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

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‘Turn it off,’ Adrian said to Tunney, who still had the footage from the room showing: Bridget slumped against the wall with Sam consoling her. The disturbing familiarity made it impossible for Adrian to look away.

Chapter 13: A Boy Alone (#ulink_5f9caeb9-3b7c-5027-a2e5-ccdbd966fc8a)

Age 14

My dad’s really upset. I’ve never seen him like this, in fact I didn’t even think it was possible. Mum has been in hospital for a few days now; they don’t know when she’s coming out. Last week after I got home from school I found her on the floor of the kitchen. She’s had a stroke, apparently. Her face looks weird, weirder than usual. It’s kind of droopy but stiff at the same time. Like she was left for too long in front of an open fire and started to melt, but was snatched away just in time.

We go to the hospital every day, my dad goes when I’m at school too. I can’t be bothered with school at all, I just want to be free of it. I don’t feel like I’m learning anything and most of the time the teachers don’t treat me with any respect. I have this one teacher who talks to me like I’m scum; I don’t know what his fucking problem is but one day he’s going to regret it.

There’s a girl I like too, her name is Claire Hastings. She’s almost one of the popular girls, but she is like the quietest of all of them. She doesn’t parade around with her skirt rolled up at the waist like a total skank. Sometimes she talks to me, when no one is looking. I think she likes me but she would never let any of her friends see; she hasn’t quite made it to the inner circle, and being seen with me would put a stop to that. Part of me likes the secret friendship we have, but part of me is angry that she’s ashamed of it. None of the other girls at school look at me. I’m invisible. I’m not on the rugby team, I’m not one of the blonde-haired, blue-eyed boys who follow them around ready to burst, the girls prick-teasing them with their shirts that are a size too small, pulling at the buttons across their chests. Skanks.

On Friday nights my dad takes me to the club. I feel better about it now that I’m taller – it was awkward for a while. I had a growth spurt when I was thirteen and now I’m almost six feet tall. The girls are used to me now. I like the girls in the club better than the girls at school. They make a fuss over me and generally do whatever they’re told. At school no one knows who I am, but at the club I’m important. I’m not the foreign scum who gets treated like a second-class citizen – I was born in this country, but that doesn’t seem to make a difference anywhere else.

Mum has been given a date to come home, finally. Dad actually seems a little better, back to his normal self. Dad being back to his normal self isn’t actually such a great thing, but at least I can predict his behaviour, rather than living with his weird outbursts. I know he feels guilty about Mum’s stroke; I think he thinks it’s because he hits her. But he doesn’t even hit her that much any more, not really, not compared to how it used to be. Surely it would have happened before now if it was to do with that.

I find it weird that Dad loves Mum. He isn’t even remotely faithful to her. I’ve seen him with loads of other women. I never really knew what he was doing before, but now that I have done it too, I understand. Sex is weird, it’s like a game or something, it’s all about pretending to be in love with someone for a little while and then when it’s over you can go back to being strangers. The girls I have been with so far change into different people when I have sex with them. The girls at the club, I mean. I think all of the girls at school like to act like they’ve done it, but I know they haven’t. They hold it over the boys like some big prize. I’m still not sure what the big deal is, to be honest with you. The girls at school are nothing like the ones my dad knows. Most of the girls he knows are all hooked on ‘shit’, as he calls it. He says it keeps them in line.

Dad tells me we need to get ready for Mum’s return; he has brought some of the junkie girls back to our family home, which feels weird. I don’t like them touching my mum’s stuff. Dad is making them clean the place, although I don’t think they know how to clean. He says he has an errand for us, a surprise for Mum. We get in the car when the junkies have left, but I want to stay and clean the place again – I know where those sluts have been.

We drive all the way across the city to a part of town I haven’t been in before. We’re parked under a tree and my dad is watching the street. It’s very quiet, not that there’s silence, but there’s an eerie lull in the air. I can hear children playing and car stereos, but still it feels quiet. It’s a warm day and there’s a man washing his car further down the road. I wonder what we could possibly be here for. Then I see her. I feel like I have been punched in the gut when I look at her properly. It’s like looking at my sister, except it can’t be her because she’s dead. But there she is, playing with a bucket of mud in her front yard. My dad tells me to go and speak to her, to ask her for help to find my lost dog and to get her to come to the car. This is the present for my mum, the little girl. A replacement girl.