The Women: A gripping psychological thriller

by S. E. Lynes

  She reads the poem again. Someone seems to be looking out for her, telling her to get away from Peter. Could this be Aisha’s long game? Unsettle with veiled menace, then point to Peter as the danger, causing her to become suspicious of him so that she, Aisha, can exploit that corrosive force in order to rekindle their affair?

  Suspicion. The one per cent. One per cent is all you need.

  She should call Aisha now. Right now. She should call her and ask her what the hell is going on.

  An hour later, she is still on the sofa, reading the poem over and over. Torturing herself. The roar of Peter’s car on the drive.

  ‘Peter,’ she says aloud. ‘Thank God.’

  By the time he gets out of the car, she is in on the front path, in tears.

  ‘Peter.’ She runs into his arms.

  ‘What’s happened?’ He holds her tight, kisses her hair. ‘Darling, what is it?’

  ‘It’s not going away, Peter. It’s getting worse.’

  ‘But you said there were no more poems. In the college, we checked.’ He follows her into the house, into the kitchen, where the folder lies on the table, the imitation poem on the top.

  ‘I checked,’ she says, her voice broken. ‘You checked too, didn’t you, and there was nothing untoward.’

  ‘Nothing.’ He pulls two wine glasses down from the cupboard. ‘And you’re saying there’s been another? Is it possible we missed it, maybe two sheets stuck together?’

  She shakes her head, offers him the offending poem. ‘This time it’s definitely aimed at us. Definitely.’

  Peter is uncorking a bottle, his mouth a grim flat line. ‘Take it into the living room,’ he says. ‘I need to sit down and really focus on it. I’ve been standing up for hours and the drive home was a nightmare. And light the fire, will you? It’s cold in here.’

  In the living room, she waits, already a little calmer now that Peter is home. Even the clink of the glassware is comforting, the ritual of it, the familiarity. She strikes a match and holds it to the paper that Peter has laid in the grate. She should have done this earlier, got the room cosy for him, but she’s been too frazzled. The paper takes, the flames lick around the kindling. As Peter has instructed, she waits for two minutes before laying the first log carefully on top.

  ‘Here.’ He is sitting down on the sofa, two glasses on the coffee table, reflected firelight dancing in their ruby-red bellies. He picks up the sheet, in his expression something of the patient schoolmaster. No more than a moment passes before that expression shifts, darkens. Second by second, she watches the deepening lines on his brow, the way he pulls with one finger at his collar, the heavy exhalation, and now the reaching for the wine, the glass drained.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asks.

  ‘I think we should call the police.’

  It is a Tuesday evening, nine o’clock, in Richmond. The police arrive within the hour, two officers, both men. Samantha had not expected a house call. They refuse offers of tea, coffee. One, the older of the two, somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties, sits in the armchair and takes out a notebook. Peter gives a brief history of the poison notes. Samantha interjects, awakening to the fact that she’s been sidelined in her own story. It is as if she doesn’t have a voice, or if she does, it is not one they can hear. The only answers she gives are to reassure them that she cannot have been mistaken. When she does tell them something, they look to Peter for confirmation.

  ‘And you recognised this Sean … Sean Worth … did you, this evening?’ the older of the two PCs asks her.

  She shakes her head. ‘I wouldn’t put it as strongly as that. It looked like him. And of course he was here last week, on this street. I definitely saw him then.’

  He looks to his colleague and back to her. ‘But this week you’re not sure?’

  ‘Not one hundred per cent, no. And I wouldn’t want to accuse someone unless—’

  ‘She did see this guy last week,’ Peter interjects. ‘And as I said, I checked the folder with her at the college at around ten past two this afternoon. There were eight pieces of homework, all dialogues. This poem definitely wasn’t there. If my partner says there was someone outside the house, then there was. And it’s most likely to be Sean Worth. Who else could it have been? We’re not saying he wrote the poems, but shouldn’t we get a restraining order on the guy?’

  ‘But we don’t know that Sean put the poem in the house.’ Samantha feels like she’s interrupting. ‘We don’t even know it was put into the folder after we got home. We could be mistaken.’

  ‘Come on, Samantha.’ Peter looks towards the officers. Samantha only catches his expression from the side, but there’s something dismissive in it she doesn’t like.

  ‘It’s a bit premature for a restraining order at this stage.’ The older officer tucks his notepad into his breast pocket. ‘I’ll file a report. That way we’ll have it on record. And like I say, keep us posted on any developments and call us immediately you see anyone near the property acting suspiciously.’

  Peter shows them out. The front door bangs shut. Samantha looks towards the living-room door, expecting him to appear, but a moment later she hears him in the kitchen. He is whistling. Stravinsky, she thinks, but is not certain. She is not certain of anything. Peter helped her check the folder. She was with him the whole time. When she thought she heard the click of the door, he was at work. Is it possible she can even think he would do something like that, and if so, why? Why would she think that? Because of the pills behind the sofa cushions? She thinks of his absolute precision just now, talking to the police officers, compared to his vagueness whenever she asks about any part of his life that doesn’t, or didn’t, involve her. The school he taught at, the ex-girlfriends he never discusses, the unnamed PhD student he meets in the pub …

  But his willingness to take her concerns seriously has grown naturally according to the perceived threat. His appearance at the college was the action of a loving partner. His immediate calling of the police just now was completely supportive. The cleverness of this last poem, the way it alludes to a deeply personal favourite of his – there’s no way he would use it. Why point the finger at himself? And he is desperate to marry her; why warn her off? He has always wanted to save her, from her father, the spectre of financial ruin, her fear of being left humiliated and penniless. Only the other week, he made it clear to her that he was extremely wealthy, a gesture of faith. The moment he met her, he wanted to take her home. The moment he took her home, he wanted her to stay. Why would he try to frighten her away?

  ‘Sam.’

  She almost shrieks. He is at the doorway and he is gazing at her. The firelight casts an unflattering glow and she realises his chin is not as firm now as it was even a year ago. But the way he is looking at her makes it easy to forget that he is almost twenty years her senior. Her raging thoughts are nothing more than paranoia. And when he sits beside her and places his warm hand to her cheek in that way he does, she closes her eyes and leans into it.

  ‘You are my one true love,’ he says, ‘and I won’t let anyone hurt a hair on your head.’

  This is the side of him that only she knows. All the academic theories, all the jargon and the published works and the culture and the house and the good looks and the car and the nonsense turn to dust. He is her Gregory Peck. He is her romantic hero. And he is as cheesy as it gets.

  ‘I love you,’ she says and kisses him.

  Twenty

  ‘I don’t like leaving you.’ Peter is standing on the doorstep, his case next to his tan Church’s brogues. It is a week later, Tuesday morning.

  ‘The world is full of terrorists and gun-wielding madmen,’ Samantha says. ‘You can’t let terrorists stop you from going on holiday and you can’t let a few silly poems stop you going to an academic conference or me going to work.’

  He grins at her. ‘You’re amazing.’

  ‘Only because I have you. And the police know now. I’ll speak to Harry today and make sure I lock the hou
se. Honestly, I’m not scared.’ It is almost true.

  He sighs. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right? I could stay a few hours longer; that way I can drive you in.’

  ‘I’m not a child, Peter. If I see Sean today, I’ll have a word with him, and then if anything happens later, I’ll call the police straight away.’

  ‘And me. You’ll call me, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course. Now go, go on.’ She leans out and kisses him on the mouth. ‘Go on, f— buzz off!’ She congratulates herself. She caught the swear word just in time.

  The house to herself, she goes into every room and checks the locks on all the windows. She checks Peter’s bedside table too, and the medicine cabinet, but there’s no sign of any pills. Suspicion is exhausting, relentless. Her eyes sting, her shoulders ache. For the last week, countless theories have revolved in her head. Aisha, Jenny, Sean, Lana. Aisha, Sean, Jenny, Aisha. Twice she has lain on her bed in the middle of the day, reading the villanelle over and over for clues; pored over the original Dylan Thomas poem on her phone screen, as if some literary close reading could possibly help. Three or four times she has dreamt of the entire class closing in on her, Peter herding them like sheep, goading them to kill her with sharp flashing knives. She has woken up sweating, only to find Peter beside her, as handsome in sleep as he is awake. She’s sick of searching for evidence of his drug-taking, sick of thinking evil thoughts about him, sick of herself.

  Harry Boyd is in the foyer of the business unit, talking to Gabby, who teaches English as a foreign language.

  ‘Harry.’ Samantha waves to him; this is opportune.

  ‘Samantha.’ He claps Gabby on the arm and walks towards her. ‘Everything all right? How’s the teaching going?’

  ‘Fine – but actually, would you have five minutes?’

  He checks his watch. ‘I’ve got fifteen. Any good?’

  ‘Brilliant. I’ll drop Emily off and come and find you.’

  ‘Great. I’ll be in the manager’s office.’

  She heads for the crèche. Suzanne is there again, chatting to the nursery nurse, whose name Samantha has forgotten. Suzanne smiles and jumps up.

  ‘Hello again,’ she says. ‘You look stressed; do you want me to take her?’ She holds out her arms, and for a moment Samantha feels a flash of anxiety. Could Suzanne have written that villanelle? No, she doesn’t think so. No, impossible.

  The nursery assistant is right there, smiling over at her. Samantha knows she is not reacting normally. Everything is getting to her, more than she thinks, even the prospect of her first night without Peter. But if she starts living in fear, then whoever it is has won.

  ‘That’d be great, thanks,’ she says simply, letting Suzanne take the pram.

  Suzanne wheels Emily into the nursery. Samantha waves before dashing to the old building and up the two flights of stairs. The manager’s office is actually a classroom packed with desks, desks piled with paper stacks, the evidence of costs cut, of people finding themselves doing the work of three for the pay of one.

  ‘Harry.’

  ‘Samantha.’ He moves a pile of paper from a plastic chair and gestures for her to sit down. He asks after Peter and the baby, but when Samantha answers only briefly and glances at the clock, he appears to realise she doesn’t have time for small talk and asks how he can help.

  Samantha pulls her folder from her satchel and hands Harry the offending pieces of writing, in chronological order. There are only three.

  ‘The last one’s at home, sorry.’ A bookmark, folded on page eighty-six of her Rebus, under the bed. It doesn’t matter; there’s enough here for Harry to get the gist. She waits while his eyes flick over the work.

  ‘The first one came at the end of my first lesson and I didn’t think too much of it. I know it’s not horrific or openly threatening, but it’s a bit, well, dodgy. But when no one claimed it, I did feel a bit uneasy. Peter said to ignore it, said it was probably someone having a misguided joke. But then the next one came the following week, and the last two I found in our house, but that’s not to say—’

  ‘Someone put them in your house? Did they break in?’

  ‘That’s the thing. It’s possible someone might have put them into the folder after class when I wasn’t looking, or maybe I didn’t see them when I checked.’

  His expression shifts – it is almost nothing – eyebrows raised a fraction, his mouth flattening.

  ‘It’s not baby brain,’ she says quickly, justifying herself, hating herself for doing it even in the moment. ‘Emily’s an easy baby and I’m not overtired. Last week Peter even checked the folder with me.’ She bites her lip. Now she’s adding Peter as a kind of ballast. The weight of a man’s word, heavier than her own; she can see it in the clearing of Harry’s face. It’s 2018, for God’s sake; are women not to be believed? ‘And then two weeks ago,’ she continues, ‘I bumped into one of my students on my street. Sean Worth. He suffers from anxiety but he’s harmless, or at least I think he is. But then last week I thought I saw him outside again, watching the house.’

  ‘Watching the house?’ Harry’s eyes widen. ‘Are you sure it was him?’

  She shakes her head. ‘It’d be unfair to Sean to say I was sure. But the week before, yes, it was. Last week it looked like him, but he had his hood up, it was dark and I was in the bedroom. I couldn’t see him clearly. And by the time I made it onto the street, he’d gone.’

  Harry rubs his chin a moment. He looks so much older than Peter, she thinks, considering they were at school together. He is overweight, his cord jacket is too big for him, his hair almost white. ‘And you say no one has claimed the poems?’

  ‘I only asked once. Peter said to ignore it. We were hoping whoever it was would get bored. I thought they had, but then last week … We actually called the police. They took a statement and told us to be vigilant. They’ve got it on record now, at least.’

  ‘So you’ve already called the police,’ he mutters. ‘And you’re pretty sure one or two of the poems … or pieces or whatever … were planted in your house, possibly by this student?’

  ‘No, not pretty sure. I’m pretty sure he was outside my house, but that doesn’t mean he broke in. I intend to ask him today. I don’t want to frighten him, so I’m going to handle it myself when I find the right moment. I guess he could simply have followed me home or something. Or been in the area for a completely different reason. I haven’t seen anyone outside the house all week, so I wonder if he saw the police car. He’s … a little odd. Kind of lingers and tells me all sorts of stuff, as if he just wants to talk, you know? But I’d say he’s harmless. Lonely, maybe.’

  ‘He might have a bit of a crush. It happens, especially with tutors as … erm … well, especially with the more youthful and attractive, shall we say?’ He coughs, clearly embarrassed. ‘But even so, he can’t go following you home.’ Again, he rubs his chin, checks his watch. ‘Right, tell you what. I’ll note it on the system. See how it goes today, and in the meantime, I’ll try and free myself up and wander along before – two, is it, your class finishes?’

  She nods.

  ‘Right. I’ll try and pop down, stand at the back for the last ten minutes, how about that? And we’ll take it from there.’

  ‘Thank you. Yeah, thanks. That’d be great.’

  There is some relief in having spoken to Harry, and to have him take her seriously, if only to know she is not alone at work. But on her way to class, her stomach clenches. The whole thing is going round on a loop, and loops are a classic sign of stress; she knows that from dealing with her mother after her father left – on and on she went, over and over the same ground, expecting to come out with a different conclusion when the only conclusion was the painful truth: she had lost everything.

  As for Peter, she has to stop thinking badly of him. He was at work, and apart from anything else, it doesn’t make sense that he wrote the poems. Unless … but there she goes again, round and round. Stop it, Sam, just bloody stop it. What she needs is to g
et on with her job, focus on other people besides herself.

  As she rounds the corner, she sees a figure she recognises standing near reception. Sean. Her chest tightens.

  ‘Sean,’ she says. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Hello, Miss,’ he says. Unusually for him, he adds nothing.

  They walk on, through to the cafeteria. Lana is sitting at one of the tables, on her own, drinking hot chocolate and scribbling in a notebook, and at the sight, Samantha feels her insides flip.

  Sean is still at her elbow. Sod it, she thinks.

  ‘Sean, what brought you to my road the week before last?’ She glances at him, sees his eyes dart towards the canteen exit.

  ‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘I … I was meeting a friend. But she didn’t come.’

  ‘A friend?’

  He nods. ‘But she didn’t come.’

  ‘Sean, can I ask you something?’ She stops, faces him.

  ‘Yes, Miss.’ He stops too, looks down at his tatty trainers.

  ‘Sean, it’s not a problem and I’m not cross or anything, but were you outside my house again last week? In the evening, around seven?’

  He breathes through his nose, rapidly. His hand flies to the zip of his anorak. He works it up and down, up and down.

  ‘I was just checking you were OK.’ He glances up at her through his upper eyelashes. His eyes are blue and sad and she doesn’t know what to think.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be OK?’

  He shrugs. Still not looking up.