The Woman Next Door: An unputdownable psychological thriller with a stunning twist

by Sue Watson

  A few days later I popped round to her house again. I’d made another cake, this time something simpler, less extravagant, that wouldn’t be too showy-offy or droop in the heat – a naked Genoese sponge. This time, after several minutes standing on her doorstep again, the cake was fine but I was beginning to droop in the heat and realised I was wasting my time calling on the new neighbour. I’m friendly, but I’m not crazy, and I was just turning to go home, call it a day and present the Genoese to Matt when, voila, the door opened.

  ‘Oh, you made me jump,’ I said, giggling nervously. It was a stupid thing to say. I had knocked and was waiting, so what had I expected? But I was thrown by her… presence. She was even more stunning up close – her make-up was perfect. Arched eyebrows, glowing skin, long black lashes and those full red lips. She was wearing a beautiful pink silk kimono, and her hair was caught up in glossy tangles. It was like she’d tried, but she hadn’t – her look was a contradiction of effortless yet perfect.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she said, seeming vaguely irritated.

  ‘Hi! I hope I haven’t called by at an inconvenient…’ She looked at me, slightly puzzled, waiting for me to explain myself, causing me to feel rather foolish. ‘Sorry, I should introduce myself. I’m Lucy. I live here – number 7.’ I gestured towards my house and her eyes seemed to reluctantly follow my hand. I expected her to relax at this, invite me in, understand that I was here for good not evil, but she was still looking at me like she hadn’t a clue why I was on her doorstep. She wasn’t about to embark on a neighbourly chat over cake and coffee; I’d misjudged this badly. Perhaps she wasn’t like her lovely TV persona after all. I wished the ground would swallow me up, but I pushed on. ‘I just want… wanted to say… welcome.’ I smiled stupidly, suddenly turning into a six-year-old, holding up the cake like I was a pupil and she was my teacher.

  ‘Thank you, but I don’t really eat cake – it looks lovely though,’ she added as a palliative.

  ‘But everyone eats cake…’ I started, smiling, hoping to win her over, but her eyes registered nothing.

  ‘I’m always on a diet,’ she responded coolly.

  ‘Oh… me too.’ I laughed. ‘But it lasts until lunchtime.’

  She smiled at this, like she was humouring me, and in my embarrassment I gave a little twirl, which was ludicrous. The look on her face was sheer bemusement and I had to keep talking to cover my awkwardness.

  ‘Everyone here’s very friendly,’ I started. ‘My friend Kirsty and I have organised a couple of events too: there’s the annual summer barbecue, and we had a street party for the royal wedding, and we did a charity run – well, it was more like a charity walk in my case.’ I giggled awkwardly. She looked slightly horrified at the prospect of people grilling their sausages in front of her house, but on I went through the pain barrier. A stand-up comedian who’d just lost her audience. I was dying out there. ‘And… oh yes, we have the book club, on the first of every month.’ I nodded vigorously, hoping she’d mirror this. She didn’t. ‘Next month we’re at Stella McConnall’s. She’s number 9, Daffodil Drive,’ I said, producing this like a moth-eaten rabbit from a hat. Why on earth would TV star Amber Young want to sit in Stella’s front room discussing the pros and cons of the latest supermarket paperback? I hadn’t intended to even mention the book club, but I guess I was vainly hoping if I offered her enough of a varied selection something might pique her interest. Apparently not.

  ‘That all sounds… great,’ she said, sounding totally unconvinced. ‘Thanks so much for calling by.’ She forced a smile from behind the slowly closing door, which she then shut in my face.

  I was shocked at the abruptness and if I hadn’t got the message, the resounding click as she locked the door confirmed that my new neighbour wasn’t interested. Actually, it was worse than disinterest, it was as if she was locking her door to protect herself from me, like I’d spooked her with my sad cake and endless list of lame social events. Someone else had locked me out once before, a long time ago, someone I thought was my friend, and that hurt so much. The memory has lingered through the years, seeping into my happiness like a stain, and standing on the doorstep that day I was reminded that there’s nothing quite so painful as the sound of a lock keeping you out.

  In spite of this, I continued to stand on her doorstep, clutching my bloody cake like a reject from The Women’s Institute. My hurt morphed easily and quickly into anger and as far as I was concerned that was it – the end of my reaching out. Amber Young could piss off with her fancy house and snooty attitude. And Matt and I would enjoy the cake, watching something on television that categorically wasn’t that night’s weather forecast.

  Chapter Five

  Lucy

  When I got home, Matt comforted me while devouring the rejected Genoese, informing me through crumbs, ‘I’ll get my screenplay finished, we’ll adopt a rainbow family and live in Hollywood, and when we throw big fuck-off parties and invite the old neighbours, she’ll wish she’d been nicer to you.’

  He could be so sweet – a bit naive and a dreamer, but sweet. ‘Can we have a pool party? We’ll need a place with a huge swimming pool,’ I’d joked, ‘and I’d like a place in the Maldives to escape to sometimes.’

  ‘Absolutely.’ He smiled, putting down his now empty cake plate, and wrapping both arms around me. I pushed my face into his chest, his T-shirt soft against my cheek, his body warm underneath, his musky smell familiar, comforting. I put my arms around his waist and as I looked up at him, he kissed me, and all the prickliness of rejection was smoothed over, my tender wounds bathed. And later that evening, in bed, I lay in his arms in the afterglow on tangled sheets and tried not to think about Amber Young and how she’d virtually slammed the door in my face. And locked it.

  ‘I’m just angry at myself,’ I murmured.

  ‘Why? It isn’t your fault,’ Matt insisted, his hair messy and his eyes sleepy. I loved him like that.

  ‘I shouldn’t have allowed her to just dismiss me. I’m not good with confrontation. I avoid it after all the rows in my house. My mother was always so angry, and it’s infectious, fills the air until you pick it up, but you don’t know what you’re angry about.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Matt murmured. ‘It colours your life; my mum wasn’t exactly a saint either.’

  ‘Yeah, but now as an adult I worry I’ve gone the other way, and I’m too much of a pleaser.’

  ‘Lucy, if by pleaser you mean kind, then yes you are – and you mustn’t change. Other people are the problem, and just because they aren’t like you, it isn’t your problem, it’s theirs,’ he said, rolling over and stroking my face.

  ‘I just sometimes feel like I have to be extra nice, like I have some making up to do, you know?’

  ‘Yes, I do. But maybe stop always trying to compensate for being a tearaway as a kid – you’re not that girl any more, and you don’t have to keep apologising for who you are.’

  ‘Yeah, okay, I’ll stay positive and give her the benefit of the doubt. After all, there might be a reason why she was so off with me. I mean, her lipstick might have melted in the heat,’ I said, trying to make light of it.

  ‘Agreed. That would be tragic, but still no reason to be like that with someone who just wants to be friendly and welcome you,’ he said, getting out of bed and putting on his dressing gown.

  I wanted to discuss this further, to consider what might be eating Amber Young, but Matt closed any further investigation as he smiled hopefully and said, ‘Babe, will you test me on my lines now?’ He held out a dog-eared script.

  I laughed. ‘Have you given yourself a part again?’

  He nodded in mock shame. ‘The kids love it.’

  ‘You love it more.’ I took the script from him, reading it as he spoke his three lines.

  Matt always liked to play a small cameo in all the school productions. Like Hitchcock in his films, Matt would suddenly appear, the only adult in a sea of young teenagers, and say a few lines. The kids all loved him, whistling
and shouting when he bowed at the end. ‘Go sir!’ they’d yell, and he loved it just as much as they did.

  Perhaps this wasn’t the life either of us had planned, but in those moments, as the kids cheered, I hoped he’d found what he was looking for. I know he loves me, but sometimes I think he deserves so much more because he’s such a good, kind husband. From the minute we first became friends, Matt rescued me in his own way – and once we fell in love, every day, every little hurt, every bleed of mine was willingly mopped up by him. I’ve reciprocated by supporting him too – neither of us had ever had too much love before. We’d never been first on anyone’s list of priorities. But here we are now. We’re through the difficult childhoods, the unhappy teens, and we’re both happy and loved; all we’d ever wanted really. Sometimes it feels like we’re both two frightened kids clinging to each other, but I thank God we found our other half to make us finally whole.

  ‘I still can’t believe she was so rude,’ I muttered as I held the crumpled script adorned with pencil graffiti – vital words and reminders. ‘I mean, why would someone be like that?’ I knew I was probably taking this far too personally and needed to move on, but I couldn’t understand her reaction. I would have been delighted if someone had brought me a home-made cake when I’d first moved in here.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he sighed. ‘Why does anyone do anything anti-social? Like you say, she might have her own issues… something to hide… Secrets?’

  I laughed. ‘Trust you to go all Gothic, you drama queen. She might just be a spoilt bitch.’

  ‘She might.’ He nodded. ‘Or perhaps inside that house is a sex dungeon, and she’s a part-time dominatrix…’ He said this in an exaggerated German accent, which made me giggle.

  ‘Enough.’ I giggled. ‘Stop teasing me. I can respect someone’s privacy. I’m not going to pry…’

  He gave me a knowing look. ‘You? Pry?’ He laughed and continued in the funny accent: ‘You have ways and means of making them talk, Madam Metcalf.’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ I sighed. ‘I’ll admit I did want to find out more about our new neighbour. But now I don’t suppose I ever will.’

  ‘Forget her. Concentrate on me, I’m the important one in your life,’ he said, and I tested him on his lines. Again.

  When the monthly book club came around a week later, I almost didn’t go, but Matt was working late and Kirsty cornered me in the staffroom, saying I was spending too much time alone. ‘You’re like a single woman,’ she’d said. ‘He’s never home. You need to get out.’ So I went along, and if I hadn’t gone to book club that evening I probably wouldn’t have become friends with Amber. And who knows how things might have turned out?

  I’d originally joined the book club hoping it might provide some respite from the incessant baby/child chatter that filled the air here in our pseudo ‘village’. But on my second visit, the conversation about books had been blurred by wine, and talk touched dangerously on children’s themed birthday parties, and I almost fell asleep. By the third meeting they were threatening to share birth stories and I really couldn’t cope. After years of scheduled sex and several rounds of IVF, Matt and I had finally found a way to live with our childlessness. And though we discussed adoption and fostering, for now we’d decided to see where life took us – even if, to be honest, there were days when it felt like life was taking us nowhere, and neither of us wanted to admit that. In the meantime though, as far as the book club mothers went, I didn’t need my face rubbed in my childlessness and was definitely considering quitting and finding another hobby.

  But that evening I agreed to give book club ‘one more go’, making Kirsty promise to step in if there was so much as a sniff of umbilical cord chat. ‘If I’m bored I won’t be coming along next month,’ I said, not knowing that I would be anything but bored, and from that night on life would never be boring again.

  Amber’s arrival at the book club was a surprise to everyone, especially me. She ‘landed’ in clouds of perfume and enthusiasm, her gleaming red hair and quick chatter like a perfectly controlled storm, wild and swirling electricity emanating from her rapid hand movements. She oozed glamour and money, but in complete contrast to our previous encounter, there was now a warmth, a keenness to listen to others and show interest. How different this Amber was to the one I’d encountered on her doorstep. Perhaps I’d caught her at a bad time?

  Awestruck, the rest of us sat on Stella’s bland beige three-piece suite as Amber talked. We just drank in this stranger’s confidence, her vivaciousness. We were captivated by that indefinable something that Amber possessed, and all leaned closer, like it might brush off on us like gold dust. She even seduced Sergeant Major Marjorie, the self-appointed leader of the book club, who made all the rules and disapproved of anyone who broke them. Tucking her long legs under her slim, well-toned body, Amber was quite at home sitting in Marjorie’s usual chair while ‘our leader’ sat on the only remaining free seat – a small velveteen pouffe at Amber’s feet. I had to suppress a smile at the sight of the queen of the book club in such a submissive pose.

  Amber Young was familiar to everyone there as our one local celebrity. Not just from her recent work though. Back in the day when she was a rising star, there were reports that she was about to have her own talk show. Obviously her husband then died and she took some time out. I remember stuff being in the newspapers at the time, but it was over twenty years ago. I recall reading an article saying her husband’s family had never liked her, which at the time I couldn’t understand. She was so lovely on screen. If she was as cold with them as she had been with me on our first encounter, no wonder, but I was prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt.

  That night at book club it felt like we were back at school and all vying for the new girl’s attention, asking her all about her new job at the local TV station. Amber seemed happy to fill us in; she told us how she had once danced with George Clooney at a film awards dinner, hinted at an affair with a royal prince, talked about weekends in St Tropez, glamping in Devon with a Michelin-starred chef, and we gasped as she recounted a recent trip to Cannes where she stayed on a millionaire’s yacht. Amber was committing a book club crime in not adhering to Marjorie’s doctrine of talking only about the book – but she was getting away with it on charisma alone.

  ‘Fabulous necklace, Marji!’ Amber had said, love-bombing our leader, who was still sitting astride Stella’s pouffe, and causing her to flush with pleasure. I smiled to myself. One could only imagine the scenes if anyone else had dared referred to her as ‘Marji’.

  Later, as we came to leave, I was aware of Amber standing close to me as we said goodbyes and thanked our hostess. We were at the peak of summertime, but it being a British summer, the evenings were fringed with chilliness, and while the rest of us made do with old cardigans and sweatshirts for warmth on the way home, Amber was swathed in acres of blush pink cashmere. She seemed to glow in the darkness.

  ‘I’m really not sure how I got here,’ she said, looking straight at me with helpless pleading eyes. Still smarting from our previous encounter, a mean little part of me wanted to tell her to find her own way back. But that isn’t me. I find it hard to be unkind to people, so I just smiled and said, ‘That’s okay. I only live a few doors down from you. We can walk together.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘you’re the lady with the cake.’ To her credit, she looked suitably embarrassed.

  ‘Yes, that’s me,’ I said, waving goodbye to Kirsty, who lived in the opposite direction.

  ‘This place is like a maze. All the houses look the same,’ Amber said as we walked along.

  ‘It takes a while to find the road you’re looking for. I used to get lost most days driving home, but now I know this estate like the back of my hand,’ I said, cringing at the pride in my own voice. I wanted to qualify this, explain that I did have a life, that I hadn’t spent every evening learning the road structure, but I thought that might just make me sound worse. I wasn’t quite sure what to say, and she seemed
lost in her own thoughts so we just walked back in silence.

  When we arrived at hers, I was about to say goodnight and continue on home, when she hesitated. ‘Lucy, I feel really bad. I decided at the last minute to go along tonight, but I realise I should have let you know. After all, you’re the one who invited me.’

  ‘Oh, that’s okay. I’m glad you came.’

  ‘And thank you – for calling by that day. I wasn’t… I wasn’t… I was tired with the move, and not really up to chatting.’

  ‘It’s okay, I understand.’

  ‘My partner… Ben, he was supposed to help with the move, but he’s been so busy he couldn’t, and it was a lot to do on my own.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t realise. You should have let us know. My husband and I would have helped.’

  ‘Oh, it was fine. I had removal men, just not my man,’ she said sadly.

  ‘That’s a shame. Is he moving in soon?’ I wanted know more after having had a glimpse into Amber’s world at the book club.

  ‘Yeah… yeah, Ben’s moving in any time now.’

  ‘Oh, lovely. Have you been together long?’

  I remember Amber paused slightly before answering. ‘Yes, years. Ben was the TV executive who gave me my first network job doing the weather. Until then I’d been doing freelance shifts on local TV and I went to see him – and he gave me the role. It was thanks to Ben I hit the big time back then and I’m working with him again now.’

  ‘That’s nice. Perhaps you’ll eventually get that talk show gig?’ I said, and could have bitten my tongue.