Before I Let You In Read online

  Copyright © 2016 Jenny Blackhurst

  The right of Jenny Blackhurst to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2016

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN: 978 1 4722 3526 8

  Cover images © Tatjana Kabanova/Shutterstock (large figure); Ayal Ardon/Arcangel Images (small figure); CHAI YO 99/Shutterstock (bridge); John Puah/EyeEm/Getty Images (background)

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About Jenny Blackhurst

  Praise

  About the Book

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Part One

  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

  Part Two

  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

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Part Three

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Final report

  About Jenny Blackhurst

  Jenny Blackhurst grew up in Shropshire where she still lives with her husband and children. Growing up she spent hours reading and talking about crime novels – writing her own seemed like natural progression. Before I Let You In is her second novel. Follow her on Twitter @JennyBlackhurst.

  Praise for How I Lost You

  ‘Utterly gripping – brilliant debut!’ Clare Mackintosh, author of I Let You Go

  ‘As twisted as a mountain road, Blackhurst’s fast-moving and unputdownable debut will keep you glued to your seat’ Alex Marwood

  ‘Insightful and gripping, you’ll whip right through’ Stylist

  ‘It’s unsettling, unforgettable and you won’t want to put it down’ Essentials

  ‘A most rewarding conclusion. Excellent’ www.bookaddictshaun.co.uk

  ‘The conclusion races up and knocks you sideways, it’s fast and it’s daring …’ www.randomthingsthroughmyletterbox.blogspot.co.uk

  ‘A real nail-biter steeped in mystery, suspense, tragedy and unknown danger. And it is a cracking read for any fan of the psychological thriller!’ www.storminthestacks.wordpress.com

  ‘An emotional rollercoaster of a psychological thriller and I was in tears by the end. I cannot wait to read more from this author’ www.thewelshlibrarian.blogspot.co.uk

  ‘An absolute and complete page turner that had me completely enthralled … Definitely highly recommended for fans of psychological thrillers’ www.lizlovesbooks.com

  ‘Amazing read that I couldn’t put down, gripping storyline, brilliant debut’ Helen M Jones, Amazon, 5*

  ‘Loved this book! Once I got started I couldn’t put it down desperate to know the next twist or turn’ E Webster, Amazon, 5*

  ‘This is the best book that I’ve read in a long time … I was completely hooked’ Tried and Tested, Amazon, 5*

  ‘Haunting, moving and wonderful! A gripping interpretation of post-natal emotions and the roller coaster that follows’ Sarah Morris, Amazon, 5*

  About the Book

  If you loved B A Paris’ Behind Closed Doors and Linda Green’s While My Eyes Were Closed, you will love Before I Let You In, the brand new novel from Jenny Blackhurst, the Number 1 Kindle bestselling author of How I Lost You, which Clare Mackintosh called ‘utterly gripping’. If you don’t know who is walking through the door, how do you know if you should let them in?

  Karen is meant to be the one who fixes problems.

  It’s her job, as a psychiatrist – and it’s always been her role as a friend.

  But Jessica is different. She should be the patient, the one that Karen helps.

  But she knows things about Karen. Her friends, her personal life. Things no patient should know.

  And Karen is starting to wonder if she should have let her in …

  To Ken, we all miss you more than words can say.

  Acknowledgements

  My first thanks go, and I hope will always go to my wonderful agent, Laetitia Rutherford. A wiser woman than me once called you the ‘author whisperer’ and that couldn’t be truer. You always have enthusiasm for whatever I’m babbling on about and you continue to have more faith in my ability than I ever have. Thanks also to Megan and the rest of the team at Watson Little, and Camilla and everyone at The Marsh Agency.

  Thanks of course to my wonderful editor, Vicki Mellor, without whom this book would be twice as long and half as good. To the rest of the Headline team, Sara Adams, Kitty Stogdon, Jo Liddiard, Millie Seaward and everyone else whose enthusiasm and love for their work amazes me. And to the art department, in particular Siobhan, for their amazing cover work.

  I’m petrified at this stage of forgetting someone so please rest assured that if you have ever congratulated me, asked how the book is going or emai
led, tweeted or Facebooked me to say you enjoyed my first or referred to me as a ‘real author’ then this thank you is aimed at you. Every message from a reader is like a big hug.

  It’s not easy working two jobs and bringing up two crazy children so a special thanks to Maxine, my day-job boss for much of the writing of this book. Without your support and shoulder to vent on I don’t think I’d have ever finished it.

  In the year since How I Lost You was published I have been fortunate to meet some wonderful bloggers, readers and book lovers, far too many to name here. I have to mention, however, the amazing Liz Barnsley and Tracy Fenton for giving me their time and honesty on my final draft of this book, I will always be grateful. Also to the wonderful Anne Cater and her team of Book Connectors. To each and every member of THE Book Club; to try and name you all would be crazy but I have never met a group more supportive of authors – every one of you rocks. I do have to say a special thanks to Teresa Nikolic who has possibly championed my work more than my own mother (and that is saying something).

  The crime scene is a wonderful community to be part of and I feel so lucky to have been welcomed in. Thank you to every single one of you crazy people for your help and support, you have genuinely kept me going over the last twelve months. Special thanks to Susi Holliday for guiding me into the fold.

  Now for the gushy bit. I’m lucky enough to have amazing friends and family by my side always. Thank you never seems enough to say to Mum and Dad for their immense love, support and babysitting skills – I love you both. Thank you to my mother-in-law for always being there to help out even though the last year has been the toughest one of our lives; the kids couldn’t ask for better grandparents and will never forget grandad Ken.

  To my gorgeous ginger twosome, Connor and Finlay – without you this book would have been written in half the time but I wouldn’t swap you for the world, you make it worth being in.

  And finally, always my last thank you but always the most important. To the man who has to live with me while the words aren’t coming, who has to do all the housework when they are and who knows exactly when edits are due just by the tone of my voice. To Ash for still being my everything.

  Part One

  1

  Now

  Where would you like to start?

  Hmm.

  Is something funny?

  That’s what I always used to say to my patients. It gives them a sense of control over the session. Except we both know I’m not in control here, don’t we?

  Is it important for you to believe that?

  I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to put me at ease so I open up and confess my darkest fears and then you can tell them I’m crazy. I feel crazy. You can write that down.

  Why don’t you start at the beginning, Karen? When you first met Jessica Hamilton.

  That’s not the beginning. It’s where all this started, I suppose, but it’s not really the beginning. It started way before all that, before I met Bea and Eleanor, Michael. It started with what happened when I was four years old.

  Would you like to talk about that? What happened to you when you were a child?

  No. I don’t want to talk about that, and they don’t want to hear about it. They want to know about how she died.

  Go on.

  You can’t fix me.

  Pardon?

  Those were some of the first words Jessica Hamilton ever said to me, the words I still hear on a loop in my mind. I remember thinking she was wrong: I fixed people all the time, it was my job. What I didn’t realise then was that she never wanted to be fixed in the first place; that was never her intention. I didn’t know it yet, but she was there to fix me.

  2

  Karen

  25th October

  A standard session at the Cecil Baxter Institute was three thousand seconds long. Some patients spent the entire time in silence, a fact that often confused most of the junior psychiatrists – why spend £150 to sit mute for fifty minutes? Not Dr Karen Browning, though, she understood. She understood it in the same way as she understood professional men who visited prostitutes; it wasn’t about the money or the silence, it was about the control.

  The soft click of heels on wooden flooring alerted Karen to the presence of her secretary, Molly, just outside her office door. Our secretary, she reminded herself – Molly worked for all six of the junior psychiatrists on the second floor; only the directors on the top floor had personal assistants. There was a light tap on the door. Karen ran some gloss over her lips, slipped the tube back into the top drawer and waited for Molly to come in. All the offices were set like a stage and Karen was particularly proud of hers, a symbol of everything she had achieved.

  And don’t they say pride comes before a fall.

  She’d spent an hour before work that morning reading over her case notes for this session, making sure she knew as much about Jessica Hamilton as possible before she even walked through the door. Miss Hamilton was her only new client that week – all the others were ongoing cases – and she had little information about her, which irritated her beyond words. Whoever had done the initial referral notes had been nowhere near as thorough as she herself would have been. The scrawling signature on them could have been any of the others, and she made a mental note to bring it up as non-accusatorily as possible at the next team briefing.

  Age: 23

  Medical history: no diagnosed history of depression or generalised anxiety disorder. Family background unknown. No medication at present. Self-referral.

  Reason for visit: tension headaches and irrational cognitive activity.

  As she always did from the initial notes, Karen couldn’t help putting together a picture of the woman about to walk through the door. Probably well off, judging from the amount of money she was paying for fifty minutes of Karen’s time. Karen did a certain amount of pro bono work but Jessica Hamilton was self-referred and self-funded. She imagined that her friends called her Jess and her family called her Jessica.

  There was a second knock, which was unusual for Molly. If Karen’s ‘In Session’ sign wasn’t on the door, she usually entered straight away. Karen got up, smoothing down her suit jacket, and opened the door to find not the smiling face of her assistant on the other side but a slight, timid-looking girl with a pale face, blossoms of red spreading out over her cheeks.

  Karen hoped her own face had not revealed her surprise, doubted it had. Eight years of psychiatry had taught her reactions to hover below the surface, never breaking through to the onlooker. The ultimate poker player.

  The young, attractive, rich-girl image the name Jessica Hamilton had conjured up couldn’t have been further from the reality standing opposite her now. Karen put out a hand for her to shake, registering quickly the chipped, bitten nails and the grip as weak as the smile she herself offered.

  ‘Jessica?’ She cast her eyes around the reception area, but Molly was nowhere to be seen. ‘My apologies. Our receptionist would usually be here to greet you. Come in.’ She ushered the woman inside, mentally cursing Molly and her out-of-character unprofessionalism.

  ‘Please, take a seat.’

  Either Jessica Hamilton didn’t hear her or she ignored Karen’s request. Instead she walked slowly away from the sofa and around to the bookcases on the far wall of the office. She seemed to be drinking in every detail of the mahogany shelves, the leather-bound books chosen for their aesthetics rather than their appropriateness to the setting. For the first time in a long time, Karen felt as though her space was being scrutinised and found wanting.

  ‘Would you like to sit down so we can start?’

  She thought for a second that Jessica was going to ignore her again, but after a moment she took a seat opposite and sat silently, waiting for Karen to lead the session.

  Jessica wasn’t unattractive; certainly if her face weren’t so ruddied from the cold outside – or perhaps from nerves – she could pass for pretty. Her hair fell in natural kinks down to her shoulders, and was a bl
onde so dark it looked devoid of colour entirely, a grey mass that had resigned itself to sit on her head without attracting attention. Her whole look was designed to elicit the least amount of interest, it seemed.

  ‘My name is Dr Karen Browning. I don’t know if you’ve seen other psychiatrists, but here we like our clients to be comfortable. So I’d like you to call me Karen, though if you don’t want to, that’s fine. Similarly I’d like to call you Jessica, but if you’d prefer Miss, Mrs or Ms Hamilton, I’m fine with that too.’

  She threw Jessica a wide smile, hoping to put her at ease. She sympathised with all of her patients; this had to be a daunting experience for them the first time around, sharing their fears and perceived shortcomings with someone who had no reason to care other than the money they were paying them. That was one of the reasons why she tried to look as approachable as possible: no designer labels on her suits like some of the other psychiatrists, no severe bun on the top of her head and no diamonds the size of the Blarney Stone – not that the last one was her choice.

  Jessica nodded at the standard spiel as though she’d heard something profound, but gave no indication of what she’d like to be called.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  She shook her head almost imperceptibly. Karen got up, poured herself a glass of water from the cooler in the corner and sat back on the chair facing Jessica. It was purposely an inch lower than the sofa, giving her patients the sense of control many didn’t feel in the outside world.

  ‘Okay. I notice that the reason for your visit is tension headaches. Would you like to tell me about them?’

  Jessica’s eyes locked on to Karen’s, something she wasn’t used to, at least in initial sessions. She’d kept her office sparsely decorated so that people didn’t have anything to focus on or be distracted by – the sofa, her desk and two small bookcases; the one photograph, no trinkets and a large painting of a jetty over a mass of relaxing turquoise water – yet they still found somewhere to look other than at her. Not Jessica Hamilton, though.