The Secretary

by Zoe Lea

Genres: Suspense

Synopsis

The teachers thought they knew her. They were wrong...

'Must read' Bella
'A brilliant thriller' Closer
'Gripping and powerful!' Lauren North
'An addictive page-turner' Samantha Tonge
'School run revenge at its best' Jacqueline Ward
'The end was a triumph, absolutely brilliant!' Rona Halsall

When single mum Ruth has a brief fling with Rob, she's mortified to discover that he lied to her. He lied to her, because he's married. Worse still, he's the husband of Janine, head of the PTA at the primary school where Ruth works as secretary, and when the truth of their fling is discovered, Ruth suddenly has a lot of enemies at the school gates.

Threatening texts begin to arrive, rumours abound and the staff room becomes hostile. But when it also starts to affect her son, a student at the school, Ruth realises you can do anything if you convince yourself it's for the sake of your child.

Even murder.

A page-turning and deeply compulsive psychological thriller about a school secretary and how dangerous it can be to make enemies at the school gates. For fans of Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty and The Rumour by Lesley Kara.

Release date: June 28, 2022

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 100000

Sample

HMP WESTMORLAND PRISON, CUMBRIA

24 APRIL

You’re getting these letters, aren’t you?

I thought the prison was stopping them, they confiscate stuff in here for no reason sometimes and I thought that might be it. But it’s been six months and I’ve been writing every few weeks since I began my sentence. That’s seventeen letters and not one reply. Not one. That’s cruel. I knew you could be bitter, but this is a bit much, even for you.

You want me to beg? OK, I’m begging. Please, for Christ’s sake, please write me a bloody letter. Anything. A postcard, a scrawl on the back of an envelope, even you can do that. Before I came in here, you promised to visit, to write. I’m not asking for a visit, I know you won’t come and see me, but I need a letter.

I need to be able to write to someone who was there when it happened. I only had the light from my mobile phone, I didn’t have a torch. I could only see shadows and it happened so fast. I can still see the expression of that woman police officer. She was so young; do you remember her? You said you wouldn’t trust her to write out a parking ticket, never mind sort out what happened that night. And her face! It went white when she saw and she put her hand over her mouth. Was she sick? I remember the screams, or am I imagining the screams? That’s why I need you to write, because it’s blurring around the edges. I’ve thought about it too much. I’m not certain how it happened any more and I feel like I’m going mad.

I keep thinking of the Border Reivers, those raiders who invaded the border and were put in the castle as a prison. We went there on a day trip, about six years ago. You were wearing those sunglasses, the ones you thought made you look like you were in an eighties movie and you lost them in the café. We went to Queen Mary’s Tower, she was held captive there for a while. You didn’t like the prisoner’s carvings on the second floor of the keep because some were so detailed, so finely engraved and labour intensive, you thought it was depressing, but that’s exactly how I feel.

Like I want to carve the memory of that night into stone, solidify it. I want to spend hours going over and over the same line, just to get it out of my head and somewhere else. Did you know that Kinmont Willie was one of the prisoners in there? He was a notorious raider and a large group of his friends broke into the castle to free him. I keep thinking that you’ll free me.

Write me a letter. Anything. Tell me you were there when it happened. It’s been long enough, and I’m so very, very sorry. Please, I can’t stand the company of my own mind any longer.

Seven months earlier

I’ve often thought there’s a secret pact between mothers. A pact so unspoken and private, most don’t realise they’re in it. You don’t realise you’re in it until you hear yourself telling someone who isn’t a medical professional just how unreliable your pelvic floor muscles are. A person who, under regular circumstance, you would never speak to, never mind tell them that you can no longer go on a trampoline without peeing a little, and yet here you are.

You listen to their confessions about how they lost their child in the park for a minute, or how they ate three chocolate bars in the car without taking breath, and you can’t stop yourself. You join in, admit your faults and enter into the pact that makes it all right to have these conversations with virtual strangers.

You give unwanted advice, make judgements, discuss intimate details with people you have nothing in common with, other than you are both mothers, and it’s fine. It’s all fine. And then the kids stop playing, the soft play shuts, the party ends and it’s time to go home and everyone goes back to their normal lives, forgetting that they’ve shared something private, showed their underbelly.

But again, it’s fine. And that’s because of the other thing that ties parents together in this secret pact: the unspoken understanding of love.

The love we have for our kids: it cuts through all the bullshit and allows this kind of behaviour to take place. We are all agreed that we’d do anything for our kids, and this understanding is a great leveller. It’s also what led me to be waiting in an empty car park at six-thirty in the morning that September.

It was the third week of a new term, a fresh school year. The leaves had not yet turned, jackets were not yet needed and the sky was as clear and bright as if it were still late July. I wound down the window, breathed in the hot air and looked at the tarmac as it sparkled in the sunlight.

‘Thanks, Mum.’ Sam, my eight-year-old son, was in the passenger seat beside me. I turned to him, his face still puffy from sleep, the curve of his cheek particularly round and full, his hands clenched in a tight ball on his lap, and felt a rush of love, a familiar clench.

We were waiting for Gary, the school caretaker. I reached over and smoothed down the back of Sam’s hair. It was sticking up from where he’d been sleeping.

‘You don’t need to thank me.’ I gave his hand a squeeze. ‘I’ll speak to Miss Gleason this morning, before school starts. Promise.’

He nodded, keeping his eyes on the building in front of us. It was a squat thing, late seventies in style, and the interior, although covered by children’s artwork, was much the same as the exterior, badly in need of refurbishment. It was a relatively small school but it had a great Ofsted report and a reputation for being very nurturing. It was why we were here and why I was overjoyed when Sam got a place.

‘Miss Hooden was good,’ Sam said quietly. ‘Why couldn’t I stay with Miss Hooden? I liked Miss Hooden.’

‘Because Miss Hooden teaches year three and you’re in year four now.’ I smiled, but his eyes were fixed on the empty car park. ‘Miss Gleason teaches year four.’

He nodded. ‘I liked Miss Hooden,’ he said. ‘She isn’t nasty like Miss Gleason.’

‘Miss Gleason isn’t nasty,’ I told him. ‘She’s just trying to get you to do your best work.’

I followed his gaze. I’d been working at the school for nine months; three more and I’d be made permanent. It’d been such a triumph to get the job of school secretary. I hardly dared believe it when I got the call, but they were desperate as the last secretary had left abruptly and it helped that I knew one of the teachers, Becca, and that Sam was a pupil there so I knew some of the staff, but still, it was a surprise.

And it had been wonderful, it meant I was there for Sam and that I could talk to his teachers about how best to handle his needs. It meant I could tell Sam confidently that I could sort this little episode he’d had, that I’d see his class teacher, Miss Gleason, and would be able to talk to her as a colleague as well as a parent. She’d been supportive so far, but there was more she could do. She was new, I didn’t know her as well as the others, but I would, I’d make a friend of her.

‘Will I have to live with my dad now?’ he suddenly asked, and I felt myself contract.

‘What? No, of course not, where did that come from?’

He paused. ‘Last time I was with Dad he said that if I got into trouble again, he’d make me live with him.’

I did my best to contain the shot of anger that swooped up inside of me.

‘And now I’ve done this –’ his bottom lip stuck out, trembling ‘– so does this mean that I’ll have to go live with him?’

‘Listen to me.’ I leaned over so I was close to his face and took both of his hands in mine. Warm little things, chubby fingers. ‘You are never going to live with anyone else other than me, understand?’

He gave a small nod, but his eyes told me he was unsure.

‘No matter what your dad says, you are with me for ever. I won’t let anyone take you away, not even your dad. OK?’

A fat tear plopped down his cheek, and not for the first time I wanted to strangle Will, my ex-husband. I leaned over and wrapped my arms around Sam and swallowed down the anger. It was something I was used to, pushing down the rage at my ex-husband. I know most divorced women will tell you that their ex is a wanker and an idiot but mine really was. First rate. And with each passing day and new stupid thing he did, he grew into his wanker persona even more. But threatening to make Sam live with him? This was new. He’d made noises about visitation rights and custody before, but saying it outright to Sam was new. It seemed we were on another level of prize wanker-dom. Oh joy.

‘Here we go,’ I said, as a familiar Renault swung into the car park. ‘You OK, sweetie?’

He nodded, wiping his face, hands scraping over his soft cheek, trying to get it together. ‘Thanks, Mum,’ he said, but it was barely above a whisper and there was that inner clench again, the grasping of my love for him tugging at my heart. I’d deal with Will later.

‘Stop thanking me,’ I told him. ‘I’m your mum, this is what I do.’ I kissed him, smiled and waited for him to smile back at me before we got out of the car.

‘Bit keen, aren’t you?’ Gary looked at his watch. ‘It’s not yet seven.’

I smiled, warmly I hoped. Sam’s hand in mine as we followed Gary up the driveway to the school. ‘I needed to get on with some paperwork,’ I lied, ‘before the rush starts with the parents.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, don’t get me started about the bloody parents,’ he said, unlocking the gates, although that’s exactly what I wanted to do. ‘Only three weeks in and the stuff I’m having to deal with.’

‘I’m chasing up money for the residential,’ I told him. ‘Should have been paid in full before the summer holidays, they go away at half term and most parents have still only paid the deposit, and don’t get me started on the consent forms. Be thankful you’ve not got a morning ringing around asking for cash and allergy information.’

This got a shake of the head and a pfft sound, as I knew it would. Gary was from a time when parents had little say in anything to do with their children’s school.

‘Allergy information!’ he scoffed. ‘Bloody kids are allergic to everything these days.’ He unlocked doors and switched off alarms as he spoke, me and Sam following him. ‘Even fresh air! You heard about what’s going on in year one? What they’ve got me doing now?’

‘No, what’s that?’

I did, in fact, know all about the year one parents and how they’d demanded the windows in there only open from the top. It had all happened within the first few days of term when a slightly fussy woman, on kissing her son goodbye, had observed a teaching assistant opening a window. Even though they had safety catches on, she deemed them unsafe, claiming that any adventurous five-year-old could, if they had the mind to, escape.

I had typed up the reports, the complaints, logged the minutes of the meetings. Been in contact with the governors and the PTA, the health and safety officers at the LEA. I knew more about it than Gary but I let him tell me. Kept him talking while he switched on lights and brought the school to life. I got to my office and put down my bag, Sam’s tense small body at the side of me. I had to unpick his hand so I could take off my jacket.

‘So,’ Gary went on, ‘it’ll cost a fortune, all have to be done in half term, and by the time it’s sorted it’ll be winter and no bugger will want to open the windows anyway.’

I pointed to a chair in the corner and Sam slowly went to it.

‘Well then,’ I said, and switched on the computer. Gary loitered in the doorway.

‘Actually, Ruth, I’m glad I’ve caught you early. You couldn’t do us a favour, could you?’ He pulled out a piece of A4 from his pocket and handed it to me. ‘I wouldn’t ask, only it’s for charity and there’s a few local businesses donating stuff. I just thought … ’

I unfolded the paper to see a poster advertising a bring and buy that was to be held in the church hall.

‘When is it?’

Gary pointed to the bottom of the poster. ‘Saturday. We’ve a few cakes already, from the Mothers’ Union, but –’ he shook his head ‘– one of yours would really set it off.’

Next Saturday, less than a week to bake and decorate a cake for no payment. I had a big order of fairy cakes to bake for one of the dinner staff by Friday and hoped to get some things together for the farmers’ market on Sunday. I didn’t have any time to bake for no profit.

‘It’s good exposure,’ Gary said, ‘and it’s for charity. Sue said you were doing her some cakes for her fiftieth and I thought you could just … ’ He gestured to the advert.

This was the problem with trying to run a small business on the side: everyone thought you could do it for free. It had taken me almost six months to get Custom Cakes up and running, and the most requests I seemed to get were people asking for freebies.

‘I can give you a dozen cupcakes,’ I said, thinking that I’d increase the batch I had planned for Sue. ‘Swirl topping in rainbow icing with a neon case, how’s that?’

‘Brilliant,’ Gary said. ‘How about I get you a coffee as a thank you?’

‘Lovely,’ I told him, and managed to stay smiling until he left.

I turned to Sam. ‘Right,’ I said brightly, ‘shall I do it now?’

His eyes went wide.

‘I won’t be long, and if he comes back while I’m gone just tell him I’ve gone to the loo.’ I glanced at the clock on the wall, ‘I’ll have to do it now, sweetheart, before people start arriving, or I won’t be able to do it at all.’

Sam stared at me a moment before giving a little nod.

‘Ask him about football,’ I said. ‘Just say, “Blue Army” – that’ll keep him going.’

I went to my bag and took out what Sam had shown me last night, his yellow exercise book and the accompanying maths one. The words ‘school property’ stamped on the front which had got Sam all in a state and kept us both up half the night.

‘Won’t be a second.’ I gave his worried face a small kiss and went down the corridor past the hall.

It was silly really, but Sam insisted we do it this way. He didn’t want the rest of his class to know that he couldn’t do the work. He was having serious trouble with one boy and was terrified of adding ‘stupid’ to his list of taunts. In his anxious state, he’d stolen the books from school and brought them home to me so I could explain it to him. And, as I was the school secretary, he knew we could put the books back before anyone found out, or rather, I could put the books back.

I had tried to persuade him that we tell Miss Gleason together, that she wasn’t doing her job very well if Sam had to steal his books and bring them home, but Sam had gone hysterical at the suggestion. The thought of needing yet more special attention was mortifying and I could understand that. There were several things the school were doing to accommodate his anxieties, small things like letting him have the clothes peg next to the door, allowing him always to sit in the same chair and never making him line up with the others. They were only silly things, but they singled Sam out, made him a bit of a target to the less understanding children in his class, and he couldn’t bear the thought of getting more unwanted attention by not understanding school work.

I was seeing Miss Gleason to deal with Toby, the boy who was bullying Sam, and as he was currently going through a cycle of struggling with PE and all that entailed, I’d relented. I’d agreed to help him with his division and then return the books before anyone found out, on the basis that he let me speak to Miss Gleason alone about the maths situation, so we could discuss how best to support him with no fuss and without his classmates being made aware.

I went into the classroom and switched on the lights. Sam had told me where his tray was, over by the back wall, but for a moment I stood where I was. In front of the whiteboard, all the chairs and tables facing me. I’d wanted to be a teacher. Back when I was at college. I’d even gone so far as to get the application forms, but then something happened, a boy or an offer of employment in town, and I’d been too impatient to start earning. Teacher training had seemed such a long process when I was eighteen. I thought about it again when Sam was born, those school holidays, the hours, but it wasn’t feasible then. Will had dismissed the idea, telling me that teaching wasn’t a job in the ‘real world’, that I’d be bored talking to kids all day, and at the time I believed the wanker so I didn’t pursue it. Fool that I was.

I went over to the desk at the front. Miss Gleason had some kind of reward chart on the wall behind it and a pile of gold stickers in the shape of stars were on her desk. I picked one of them up. Sam had told me about the gold stars. They were big news. I looked at his name on the chart, how many stars he had compared to his classmates. He was woefully behind.

She had a mug with ‘best teacher’ written on and a file full of what looked like lesson plans and teaching notes. At the side of it was a red pen with a silly cluster of feathers on the top. This was the pen she used to mark the work. I’d seen it in Sam’s maths book, all that ticking and crossing. The underlining she’d done over his poor working out, the numbers that he sometimes still put down back to front. Those snippy little comments: ‘Must try harder Sam!’ I put my finger to the nib and drew a red dot on my finger tip.

And taped to the desk, she had a list of everyone in the class and their birthday, so she’d know when to make the class sing. When to give what child attention. I’d typed that up for her. I did it for all the teachers so they’d look good to the kids. I took a moment before going to the back of the classroom where the trays were.

I found Sam’s tray and had a quick look through the stuff inside. There were some drawings – animals, roller coasters, the usual. A couple of test papers in which he’d done OK, those annoying big red underlines and another snippy comment, ‘Good try’. Some spelling work, handwriting practice and I took a moment over his spidery letters. His carefully drawn words, I knew he’d have done them with his tongue sticking out, his fingers tightly wound around the pencil, and then I placed the stolen books on top and closed his tray.

I’d see Miss Gleason, Lisa, when Sam was in breakfast club, before the day started. I’d catch her as soon as she arrived. I’d tell her about it all, confess that he’d brought the books home, tell her how worried he was. I’d ask her to give him a gold star, not for bringing his work home but for caring about it so much. He was so anxious to do well. If Lisa spoke to him, reassured him and told him to come to her if he needed any help rather than stuffing his maths book up his jumper, then gave him a gold star because he was trying so hard, it might just work towards him feeling secure in the class. It might help with all the other stuff.

I switched off the lights and could make out distant voices as I walked back to my office. People were arriving already.

‘It’s all to do with the strategy,’ I could hear Gary telling Sam. ‘Carlisle United have a long, firm reputation and you can’t just—’

‘Blue Army!’ I sang as I went in and Gary smiled.

‘Your mum gets it,’ he said, ‘she knows.’

‘Thanks for the coffee.’ I went over to my desk. ‘OK if I bring those cakes into school on the Friday, give them to you then?’

‘Perfect.’ Gary smiled broadly. ‘I could kiss your mother sometimes,’ he told Sam, ruffling his hair. ‘She’s the best thing about this godforsaken school.’

‘Flattery will get you everywhere,’ I told him. ‘Now I think it’s time we got you,’ I said, turning to Sam, ‘into breakfast club, so I can get on with my work.’

Before we got to the hall I crouched down to Sam so I was level with his face.

‘All done,’ I told him, ‘back in your tray. No one knows.’

He took a moment and I nodded. Reassuring him. He smiled hesitantly, a small dimple showing in his left cheek, and I could see him tentatively relax, his shoulders drop a little. ‘Love you, Mum,’ he whispered, and I hugged him tightly. Squeezed his shoulders, breathed in the scent of him and held his small body against mine.

‘By the end of today,’ I said into his hair, ‘it will all be sorted. Promise.’

‘Promise?’

I cupped his cheeks in my hands and kissed his forehead.

‘Promise,’ I told him. I watched him walk along the hall, find a space at one of the tables and pick up a book. I stayed a moment, making sure he was settled, then waved to Kim, the breakfast club supervisor. I turned to go back to my office, putting my hands in my pockets as I went. I felt something sharp suddenly stab me and grabbed the offending object.

It was the red feather pen from Miss Gleason’s classroom. I’d taken it without realising. The silly feathers sticking up, the bright red barrel in my hand, a streak of ink along my finger. I took a step towards her classroom, then stopped.

The thought of her without it made me pause. I put it back in my pocket. She’d have to do all her crossing and snippy comments in another colour for today.

You wouldn’t think a primary school reception area would be so busy, but that morning they were queuing out the door. Two were waiting for me when I got back from dropping Sam off at breakfast club, and in the three quarters of an hour I had before my job officially began I hadn’t been able to leave once. There had been a steady stream of parents and grandparents.

My office directly faces the entrance to the school, and there’s a small area in front where people (mostly parents) congregate. Mr Cartwright, John, the head of the school and my boss, has his office to the right, hidden away behind a small seating area and a large Swiss cheese plant. He’d raised his eyebrows as he entered, shuffled his large body through the throng of people with heavy breaths, then shut his door and that was it. He wouldn’t come out again until he had to, wouldn’t see a single parent without an appointment. Unlike me, he wasn’t trapped behind a glass partition that’s never closed and constantly available.

There’s a slight chip in the glass of that partition, right at my eyeline, and a small silver bell is fixed to the desk beside the signing in book. Whoever fitted that bell has a sadistic sense of humour. It’s a silver one, the type mostly seen in hotels, and people tended to ring it, repeatedly, even when they could see me. It was worse if a child got hold of it.

Once, an elderly man rang it and shouted, ‘Two fish and chips, one with gravy’, and since then I’ve never been able to shrug off the feeling of my office being like a kitchen. Like I’m taking orders, peeking out of the cubby hole and everyone’s crowding in, waiting to be fed.

‘The thing is,’ the woman in front of me went on, ‘that the supermarket ones don’t have the school emblem on, and that should be a priority.’ She was a fat little thing and sounded slightly asthmatic, the grandparent of some child in reception, and this was her third time blocking the reception area that week.

The man queuing behind her waved an envelope at me, coins rattled inside and I reached out. He passed it over the top of her head, me reaching awkwardly so as not to knock off her glasses, but she didn’t pause for breath.

‘What should be a priority is the fit,’ she announced, ‘and the durability.’

‘Thanks,’ he mouthed and went to leave. I glanced at the envelope, it was blank, no child’s name, no class.

‘Wait … ’ I called after him, but it was too late, he’d gone.

‘And,’ the woman went on, ‘parents deserve the best for their children. And children deserve to be comfortable.’

It was at this point that I remembered I’d not yet eaten breakfast. My stomach churned, a familiar pang of hunger, and I looked to my bag where I’d optimistically packed a banana. For the second time that week I wished I’d eaten the cereal I’d bought for Sam instead of thinking I could manage on fruit.

‘Ruth?’ It was Linda, the year six teacher. She’d entered the office from the door behind me that led directly into the school. She saw the grandparent at the hatch and almost about turned.

‘Letters for the library system are just there,’ I pointed to the shelf and she took them gratefully.

‘You’re a star,’ she said before leaving. ‘I owe you a drink.’

‘You owe me more than one,’ I said, but she’d already gone and the grandparent was still talking at me. She was rummaging in her bag now and I knew what was coming.

‘Please,’ I began but it was no good, she was pulling out the polo top, the school emblem sewed on the left breast.

‘See?’ she said thrusting it towards the glass partition, ‘expertly done and not much more expensive than those in the supermarket.’

I took a moment.

‘They’re four times as expensive as those in the supermarket,’ I told her gently, ‘but I have shown it to Mr Cartwright, and if we think you can go on the official list he’ll be in touch.’

I’d told her as much yesterday. She looked down at the polo shirt and ran her finger across the purple emblem. I got an image of her sitting by her sewing machine, attaching the school logo to countless white polo shirts, the idea of setting herself up as a uniform supplier. It was a ridiculous idea; the school could only recommend establishments that were approved by the governors and Lord knows who else. Something I’d told her the first time she visited but she seemed to have forgotten that information, thinking that if she showed me or someone her work, we’d change our minds. There were two uniform suppliers currently on the school website and both were professional companies, reasonably priced and able to deal with a large demand. Not a lone grandparent with a sewing machine and few extra hours in the evening.

‘Oh, give it here,’ I told her quickly, and she looked up. ‘I’ll take this one into him and see if he can’t show it to the governors, or whoever decides these things. Maybe they’ll put you on the list as an independent set-up.’

Her face lit up, she went to say something but was stopped by a loud ring. We all froze, mid-pose. The school bell had that effect.

It was the first ring, five minutes and lessons would start. This was the cue for the children to line up in the playground, for the saying goodbye to parents, for the gathering of books and bags and lunch boxes, and it meant I only had five minutes in which to grab Miss Gleason. To tell her about the stolen homework, about how Sam was feeling, about her giving him a few of those gold stars.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, ‘but I have to go. Just leav. . .