Tell Me Your Secret Read online

  This is Ned Wellst. The man who grew from the boy who bullied me. The guy who tried to carry it on into college. Who altered the course of my internal life. I had to unlearn everything he and his various acolytes had said; had to learn how to ignore, disbelieve and overcome every word, remark and taunt.

  That is who Ned Wellst is.

  This is Ned Wellst. The man I’ve come to when I needed to hide with my son. The only person on Earth I’ve told my most terrifying secrets. The only man who has been able to explain to me that my son was my choice, and that my fears and worries and shameful thoughts are normal and to be expected.

  That is who Ned Wellst is.

  Still staring at him, I reach out and open the door to his cabin.

  That is the Ned Wellst I want – need – to be with right now.

  Pieta

  Friday, 12 July

  My hands tremble as I unbutton then unzip my jeans. My heart throws itself against my ribcage as I tug my jeans down over my hips, revealing my fuchsia-pink knickers. Pink knickers for Fridays. For the start of the weekend, to make sure the last day of the working week is no longer just the day of the week when my nightmare began.

  I kick my jeans aside to reveal my odd socks. Yellow and orange. When I’m wearing trousers, I always wear odd socks, to get a double-hit of colour next to my skin. I push off each sock with the opposite foot.

  Without me asking him to, Ned stays on the other side of the cabin. This isn’t his usual cabin, I realise, he’s given that to me. His cabin is large with a bigger bed, more storage. This room is smaller, a double bed, no visible signs of where to store things.

  I watch him take off his navy-green jumper and pale-green T-shirt in one go. His body is as firm as I thought it would be, with a slight paunch around the middle that slopes down into his jeans. I observe him unbuckle his belt then unbutton his jeans, and I want to look away, stop myself from watching him become naked in front of me, but I can’t. The last time a man undressed in my presence, I had my eyes closed. I had to link the sound to the action in my head from memory without ever being sure which bit was which – I had to prepare myself for what came after the sounds of undressing stopped.

  I have to watch Ned, see him, experience it and make it normal. Make it part of what normal sex is about.

  I baulk slightly at his penis, now it’s uncovered; it stands red, hard, erect between his solid, hairy thighs. I haven’t seen one like this for so long.

  My eyes sweep over his body, assessing him, reminding myself that this is what men look like when they’re naked. And this is what having sex is about – using all of your available senses to enjoy it. This is what I can be a part of, not apart from.

  Run away.

  Run away.

  Runawayrunawayrunawayrunaway. The panic builds in my head, in the well of my chest. Runawayrunawayrunawayrunaway.

  He comes towards me and the panic continues to build. What is he going to do? Is he going to hurt me? Torture me? Force me?

  In front of me, Ned rests his forehead on mine and closes his eyes. ‘This is still, officially, not a good idea,’ he murmurs.

  The panic disintegrates and I can slip my arms around his body. His lips find mine, mine carefully kiss him back. ‘Oh, it’s the worst idea.’ I pull away for a moment and stare into his eyes. ‘I can’t take my top off because of the . . . becau—’ He cuts me short by kissing me, telling me he understands, he doesn’t expect me to do anything I’m not ready for.

  On the bed, our lips move smoothly and longingly together. His hands move lovingly over my body, stroking and caressing, attentively bringing pleasure to each part he touches.

  He rests his fingers on the top of my knickers, then pauses, silently checking it’s OK to do this, to remove them, to bring us one step closer together. ‘Yes,’ I whisper and kiss him. ‘Yes,’ I say against his lips.

  He rolls down and removes my knickers, then positions himself between my legs. Our kissing intensifies and suddenly a flame is lit, and passion, an unexpected craving, ignites.

  I want this.

  I need this.

  My eyes are open, staring into his; his mouth is smiling as he gazes down at me, my hands are on his face, his are in my hair and everything seems to stop for a moment. Just a moment and we connect with the people we are behind our eyes.

  I gasp as he pushes into me, brings us even closer, allowing us to occupy the same space.

  Our eyes stay linked as he starts to thrust. Deeper, faster.

  I cling to him as he moves, my fingers pressing into his skin, my legs wrapped around his body; he stares at me, groaning softly with each push.

  ‘Ohhhh,’ I unexpectedly moan. ‘Ohhhhhh.’

  He grins at me and drives himself further into me.

  ‘Ohhhhhhh,’ I moan again and the pleasure pulses and surges through me. His face watches mine and he moves – slows, speeds, intensifies – in response to everything I do.

  Another deep groan from us both and he begins to speed up, move faster and harder, our eyes always connected. I feel myself letting go, allowing the orgasm to take on a life of its own as it races up through me, galloping and hurtling through every cell, bounding and sprinting through every blood vessel, every artery, every muscle until it hits the top, crescendos in a mass of cries that escape my lips, and tremors that move my whole body.

  Ned keeps going, keeps thrusting and pushing until I sag against the bed, finished, spent. Immediately he pulls out, pushes up the front of my top before loudly moaning my name as his orgasm spills all over my abdomen, my pubic hair, the bed.

  ‘No condom,’ he explains between panting breaths and deep swallows. ‘No condom.’ He flops down onto the bed beside me. ‘We really shouldn’t have done that without a condom, but definitely couldn’t finish without one, much as I wanted to.’

  ‘Told you it was the worst idea,’ I reply between my own heavy breaths.

  Ned turns his head to look at me, I do the same and we gaze at each other in the half-light of the room, smiling. ‘Worst idea or not, that really was most excellent,’ he says.

  Gingerly, because this is all so new, so surreal, I reach up to touch his face to remind myself that I can do that. I can touch him, I can move away or towards him, I can look at him, I can talk to him without pretending. Carefully he leans in and kisses me.

  ‘Most excellent,’ I reply.

  His grins changes, becomes almost shy, bashful. I’m not sure why he’s smiling at me like that – is he pleased that I agree with him? That I’ve had sex with him? That we’re together like this? I’m not sure.

  ‘I’m sorry about the mess,’ he says. ‘It’s been a while.’

  ‘It’s been a while for me, too,’ I reply.

  I see a question pass over his face that doesn’t settle in his eyes: Is this the first time since what happened? Am I your first since then?

  Yes, is the answer, absolutely yes.

  ‘Let me get some tissues to clean you up,’ he says, vaulting off the bed and out the door. He returns in seconds, winding the loo roll around his hand, about to reach for me.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ I say, and hold my hand out for the roll.

  ‘No, no,’ he says with a laugh. ‘It’s my mess, I’ll clean it up.’

  ‘No!’ I snap. ‘I said I’ll do it, and I’ll do it. It’s my body, I’ll clean it how I want, when I want.’

  Every part of me is on edge because this is what it was like, what he would do. He was in control of everything for every second of those seventy-two hours: when I drank, when I ate, when I went to the toilet, how I was cleaned up. Everything was forced on me by him and I never want to be in that position again.

  ‘Please give me the loo roll.’ I keep my trembling arm outstretched.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbles and gives it to me. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t think.’ He shakes his head, unable to meet my eye. ‘I just didn’t think.’

  We’re back there. Back to the reality of the situation. What this is all abou
t. Yes, I forgot for those few minutes; yes, I had sex and we enjoyed it; and yes, we didn’t either of us try to hide how much we delighted in each other. But the reality is, I’m here because I’m hiding from the man who held me hostage; who is probably this minute torturing Callie. The reality is, this was an unwise interlude from a scary reality.

  ‘I didn’t think either,’ I say. ‘And I should have. I really should have.’

  Jody

  Friday, 12 July

  ‘Take a seat,’ he says pleasantly.

  He is normal, a man who would blend into the background in most places. A man who found a way to insert himself into the investigation so he could keep an eye on things, see what we had. He probably thought he was just going to get a vague sense of what was going on by getting close to someone from CID, but he’d still have enough of a connection to it to benefit from it. He obviously couldn’t have known that he would hook up with someone who was not only on the investigation, but hated me. What a bonus he got! She wouldn’t have been able to help herself – she would have regularly ranted about the decisions I made, the tangents I ordered us to go down, the amount of work she had to do. It’s natural to off-load to a partner, after all. How could she know that her sense of being wronged would benefit the man we were looking for?

  I sit in the chair directly opposite him.

  ‘You don’t seem as surprised as I thought you would be,’ he states. ‘Were you suspicious of me?’

  ‘I’m suspicious of everyone. I’m sure Karin told you that. As well as everything else.’

  ‘She certainly does not like you,’ he says.

  ‘I can live with that,’ I reply.

  He smirks. You’re assuming a lot, he tells me with that smirk. You’re assuming that you’re going to live. ‘I can’t help but notice that you’re missing two guests,’ he says.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you liberated my companion without asking my permission first.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘A very disappointing start, Detective. A very disappointing start indeed.’

  ‘I’m actually disappointed in you,’ I reply. ‘I thought you were intelligent. I mean, we’ve been chasing you and you’ve eluded us until now so you must be clever – or so I assumed. But no, you actually thought I would bring an innocent woman and her child to you.’

  ‘I thought you would – to save Callie.’

  ‘I don’t sacrifice people to save other people.’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘When did you find out about Pieta Rawlings?’

  ‘Why would I tell you that, Detective?’

  ‘All right, you don’t have to tell me that at all. But I know you like games, so how about this? I tell you something about you that I can’t possibly know, and you tell me the answer to my question.’

  ‘Why would I play a game that you’ve chosen, with your rules?’

  ‘Scared I’ll outsmart you?’ I sit back in my seat. ‘Or scared I’ll reveal something you don’t want to hear? That you don’t want Callie to hear?’

  ‘Nothing you say will turn her against me,’ he says with a certainty that chills me. Maybe I was wrong, maybe I won’t be able to bring her on to my side.

  ‘So why won’t you play?’

  ‘Tell me something that you can’t possibly know.’

  ‘Your mother used to take half of your beatings for you.’ Shock jerks through his eyes. He hides it quickly, but not before I spot it. ‘I’m right, aren’t I? Your father used to beat you and your mother could only stop half of them by taking them herself.’

  Ross’s green eyes run over me again. He assessed me when I got here, but because he’d seen me before he didn’t think he needed to look at me properly. He doesn’t like this, being on the back foot, not being completely in control, and he’s now desperately studying me, trying to play catch up.

  ‘Well, clearly I got that right. So now, fair’s fair, you have to answer my question: what was so special about Pieta?’

  ‘I’m not an idiot, Detective,’ he replies. ‘I know you’re probably wearing “a wire” as they say. A dozen other police officers will be sitting outside listening to me right now.’

  I stand up, untuck my shirt from my trousers, unbutton my jacket, unbutton my shirt. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t react when I show him I’m not wired, not backed up, I really have come here alone. I know I should care that I’ve just shown a serial killer my body, a body that he would usually prey on, but I have bigger things to worry about.

  ‘I’m curious,’ he says while I button myself up again, undo my belt and tuck my shirt back in. ‘Why have you come here all alone, Detective? What did you think was going to happen, especially when you didn’t bring me what I wanted?’

  ‘No, you’re playing the game wrong,’ I reply firmly. ‘I told you something right about you, so you have to answer my question: what was so special about Pieta?’

  ‘She . . . was different. She cared about me. She wanted to stay with me.’ I must look incredulous, because he insists: ‘She wanted to stay with me. I asked her at the end of the forty-eight hours if she wanted to stay and she did. She stayed with me because she cared about and wanted to be with me. She stayed for seventy-two hours, none of the others did. From the start she was different. I thought some of the others were, too. The ones who didn’t cry or scream or beg straight away. But none of them were like her in the end.’

  Seventy-two hours. She never told me that. But then, what has she told me? Other than she wouldn’t let me use her son’s DNA, what has she really admitted to? I don’t even know the number on her back.

  ‘Why have you waited until now to come for her?’

  ‘No, no, Detective. That’s not how the game works. You want me to answer a question, you tell me something about me that you could never know.’

  ‘All right . . . The first girl to break your heart was black. But she didn’t dump you, she was your friend. She cared about you, she did her best to make things better when your father hurt you. She just didn’t feel “that way” about you. She broke your heart because she didn’t love you like you loved her.’

  Ross sits back in his chair. Right again.

  ‘Why have you waited until now to come for her?’ I ask.

  ‘I’ve been in prison. Involuntary vehicular manslaughter. Nothing I could do.’

  ‘Talk about irony – the one time you didn’t mean to kill someone and you went to prison for it. All right, where to next? OK, you were once accused of something that you don’t think you did. I mean, you did it, but you didn’t think it was “that bad” and you didn’t think she was right to tell anyone about it or get you fired. It was just a bit of banter after all, and you just got a bit handsy, what was the big deal?’

  His scrunched-up lip tells me that is another correct assessment of him. He is easy. He is a tick-box exercise in dysfunction and perversion. It’s not hard to work this stuff out when you look at his victims, his actions. He sees himself as a victim of women. He has been wronged by them, misunderstood by them, side-lined by them, unworshipped by them – and he is paying them back.

  ‘How did you find out about her son?’

  That question detonates an anger that twists the lines of his face and evaporates his cool. ‘He is my son, Detective. Make no mistake about that. He is my son. Mine.’

  ‘How did you find out about him?’

  ‘I found her, I found him.’

  ‘No, no, you’re not playing the game properly. You’re lying. If it was that simple you wouldn’t have murdered the other women to get her attention and find her.’

  His gaze switches from me to Callie, incredulous that she told me this. He is clearly wondering what else she might have given away. ‘Who said I murdered the other women?’

  ‘I showed you, I’m not wearing a bug, no one else is listening in. Tell me why you went after those other women?’

  ‘May I remind you that’s another question, Detective.’

  ‘No, you li
ed so that invalidates the other question. This is a new one that you’ve got a chance not to lie about: why did you murder those other women? After all those years, after they had got their lives together again, you came back and killed them. Why?’

  ‘Because I could.’

  ‘Lie.’

  ‘I’m not quite sure what answer you’re expecting, Detective. I did it because I could.’

  ‘LIE!’

  ‘They weren’t important—’

  ‘LIE! Why do you keep lying? Why aren’t you proud of what you did? Why aren’t you just gagging to talk about it? You killed those women, now crow about it. Tell me why. That’s what you really want to do, isn’t it? Tell me the truth. Tell me why you murdered those women when they had moved on with their lives? Why don’t you crow to me about why you were so cruel?’

  Again his gaze ricochets from me to Callie, but this time doesn’t immediately bounce back. He stays looking at her for long seconds. Long, long seconds.

  While he looks at her, I look at him. I didn’t do that before. I had seen him in the restaurant, I knew who he was, so I’d decided I knew what he looked like. But that was from only glimpsing him in a low-lit space a couple of weeks ago. And the truth is, I didn’t do a police officer’s assessment – I didn’t look at his face to see if I’d arrested him before, come across him before; I didn’t check to see if he had any familiar features or identifying marks; I didn’t even properly take him in. This is what I mean about being too close to this, about how it was causing me to mess up. I couldn’t step away, though, not when this meant so much to me.

  But I hadn’t been doing my job properly. If I had, I would have noted those green eyes, the shape of them, the depth of them. Their similarity to the woman standing at my shoulder. The same with the contours of his forehead, the sweep of his cheekbones.

  If I had done my job correctly I wouldn’t have asked him that question, I would have asked the woman standing beside me: ‘Why don’t you crow to me about why you were so cruel?’