White Lies: A gripping psychological thriller with an absolutely brilliant twist, page 3
We went to bed too late after it ended disappointingly, and I didn’t really want to have sex – although I knew we probably ought to. Thankfully, Tilly woke up while I was brushing my teeth, and by the time I went back to bed, Rob was already dozing. We hugged until we fell asleep, however. It was a start. We were both trying.
On Thursday, 14 September, four days after I’d come back from Ibiza, the last on my list of lunchtime call-backs was a Christy Day. The name was unfamiliar to me, and Jen, the receptionist, had made the note
Would rather not say reason for call
which probably meant Ms Day had some sort of gynae issue. I scanned through her medical record – her last appointment had been with David, on 7 August, at which he’d prescribed Zopiclone for insomnia.
I dialled, and a slightly breathy, high voice said: ‘Hello?’
‘Can I speak to Christy Day, please?’
‘Dr Inglis? Thank you for calling me back.’
‘How can I help?’ I glanced at the clock and tried to sound friendly. I was barely going to get five minutes to eat my sandwich at this rate.
‘Well, this is rather embarrassing, but I’ve had severe diarrhoea and vomiting for the last three days. I can’t seem to keep anything down at all.’
I unwrapped my sandwich and got it ready. ‘Not even water?’
‘Not really, no. I’m getting a bit frightened. I’d go to the hospital, but I don’t want everyone there to get it. Do you think you could come and see me at home today, Dr Inglis? I’m sorry to ask.’
I cursed inwardly. I wanted to get home in time to see the girls before they went to bed. ‘We don’t do home visits unless they’re absolutely necessary, Mrs Day.’ I glanced at her notes again, how old was she? Forty-nine. ‘You’re sure you couldn’t come into the surgery?’
‘But what about the infection risk?’
‘That’s OK,’ I assured her. ‘We could let you in through our side entrance and take you straight through to a consulting room.’
‘I honestly don’t think I could make it through the journey, if you know what I mean, doctor. I wouldn’t ask unless it was absolutely necessary.’
I tried not to grit my teeth crossly. After three days and now not keeping water down, she definitely needed to be seen, but… I forced a smile instead to make my voice sound cheery. ‘OK, Mrs Day. I can’t promise exactly what time it’ll be, as I have a couple of other house calls first, but I will come tonight.’
‘Thank you, doctor. I’m very grateful.’
So you should be, I thought gloomily, finally picking up my sandwich. The first appointment of the afternoon pinged onto my screen before I’d even had chance to take a bite.
* * *
My mood had not improved by the time I tiredly programmed my satnav with Christy Day’s address at around half past six.
She lived on the leafy south side of Tunbridge Wells, up a private drive off one of the nicest roads. It had once been an area discretely scattered with detached arts and crafts houses and their huge gardens. Over time, they’d all been sold to developers who had built luxury closes and cul-de-sacs of still very desirable executive homes. Christy’s was a large contemporary version of the original thing – a half-tiled hung double frontage with leaded windows and immaculate lawns. I whistled enviously as I drove down the drive. I wanted to move in immediately.
Crunching over the gravel past a sporty little Merc and a chunky black Range Rover, I rang the bell, and a dog started distantly barking somewhere. The enormous honeyed oak front door opened to reveal a classically attractive man in exceptionally good shape, not just for his late forties. He was unseasonably dressed in tennis whites, shorts and trainers – presumably to show off such a muscular, hard-earned physique – and was a little too tanned with an absolutely immaculate full head of suspiciously brown hair that looked almost sprayed into place. He flashed a bright white smile at me, and I extended a hand.
‘Hello, I’m Dr Alex Inglis.’
He took it and we firmly shook. ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m Gary Day, Christy’s husband.’
I struggled to think who he reminded me of, only to realise it was Maisie’s Ken doll, who’d been kicking around her plastic princess house dressed in nothing more than a bandana and moulded pants for months. The likeness was uncanny. I suppressed a smile, at which his eyebrows briefly flickered with interest. That was enough to refocus me instantly.
‘Your wife is upstairs?’ I said pointedly, taking back my hand.
‘No, she’s in the kitchen actually.’
Kitchen? With severe D&V? My mood darkened as I stepped into a vast oak-floored hall and he closed the door behind me. A tiny, fluffy, white dog began to bounce down the stairs yapping and wagging its tail enthusiastically. Gary bent to scoop it up as it got to the bottom step and let off another volley of yips.
‘Shhh, Angel! I know, you want to say hello. You’re such a girl’s girl!’ He strode across the hall, opened a door, and dropped the dog in, before shutting it again quickly. He turned back to me and grinned. ‘All safe. Come this way.’
I followed him through yet another set of double doors, which, this time, opened into a cavernous cream kitchen/diner and TV area, complete with a dazzling ceramic floor that a thousand ceiling spotlights appeared to be bouncing off. I blinked and saw first my own reflection in the acre of wall-length bifold doors opposite – incongruous in my navy trench coat against the otherwise completely sterile palette – before my gaze moved left to where a woman was perched on a bar stool next to an island, on which sat three fizzing glasses of what appeared to be champagne.
She was wearing white, tight jeans – an odd choice for a woman with chronic D&V – and a soft, grey sweater that clung to an obviously still fabulous figure. She flicked back Farrah Fawcett hair, gave me a megawatt Charlie’s Angel smile, and stood up, before putting an immaculately French-polished nail in her mouth and saying coyly: ‘Hello, Dr Inglis, I’m Christy Day. Please don’t hate me, but I’ve been a little bit naughty.’ She picked up one of the flutes and offered it to me.
I stayed exactly where I was. ‘Mrs Day, I’m confused. You told me you needed urgent medical attention.’
Gary came round and stood between us, before adding smoothly: ‘We’ll cut straight to the chase, Als. We want you to come and work for us.’
Als? I looked at them blankly. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘We moved to this house about eight months ago to finish developing and overseeing the opening of our fifth new spa and country club. It’s about six miles away from here; you’ll have seen the plans in the local press,’ Christy said cosily. ‘Gary’s heading up the gym side – that’s his area of expertise – and I’m doing the spa. I know you used to run a Botox clinic locally. A friend had some filler work done by you and it was fab.u.lous!’ She twinkled at me. ‘She also knows your friend Stef Knowles, actually, who said you might be keen to talk to us? The trouble is, we joined your practice when we moved to this catchment area, and I knew that if I called the surgery legitimately and was up front about what we wanted, because I’m your patient, you would probably have just thought “conflict of interest” and dismissed it; whereas I was sure if I could just get you over here to look at our plans and see how exciting what we have to offer is…’
My mouth fell open in disbelief. She wasn’t ill at all.
‘We need someone with proper experience and the credentials, you see,’ Gary interrupted. ‘We’ve done some digging around, and you’ve got both.’ He closed one eye, pretended to take aim and fired at me with his thumb and finger. ‘We know we’ve found our girl.’
I tried not to think about the very ill little four-year-old I’d seen just before them, and her frightened mum, who had apologised profusely for dragging me out, even though she’d been quite right to. Then I thought about Maisie and Tilly, patiently waiting for me to get home, and cleared my throat. OK, so it seemed we loosely had friends in common, but they couldn’t possibly think getting me here under false pretences on NHS time was acceptable? That I should be flattered? ‘As you don’t actually require any medical attention, Mrs Day, I’m going to leave now.’
‘Oh, you’re not, not really?’ Christy’s smile slipped, and she pouted.
Who on earth did she think she was? And what made them think I’d want to work with them after this anyway, when they’d been prepared to adopt such underhand techniques?
‘You’re here now,’ Gary wheedled, friendly wide smile at the ready again. ‘Just a quick look at the plans, Als. Come on.’
His tone had become firm. It was almost an instruction. I turned and stared at him, as I considered the elderly patient I’d seen earlier in the day who had somehow managed to get himself to the surgery on the bus despite being in severe pain. He wouldn’t have dreamt of asking me to come out to his house. I began to feel very angry indeed. ‘It’s Dr Inglis, thank you.’
He looked surprised, and Christy put her hands on her hips. ‘All right, I don’t think there’s any need to be a snotty bitch about it.’
I sighed wearily. Great. She was one of those sorts of women.
‘Chris,’ Gary said warningly.
‘No, I think perhaps we have actually made a mistake, Gary.’ She stared challengingly at me and crossed her arms.
I ignored her insult. Experience had taught me not to go there. ‘Mrs Day, if you had been honest with me and asked me to come and meet you here to discuss your business opportunity, I would have quickly run it past a colleague, but I probably would have said yes.’ I addressed her politely and sincerely. ‘As things stand now, I think I’ll see myself out.’
I turned on my heels, clutching my bag tightly, smugly pleased that I’d kept both my temper and the moral high ground.
I’d almost made it to the kitchen door when voices and laughter carrying down the hall towards us grew suddenly much louder and an extremely pretty teenage girl burst into the room. She was clutching her phone in one hand and giggling flirtatiously, winding a piece of long blonde hair round her finger with the other. Her school shirt was untucked over a grey miniskirt that just about covered her arse, and a tall boy in school uniform behind her was yanking on a bag slung across her body, trying to pull her back towards him.
Everyone jumped as my bag, having slipped from my fingers, dropped onto the hard tiles with the dull crack of something smashing within. The girl pulled an ‘awkward!’ face – clearly thinking that they’d had the house to themselves – and added a slightly insincere ‘sorry.’
But I was paralysed, my limbs hanging useless by my side as I stared at the young couple, or rather the boy.
It was him.
The twenty-five-year-old from Pacha I’d woken up next to four days ago.
Right in front of me.
In school uniform.
It was like feeling someone’s outstretched fingers dragging across the bare skin on my shoulders, then clawing up the back of my scalp, before hands settled around my neck and started to squeeze. I was literally unable to breathe.
He stared back at me, those big brown eyes wide with confusion, his mouth slightly open. He knew exactly who I was too. I simply couldn’t make any sense of how he was dressed. Without the ridiculous nub of a school tie at his neck – worn deliberately short to tick a box – he could have been mistaken for an office junior. He didn’t have any of the gawkiness or angular thinness of a typical male teenager, rather the solid arms that I remembered holding me – and there was the bottom of his tattoo just visible under the edge of his rolled-up sleeve – but there was no mistaking that it was a school uniform he was wearing.
My mind began to panic and scramble. I had to do, or say, something; they were all looking at me. Why was he even here? He must be their daughter’s boyfriend. I needed to leave. I had to get out. I bent wildly to grab my belongings, almost going over on my ankle in my haste. Gary put an arm out to steady me, only for us all to see – as I righted myself and snatched up the handles – a wide crack snaking through the centre of the glossy tile underneath. The medical equipment in the bag had been heavy enough to break it on impact.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ exploded Christy, marching straight across, all pretence at sweetness and light now completely gone. ‘Look what’s she’s done!’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I swallowed, stepping back, as Gary bent down and ran his finger over it and they all peered at the floor. Only the boy continued to stare at me. I couldn’t help but give him another horrified glance. ‘It was an accident. I’ll go. I’m sorry.’
Desperate to escape, I pushed roughly past the daughter, who said ‘Hey!’ in irritable amazement, and rushed away down the hall. Struggling with the front door, terrified that one of them was going to follow after me and demand an explanation, I managed to get it open. Just about staying upright in my heels, I practically ran over to the car, scrabbled in my pocket for my keys and jumped in. Fumbling with the fob, I began to shake as Christy appeared in the doorway of the house, angrily calling something after me that I couldn’t hear.
I somehow got the car started, as Gary appeared alongside his wife, just in time to see me lurch forward and spin round on the gravel, almost hitting a silver Golf with a personalised plate that had been dumped right in my way. Spitting up an arc of sharp stones over their other cars, I swung sharply round it as Gary shouted furiously, pushing past Christy. I whimpered aloud as I roared off up their drive, glancing back in my rear-view mirror to see him bent over, inspecting the front of his Range Rover.
I kept going until I was back on the main road, then turned right, and hurried down the hill that led to the bottom of town and the Sainsbury’s roundabout. The traffic was still heavy, and although I kept checking behind me, I couldn’t see either of their cars in pursuit. I turned left, and drove sharply out of the town, towards Eridge and home.
‘Oh my god, oh my god,’ I whispered aloud in the car, as I stared at the road in front of me. School uniform. Exactly how old was he? He couldn’t be under sixteen. He just couldn’t. He didn’t physically look that young, but then, that didn’t mean he definitely wasn’t. I’d patched up plenty of rugby players over the years who’d looked years older than they actually were. I took one hand from the wheel and put it to my head in shock. I’d been surprised by how fresh-faced he was the morning afterwards, I remembered thinking that, but not that he looked like a child. I forced myself to think about him again, standing there in the Days’ kitchen, and tried more accurately to mentally gauge his actual age, within the context of his uniform. Oh please, God, I hadn’t had sex with a minor? I slowed down as I reached the top of the hill, turned right opposite Bunny Lane, and drove into Broadwater Forest.
If he was under sixteen I would face criminal charges. I’d lose everything; my job – without question, almost certainly Rob, possibly even my girls. A moan of fear escaped my lips. I didn’t know. I didn’t know!
I tried to think rationally. I needed to find out exactly how old he was. What about his tattoo? He would have to be eighteen to get that done. Although, I’d also seen enough botched jobs over my career to know scores of less reputable parlours would turn a blind eye to legalities. It wasn’t a reliable reference point. My mind turned instead to the Days’ daughter. I would be updating Christy’s patient record in the morning; I could look on the cohabiting part of her record, which would give me her daughter’s date of birth. Girls never went out with boys younger than them, did they? At least then I’d have a minimum cut-off point to work from. Except, what about Stef? She might know the daughter’s age and that would be even quicker. Christy Day clearly said Stef recommended me, or told a friend to recommend me, someone who I’d done work on?
I pulled over immediately, chucked the hazard lights on and, ducking down, bent quickly to pull out my mobile. I thought Stef was going to let it go to voicemail, but, thank God, she picked up at the last minute.
‘Hey, Al? You all right?’ she asked curiously. I never normally called her around the girls’ bedtime.
‘Which of your friends have I done fillers for, locally?’ I blurted, not even bothering with hello and barely noticing the dark forest either side of me. Normally I hate driving through it alone at this time of year. Rob insisted when we bought the house that I’d get used to it, but six years later, I still haven’t.
‘What? At your clinic, at The Stables, you mean? I don’t know.’ She paused. ‘Melanie, Tessa; I think you did Nicola too, didn’t you? I can’t really remember, why?’
‘OK, which of them know a couple called Gary and Christy Day?’
‘Oh – that’s Nic. The Days own all of those luxury spas. Nic said she’d get you in there! Why, has she come good?’
‘Yes. I’ve just been to the Days’ house. They’re actually patients at the practice, but I didn’t recognise them. They said a friend had passed them my name, via you.’
‘Great!’ Stef sounded delighted. ‘Hang on though – you don’t sound pleased? Is there a problem?’
‘No,’ I lied hastily. ‘I shouldn’t have told you that they’re patients, but they’ve got a teenage daughter and I want to find out how old she is. That’s all.’
‘Sorry, Al. I’ve no idea.’
‘Could you ask Nicola? Sorry to be odd and vague. It’s just… doctor stuff. Honestly nothing to worry about though.’
‘I can if you want me to – but that’s going to be a weird question for me to ask her out of the blue? She’s going to want to know why.’
‘Of course, sorry.’ I realised she was right. I wasn’t thinking straight. ‘Forget I asked.’
‘Maybe try Google instead?’ she suggested.
‘I don’t even know her name.’
‘Well – it might be listed in a news item or something. Hope you get the info you need, Al.’
What I needed was to go back seven days and not get on that plane to Ibiza.
I hung up and googled
Gary Day spa country club
It took me straight to a very upmarket website. I discovered that the new club would indeed be the Days’ fifth in a rapidly expanding chain and Gary was listed as the CEO, but that was it. No further information, and Christy didn’t appear on the site at all. I checked Gary’s LinkedIn profile and that was no better. I wanted to scan Facebook too, but realised suddenly that I was already creating a paper trail; links to my online searches that – if this boy did turn out to be, technically, a child – would almost certainly be examined. Could I explain everything on there so far? The Days had offered me a job out of the blue. It was only natural that I would have done a search on them after the event. But already, I felt too scared to continue, and almost dropped the phone in fright when it began to ring in my hands.
