Tell the Truth Read online

  About the Author

  AMANDA BRITTANY lives in Hertfordshire with her husband and two dogs. When she’s not writing, she loves spending time with family, travelling, walking, reading & sunny days. Her debut novel Her Last Lie reached the Kindle top 100 in the US and Australia and was a #1 Bestseller in the UK. All her eBook royalties for Her Last Lie are being donated to Cancer Research UK, in memory of her sister who lost her battle with cancer in July 2017. It has so far raised almost £7,000.

  Visit amandabrittany.co.uk to find out more.

  Praise for Amanda Brittany

  ‘An exciting new voice – Brittany reels readers in with this twisty, clever thriller that will have you second-guessing everything …’

  Phoebe Morgan, author of The Doll House

  ‘Brilliant, pacey, and will leave you suspecting everyone is involved!’

  Darren O’Sullivan, author of Our Little Secret

  ‘I was drawn in right from the rather original prologue and did not see that twist coming!’

  Diane Jeffrey, author of Those Who Lie’

  Also by Amanda Brittany

  Her Last Lie

  Tell The Truth

  AMANDA BRITTANY

  HQ

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

  Copyright © Amanda Brittany 2018

  Amanda Brittany asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  E-book Edition © December 2018 ISBN: 9780008305390

  Version: 2018-11-28

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Praise for Amanda Brittany

  Also by Amanda Brittany

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Acknowledgements

  Extract

  Dear Reader

  Thank You for Reading

  Keep Reading …

  About the Publisher

  With loving thanks to my mum, for always believing in me.

  And to my dad for proudly reading everything I wrote –

  I wish you were here to read Tell the Truth.

  Prologue

  Born or made? In my genes, or was it what happened to me as a child? Maybe I was dropped on my head at birth.

  I laugh inside. They tried to find out once: the shrinks. They talked to me for hours, those who thought they knew. They couldn’t see I would kill again.

  I never meant to kill the first time – extinguish a life. Yes, the anger bubbled even then, but it wasn’t meant to end in death.

  The second kill was different. I sent David and Janet Green up in smoke like a Guy Fawkes effigy. They deserved to die. To scream as flames licked their bodies, and thick, black smoke invaded their lungs.

  It was the same with Ronan, and again with Flora.

  They all deserved to die.

  Now there are more lives to take. But this time I’m going to make a game of it – have some fun. And when the game is over, I will drop off the edge of the world, into oblivion, my job here done.

  Chapter 1

  December 2017

  The soft sofa felt as though it might swallow me. Suffocate me in its bright yellow fabric. I wasn’t keen on yellow, unless worn by a daffodil or buttercup. It tended to reflect off my normally healthy-looking skin, giving me an unflattering jaundiced complexion that clashed with my blood-red hair.

  It was hot in the TV studio, but it was too late to remove my hoodie. The clock said almost eleven, and Emmy – the nation’s favourite morning presenter – had flicked me the nod. She was about to introduce me.

  But I was crumbling, anxiety flooding through my veins. I had an excuse. Lawrence had left me.

  A cameraman slid his heavy camera across the studio floor towards me. It seemed threatening somehow – a metal monster. I rolled my tongue over my dry lips, my throat closing up. Was I going to cope? I reached for the glass of sparkling water beside me, and gulped it back. I was about to talk about childhood memories to millions of people sitting in front of their TV sets at home. How was I going to do that, when I couldn’t shake Lawrence’s departure last night from my head?

  Emmy finished telling the viewers about Stephen King’s latest novel – another nod in my direction. She had a pile of hardbacks on the table in front of her: Stephen King, Paula Hawkins, and Felix T Clarke. If she’d asked for my opinion I would have told her I love them all. That I adored Inspector Bronte, Felix T Clarke’s character who had come to life in over ten novels.

  I scanned the studio, trying to stop my knee from jumping, still amazed Emmy had swung it for me to be here.

  ‘You’re perfect, Rachel,’ the producer had said when I met her. ‘The public will love your casual style, and your pixie cut is appealing – you’ve got a bit of a post-Hermione Emma Watson thing going on.’

  I wish.

  Five years ago, Lawrence loved my look, which, come to think of it, hadn’t changed since then. Perhaps that’s why he left. But then he’d once loved that I was a casual kind of gal, who lived in jeans, T-shirts, and hoodies. They say opposites attract, so when did I start to repel him? When did I pass my sell-by date in Lawrence’s eyes? When was the first time he suggested I wore heels, or that I might look good in a figure-hugging dress?

  ‘I want Grace in my life, Rach,’ he’d said last night about our
four-year-old daughter, folding his arms across his toned chest. He didn’t have to say but not you – the words were in his eyes.

  I admit I over-reacted, fired abuse at him, hoping to inflict pain. ‘I’ll move away. You won’t see Grace, if I have anything to do with it.’

  He said I was over-reacting – that I should calm down. ‘I’ll get my solicitor onto it right away,’ he’d gone on, far too calm. ‘We’ll sort something out to suit us both. This can work. We can stay friends.’ And then he’d disappeared through the front door without a backward glance.

  I confess to getting pretty angry with some inanimate objects after a couple – five – glasses of wine. But the truth was I’d been thinking for a while that our relationship wasn’t right. He worked long hours. I barely saw him. I’d wondered more than once if we were only together for Grace’s sake. But it still hurt. The memories of when things seemed perfect kept prodding my mind. And his timing was awful. How could he leave when he knew what I was going through with Mum? Or was that partly why he left?

  ‘We are lucky to have brilliant psychotherapist Rachel Hogan, who once worked for the prestigious Bell and Brooks Clinic in Kensington, in the studio with us today,’ Emmy was saying, bringing me out of my reverie. She didn’t mention that I now ran a private practice in a summerhouse at the foot of the long, narrow garden of my rented end-terrace in Finsbury Park.

  The camera was on me, and my heart hammered in my chest. You can do this, Rachel. You can do this. The point was, if I did this right, they might ask me back for a regular slot – that’s what Emmy had said – so I needed to throw a metaphoric bucket of cold water over my feelings, and get on with it.

  Emmy had been one of my clients for about a year. Looking at her now – her pale ginger hair spiralling over her shoulders, her sparkly green eyes, the sprinkle of freckles on her nose, her beaming smile – you would never have guessed the torment she’d been through. The persona she’d created for TV never gave that away. Although for a time, the medication had helped pull it off.

  ‘Hi, guys,’ I said, waving at the camera, trying not to imagine the number of people watching. ‘I’m here to talk about childhood memories. We’ve all got them, but how real are they? And what about those we’ve repressed, ones that lurk in the dark corners of our minds? In our subconscious.’

  My confidence grew as I spoke – it was a subject I knew well.

  Emmy chipped in. ‘I remember my second birthday party. My parents bought me a toy monkey with a huge red bow. And when I was three I had a little pushchair for my dolls, and I would take them for walks round the garden.’

  I was wrong-footed. She’d lost her mum when she was a child, and now, in front of millions, I was about to extinguish her recollections.

  ‘Sadly, it’s unlikely they are real memories,’ I said, running my finger over my dry lips, as I looked her way.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, raising a brow, and giving a strange little laugh. ‘So, you’re saying I don’t remember my second birthday party?’ She’d lost her smile.

  ‘Well, it is possible, but rare to recall things from before the age of three or four. In fact, few memories are stored before the age of six. You may have kept the monkey and pushchair for years.’

  ‘I did, yes, Vanessa the monkey was my favourite toy until I was about twelve.’ Her smile was back – always so professional. ‘And before you ask, I’ve no idea why I chose that name.’

  ‘Maybe you’ve seen photographs of you pushing the pushchair?’

  ‘Oh yes, tons. My mum took mountains of pictures of me when I was little.’

  There was a slight dip in her voice that only I would pick up on. I felt awful. I knew I’d hurt her, and wanted her to look my way so I could mouth that I was sorry, but she didn’t catch my eye.

  Once the camera was back on me, I said, ‘I had a toy rabbit called Mr Snookum as a child.’ I smiled. ‘I still have him stashed away in my loft. My mother told me she gave him to me on my fifth birthday, and I’m sure I remember her handing him over and telling me to always take care of him.’ My voice quavered, and a lump rose in my throat. My poor mum. My poor, poor mum. I swallowed, and took a breath. ‘But I can’t be sure the memory is real. Vivid recollections of my childhood start much later, particularly her painting on the beach at Southwold.’ I gave a little cough to ward off my stupid emotions. ‘She’s an artist.’ Why am I sharing this with the nation?

  My slot seemed to go on for ages, as I continued to discuss childhood amnesia, and the different methods of retrieving infant memories. I did my best to put on a front, hoping I was making a good impression.

  Then it was the phone-in. The bit I’d dreaded most.

  A woman suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder came on the line, and I went through breathing and muscle relaxing exercises with her, and suggested meditation and yoga. ‘Spending time with nature can be beneficial too,’ I concluded.

  Next, a man suffering with agoraphobia called in.

  ‘Do you think it’s something in my childhood that I can’t recall, causing me to stay in my apartment day in, day out?’ He sounded defeated, on the verge of tears.

  What a ridiculous position I was in. How was I meant to answer someone I knew nothing about?

  ‘Could be,’ I said. ‘Call your doctor as soon as possible. They can advise you.’ Pathetic!

  ‘We have John Burton on the line, Rachel,’ Emmy said, once the agoraphobic man had hung up. She pressed her finger to her ear, as though listening through her earpiece.

  ‘Hello, John,’ I said. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘Polly put the kettle on,’ he sang. ‘Polly put the kettle on, Polly put the kettle on, we’ll all have tea.’

  ‘Do you remember that nursery rhyme from your childhood, John?’ I said, feeling uneasy, and glancing over at Emmy.

  There was a pause, before he said, ‘Yes.’

  Emmy furrowed her brow, and shrugged. Surely they would cut him off. Blame a poor connection.

  ‘What age do you think you were when you heard it?’ I asked, trying to sound professional.

  ‘Suki take it off again, Suki take it off again, Suki take it off again, they’ve all gone away.’

  The hairs on my arms rose, despite the heat of the studio.

  ‘I’m crying out,’ he said. ‘But they won’t listen. And now you must pay, Rachel.’ The line went dead, and within moments we went to a commercial break.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Emmy said as soon as we were off the air, jumping up and dashing over. She plonked down next to me, and put her arm around my shoulder. ‘Why the hell did they keep him on the line so long?’

  I didn’t reply; instead, I dashed off set, barely looking at the concerned faces following me through the door. I rushed through the labyrinth of corridors, desperately seeking an exit, my heart thumping. Eventually I spotted the automatic doors that led to the car park, and raced through them, freezing air hitting me like a smack. I stood for some moments, my eyes darting around the area, trying to catch my breath.

  I drove home, relieved Emmy was still on the air and couldn’t call me. I needed time to process what had happened, before discussing it. I collected Grace from Angela, keeping the conversation with my next-door neighbour brief so she didn’t see how anxious I was. ‘You knocked them dead, sweetie,’ she said in her throaty middle-class way, as I dashed down her path, holding Grace’s hand.

  ‘Thanks,’ I called back, certain she couldn’t have seen the live show.

  Inside my house, with the bolts pulled across the door and the deadlock on, my heartbeat slowed to a normal rate. Grace settled herself in the lounge, building with Lego, and I padded into the kitchen to make tea, the song ‘Polly put the Kettle on’ worming its way into my head on repeat, driving up my anxiety.

  I rummaged in the freezer for fish fingers for Grace’s lunch. As I closed the freezer door, I noticed a photo of Lawrence and me on holiday a couple of years ago, pinned amongst the magnetic letters. I couldn’t tear my eyes away, and
touched Lawrence’s face with my outstretched fingertip. We were happy once. Weren’t we?

  ‘Mummy!’

  I jumped at the sound of my daughter’s voice, dropping the box of fish fingers to the floor with a thud. I fell to my knees.

  ‘Are you OK, Mummy?’ Grace said, running over and crouching beside me, as I shoved broken fish fingers back into the box with shaking hands. She craned her neck to see my face, touching my cheek softly, and I realised tears were filling my eyes.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not crying, lovely. I’ve got something in my eye.’

  What the hell was the matter with me? Was it Lawrence taking off, or the stupid call? I took a deep breath, trying to escape the silly nursery rhyme in my head. It’s just some weirdo. A troll. Nothing personal.

  I rose and slipped the battered box onto the worktop, and lifted Grace up into my arms, burying my nose into her dark curls. She smelt of strawberry shampoo. ‘So did you have a lovely time with Angela?’ I said, as the kettle boiled.

  ***

  The phone blasted on my bedside table. It was 7 a.m. Only one person would ring so early – someone who got up at five.

  ‘Emmy,’ I said as I answered the call, my voice croaky.

  ‘I’m so sorry about the odd phone call yesterday, Rachel,’ she said. If she’d been angry about my comments on air about her childhood, she’d let it go.