A DARK AND SECRET PLACE
A NOVEL
JEN WILLIAMS
For Juliet, the devil on my shoulder who whispered: ‘write a scary book’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
THIS BOOK ESSENTIALLY owes its entire existence to my brilliant agent and friend, Juliet Mushens. We had long shared an interest in true crime, swapping stories and Wikipedia links, and one day, when I joked about passing off all my dodgy internet activity as book research, she fixed her eye upon me – via Whatsapp – and said, ‘well why don’t you write a thriller, Sennifer?’. Thank you, Juliet, for being the kick up the bum I needed, and of course for being one of my dearest, wisest friends.
So, A Dark and Secret Place was a new genre for me, and never has a single book taught me so much. I’ve been lucky enough to have an extraordinary team of excellent minds to lead me through it and very kindly teach me all the things I needed to learn. Huge thanks to Natasha Bardon at HarperFiction, who saw through to the bones of this book immediately and made it work. Enormous gratitude also to the team at Crooked Lane Books, who made me feel so welcome and have kept on top of everything with such enthusiasm – Faith Black Ross, Melissa Rechter and Madeline Rathle, you all rock. Many thanks also to Jenny Bent, another agent who has had my back at every step.
I happen to be writing these acknowledgements in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, which is certainly not a sentence I ever expected to write, to say the least. We’ve been in lockdown for around three months now, and it’s not an easy time to do anything creative, let alone write fiction. The two brilliant bookshops where I work, Clapham Books and Herne Hill Books, haven’t seen me for a while, but my colleagues have been so supportive and brilliant during a period that has not been the best of times (for various reasons). Nikki, Ed, Sophie and Roy – thank you so much.
As ever, I am grateful to have had the backup, moral support and effervescent company of a bunch of writer friends. Den Patrick, Andrew Reid, Adam Christopher, Alasdair Stuart, and Peter Newman – thank you for being the best sounding boards and drinking buddies. I would also like to give a shout out to the Onesies; I hope to get back to adventuring with you soon. And, of course, unending gratitude and love to my mum and the rest of my family, some of whom might even read this book because it has murders rather than dragons!
Lastly, all my love to Marty Perrett, my partner and best friend, who I think has always been slightly concerned by my interest in missing persons and body disposal. It turns out it was all for a book, after all. Love you babe.
CHAPTER1
BEFORE
LIGHT FROM THE doorway fell across the boy’s face, and for the first time he did not turn away from it. His arms and legs were too heavy, the cuff at his throat too solid, too tight. And it wasn’t as though turning away had ever saved him before.
The figure in the light paused, as if noting this change of habit, then knelt to undo the leather strap with sharp, jerking movements. The cuff fell away and she reached for his head, grasping a thick handful of his black hair, close to the roots.
Years later, he would not be able to say what had been different about that particular time. He was starved and tired, his bones heavy and his flesh bruised, and he had thought that every inch of him was resigned to the reality of his existence, but that time, when her fingers twisted in his hair and her fingernails scraped against his scalp, something in him woke up.
“You little brute,” she said absently. She filled the cupboard doorway, blocking out most of the light. “You filthy little brute. You stink, do you know that? Dirty little shit.”
Perhaps at the very last moment she did realize what she had woken, because for the briefest second a flicker of some emotion animated her pale, doughy face; she had caught something in his eyes, perhaps, a look that was alien to her, and he saw quite clearly the panicked glance she gave the cuff.
But it was too late. The boy sprang to his feet, his jaws wide and hands hooked into claws. She leapt backwards, yelling. The landing stairs were directly behind her—he dimly remembered this, from the time before the cupboard—and they went crashing down them together, the boy howling and the woman screaming. It was so brief, that moment of falling, but for years he would remember several sharp impressions: the hot searing pain as she ripped a fistful of hair from his temple, the yawning sensation of falling into space, and the wild delirium of gouging her skin with his claws. His nails.
They hit the floor. There was silence. There was, the boy realized, no one else in the house; no raised voices, no sharp fingers, no alarming flash of red. The woman, his mother, lay underneath him in a collection of strange angles, her throat cocked and bared as though she were trying to appease him. Her right arm had snapped halfway down her forearm, and a bone, shockingly white against her grayish skin, pointed toward the window. The sleeve of the yellow smock she wore was caught on it.
“Muh?”There was a thin stream of blood running from her nose and mouth, and her eyes—green, like his—were looking at point above his head. Carefully, he put his hand over her mouth and nose, and pressed, watching with fascination as her flesh slid and wrinkled. He pressed harder, leaning his whole weight on his arm, feeling her lips mash against her teeth and split and …
He stopped. He needed to be outside.
It was a cold, gray morning, he guessed autumn. The light hurt his eyes, but not as much as
