Our Little Secret: a gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist from bestselling author Darren O’Sullivan

Then he heard it, the voice he had been waiting to hear for so long, calling out to him. He had longed to hear it say these words, now he was desperate to not hear them yet. He needed more time but the announcer continued to talk, despite his silent begging.

‘The next train to arrive does not stop at this station. Please stand back from the platform edge.’

The rattle of steel on steel with over three thousand five hundred tonnes of moving machine started to build. The screeching of the friction caused by the immense weight became so loud it penetrated deep into his inner ears. The train girl instinctively turned her body away from the direction of where the noise was coming from, as if she would be protected from the monster approaching.

He didn’t move. He didn’t even blink as he stared out towards the track, its rumbling almost inviting. It was as if the tracks had hands and they would surely pull him down. He looked to his right and could see the eyes of the train approaching. He wanted to step out, but she was there, she would see, and he would damage her as a result. Reluctantly he knew it wasn’t going to happen as he had planned and hoped. He turned to look at her, the girl who’d stopped him being with his wife.

***

Sarah knew that he was too near to the edge, but didn’t have time to say anything before the deafening noise of the train strangled her voice as it passed. Its driver desperate to deliver his payload and return home; his mind was on other things.

Sarah turned away further, the whipping wind generated by its passing caused her to grip onto her cardigan as her hair was jostled by the monster’s phenomenal force.

***

Chris, however, didn’t blink; he just stood there looking at her as the train sped past. She shouted something to him. He couldn’t hear. He didn’t care. To his right he could see the solid mass speed past broken only by the gaps between the carriages, which moved so fast they seemed to be only millimetres long, but still long enough for him to slip under. He would only need an arm to get caught, or a leg, and the amount of downforce created would suck the rest of him under before he could register the pain of his limb being hit. All he had to do was take one step back. Just one. But he couldn’t. She was watching him. And he hated her for it.

As it passed he looked to his left and longingly watched the red tail lights of the train disappear into the night.

He had failed to do the one thing that may have redeemed his fractured soul. Unable to think of how to fix it, Chris looked towards the exit. Still facing the train girl, he crouched down to grab his shoes. He looked up at her; her eyes were fixed on him. For a while neither moved.

‘Please, can you stay?’

He was unable to form any words. His ears unable to hear what she had said. But she didn’t matter; all that mattered was searching through his thoughts for a solution. It was either find one or fail his wife.

‘Please?’

He picked up his shoes and then without putting them on, he walked towards the entrance, up the stairs and away from the station, leaving the girl noticeably alone.

***

I watched him leave and for a moment couldn’t move. Like a rabbit caught in headlights. I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure, but it felt like the man who had just left was there to do something terrible. My instincts told me that’s why I couldn’t leave the platform when he insisted. It was in the way he kissed that picture, the way he stood too close to the edge. The fact he had taken his shoes off ‘to be connected’. On their own, they were oddities; together they told something else.

They told me he was there to take his own life. And I had stopped him. Still looking towards the entrance that was lifeless, I heard a breeze sweep along the platform and the sound of traffic rattling over the bridge. The sounds returning after a brief moment of not existing. Sitting down on the bench, my gaze shifting from the entrance to the track, I tried to shake off the feeling I had about him. It made me feel sick.

Taking another cigarette from my bag, I lit it. The adrenaline in my hands made it difficult to hold the flame steady. Once I had taken a few drags my mind settled and I realized the truth. I was mistaken about him. He was just drunk, or a nut job, a sad man whose girlfriend dumped him who had no intention of hurting himself. Instead, it was something I had made up as an elaborate distraction tactic from my sad little life. That was the real tragedy, my pathetic loneliness, meaning I had to practically beg a stranger to spend some time with me.

Allowing my head to sink, I watched my cigarette ash blowing away in the wind and let out a laugh that quickly turned into a small cry. I just wanted to be home, in my bed, desperately trying to forget the night’s events and getting on with my life, as sorrowful as it seemed. I wondered if I would ever feel the elation that came with victory. Just once.

Wiping my eyes, I saw there was a letter directly under where I was sat. One that was carefully folded and placed under a stone that looked alien on the cold, damp asphalt. It was clear the stone didn’t belong at the station. Reaching down I picked it up to examine it as well as the note it held down, although I wasn’t ready for what it said.

‘To the person who finds this letter …’

Scanning to the bottom made me almost throw up and I stood up as I realized what the letter was. My gut instinct had been right. That feeling I had when he walked out of the station was true. He was there to kill himself; he was going to jump in front of that train and I had accidentally saved his life.

‘… There is no one who could have stopped this from happening …’

And yet, he didn’t do it.

I thought about my reason for being there, how it was a massive coincidence, how it was probably usually deserted at this time of night. If I came any night other than tonight or had decided to stay at John’s, I would have never have seen him and then he would be dead.

I felt an overwhelming need to find him, to talk to him, to explain I had seen his note, to tell him that whatever had happened to him, it would get better. There was something good lost in him, buried under pain, and I wished I’d forced him to get a coffee with me so I could have helped him see that. I wished I’d left when he did and followed him so I knew where he was going, so I could help, or get him help, or something, anything.

But I didn’t. I’d made me wanting to have a coffee with him about me needing a distraction from my problems. That’s why I had given up so easily. Running towards the exit I left the train station and stopped in the middle of the quiet road. Looking to my left and then right I saw nothing, only the dark footpaths lit by orange lights. No one could be seen in the gloomy spring night, everything was deathly quiet as if the night couldn’t speak of what had happened and what had not.

Only the wind remained unaffected as it blew through the trees that lined the pavements. The way their limbs swayed looked so peaceful, reminding me of his gentle swaying when I first saw him. I thought of how I had just inadvertently saved a life and yet I was worried that he would just find another time, another place, to do what I had stopped.

‘Shit, Sarah, he was right there and you let him just walk away,’ I said out loud. Looking at the letter once more I learned his name, which was neatly printed at the bottom: Chris Hayes. I called out desperately. My voice jagged, on the verge of crying. ‘Chris? Chris!’

But only the breeze, rustling the leaves, and my echoing voice, desperate and delicate, replied.

Chapter 4 (#ulink_236bb987-c9bd-5613-b1be-ca6f82726907)

10.52 p.m. – somewhere on the A605, near March

Chris felt numb as he stumbled into a taxi, giving his address. The same taxi that had dropped off the stupid girl who had unhinged his plan. The journey back was the longest of his life. Unable to fully comprehend what had happened and its impact, he rested his head against the window, looking out. His cheeks vibrated as the cab picked up speed. He watched the rain fall and hit the glass in such a way it sounded like it had a pulse. Almost like the weather mocked him for being alive when he should be dead. The driver spoke, interrupting his thoughts.

‘You look like you’ve had a rough day?’

Chris looked at him in the rear-view mirror, shrugged his shoulders, and returned to the rain. Not knowing what else to say or do. He saw the driver’s toothy smile change to worry. Chris wondered why he would care about a stranger.

‘I see, well we all have them.’

Chris just nodded his head. Looking out of the window again.

‘When I’m feeling down I try to see the world through someone else’s perspective. For instance, we’ve not got it as bad as those poor folk in Aleppo. You hear about it on the radio. No water, no electricity. Bombs falling every day. That’s someone who’s got it rough. And here’s you and me, in a warm taxi driving on a quiet little road.’

‘I guess.’

‘See, perspective. I’m Giles, mate.’

‘Chris.’

‘Name suits you. Not like mine. Giles - sounds a bit posh for someone like me. Although, I do have a lord in my family tree going back a few hundred years. Could have left me a few quid mind.’

Chris smiled in spite of himself and then quickly cursed himself for it. He looked back towards the rear-view mirror to get a better look at his driver. Chris noticed he was maybe sixty-five with greying hair, weathered skin, and a thick neck. A scar ran across the bridge of his nose and the nose itself was slightly bent to the left – he had clearly been on the wrong side of someone’s fist in his youth. Maybe even done a little time.

Giles began to talk about the weather and how it wasn’t like when he was growing up but Chris wasn’t paying attention. After a while Giles noticed and quietened down. He turned up his radio and listened to a song by Status Quo, which mumbled over the sound of the taxi’s diesel engine as they rattled along the A605. Cutting through small villages and towns.

Twenty minutes into the journey Chris could see the lay-by he had visited once before coming up on his left. He saw a tree that stood taller than any other. One he and Julia had both rested against once. He watched the tree as he passed – focusing on the intertwining roots, which could be seen curving out of the earth – until it was consumed by the darkness. Once it could no longer be seen, Chris felt a sense of loss. He wanted to ask the driver to go back so he could sit where he and Julia had sat one night a long time ago, him sweeping the hair off her face, holding her tightly as neither spoke; but he didn’t ask. Instead he closed his eyes. Pretending to sleep.

It took him the rest of the journey to calm his heart rate, which pounded in his head. A journey that, including a long wait at a train crossing, took just over fifty-five minutes and cost him £60.

Chris opened the door to the house, a modest three-bed he bought after meeting Julia. He hoped there would be some sound coming from within. It was silent besides the ticking clock on the kitchen wall. As Chris closed the front door he looked back to see the old chatty taxi driver give a small wave before coughing, this time without covering his mouth, as he pulled away.

He felt a small pang of guilt for being so dismissive. At first, he’d been suspicious of the old man but it was clear that the taxi driver was lonely and actually trying to care for a stranger by talking to him. It made him think of his father once more.

‘Everyone you will ever meet is fighting a battle you do not know, so be nice. Be nice always.’