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

by Sue Watson

  ‘No… not exactly… I went into Amber’s bedroom… to check the taps in her en suite. And I honestly wasn’t poking around or anything…’ I add, immediately realising this may sound like I’m protesting too loudly.

  I don’t mention the beautiful pale pink silk robe hanging on the back of the door and how, as my hand glanced past the softness, it reminded me of my mother, causing my heart to twitch a little. I also don’t mention how I couldn’t resist taking it down and wrapping the Amber-scented pool of material around me. It felt wonderful, and I padded over to the huge mirror leaning against an almost blush-stained wall. Aware of my bare feet sinking into the softest wool carpet, I stood there, and I don’t know what I expected to see in the mirror, but instead of slim, beautiful Amber with her shiny red bob and perfect, long neck, I was looking at a short, chubby woman with frizzy ginger hair. Even blush silk couldn’t turn this sow’s ear into an Amber silk purse, so, defeated, I took off the robe and put it back on the hook. But it kept falling off and in the end I had to jam it over the hook and hope Amber wouldn’t notice. I’m thinking about all this when I remember where I am and I realise both officers are staring at me in anticipation of what I’m going to say next, so I bluster on.

  ‘I was going to leave there and then, I really was, but something caught my eye. A photo of a young Amber in a frame by the side of her bed. I picked it up and looked at it. It must have been taken when she was on TV all the time, at the height of her fame – all dressed up with her boyfriend Ben. They were a gorgeous couple… They aren’t together now,’ I add.

  Manyon shifts in his seat and I wonder what he’s making of this. Will they haul Ben in to be interviewed? In my opinion it’s not the worst thing they could do. What I don’t tell them is that when I put the photo back, I dropped the damned thing, and it hit the skirting board, cracking the glass right across the middle. I almost died, and put it back, but whichever way I stood it up that clean sharp line with little cracks emanating from it went right through the picture. I felt sick at the thought of her ever discovering I’d been rummaging around in her bedroom.

  I also don’t mention to Manyon and his mate that I opened her bedside drawer, partly because it makes me look weird and also because I don’t think it’s relevant. I don’t know why I did it. Why do we do anything like that? Why do we look at other people’s Facebook pages, people we barely know? Friends of friends of friends? We just want to look at other’s lives, see how they do things, what it tells us about them and compare their lives to our own. Me opening up Amber’s drawer was probably more primal – it was like when you’re a kid and your mum says ‘don’t do that’ and you’re suddenly filled with this compulsion to do whatever it is you know you shouldn’t.

  I feel hot just thinking about the way I opened the drawer and looked through her stuff. At first there were no real surprises, just the usual detritus of women’s bedside drawers and, coming to my senses, I felt ashamed at what I was doing and quickly tried to shut it. But for some reason I couldn’t close the bloody thing and had to push my hand right to the back to see what was blocking it. I grabbed and pulled out a folded, glossy magazine which had got caught up and had to pull at it to get it out so I could close the drawer again. Obviously I looked at the magazine, which was dated only a couple of years back and was open to a page full of glamorous photos of some big TV event. That explained why Amber had kept it – she must have attended the event – but on closer inspection I couldn’t see any photos of her. Then I spotted Ben, looking handsome in a tux… and at his side was a beautiful blonde woman, but when I read the caption, I had to sit down on the bed. ‘TV executive and recipient of the award for Best News Programme, Ben Bradshaw, with his wife, Geraldine’. I couldn’t believe it.

  ‘And then…?’ DCI Manyon’s looking at me, and I’m trying to make it seem like I’m telling him everything, but I’m not. I found something else in the drawer and had to stay in the bedroom for at least another ten minutes trying to compose myself before I heard the noise. But no way am I telling them.

  ‘I was just leafing through a magazine on her bedside table when I heard a noise again downstairs,’ I say, changing things slightly to save my embarrassment and shame – and perhaps Amber’s too. ‘And on the way out of the bedroom my eye was caught by something on the mirror of Amber’s dressing table. My heart started beating so loudly I thought whoever might be downstairs might hear it.’

  ‘And what was it you saw?’ Manyon asks.

  ‘Scrawled in red lipstick – her red lipstick – on the mirror, were two words: “fucking slut”!’

  He’s now writing this down, and the other detective is nodding slowly, like I just told them something really boring.

  ‘Go on…’ she says.

  ‘So I’m standing in Amber’s bedroom when I hear another noise downstairs and this time I wasn’t mistaken. It was a clattering noise again and it was coming from the kitchen. I was really scared,’ I add, thinking about how my chest was thudding so hard I thought I might actually have a heart attack. ‘Then I thought it might be the plumber. Perhaps he’d forgotten something, but he wouldn’t just come back in without knocking – and besides, I’d locked the front door before I went upstairs.’

  Both detectives nod.

  ‘Then I realised that if someone else was in the house, they must have come in before I locked the front door. They could have been there all the time, all day even.’

  ‘So what did you do?’ Manyon asks.

  ‘Well, at first I couldn’t move. I was so scared.’ In truth I was also very embarrassed – I went cold just thinking that as I’d been dancing in her kitchen, posing on the sofa for Hello magazine, ferreting around her bedroom and twirling around in her bloody robe, someone was there. And they were probably watching me. ‘Then I left the bedroom and was halfway down the stairs when I decided to make a run for it. I took the stairs two at a time and lunged at the front door. I pulled at the handle, but it wouldn’t budge and then I remembered I’d double-locked it and in my terror my fingers just wouldn’t work to unlock the door.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know what happened, but I swear I felt movement behind me, so I turned around, but whoever it was had moved, possibly into the sitting room. I stood there for a few moments by the door. Then I heard footsteps in the kitchen. I know I wasn’t mistaken; I definitely heard someone moving from the kitchen into the sitting room, which backs onto the garden. I thought I might never move again. It felt like time had stopped.’ My upper lip was damp with sweat as I waited in thick silence, hearing nothing, but knowing I wasn’t alone. I swear I heard breathing, but perhaps it was my own? ‘Then I made a very slow move into the kitchen, trying not to let my heels touch the floor and make a clicking noise.’

  ‘At this stage you’ve still seen no one, only heard noises?’ Manyon asks, and I see a look, a moment, a nuance pass between him and the woman. I suddenly feel unsure of this situation. Is he doubting my account?

  ‘Yes, I heard noises. Someone was there, I’m absolutely sure.’ He doesn’t respond, just looks at me, like he can see what I’m thinking, but I continue, hoping to convince them with my colourful descriptions. ‘I spotted the Sabatier knife block sitting on the kitchen counter and with one eye on the open doorway into the living room, I reached for one. To my horror I saw that there was a space where the biggest, sharpest knife usually sits – I almost screamed. I was so worried someone might be standing behind the wall of the sitting room waiting to stab me. So I stood for a few seconds, gathering all my breath and courage and strength. Then, I grabbed the second largest knife and dashed through the French doors…’

  ‘I thought the doors were locked?’

  ‘Well they were, as far as I knew. Whoever had been in the house must have let themselves in and out this way. I don’t know, I didn’t stop to check, just ran through the back garden, clearing the back wall in a way I didn’t think was possible for me – strange what you can do when you
have to.’

  ‘Indeed, Mrs Metcalf, it is.’ His voice is as expressionless as his face. I don’t think he believes anything I’ve told him, and it’s making me feel quite paranoid.

  ‘Anyway, I didn’t stop running until I arrived home, falling in through the back door, straight into the kitchen, sweating, crying and breathless.’

  ‘Is that when you phoned the police?’

  ‘Yes… well, my husband, Matt, did. Luckily he was home. He’d forgotten his costume for the play and had popped back for it – I’ve never been more relieved to see him. “What the hell?” was all he said, and as I slammed the back door behind me, leaning on it with my body weight, I just remember screaming “call the police”!’

  ‘Is that everything? There’s nothing else you want to tell us about that you think might be significant?’

  ‘No,’ I lie. I can’t tell them about what I found in Amber’s bedside drawer, but I can’t stop thinking about it.

  Just as I was putting the magazine back, I saw something wrapped in a tissue, tucked into the side of the drawer, by her rolls of tights. I’d just had one hell of a shock about Ben being married to someone else, and knew I wasn’t ready for any more of her secrets. I should have closed the drawer then, but in my mind I thought: Amber is my friend. She stays in my house, we spend a great deal of time together – and therefore I need to know what’s going on. After all it could have been drugs or something. If she could lie about Ben, what else could she lie about? And I’m ashamed to say I couldn’t stop myself, I just reached for the folded tissue and slowly unravelled it, holding my breath, dreading what I might find. I can’t justify what I did. I knew I shouldn’t be looking through her private things, shouldn’t have even been in her bedroom, but still, I couldn’t stop myself. I heard myself groan as the contents fell to the floor. A pregnancy test. And before I even looked, I knew it was positive.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lucy

  It sounds selfish, but when I found the pregnancy test, Amber wasn’t my first concern. All I could think about was how sad it made me feel, and how was I going to face the spectre of my best friend’s pregnancy and birth, something I’d yearned for myself for so long. I didn’t worry about how as a single mother Amber was going to cope, nor did I even think about the fact this baby was probably going to be without a father, because it didn’t look like Ben was exactly free to take that role on. Even if it wasn’t Ben’s child, then the alternative was that this baby would most likely be the product of a sordid one-night stand from Tinder, or not even that, someone Amber had bumped into in a wine bar. What a horrible mess!

  I sit in the police station going over and over everything in my head, feeling completely at sea, but trying to appear to be a reliable witness – and I’m not sure I pull it off.

  After my difficult witness statement that was, I’m sure, full of holes, Manyon is keen to point out again that no one actually saw this intruder, no one knows who left the dead bird and, apart from one text from an apparently untraceable number, there’s ‘very little evidence’ to work on. They are also quick to remind me of at least two occasions when I’ve phoned up to report what DCI Manyon refers to as ‘an alleged stalking activity’.

  I am exhausted. I’ve been through physical and mental torture, the police seem to think I’m a lunatic and on top of all that I’ve discovered my friend has been keeping things from me. Big things. I understand that it’s her business and I have no right to expect her to tell me everything about her life, but her ex-boyfriend, the man she talks about constantly, is married and she’s pregnant. She hasn’t told me either of these things – and I’ve told her everything. All my secrets. God, I blush to think what I’ve said to her during our heart-to-hearts – I’ve even revealed private bedroom stuff, things I wouldn’t even tell Kirsty. But it looks like she’s lied to me from the beginning about Ben – a quick google on my phone earlier confirmed he and Geraldine have been married for thirty years. Thirty! And what’s more, they are the proud parents of three children!

  I’m sitting here now with a scalding cup of tea in the waiting room in shock, going over all this in my mind. If she hasn’t told me any of this, then what else hasn’t she told me?

  I have to stop thinking about Amber and her complicated life and think about myself and my current situation. I’ve been here for hours and I’m beginning to wonder if I should ask for a solicitor, but I’m a witness, and thinking about the TV detective dramas I’ve seen, I’m sure asking for a solicitor would make me look guilty. But guilty of what?

  Mind you, I’m guilty of not telling the police everything. Matt knows about the pregnancy test though. After he’d called the police, he sat with his arm around me waiting for them to arrive. I was shaking and he was gently rubbing my shoulder when he suddenly said, ‘Is that what I think it is?’ I looked down to where his eyes had landed. I was still clutching Amber’s pregnancy test.

  ‘Oh… no… This isn’t mine…’ I said, embarrassed.

  ‘I thought for a minute they’d been wrong, at the clinic.’

  ‘I wish. Sorry, babe… it’s Amber’s.’

  He turned to me, his face white. He looked so disappointed, so upset. ‘Is she… is Amber…?’

  ‘Looks like it.’ I glanced down at the white plastic strip in my hands, felt the urge to cry again.

  ‘So why do you have the test?’

  ‘I… found it, just… lying about her house…’ I gestured to the floor, implying it had just been there. I couldn’t tell him I’d been looking through her stuff; I was so ashamed.

  ‘Did she tell you… that she was?’

  I shook my head, trying to hold back the tears, thinking what an idiot I was. ‘She doesn’t know that I know. I just found it… tonight.’

  ‘What the hell, Lucy?’ he said, pulling his arm from my shoulder to face me. ‘Throw it away. If she ever finds out you kept it… Jesus, it would look strange.’

  ‘I didn’t keep it, I just forgot I had it. I was so scared I just ran and…’ Whatever I said, he was right, it did look strange, so there was no point in trying to explain it. I just got up and threw it in the kitchen bin.

  DC Manyon eventually announces that he will be in touch, and I’m allowed to go home from the police station. Matt collects me, and as it is 6 a.m. and I haven’t slept all night, I call into work and take the day off. All I want to do is sleep, and process everything that is whirring around my head over and over. I lie on our bed, snuggled in the soft, mint-green bed linen, the window open, floaty curtains wafting in the late summer breeze, and drop off. But less than an hour later there’s banging on the door, which startles me. After the previous evening I’m totally wired and aware that whoever was in Amber’s house last night might have seen where I ran to. He knows where I live. So with pins and needles at the ends of my fingers, I stagger down the stairs, throwing my dressing gown around me.

  Cautiously, I look through the little squares of frosted glass on the door to see if I can make out who it is, but I can’t. So I only open the door slightly, and put my head out – that way I can either bar his way or run. But as I open the door, I see who it is and immediately stiffen. Amber.

  I was hoping for more time before I saw her. I’m still not sure how I feel after discovering that she’d lied to me about Ben, never told me he was married. It’s just another thing in a growing list of things that I feel she isn’t being honest with me about, not least of which is that she’s pregnant.

  She’s holding a huge bouquet of flowers in every shade of pink, and I think she looks like a bride, and my resentment softens slightly.

  ‘Oh, Lucy, I feel so terrible, it must have been awful for you,’ she starts, and the concern on her tear-stained face seems genuine. She’s obviously upset by the whole thing too – it must be freaking her out that there was an intruder in her home, whether she was there at the time or not.

  I step back from the open door for her to walk in, and she comes through, putting the bouquet on the kit
chen table and turning to hug me, hard.

  ‘You are such a good friend. You were doing me a favour, and then this happens…’

  ‘I know… It was terrible,’ I say. ‘I haven’t slept… Have you spoken to the police?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I came home very late last night and they were at the house. They told me everything. I feel so… responsible.’ She walks around me and puts the kettle on. ‘Tea?’

  I nod. ‘Please.’

  ‘I haven’t slept a wink worrying about you,’ she’s saying, putting teabags into the cups, and I think how comfortable she is here, how it’s like a second home to her. How much I’ve opened everything up to her – my home and myself. And I can’t help feeling betrayed that she hasn’t been open with me.

  ‘You shouldn’t feel bad. It isn’t your fault some madman’s after you,’ I say, still feeling slightly prickly and knowing that until I address the issues, I will continue to feel like there’s a wall between us.

  ‘It’s usually you making tea for me,’ she says, bringing two mugs to the table, sitting down and resting her hand on mine, looking into my face. ‘Are you okay, sweetie? You look exhausted… Are you still upset? The police said he didn’t hurt you, but you thought he might?’

  ‘Yes, I did… It was terrifying,’ I say. ‘And I think he had a knife.’

  ‘A knife?’ Her hand goes to her chest.

  ‘Yes… He must have taken the biggest one from your knife block because it was gone. I picked up one too, but think I must have dropped it when I ran.’

  ‘Oh yeah, the police found that.’

  ‘Did you notice the big knife was missing from your block?’

  ‘No actually. But I think it might have been missing a while…’

  ‘I mentioned it to the police, but they didn’t seem to take anything I said seriously. You should report it missing; it could be him that’s taken it.’