Secrets Between Us

by Valerie Keogh

Genres: Noir; Thrillers; Crime Fiction; Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

How safe are your secrets? One letter a week for fifteen years. Identical white envelopes brimming with my sister’s darkest secrets. All the intimate details of a life as different to mine as could possibly be. I read each letter slowly: Ellie’s friends and enemies, her career in the city and dreams of a family, the terrible secret she’s hiding from her husband, the devastating lies she’s telling herself… So I still feel close to Ellie. Even though we haven’t seen each other since we were children; since our parents died. But now I need help, and I know Ellie won’t fail me. My twin sister will take me in and we will never speak of why, at the end of each letter, she always scrawls: Don’t forget to burn this letter. A jaw-dropping psychological thriller that you will read in one sitting. If you loved dark, twisty thrillers like The Girl on The Train, The Couple Next Door and Friend Request, this unputdownable novel will have your heart racing long after you’ve finished reading. What readers are saying about Secrets Between Us : ‘ FABULOUS! TEN STARS! The writing is wonderful, the story mesmerizing, and the characters realistic and believable. I had to rush through the final few pages at the end because I couldn't stand the suspense and just had to know the ending… I loved everything about this book and highly recommend it! ’ Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars ‘ This was one heck of a ride from midnight to 3am. I couldn't seem to stop reading, I tried really hard to shut down my kindle, but I had to get to the ending… An addicting ride… I literally felt like a fly stuck in a spider's web who had to keep reading to escape. The scenes caused a tidal wave of emotions to arise, it had me going OMG constantly… can be called nothing but addictive, unputdownable, and a joyride!! ’ Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars ‘ WOW!!! This was a gripping psychological thriller, the twists were Unreal!!! I Absolutely could NOT put this book down, Amazing… a Phenomenal book.’ Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars ‘ An intense, crazy awesome psychological thriller! I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it had me up most of the night reading! My husband slept soundly beside me and at times I wished he was up, the book so SO CREEPY. It’s that uneasy feeling!... I genuinely enjoyed reading Secrets Between Us! ’ Cloud of Thoughts, 5 stars ‘ I would give this book more stars if I could!!!! Holy cow was this a thrilling book!… I really loved this book and recommend reading if you love a great thriller! ’ Dawn Mequio, 5 stars ‘ The ending is superb, brilliant even and left me with the book-hangover from hell… I still can’t get that ending out of my head. ’ Jenny O’Brien Writer, 5 stars ‘I totally enjoyed the book and read it in less than 24 hours. I will definitely recommend it... Easy 5 stars. ’ Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars ‘ Compelling reading and it's one of those books where you find yourself saying ‘just one more chapter’ and then the next thing you know it's impossible to put down until you've finished it… will have you gripped from the off and the build up of mystery and suspense throughout was literally spellbinding. I couldn't tear myself away until I had got to the last page… would definitely recommend you giving this one a go.’ Bytheletterbookreviews ‘ One of the best books that I’ve read in a long time! I seriously could not put it down and read it all in one day.’ Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars

Release date: November 14, 2018

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 314

Sample

The letter came every Monday. It was delivered to the reception desk of St Germaine’s school for the Differently Abled sometime during the morning, the postman cycling from the nearby Scottish border town of Peebles, come rain, shine or winter snow. He never complained, delivering the bag of post with a customary smile and wave.

In the basement kitchen, which served not only the school but the attached sheltered accommodation, Tia Bradshaw spent the morning as she always did, baking bread from a recipe she had memorised many years before. Occasionally, a new chef – and there had been several over the years – suggested changing the recipe. It always ended in disaster; Tia would start with one recipe but in the middle of mixing the ingredients, she’d forget and revert back to the ingredients from her old memorised recipe. The outcome was usually inedible.

The current chef left her to her own devices, making the same bread, morning after morning, never taking a day off, the concept of such a thing beyond her. A previous manager, appalled, had insisted she have at least one morning a week off. ‘You can’t work every morning, Tia,’ she’d said kindly. ‘You need to rest, go for a walk, maybe go into town with one of the staff and do some shopping.’

Tia had looked blankly at her and then, to the manager’s dismay, she’d started to cry. She was one of those rare people who could cry beautifully; fat tears appearing in the corner of her brown eyes, getting fatter and fatter until suddenly they’d overflow and run slowly down her cheeks. She never brushed them away, letting them fall until she was persuaded to stop.

‘I don’t want to have a day off,’ she had said, her voice thick. ‘I don’t like going outside.’

The manager could have insisted but, like everyone, faced with those rolling tears, she had conceded defeat. ‘Well, if you are quite sure?’

The change had been immediate and startling. The tears stopped, and Tia’s usual bland look returned. She was never asked to take a day off again, left alone to live her days as she chose.

She always finished her bread-making at two, leaving the last loaves cooling on wire racks for the kitchen staff to put away when they were ready. She usually took her time – she never had anything to rush away for – and sometimes she’d sit and have a cup of tea with the kitchen staff who’d finished their busy lunchtime slot.

But on a Monday, as soon as the minute hand reached twelve, she would rush to tear off her apron and run from the kitchen, flour on her face, dough on her hands, leaving a trail of both as she ran along the corridors and up the stairs to the floor where she lived. The housekeeping staff would later mutter Tia! under their breath as they wiped floury handprints from the walls and banister and swept up specks of dried dough from the floor.

Sometimes she’d see the letter before she got to her door, a corner of the envelope sticking out. If she wasn’t careful the letter caught when she opened the door, becoming pleated and torn. When this happened, she cried, her tears plopping onto the damaged envelope, rendering it soft and difficult to open.

It was best when the administrator sent the envelope sliding across the polished floor to land in the middle of her bedroom, sometimes as far as the opposite wall. She’d open the door, bright eyes full of expectation, and look around the room until she spotted it. She never doubted it would be there, somewhere. In all the years, her sister had never failed her.

Taking the precious letter out, she would sit in her chair in front of the window, curling her legs under her, and read every word. Her sister wrote of the everyday things she did, the people she met, boyfriends, lovers, enemies, friends. She shared secrets with her, intimate details of her life, a life as different from Tia’s as it was possible to be. In simple, easy-to-read language, she shared everything. At the end of each letter, after signing Your loving sister, Ellie, there would be one final sentence. Don’t forget to burn this after you’ve read it.

Tia finished each letter quickly, and would immediately read it again. Sometimes there would be a word she didn’t understand and she’d carefully write it down on a blank piece of paper and head to reception. ‘Can you tell me what this means?’ she’d ask the duty receptionist, handing her the piece of paper. It wasn’t always easy because a word out of context can have many different meanings, but the staff did their best.

‘Thanks,’ Tia would say before heading back to finish the letter, slowly this time, taking in every word. Sometimes, when the letter was long she’d reread it several more times before she was satisfied. And then, almost reluctantly, she’d fold it and head to the administration office.

In the beginning, she’d tried to do exactly as Ellie wanted, to burn the letters when she’d finished, becoming inconsolable when she was told she wasn’t allowed. ‘I have to,’ she’d said.

It had taken a lot of time and patient words to convince her that using a shredder was just as effective. ‘Your sister just wants to make sure her letters are destroyed. She wouldn’t mind if you shredded them instead. See,’ the manager had said, sliding a page into the shredder, pressing the button, and then opening the case to show her the resultant mass of shredded paper. ‘Just as good as burning.’

Only after several weeks had Tia become reconciled to it. Now, she didn’t think twice. ‘Is it ok if I use the shredder,’ she’d ask, politely. Each time, the staff would smile, nod and point to where the machine sat under the desk. When she was younger, they’d switch it on for her but now they left her to it. Sometimes, if it were someone new on the desk, they’d say she didn’t have to ask. But she always did.

And then Tia would wait, patiently, eagerly, for the next letter to come.

Every Monday, for fifteen years, the letters came.

If Tia had known the word, she would have said that for her sister the letters were cathartic; that in writing them, Ellie released the pent-up frustrations of a woman determined to make it in a tough world. And if for Ellie they were cathartic, for Tia they were fantasy stories about a different reality that she read and enjoyed like a multi-part novel, unfolding a chapter at a time.

Sometimes, a new resident or member of staff would ask Tia where she rushed off to every Monday. She would explain about her letter, and they would ask the inevitable question. Who’s it from? For a moment, Tia’s brow would crease and she would blink rapidly. Then her face would clear, her usual smile return, and she’d say, ‘It’s from Ellie.’

Rarely was she questioned further, but if anyone ever asked, Who’s Ellie? a look of puzzlement would skim across her face, her eyelids would flutter faster, and she’d walk away without answering and then, she’d turn and say, ‘She’s my twin.’

Ellie Armstrong was beyond tired. She waited until everyone had left the boardroom before stretching, feeling muscles creak and a piercing pain in her right shoulder that told of too many hours hunched over her computer. The meeting had gone on for an hour longer than she’d expected. God Almighty, if she had to listen to Jeff Harper wittering on one more time, she might just have to do what she’d been promising her husband she’d do for the last two years and quit.

Standing slowly and looking around the boardroom table, she knew that wasn’t ever going to happen, no matter what Will wanted. She’d told him before they got married that she was a career woman, that if he wanted a stay-at-home wife he’d better say so. He swore then that he liked things just the way they were.

‘But we will have children,’ he added; not a question, a statement. He was willing to accept some compromise, just not with this.

‘Eventually,’ Ellie had said.

‘When?’ Will had pushed her, wanting to know, needing a time frame.

Ellie felt cornered and stayed silent.

‘It’s not because of your mother, is it?’ Will had asked. ‘You’re not afraid?’

Was she? She’d be lying if she said it had never crossed her mind. Her mother had, after all, died during childbirth. But it wasn’t as simple as that. There were other things that worried her, things she tried not to think about. She looked at the open, honest face of this man she loved, and knew she couldn’t lie to him. Not about this.

‘No, it’s not,’ she said softly, patting him on the cheek. ‘My mother was just unlucky, that’s all.’ She slid her hands around his neck and moulded her body to his. ‘There’s a lot of change in the company, Will. If I play my cards right, I could get that promotion I want. Just give me another year or two,’ she promised.

Before the two years were up, Ellie spent a considerable amount of time planning the best time to conceive, poring over the calendar, discounting months that were certain to be too busy. Finally, she settled on a month.

‘How about April,’ she said to Will, over dinner one evening.

He frowned. ‘How about April for what?’

She smiled. ‘For making babies?’

His fork clattered to his plate and he looked at her for a moment before getting up and pulling her into his arms. ‘You sure?’ he said.

She buried her face in his neck. Yes, she was sure. She loved him and wanted his child, but that niggling worry in the back of her head still wouldn’t go away. She kissed him to block out her thoughts, watched as his eyes softened and wondered if it was possible to love anyone more.

That night she stopped taking the contraceptive pill she’d been taking since her university days, and entered into the conception with the same drive and focus she did everything else.

She’d left some wriggle room on the dates, so it didn’t matter if it didn’t happen immediately, but she expected to be pregnant within a month or two. She planned to work up to a week before her due date, take a couple of weeks off for the birth and recovery, find a good nanny and slot back into work before she was missed, and, more importantly, before any of her colleagues began to question her commitment.

But months passed, and nothing happened. She tried to convince herself she didn’t really want children, that it didn’t matter because she had her career. If she repeated this to herself often enough, perhaps she’d start to believe it, but she knew she’d never be able to convince Will. She noticed him at friends’ homes, silently watching Joe and Steve and even that pain-in-the-ass Carlos playing with their children, and her heart ached for him.

It was at his urging that they had the tests, scans, invasive examinations and meetings with insufferably condescending doctors. And, yesterday, a final meeting.

‘Final,’ Ellie said as they left the clinic, her voice thick with unshed tears. ‘That’s it, no more.’

They’d waited in the expensively furnished offices, Will reading a magazine, trying to look relaxed, Ellie refraining from tapping her fingers on the wooden arm of the chair as she watched the minute hand of her watch drag.

Finally, the office door had opened and the consultant gynaecologist waved them in, apologising perfunctorily, smiling, and offering coffee. Ellie, feeling Will’s warm hand in the small of her back as a gentle warning not to complain about being kept waiting, shook her head. ‘No,’ she managed to say, ‘we’d just like to hear the results of the tests.’

The consultant, Jeremiah Gardiner, sat behind his large, polished desk, and opened a file on his laptop. His eyes lingered on it for a moment before he looked up.

‘We’ve done exhaustive tests, as you both know,’ he said, his eyes meeting theirs with an almost apologetic look.

With a flash of insight, Ellie knew she wasn’t going to like what he said.

‘Mrs Armstrong,’ he said, ‘you say your doctors put your primary amenorrhoea down to stress following the loss of your father, and then to a subsequent eating disorder.’

She nodded.

‘The eating disorder, bulimia, I gather. That went on for how long?’

Biting the inside of her lip, Ellie weighed the question. Surely, they weren’t going to blame her inability to conceive on bulimia that lasted only a few months, were they? ‘Six months, at the most,’ she said, shrugging dismissively. ‘It wasn’t serious; all the girls were doing it. I’d never have described myself as having had an eating disorder, as such.’

Dr Gardiner, who’d heard denial in all its many and varied forms, nodded as if he agreed, and continued as if he didn’t. ‘And you were how old at the time?’

Ellie sighed. Loudly. ‘Seventeen.’

‘But you didn’t begin to menstruate then.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘Why didn’t your GP advise further investigations?’

Ellie shrugged again. She probably should have gone to the school nurse, but after the bulimia she’d had enough of the concerned faces and lectures, so hadn’t wanted to bother. ‘I never told anyone,’ she said, without elaborating.

The consultant’s eyes flicked to the computer screen and when they returned to Ellie’s face, his gaze was a little softer.

Her hands trembled in her lap. She wanted to tell him to get on with it, whatever it was. She guessed bad news. But she’d known, hadn’t she? Wasn’t it always in the back of her mind, the notion that something wasn’t quite right, that she wasn’t normal? She’d refused to address it, went on the pill her first week in university like everyone else and had been on it ever since.

In their early years, before they’d started to properly think of a future together, she could have mentioned her doubts to Will, but the opportunity had passed and then it was too late. Because, by then, she knew how desperately he wanted to have a child and how desperate she was not to lose him.

She’d clung to the hope that when she stopped taking the pill everything would be as it should be. Her period would come. She’d get pregnant. It would be happy ever after. But that worry never went away. And when it didn’t happen, she hoped for a while that he would accept it. That they’d drift into being one of those couples who’d just not been lucky enough to have children.

They loved each other, they were happy, wasn’t that enough?

But no, he had insisted on the damn tests and she had no choice but to go along with it. For a brief moment, she resented him. Denial wasn’t a bad place to live.

‘I’ve consulted with a few of my colleagues,’ Dr Gardiner said, his voice dropping in pitch, becoming softer, deeper. ‘I’m afraid our conclusions are incontrovertible, Mrs Armstrong. At first we thought you had a version of Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome.’ He held up a hand at the sudden look of panic on Will’s face. ‘It’s okay, Mrs Armstrong doesn’t have it. It’s called MRKH, for short, and, as I said, it was something we considered but,’ he looked at Ellie, ‘you don’t have any of the other symptoms of that syndrome, and your blood tests have come back negative.’

‘So why did you think I might have it?’ Ellie asked, relieved to be talking about anything rather than her non-existent period.

She looked across the desk, meeting Dr Gardiner’s cool gaze before dropping her eyes to where his long-fingered hands rested on the desk in front of him, his fingertips pushing together with such force that the top of each nail shone white. Mesmerised by them, Ellie wondered how much force was necessary and if it equated to how bad the news was. Her eyes flicked back to his face. Because it was bad, she could see the pity in his eyes. Dr Gardiner took a deep breath and answered her question.

‘Because you don’t have a uterus, Mrs Armstrong.’

They left the clinic and got back into the car in silence, driving home in a vacuum of unsaid words and unshed tears. There was, as usual, no parking space outside their house on Gibson Square. It had been Will’s family home before they married and often Ellie would wait a moment in the car before she got out, taking in the Edwardian terraced house she’d come to love. The symmetry of it pleased her, the arched ground-floor window echoing the fan light over the front door, the two twelve-paned windows on the first floor, the square nine-paned windows on the second. When she’d moved in, she’d planned to put red geraniums in the small ironwork balconies that hung in front of both first-floor windows, but it had never happened.

A decorative iron railing ran in front of the house and divided it from the houses on each side. Two narrow, stone steps led up to a wide step in front of the glossy, black front door. To the right of the door, a small gateway opened onto a stairway down to a converted basement. Will’s father had moved into it after she and Will got engaged, insisting they take the house. ‘It’s a family house,’ he’d said, more than once. Ellie always looked away quickly so she’d miss the accompanying wink in her direction.

When he died suddenly, a year later, Will was grief-stricken and the basement apartment sat empty for several months. It was let now and the income from it allowed them a very comfortable lifestyle.

‘You’ll be able to give up work if you want to when we have children,’ Will had once said to her.

‘If we have children, it will allow us to pay for a good child-minder,’ she had replied, a twinkle in her brown eyes, as she reached forward to plant a warm kiss on his cheek.

She remembered the conversation as if it had taken place yesterday, remembered putting extra emphasis on the if. Had she hoped it would put a doubt in his mind? It would have been the perfect opportunity to have mentioned her concerns. How deep was the pit of denial she had trapped herself in?

Very deep, she guessed.

Will stopped on a double yellow line to let her out. She closed the car door behind her and left him to drive around until he could find a parking space. Unlocking their front door, she stepped into the hallway and leaned back against the door to close it behind her, feeling weak. She bit down painfully on her lower lip and told herself not to cry. If she started, she wasn’t sure she could stop.

She pushed away and felt a moment’s panic. Will would be back soon, and she didn’t want to talk to him. Not now. She needed to get herself under control first. To process what she’d learned. There was a pile of post on the floor at her feet; she bent down and picked it up, sorting it automatically into his and hers. Leaving Will’s pile neatly on the hall table, she took hers upstairs. The normality of the act gave her a sense of calm.

Upstairs, she stood undecided for a moment and then made her way into the main bathroom. She’d have a bath. It was an unwritten rule in their relationship; in the bath, she was incommunicado. He’d leave her in peace for a while. She dropped her post on the small table beside the bath and turned both taps on full.

Locking the door, she stripped, dropped her clothes on the floor, added a generous amount of her most expensive bath oil to the running water and stood naked waiting for the bath to be deep enough. A few minutes later, she climbed into the hot water, lay back with her eyes closed, and tried to relax.

It was impossible. The gynaecologist’s words rang inside her head: Because you don’t have a uterus, Mrs Armstrong. All these years railing against being a twin, trying to prove she was unique, one of a kind, never realising until now that she already was.

‘You have ovaries, so hormonally you are completely normal. You even produce eggs,’ he’d added, as if that were cause for celebration. ‘They’re just harmlessly reabsorbed.’

‘Harmlessly,’ Ellie had said, feeling a heavy weight in her chest as she imagined each egg on its monthly fool’s errand.

‘They could be harvested,’ he said. ‘It’s something—’

She’d held up her hand to stop him, stood, and left the room, waiting outside for Will to join her.

What had he been about to say? That it was something she should think about? To have her eggs harvested and inserted into a surrogate? ‘Oh God,’ she said, feeling her eyes burn. For some other woman to carry their child? She didn’t think she could bear it. She already felt so unbearably inadequate.

She forced it all into a dark corner of her mind, dried her hands on a towel and reached for the first of her letters. It was the usual glut of rubbish, and she dropped them one after the other to the floor. She opened the last, her eyes narrowing as she saw the logo on the envelope. It was unusual to hear from the school. The bill was paid by direct debit every quarter and any additions were invoiced at the end of the year.

Skimming it, she sat up abruptly in the water, her eyes racing across and re-reading every word. Her brow creased, and her mouth tightened. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she muttered, turning over the letter to see if more was written on the back. But there wasn’t; the letter was as short as it was shocking.

Dear Mrs Armstrong,

We are sorry to inform you that St Germaine’s School for the Differently Abled is to close in three months. We also plan to close the attached sheltered accommodation where your sister, Tia, presently resides. We are informing you at this early juncture to enable you to make alternative arrangements for her accommodation.

‘Alternative arrangements? What on earth do they expect me to do?’ It was just too much. Everything. All of it. She leaned her head back against the bath and, finally, sobbed.

Will passed the door, his feet loud on the wooden floor of the hallway. Through her sobs she heard him pause. He was a good man, but she never truly believed she deserved him. It was, she knew, a relic of her childhood. No matter what she did then, it wasn’t good enough. And now, here she was again. Not good enough. Not woman enough. ‘Damn it,’ she whispered on a sob, ‘hardly a woman at all.’ The one thing Will really wanted and she couldn’t give it to him.

He would sit, she knew, in the privacy of their bedroom and cry tears of his own. Then he’d start thinking about the future, thinking up ways around what he would no doubt call their problem. Not for one moment would he blame her. It didn’t matter, she carried blame enough for both of them.

She looked at the letter in her hand again before dropping it on the floor. As if she didn’t have enough to worry about. What was she going to do about Tia?

She’d been fifteen when their father died in a freak accident; a car mounting a kerb and killing him instantly, a seismic event that had changed their lives irrevocably. But the death of his young wife had made John Bradshaw a careful man and he had organised an old and trusted friend to act as guardian for his girls if anything ever happened to him.

Adam Dawson, shocked at the death of his friend, had taken his responsibilities seriously, but he wasn’t a family man and the care of two teenage girls was definitely a challenge.

He’d quickly found a suitable boarding school for Ellie in London, and finally one appropriate for Tia’s special needs in Peebles on the Scottish borders. He’d never asked Ellie how she felt at being separated from her twin, and she was glad. It was hard to describe the relief she felt; her father had loved them both equally, but differently. To look at, they were identical, but the minutes separating their arrival had been all it took to make Tia different. A little slow, innocent, vulnerable and needy. She was the soft twin, easily brought to tears that had people rushing to do whatever she wanted them to do; to pick her up, cuddle her, give her whatever she wanted. The world was a dangerous and scary place for a girl like Tia, Ellie was told, she needed to be watched and protected at all times.

So, no matter what Ellie did, the prizes she won, the honours she received, she couldn’t compete for that same level of attention and affection. The assumption was always that she would be fine because she was normal.

If she was ever upset and sought solace from her father, tears in her eyes, her lower lip trembling, he’d take her face in his hands and simply say, ‘You have to be strong, Ellie. You have to look out for your sister.’

And that was the way it continued. She had to look out for her, had to be strong and sensible. Forever. At twelve, it was a heavy burden. By fifteen, she’d grown to resent her sister. So, when Adam explained they’d be going to separate boarding schools, that he wasn’t able to look after them both in his upmarket Kensington apartment, she had to bite her lip to stop her smile of relief.

Boarding school was a revelation. Ellie was no longer one of two, the mirror image of a girl so different to her. At last, she was unique. Just Ellie. If she were sick, she was looked after; if she were upset, she got extra attention. She missed her father desperately but, if she were honest, she never really missed her sister.

At school, she’d quickly made friends who were happy to invite her to spend part or all of the summer with them. Her friends’ parents, discovering she was an orphan, frequently included her in holidays abroad, Adam giving permission with alacrity. The one holiday she spent in his Knightsbridge apartment terrified her, worried the whole time she was there that she would break something, or dirty the pristine carpets.

But like many of the ot. . .