raising his eyebrows at them across the room. He looked so shifty that they couldn’t help smirking at each other. Fraser was one of the few people that Adrian trusted, as much as he trusted anyone. Not quite unconditionally, but there was an innocence about him, with his constantly raised eyebrows as if he had just been told something very surprising indeed and he just couldn’t wait to tell the next person he bumped into, confidentiality be damned. Upon entering his office they closed the door.

‘Forensics are down by the river at the moment scouring the place. There’s a lot of pressure from above to find this Bridget girl in one piece. Apart from anything else, we have a lot of questions for her.’

‘What’s with all the subterfuge?’

‘I know your ex-partner has a vested interest in this, Imogen … I mean, Grey … and I know he thinks he’s heading the investigation, but he isn’t. For starters, her being his girlfriend means that he’s way too close to this, and secondly, we don’t know his involvement at this point. The fact is, we have to treat him as a suspect in her disappearance.’

‘I think that’s wise, sir,’ Imogen snorted.

‘I don’t know exactly what happened at your old station, Grey …’ He looked at Adrian.

‘It’s OK. You can talk in front of him.’

‘I know you claimed that DS Brown was instrumental in an attack you sustained and I know about the restraining order. If you don’t want him in this office, I can arrange for him to come for briefings when you’re out. I wish I could keep him away altogether but we need to keep him close, at least for the time being. We need to find DS Reid.’

‘No, it’s fine. I can deal with it.’ She looked embarrassed at this concession. ‘But thank you.’

‘So what’s the plan then, Fraser?’ Adrian asked, trying to divert the attention away from Imogen.

‘The plan is we find her. They’ve gone over the riverbank near the pub where she was supposed to meet Brown, but they can’t see anything. A car was reported stolen near her place and found near the river – we’re just confirming the forensics but it looks as though it was definitely her. We’re looking a bit nearer to the bank now as she was most likely on foot the rest of the way.’

‘What about us? What do we do?’

‘The usual. Go over her phone records. Request any private CCTV footage from the area. Sam said she had a camera set up in her room to record stuff going on, in case she had a run in with anyone important. I will liaise with Brown, so any information you get comes to me first, OK?’

‘I thought all her Johns were fake? Informants and plants.’

‘We’re a bit blind at the moment. All we have are second-hand accounts of what went on. The tech guys have her laptop, so you can go see Gary Tunney if you want.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Oh, and just to let you know, Tunney’s transfer is official as of next week. He will be our very own computer forensic nerd. With us full time.’ He gave them a thumbs up.

‘Good to know,’ Adrian said as they left, heading straight for the laptop.

Chapter 11: The Boat

The present

‘What have you found?’ Adrian asked Tunney, who was fiddling around with Bridget Reid’s computer.

‘Well, she had a motion-activated camera in the brothel, so every time she, or anyone else, came into the room the camera switched on, recorded what happened, and sent the info straight back to this hard drive, which is time and date stamped. It’s more sophisticated than a lot of surveillance equipment, and from looking around on her laptop I can see that she knew her way around technology. Which obviously helps us out.’

‘Did you know her?’ Imogen asked.

‘She came to my lab once, yeah, she was a smart cookie.’

‘Let’s not use past tense just yet,’ Adrian interjected.

‘So did you watch any of the footage?’

‘I did, and it’s a lot of her on her own in her room; when a guy visits she locks the door and they just sit around with loud music on.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Well the girl from upstairs comes in and takes clothes, goes through her stuff when she’s out, bit of a magpie, I think. Don’t see much of her actual flatmate except when they’re in there together.’

‘What about Sam?’ Imogen asked.

‘Friday night regular. Under the covers stuff. Obviously they both know the camera’s there and so …’

‘So they’re in bed together?’

‘Yeah, a lot of whispering and stuff. I don’t know about anything else. Seemed kinda wrong to watch any of the sexy stuff. So I just forwarded through it, nothing of much interest there. I mean … well you know what I mean.’

‘Someone’s going to have to watch it.’ Imogen pulled a face.

‘I’ll watch it. I don’t know him so I can be more objective,’ Adrian offered.

‘So she doesn’t talk about any information she might have gained in these Friday night meetings?’

‘Nope, all her communications are via encrypted email, like seriously encrypted. She had some skills. I mean has,’ Tunney corrected himself as Adrian shot him a look.

‘Anything else on the drive we should know about? Footage of the murders’d be a hell of a bonus.’

‘Well, there is an anomaly in the metadata; I think there are some videos missing from the file.’

‘Can you find those videos?’

‘Short answer is yes.’

‘What’s the long answer?’

‘It’s going to take me some time. Like I said, she has skills.’

‘And it’s not possible these videos are just clips of her and Sam?’ Imogen asked, a slight grimace on her face.

‘Well, she left those in, so it seems unlikely it’s just that.’

‘But she’s the one who will have deleted the files?’

‘Yeah, but this isn’t as simple as just clicking delete, she’ll have had to work to get rid of that data. After a point the information gets sent to whichever tech is dealing with her stuff, my guess is she didn’t want them seeing it.’

‘You’d better find that data then.’

Adrian’s phone beeped and he looked at the message. Fraser.

‘Fraser has the CCTV from all the cameras at the riverbank, all the ones that are working at least. He says they’ve found something.’

Thanking Tunney, Imogen and Adrian set off back to Fraser’s office. On the way up, Imogen looked around the corridor to make sure they were alone. She put a hand on Adrian’s arm, clearly agitated.

‘I know what Sam’s been saying, Miley, but I don’t trust him. There are a lot of things he isn’t telling us. Believe me, he was my partner, I know. He isn’t – he isn’t a good person. He’s hiding things.’

‘Well, it’s a classified operation. There must be things he can’t tell us.’

‘I worked with him, Miley, and I know when he’s lying. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was him who deleted those files, whatever they are.’

‘Does he have those kinds of computer skills?’ Adrian asked her, surprised.

‘He could have had help.’

‘Well, Tunney is on the case.’

‘I’m just letting you know that you can’t believe a word that comes out of Sam’s mouth.’

‘Are you OK, Grey?’

‘Really?’ She looked as though he had just spat on her face.

‘I mean … you seem really upset. I don’t know this guy as well as you do, but look – he’s still working, he can’t be as bent as you’re thinking. Are you sure this isn’t paranoia getting the better of you?’

‘Fuck you!’ She pushed him hard and he slammed against the wall. It didn’t take a detective to realise she was upset.

Adrian knew that feeling and made a deal with himself not to be such a prick in the future. He remembered how people called him paranoid at times when he started spiralling out of control, and it did nothing but make him worse. He wouldn’t do that to Imogen. She had just got back to work; he should give her a break.

In Fraser’s office, the three of them gathered around the CCTV. They saw Bridget running terrified into the park and hiding inside a children’s adventure castle. They saw a man coming down to the river and looking for her, getting close and then going the wrong way.

‘Why doesn’t she go to one of the flats or something?’ Imogen asked, leaning in to look closer at the screen. Adrian had already tried that and it was no use, the faces were a blur. As they watched, a car pulled into the shot and the fuzzy figure of Bridget slipped into the water, clinging to the side of the river and moving along the bank.

‘She must be fucking freezing.’ Adrian felt cold just watching it.

‘Yeah but she’s alive, that’s something,’ Fraser offered.

‘What’s that?’ Imogen pointed to the screen.

‘What?’

‘Look, the boat, that one there, it’s moving.’

They watched as Bridget disappeared down the river, a few moments later the boat Imogen was pointing to started to follow her, moving in the same direction.

‘Can you read the name on that boat?’ Fraser asked hopefully. ‘It would be great if I can tell the press something.’

‘No, but it’s got those distinctive stripes on it. We’ll go down and have a look, see what’s what.’

‘What do you think they’re doing? Do you think this is an opportunistic attack?’

‘I don’t know, maybe it’s a coincidence that this boat is travelling in the same direction as she is.’

‘I don’t believe in coincidences,’ Adrian said, moving towards the door.

‘Well, whatever’s going on here, there’s a good chance the guy in the boat saw something.’

‘I know how much you like the water, Grey. Let’s go,’ Adrian said, trying to crack the frosty atmosphere. He knew Imogen didn’t have any sea legs.

‘I’ll get on to the company that handles the boats down there, see if I can get a list of the owners,’ Fraser said.

The boat was surprisingly easy to find. Glitterbug was a small blue ship with two stripes of different thicknesses; Imogen and Adrian found it moored near the spot where it had been in the video footage. Adrian watched as Imogen approached the boat first, peering inside.

‘I think there’s someone in there,’ she said finally. ‘I think I hear a radio or something.’

Adrian stepped aboard and offered his hand to Imogen. He banged on the cabin door and heard shuffling coming from inside. The door opened and a man peered out. Adrian held his badge up.

‘I’m DS Miles and this is my partner, DS Grey of the Exeter Police Force. We’re making inquiries about something that may have happened here on Friday night. CCTV in the area saw that you were on your boat. A police officer went missing.’

‘Oh, do you mean the girl in the water?’ The man stepped out on to the deck.

‘You saw her?’ Imogen asked.

‘Yeah, I did, I dunno what she was doing. I thought she was hammered. I was going to call someone but I didn’t want to get involved, you know?’

‘So what did you do?’

‘Well, I followed her a bit in the boat, but it got too dark to see and I didn’t want to hit her. I called out a few times but no one answered. It’s not very well lit the further down you go.’

‘You still didn’t call the police?’

‘You see all kinds of crazy shit down here, kids mucking about, pissheads and stuff. I just figured she was fine.’

Imogen was shaking her head furiously. She pulled out her phone and started texting someone, her fingers flying over the keys.

‘What were you doing on your boat so late anyway?’ Adrian asked, resting a hand against the door of the cabin.

‘I just like it at night, it’s usually quiet and no one bothers me down here.’

‘Did you see anyone besides the girl?’

‘Not at first, no, but I did see a silver car come and look around.’

‘Did you see anyone in the car?’

‘There was only one bloke in it, I think.’

The detectives exchanged looks. If there was only one person in the car then it couldn’t have been the men from earlier, unless one of them had come back on his own. Or maybe it was Sam Brown. Imogen’s phone beeped.

‘Do you know what kind of car it was?’ she asked the man, her eyes on the phone screen.

‘A saloon, that’s about all I can tell you; like I say, it was really dark and I wasn’t exactly close.’

‘Anything else you remember about the car? Anything at all?’

‘No, I’m sorry. Nothing.’

A phone started to ring on the boat and Imogen looked past the man into the darkness of the cabin. The ringtone was coming from inside.

‘Hmm,’ Imogen said, holding up her mobile, ‘I just dialled DS Bridget Reid’s phone. That’s interesting. You want to tell me why you have it?’

Adrian immediately pushed past the man before he had a chance to react. He went into the cabin and found the vibrating phone resting on a little table to the left of the door. The man raised his hands up.

‘Look, look, OK, I found it in the park. I had no idea it belonged to the girl in the water. How could I?’

‘We’re going to need you to come in and make a statement.’

For a moment, the man looked as though he might be going to resist, but then he nodded. ‘No problem, anything to help the police.’

The detectives watched closely as he locked the cabin door, and followed Imogen and Adrian willingly off the boat.

Imogen watched the man from the boat through the glass window of the interrogation room. He seemed very calm, but there was something about him that made her skin crawl.

‘His name is Ben Vickers and he’s got previous.’ Miles burst in with a file.

‘What kind of previous?’

‘Well, he’s on the sex offenders’ register, for a start.’

‘You’re kidding?’

‘I wish I was. No, he’s been cautioned three times for stalking and he lost his job after he sexually assaulted one of the women he worked with. It wasn’t a violent assault, but still. He was a security guard up at the shopping centre.’

‘Any connection to Bridget Reid?’

‘None that we can see. No connection to that house either. There’s a note here that says he was arrested for soliciting a prostitute, but he got out of it.’

‘It’s tenuous, Miley, but I guess he might have known Bridget through her flatmate or something.’

‘So why aren’t you in there?’

‘He’s waiting for his lawyer. But we can go in now, if you like.’

They stepped into the room and sat opposite Ben Vickers, who had a disconcerting smirk on his weather-beaten face.

‘I don’t expect my lawyer to be much longer,’ Vickers said. ‘I hate to keep you waiting like this. I just know how these things work, and I’m not talking to you without representation. I been stung before, you see. But I expect you know that by now.’

‘Yes, we are aware of your record. It’s not a problem, we don’t mind waiting.’ Adrian folded his arms and settled in, staring down Vickers. Vickers stared straight back.

Eventually, the door opened and in walked the lawyer, a tall man in a sharp black suit. He sat next to his client and addressed Adrian directly.

‘My name’s Jonathan Clark and I’m here to represent Mr Vickers. Can I get a moment alone with my client?’

‘It’s all right son, I got nothing to hide,’ Vickers exclaimed.

‘Mr Vickers, you are not under arrest. We just need you to tell us exactly where you got that phone that was found in your boat,’ Adrian said.

‘I told you, I got it in the park.’

‘When?’

‘Well, I saw the girl come out of the park, the kids’ play area bit, and I saw her get into the water, so after I tried to follow her I went to the park and the phone was there. I was going to bring it in but I forgot.’

‘So the last time you saw her was in the water?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘But you said you couldn’t follow her in the boat and so you went back.’

‘Yeah, that night, that’s right.’

‘OK, so you saw her after that night?’

‘First light I went down to the river and I saw her lying on the grass. I slept in my boat, woke up with the sun.’

‘And you didn’t call the police then either?’

‘Not my business, is it?’

‘What state was she in?’ Imogen said through gritted teeth. What was wrong with people?

‘I’m pretty sure she was asleep.’

‘So did you approach her?’

‘No, I’m not stupid, probably get done for something or other if I did.’

‘Did you even check if she was alive?’

‘Some bloke in a black car came along and lifted her up, she was out of it but she was definitely alive, moaning and stuff she was.’

‘What bloke? What did he do with her?’

‘Put her in the passenger seat of his car, that’s why I thought he probably knew her, didn’t shove her in the boot or nothing.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Imogen muttered. What upset her most was that this kind of thing wasn’t unusual, people watched crimes take place all the time but didn’t want to get involved. It made her job so much harder.

‘Was this the saloon you told us about before?’ Adrian leaned forward as he spoke to Vickers.

‘No, it wasn’t a saloon, it was like one of them poncy cars’

‘A sports car?’

‘No, no, like a Jeep thing, you know, a four-by-four. One of them what’s got the big wheel on the door of the boot.’

‘Like a Land Rover or something?’

‘Yeah, that kind of thing.’

The door opened and Fraser stuck his head in, nodding for them both to come out. Imogen looked up at the clock before turning to the tape recorder.

‘Interview suspended at 13:41.’ She switched the tape off and then looked at the lawyer. ‘We’ll be back in a bit.’

‘They found the other videos on the laptop,’ Fraser whispered to Imogen once they were outside the room. ‘I think maybe we need to have another word with your ex-partner.’

Chapter 12: The Video

The present

Adrian, Imogen and DCI Fraser walked into the tech lab to find Gary Tunney concentrating grimly on the laptop.

‘What did you find?’

‘Well, it looks like she set up a cloud account that all her videos were automatically sent to. It wasn’t easy to find. She used layer upon layer of encryption, but anyway, I’ve got them.’

‘I’ve always suspected that you’re a wizard,’ Imogen said, patting Tunney affectionately on the head.

‘So …? Don’t leave us hanging!’ Adrian interjected.

‘Right, well, one of the guys who visits her is an undercover, and they definitely seem like more than just friends. She puts the music on and then he gets a bit fresh, just a kiss, instigated by him. She pushes him away.’

‘So that’s it? Do we know who that is?’

‘I’ve put in a request to find out the name, we can’t blow his cover and we might not even be able to interview him,’ Fraser said.

‘Well, that’s bullshit.’

‘Do we think Sam knew about this guy and her?’

‘It’s possible,’ Tunney said, clicking on another one of the entries. ‘We know he wasn’t happy about something.’

Cue Sam bursting into her room and literally pulling Bridget out of the bed by her throat and pinning her against the wall. Tunney paused the tape and looked at them both.

‘Woah!’ Imogen exclaimed.

‘I should warn you, what happens next is not cool.’

‘Play it.’ Adrian braced himself.

Tunney turned the machine back on and they saw Sam Brown repeatedly hitting Bridget Reid in the face and stomach. Adrian felt himself getting light-headed just looking at the screen. It was a horrible reminder that your first instincts about people are usually the right ones. The first time he had met Sam Brown he hadn’t trusted him, but he’d allowed himself to be suckered in, had given him the benefit of the doubt. He felt guilty for what he’d said to Imogen earlier. The scene reminded him of being a child, of the awful times that he’d seen his father smacking his mother around, usually high on something or other.