The Women: A gripping psychological thriller

by S. E. Lynes

  Jenny shakes her head. ‘It was obvious. And it was so horrible. I’d met this amazing woman. You know that feeling when you think you’re going to be really good friends with someone? Well, that’s what I felt, and I think Aisha did too.’

  ‘I didn’t. Jenny just stalked me into submission.’

  They both crack up. Samantha smiles with as much indulgence as she can muster.

  ‘Why horrible?’ she insists. ‘Why couldn’t you just be friends?’

  ‘Because I knew he was two-timing her. And she was so beautiful and cool and everything, but I didn’t know her and I didn’t know whether to tell her or whether to just leave it. It would have been easier to say nothing, but I’d had a lot to drink and she gave me this hug and I was, like, mate …’ She rolls her eyes, reliving the moment.

  ‘And she told me,’ Aisha says. ‘Which I still think was fucking brave.’

  ‘Why?’ Samantha’s fists are two tight balls, her chest on fire.

  Jenny meets her gaze, her eyes a brown-flecked green. ‘Because he was two-timing her with me.’

  Twenty-Two

  Samantha feels the throb of a pulse at her temple. ‘When was this?’

  Jenny looks at Aisha, as if to check. ‘It was October. October last year?’

  Aisha nods. ‘It was near the beginning of term, because we’d been to some drinks thing and ended up in the pub. No, hang on, it was the year before, 2016. October, deffo.’

  Jenny rolls her eyes. ‘It was, wasn’t it? Jeez, where does the time go?’

  They laugh. But Samantha is blinking hard now, trying to absorb the information without crying. When Peter took her to his house on the hill, when she became special and original, beautiful and intelligent, because he told her that this was what she was, when his deep brown gaze seemed only to focus, only ever to have really focused, on her, he was in fact making two other women feel special and original, beautiful and intelligent. These two women, specifically. The two women sitting opposite her. Sitting opposite her and laughing like it’s some big joke while Samantha presses her teeth into her gums and tries to stop herself from smashing into pieces.

  The canteen clock reads quarter to three. She should leave, go and get Emily. She is dimly aware that both her hands are being held. Aisha is holding one, Jenny the other.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Aisha asks.

  She nods. ‘I’m fine. It’s just … I mean, I know Peter had girlfriends before me. You expect that. I’m a lot younger than him; I knew he hadn’t lived like a monk. I’m just …’

  She looks to Jenny, then to Aisha. They should hate one another, she thinks. And they should hate her. And she should hate both of them. But here they are, holding hands.

  ‘Can I ask exactly when in October?’ she asks.

  ‘It was …’ Jenny pulls out her phone, narrows her eyes. ‘It was a Tuesday, so let’s see … that would’ve been the … eighteenth.’ She looks up. ‘Yes, the eighteenth.’

  Samantha inhales. She can’t speak. She met Peter on the Thursday. Thursday the twentieth of October. Two days later. Two.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she manages. ‘Jenny, I’m sorry. I didn’t know—’

  Jenny waves her hand. ‘I know you didn’t. None of us did. Which is why there’s no point us shouting and bitching. It’s him, Peter, who’s the shit here.’

  ‘Don’t call him a shit,’ Samantha says, her voice louder than she meant. ‘He may not have been completely open with me, but that’s his past. He has a right to his privacy. He has a right to a past. And he’s changed.’

  Jenny snorts.

  ‘Don’t, Jenny,’ Samantha says. ‘Seriously. We have a child together. And he asked me to move in with him before I got pregnant. He asked me the first morning we spent together. It was … different.’

  Aisha lets go of her hand. ‘I know it’s hard, and believe me, I feel like the world’s biggest bitch for telling you, but it’s not different. Do you think you’re different because he told you that you were?’

  ‘No! I mean, he did say that, but he … he meant it.’ The words sound hollow. She sounds like a schoolgirl.

  ‘Let me guess,’ Jenny says. ‘He picked you up at a student drinks party.’

  ‘Well, yes, but …’ Samantha checks her watch. It is ten to. She should go. She wants to go, but she cannot stand up.

  ‘He picked you up,’ Aisha is saying, ‘and took you for a drive in the vintage Porsche Carrera.’

  ‘No spoiler,’ Jenny chips in. ‘Cream leather seats.’

  Samantha closes her eyes. She feels sick.

  But Aisha hasn’t finished and continues with something like relish. ‘He took you to a bar. But shock horror, the bar was rammed. So he suggested his place. And he drove you to his incredible house, with his art and his vinyl and his fireplace. And, let me see, he put a record on. Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue?’

  ‘You got the Miles Davis,’ Jenny drawls. ‘I got the Coltrane. A Love Supreme. I thought it was the most amazing thing I’d ever heard. I thought he was the most sophisticated man I’d ever met, when actually he’s no more than a randy dog.’

  Dog. Those men are dogs, they hunt their prey by day. Samantha stands so quickly her chair falls back, crashes on the floor of the cafeteria. ‘I’m sorry, but why the hell are you both here? Why are you so interested in me and Peter? I mean, it’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it, both of you here in this college when I just happen to be your tutor?’

  Aisha stands up too, holds up her hands. ‘We told you, we didn’t know you were teaching that course when we signed up. I signed up for the last one, but it got cancelled.’

  Samantha shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t buy that at all. I think you came here so you could … I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re trying to do, the pair of you. I mean, why do you even live round here? That’s just … it’s just weird.’

  ‘Samantha,’ Aisha says. ‘I was with Peter for five years. I know this area, I love it. So does Jenny. For the same reasons. Me and Jenny know Richmond and each other because of Peter. If it weren’t for him, we’d just be two women who got pissed together in a pub once. We wouldn’t have become friends. And when we decided to rent a place together, we looked round here because we liked it, that’s all. I know it might seem like a coincidence, but it isn’t. We live here, this is our local college and it was me who fancied a creative-writing course, not an unusual thing for a postgrad with a passion for English. I dragged Jenny along so I’d have a mate to come with me. That’s all, I swear to God. There’s no way we thought there’d be any connection to Peter, because he works at UCL; he’s got nothing to do with this college.’ She bends down to help Samantha right the chair. ‘Look, I’m sorry. We got carried away. We’re in a different place with it all, but we’ve been where you are now and we shouldn’t have—’

  ‘We shouldn’t have made light of it.’ Jenny is looking up at Samantha with her round green eyes. ‘Sorry, Sam, that was well out of order. But everything Aisha says is true. We didn’t come here to mess you up or interfere in your life, honestly we didn’t, and if you sit down, we’ll tell you properly. We’re only trying to help, I promise. We just want to make sure your eyes are open. You don’t know what he’s capable of. Trust us.’

  Trust. Fine word. Samantha pulls her satchel strap over her head. The gesture feels petulant already; her cheeks heat with embarrassment at her own angry display. ‘Look, things have changed, all right? He told me they’d changed and I believe him. He didn’t ask you two to move in, did he? He didn’t ask either of you to marry him. And he didn’t have a baby then either. I know it’s not particularly edifying, but he’s moved on from all that now.’ Her heart is hammering. Sweat trickles down her sides. She has to get away. She has to get away from their eyes.

  ‘He didn’t seduce you the first night, did he?’ Aisha is staring at her, her brown eyes almost black, glowing.

  ‘What?’ Samantha takes a step back. ‘What has that got to do with any
thing?’

  ‘He didn’t sleep with you, did he? That first night?’

  ‘Let me guess,’ Jenny interrupts, her voice too loud for Samantha’s comfort. ‘He asked you all about yourself, told you that you were beautiful and intelligent and generally fucking amazing. Did he offer you the magic pills? Or was it the sprinkles? And the next day, did he take you to see him perform – oops, I mean lecture? And did you watch him and feel like it was all for you, that he was the most incredible person you’d ever met, and now he’d fallen in love with you, with you above everyone else, and you couldn’t quite believe it?’

  Samantha glances towards Aisha for support, but Aisha’s face is motionless.

  Samantha backs away. ‘He wants me to marry him. It was his idea to have a baby.’

  Jenny laughs. But the sheen on her hardened green eyes gives her away. ‘That’s because when we found out what he was, we both dumped him. Aisha dumped him that night, legend that she is, and I dumped him the next night, and he couldn’t fucking believe it, couldn’t believe that he, the almighty Professor Bridges, had been rejected. Twice in twenty-four hours.

  ‘And suddenly he was alone and old and he finally understood what it meant to be dropped, and that if it’d happened once, it could happen again and probably would happen again. Just like a normal person. He’s intelligent enough to know that he’s not a normal person – he’s a very good-looking, very clever little shit. And he knows he’s a shit. He panicked, Sam. That’s all this is. He’s terrified of being alone, can’t stand it even for one week. He’d never end a relationship without first starting another. Can’t bear not to be admired, desired, revered … he can’t bear it. And he found you, all young and lovely and ripe, and he thought he’d knock you up and put a ring on your finger before you—’

  But Samantha doesn’t hear the rest. She is running across the courtyard towards the crèche, their words landing like bricks in the water, sinking, sinking, down and down, to the dark riverbed of her subconscious where she knows, already knows, they will lurk, waiting for her to stop, waiting for silence, to begin their poisonous decomposition. Peter found her, all young and lovely and ripe, before her colour changed. He picked her up the day after Jenny ended things with him, two days after Aisha, his long-term girlfriend, left him. My God, it’s too much to … How can a person move on so quickly? A machine switching to a new power source, oh God oh God, and now this is part of what she knows about him and it’s too late to unhear what Aisha has said, what Jenny has said. She cannot unhear it. Cannot unsee their urgent, laughing faces, the blaze of scorned fury in their eyes. She has seen those eyes before, in the face of her own mother, and in some cruel twist, it appears that it is Jenny, bolshie, man-hating Jenny, who wrote those poems, not to get at her, but to get at Peter – her warped revenge for his crimes against women.

  She reaches the nursery half weeping with stress. At the sight of her, the nursery assistant’s brow wrinkles with confusion. She gets up from the floor and walks slowly towards her.

  ‘Samantha, hello. Are you all right?’

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ Samantha says breathlessly. ‘Lost track of time.’

  But the nursery nurse is still scrutinising her. ‘Did you forget something?’

  The blood drains to her feet. The woman’s name badge says Gail. She has a cold sore on her top lip.

  ‘I’m here to pick up Emily,’ Samantha says, in those last moments of understanding. ‘Emily Bridges? My daughter?’

  Gail’s face clouds. ‘Suzanne said you’d asked her to bring her to you. She said you were busy with a student and wanted to feed her yourself.’ Her voice falters. ‘She had your number in her phone. She said you were mates. You seemed … We called you from her phone but you didn’t pick up, so she left a message … She was like Hi, hon, it’s only me, like you totally knew her, and she said you were busy with the … Didn’t she bring her? Oh my God, she didn’t. Oh God, I’m so sorry, this is only my sixth week and I’ve totally messed up. Oh my God, I’m such an idiot, I can’t believe I … but I thought you were mates, you seemed like mates … Oh shit, what’ve I done? I’m so, so sorry. Samantha … Samantha?’

  Twenty-Three

  ‘Help!’ Samantha is running across the college courtyard. ‘Help!’ She is running through the automatic glass doors, into the cafeteria. ‘Somebody help me! Help, help, oh my God.’

  Aisha and Jenny are running towards her, their mouths two black Os.

  ‘Oh my God, Sam, what’s happened?’ Aisha reaches for her, takes her in her arms.

  ‘My baby,’ Samantha wails, wriggling out of Aisha’s embrace. ‘Emily. Suzanne’s taken Emily, she’s stolen her from the crèche, she’s taken her, she’s taken my baby, she’s taken my little girl.’

  White heat. Jenny is running towards reception, phone at her ear. ‘Police? Hello, yes, police? This is an emergency. A baby has been kidnapped from …’

  Samantha is on her knees. They throb with pain. Aisha still has hold of her hand and she too is kneeling, running her thumb over Samantha’s knuckles. ‘It’s OK,’ she’s saying. ‘The police are on their way. They’ll track her down in no time; they have all sorts of stuff for that. It’s OK, Samantha, just stay calm – they’re on their way. We’ll find her. We’ll find Emily, don’t you worry.’

  Jenny’s feet – her black leather lace-up boots. Samantha looks up into her face, sees only concentration.

  ‘They’ll be here any minute.’ Jenny is talking to Aisha. ‘Get her onto a chair, I’ll fetch tea.’

  Samantha lets herself be lowered onto a hard plastic chair. She can hear herself moaning. Her leg jiggles. Her nose is running into her mouth. Aisha hands her a tissue. Jenny holds out a steaming takeaway cup. ‘It’s got sugar in,’ she is saying, but Samantha bats it away. Stands. Runs. She is running, out of the glass double doors, back towards the car park.

  ‘Help,’ she cries out, to no one. ‘Help.’ There is a man in the car park. ‘Help, excuse me, hello? Have you seen a woman and a baby? In the car park.’

  He looks at her, bewildered. ‘No, sorry.’

  Over an hour has passed since Suzanne took Emily. Over an hour, over an hour, my God. Samantha is running back through the automatic doors, half blind, half deaf, half crazy.

  ‘Samantha!’ It’s Aisha. She is crying.

  Samantha pushes her aside and runs through to the foyer, up the wide college steps, one flight, two, to the manager’s office. The door is shut. She doesn’t know the code. She bangs on the door with both fists. ‘Help,’ she calls at the top of her voice. ‘Help me!’

  The door opens. It is Harry. She collapses onto him. ‘Someone’s taken my baby. My student Suzanne, she’s taken her. She’s gone, Harry. Suzanne’s got Emily.’

  Harry’s shirt smells of detergent and sweat.

  The floor is blue and white squares.

  They rush at her.

  She is holding another takeaway cup. She doesn’t know if it’s tea or coffee. Her face is sticky and she’s crying. She’s in a hard chair in the manager’s office. Her knees still hurt; there is a pain on her forehead, a balled-up tissue in her hand.

  A policewoman is crouching at her feet.

  ‘Miss Frayn,’ she’s saying. ‘I’m WPC Townson and this is my colleague PC Davies. You can call me Christine. Can I call you Samantha?’

  Samantha puts her hand up to her forehead. A warm, damp lump.

  ‘You’ve given yourself a right old egg,’ says the policewoman – Townson, was it? Townsend?

  ‘Did I faint?’

  ‘Think so. Don’t worry, it’ll go down. Samantha, love, we need you to tell us exactly what’s happened; can you do that for us?’

  There’s a policeman there too. She remembers now, she saw them arrive. She was already sitting in this chair, or was she down in the foyer? Aisha and Jenny were with her, she’s pretty sure. They led her up here. Which means she must have gone back down. She checks her watch. It is half past three.

  ‘Samantha? Sama
ntha, my darling, can you tell us exactly what happened?’

  Townson. Her name is Townson. Christine.

  ‘I …’ she begins, her voice hoarse. ‘I was having a quick cup of tea with a couple of students. We were talking. I realised the time and I went straight to get Em.’

  ‘To the nursery?’ The policewoman is writing in a notepad.

  ‘Yes. I’d booked her in till three. I got there at three. I was about a minute late, two tops. And she said that Suzanne had taken her.’

  ‘And by she, you mean …?’

  ‘The nursery girl. Gaynor or Gail, I think her name is.’

  The policewoman looks up at her colleague. ‘Do you want to check the nursery?’

  Harry leaves with the PC.

  The WPC, Christine, is still writing. ‘And who’s Suzanne, love?’ She touches Samantha’s arm lightly. ‘Who’s Suzanne? Samantha, can you tell us who Suzanne is, darling?’

  ‘She’s one of my students. She was friendly with the nursery nurse. I thought she was dropping off her own child today.’ Samantha stops, hand flying to her mouth. A high-pitched noise comes out of her mouth. ‘Oh my God. She doesn’t have a child. She doesn’t have one, does she?’

  ‘We don’t know that.’ The WPC has got up from the floor and is looking at Harry. Harry is back. He’s right there. She cocks her head, talks into her radio. ‘Davies? Yeah, mate, can you find out if this Suzanne left with another child besides Emily? Cheers.’ She sits beside Samantha on another orange plastic chair. Her shoes are black and big. Jenny’s shoes are there too – black, big. And Aisha’s shoes. Aisha’s shoes are red ankle boots.

  ‘Can you give us her full name, Samantha?’

  Samantha looks up, into the pale brown eyes of the policewoman. She knows this woman gave her name, moments ago, but she cannot now remember what it is.

  ‘Suzanne Lewis,’ she says. ‘I know it’s that because the first week I saw it on the register as C. S. Lewis and I thought that was funny, you know, because of C. S. Lewis the writer, and then when she introduced herself as Suzanne, I thought, ah, she obviously uses her middle name, you know? Like some people do if they prefer it or whatever. I didn’t think anything more about it. I don’t know her first name. Will you still be able to find her? Will you still be able to find her if you don’t know her first name?’ She looks up. Harry is standing with his hand on Penny Mackay’s shoulder. Penny is sitting at his desk, using his computer. Their faces are set, serious.