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

by Sue Watson

  ‘It’s just… I think I’ve put something down, and when I go back to where I left it… it’s moved.

  ‘Oh God,’ I say, clutching my chest. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah. It happened with a scarf just this morning. I know I took it off in the hall and hung it on the bannister – I remember doing it – but it wasn’t there when I came to find it. And it’s that lovely blue one, Lucy, you know, with the tiny stars all over?’

  ‘Yes, I love that scarf. I’m sure it’ll turn up. I could come over tomorrow and help you look?’ I say, not convinced that anyone would break into a house to hide a scarf.

  ‘That’s kind, thank you, but I’ve looked everywhere.’

  ‘I’d offer to help, but wouldn’t have a clue what I was looking for,’ Matt adds, ‘and isn’t there something called “pregnancy brain”, where the mother-to-be’s memory is affected, or am I just being a sexist pig?’

  ‘You’re just being a sexist pig!’ Amber and I chorus, which makes us all laugh, and it lightens the mood, lifts the tension, but only for a moment.

  ‘I don’t know, but I really don’t think this has anything to do with me being pregnant… It’s real, Matt,’ she says. ‘I came home from work the other evening, and when I walked in, I thought how lovely the fragrance was coming from my candles. But when I walked into the sitting room, I nearly died.’

  We are both looking at her, waiting to find out what happened.

  ‘One of the wicks was smoking. I hadn’t been there all day, and neither had anyone else, but the candle had been lit. And it was smouldering… like it had only just been put out.’

  I feel the prickle of goosebumps and make a lame joke about ‘that ghost’ to try and lighten the mood, but no one laughs, and Amber looks like she’s about to cry.

  ‘I need to reset the alarm,’ she murmurs, as if to herself. ‘I did it last time, when he’d been in my bedroom… messed with my stuff, smashed my photo frame… I think he’s jealous; it was a photo of me and Ben.’

  ‘Who… who knows how his twisted mind works?’ I say, not wanting to have this conversation. If I tell her it was me that accidentally broke the frame, then it might be assumed I also wrote ‘fucking slut’ on her mirror. ‘Please don’t be scared,’ I say, changing the subject. ‘Think about moving here – but if you want time to think about it that’s okay. In the meantime, just call us any time if you’re scared, and one of us will come over, and you know there’s a bed here.’

  She nods. ‘Thanks, Lucy, I really appreciate that.’

  Later, Matt walks her home. She said she thought she’d heard someone in the garden the previous evening and she wanted Matt to check it out and he kindly went along.

  I offered to go with them, but as Matt pointed out, ‘What would you do if there was an intruder? Run like Usain Bolt like you did last time?’ That made us all laugh. So I stayed home and did the washing up, relaxing with the rest of the wine and putting my feet up in front of the telly. They’ve been gone about an hour and I am just beginning to feel a little worried when they come in through the back door. They are both white as a sheet and Amber has been crying.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I say, rushing to them and going into what Amber calls ‘Lucy’s fussy mother mode’.

  At first, neither of them speak, and Matt gives me an almost invisible shake of the head as he helps her to the sofa in the living room.

  I follow them in, not knowing what to say or do, so just sit next to Amber on the sofa and hold her hand until someone is able to tell me what’s happened.

  ‘It’s him…’ she says. I can feel her shaking. ‘Lucy, he’s been to my house again. And this time he left a pair of baby booties with a “congratulations on your news” card on the back porch.’

  I gasp, covering my mouth with my hand.

  ‘We can’t understand it,’ Matt says, standing over her protectively. ‘The only people who know about the pregnancy are us… the three of us.’

  I shift slightly in my seat. ‘You haven’t mentioned it at work or anything?’ I ask.

  ‘No, have I hell. You haven’t told anyone, have you, Lucy?’ Amber says, looking alarmed. I am about to confess that I may have hinted in the staffroom to Kirsty, but the look on Amber’s face tells me this isn’t the time for honesty. ‘Tell me you haven’t blabbed this all over Treetops Estate.’ She’s turned her head and, as we’re sitting close on the sofa, she’s right in my face.

  I feel quite intimidated, and don’t want to upset her in her condition. So I say, ‘No, of course not,’ and attempt an indignant face. I feel like such a bad friend. I shouldn’t have told anyone, but I’d been pleased for her – and it isn’t like Kirsty or any of the teachers I work with are bloody stalkers. I’d simply wanted to share her good news. ‘What about the doctors… the hospital?’ I offer. ‘Someone at the hospital might have seen your name – they might have talked…’

  ‘I doubt it,’ she snaps. ‘And if they did I would sue them.’

  ‘The father… fathers… one of them might have… guessed?’ I admit I’m being a bit shady by alluding to the fact that there’s more than one candidate for the role of Amber’s baby-daddy. But it’s just my way of fighting back a little. I seem to be on the receiving end of her anger these days. I put it down to her pregnancy and her being scared. We always lash out when we’re scared – I know I do, and it’s usually Matt on the receiving end of my grumpiness. Amber doesn’t have a Matt though, so she has to make do with me.

  Amber doesn’t respond to my question about whether she’s told the fathers, so I just smile and pat her hand while Matt goes and puts the kettle on. Once she’s calmed down, she says she’s sorry for being snappy with me.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, you’re just scared,’ I say reassuringly.

  ‘Actually, I am. And after what’s happened tonight, I’d like to take you both up on your offer of a bed, if that’s okay?’

  She asks this almost shyly, probably worried that Matt might still be funny about her staying, but before he can comment, I say, ‘Of course.’

  ‘I know I said I needed my space,’ she says, reaching out for both our hands. ‘But I’m beginning to realise I can’t cope with this pregnancy alone – I need my friends.’

  So it’s been decided between us that Amber is moving in with us until the baby’s born. Stalker aside, once she gets into the third trimester all kinds of complications and emergencies could occur, and this way she’ll have us both and transport to get her to hospital in the event of anything happening before the due date.

  I also feel it would be good for Amber to stay after the baby’s born because I don’t think she has a clue about babies. Sometimes, when we talk about looking after a newborn, she reminds me of a pregnant teenager, not an intelligent woman in her forties. Her lack of knowledge is shocking, nor does she want to learn either. The other day I suggested we try out some recipes for the baby and she looked at me like I was mad.

  ‘Don’t you just give them stuff out of jars?’ she said, holding the baby cookbook at a distance like she might catch something. I just hope she can step up to the plate when this little one’s born. As Matt says, thank God we’re around just in case.

  Now we’ve decided to make Amber more semi-permanent at ours, I’ve prepared two bedrooms: the smallest spare room (that we’d always said would make a perfect nursery for our own child) will be the baby’s room – and the larger will be Amber’s bedroom. Matt’s been wonderful, and even gave Amber’s room a quick lick of blush-coloured paint, and I’ve hung new pale grey curtains and bought a nice, glitzy lamp I know she’ll love. And while Amber helped Matt make dinner last night, I pretended to go upstairs with a headache, but ‘styled’ the room, adding the lamp and new cushions and some fresh flowers – just for her.

  After dinner we do ‘the reveal’. I call her from upstairs, pretending I need her help with something. It’s hilarious, because she’s quite grumpy and at first just keeps saying ‘What?’ and refusing to come upstai
rs. But when Matt gives her a gentle push, she appears on the landing and I swing open her door and shout ‘Voila!’

  I can’t believe her reaction; she just bursts into tears and hugs me again and again.

  ‘Oh, Lucy, I’m sorry. You’re so lovely and I’m such a grump. I’m a horrible friend,’ she says through happy tears.

  I assure her she isn’t. ‘You’re tired and you’re pregnant,’ I say, sitting next to her on the new blush-pink duvet, ‘and please don’t keep apologising. I understand.’

  ‘You’re both so… kind…’ she says, bursting into tears again.

  She seems genuinely touched by what I’ve done, and I feel moved to tears by her gratitude. But now, in the cold light of day, we’re dealing with the reality of what this move means. It isn’t all about blush curtains and pretty lamps, it’s about physically moving far more stuff than she needs but is insisting on bringing with her. Matt moved some of her stuff during the week, but we’re moving the last of the things today as it’s Saturday and I’m off and so is Amber. Unfortunately, Matt’s at rehearsals, and I can see the car crash that’s going to happen if someone doesn’t help her, because she is so unrealistic, so impractical. I wanted to walk to and from her house to ours and I would have happily carried everything, but just now she got all stroppy and accused me of being controlling.

  ‘Lucy! I don’t want you parading all my stuff down Mulberry Avenue, it has to be packed away in the car,’ she said, while I smiled sweetly, resisting a little reminder of who was helping whom.

  I don’t even want to think this, but if I’m honest, I’m beginning to wonder if we’ve done the right thing asking her to move in. I know she needed a safe place to stay, but since we gave her the lovely room and made her feel welcome on a more long-term basis, she’s changed. She keeps telling me I’m bossy, while overruling me all the time, and it isn’t just between the two of us. She’s started to do it with Matt too. This morning, he asked us both what we wanted to eat for dinner tonight and I suggested we have roast chicken with vegetables because we have it in the fridge.

  ‘Noo, let’s have burritos,’ she said, jumping up and down like a child.

  I don’t know why I overreacted, but I suddenly put my foot down. ‘We’ve already got a chicken… and Matt’s never made burritos,’ I snapped. My next line was about to be ‘and we’re not a bloody Mexican restaurant’. Fortunately I managed to resist saying this. I’m not being mean about her idea of burritos – it’s just that Matt and I are both working full-time while Amber lies on the sofa between shifts.

  Meanwhile, Matt has taken my request to be nice to her almost too far and he smiled, all sweetness and light, and said, ‘If that’s what madam wants, that’s what madam will have.’ As if that wasn’t annoying enough, he then announced theatrically that ‘tonight is Burrito Night’ and did an embarrassing little dance that made her giggle and me cringe. I didn’t know who I was more cross with – her or him.

  I try and put ‘Burrito Night’ from my head and concentrate on the task at hand: moving Amber and all her worldly goods a few hundred yards. She’s keeping the house, just not living there for now, so there’s no furniture to be moved, but here I am carrying the contents of a whole bloody wardrobe and every ornament she owns to the car.

  She’s just setting the security code on the house alarm now as I try to squeeze the last few things into her car. It’s all classic Amber – chaotic and unnecessary – and it would have been far easier if we’d just carried everything across, and kept it to a minimum. I know she’s pregnant and mustn’t lift too much, but I would happily have done the lion’s share.

  I’m determined we’re going to do it in one move, but we’re at the stage where the boot of her car will only take a 5 lb bag, but I have a 10 lb bag to fit in. I’m now manoeuvring everything around the boot to try and force it and I’m exhausted. Amber is on her phone as I struggle, which has pretty much been the pattern of the move, and I’m trying not to become too irritated.

  I drag a box along the bottom of the boot; it lifts up the carpet and I stop and look more closely. I put my head right into the trunk and in the dusk I see something glinting. With one hand, I use the torch on my phone, and slide the other hand under the lining. I can’t see much but feel something cold, like metal, so I take out a couple of boxes. Then I carefully lift the carpet and I can’t believe what I’m staring at. Lying in the boot of Amber’s car is a knife. This is weird in itself, but what makes it even weirder is that it looks like the one I noticed was missing from the knife block the night of the intruder. It’s the same brand, and the same size. It can’t be a coincidence, can it? But if so, what’s it doing in the boot of her car? Only she has the keys. So she must have put it there, but why? I’m now a little freaked out.

  I hear her shoes clicking across the gravel and quickly shove the knife into a half-filled black bin liner. Maybe it’s in here for her own protection given the stalker situation, but it’s a strange place to put it, and not easily reachable if he attacks her in her car. Oh God, she might be planning to take revenge on Ben and the woman whose name seems to be ‘the slut from accounts’. Or she might be planning to harm herself. Well, there’s no way this knife is going from my sight until I know what’s going on. I’ll let her settle in, then ask her about it. I don’t want to say anything now because I don’t want a confrontation here on the drive; she’s already told me off for being bossy, so to challenge her over the knife now might make her angry and she’ll refuse to move in with us. I am keen she does this; it isn’t just about Amber any more. I’m thinking about the safety and well-being of that baby.

  I close her boot, wait another ten minutes for her to come off the phone, then sit in the passenger seat with the knife in the bin liner while she drives the few yards down Mulberry Avenue.

  My mind is whirring. In the few minutes it takes to drive four doors down the round and park, a million different scenarios have crowded my head. All I know is I have to talk to Matt about it, see what he thinks, but if I do he might go off the deep end and refuse to let her stay. No, I’ll wait, talk to him when I’ve thought this through and she’s settled in.

  When I get home, I unlock the house and shove the knife in the back of the kitchen cupboard until I decide what to do. I just hope by inviting Amber into our home I’m not inviting trouble…

  Seven Months Later

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lucy

  Amber had a tough labour. I was with her for most of it, feeling every agony and contraction, and joy and relief at Mia’s safe birth. It hasn’t been an easy time for any of us. Amber seemed moody throughout the pregnancy, and I felt like I had to be the one jollying her along, even when, at times, I was hurting myself. I would never dream of telling her this, but watching my friend go through something I’ve always longed for is probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.

  I’d always felt like an outsider growing up, and now I feel like an outsider regarding my childlessness. Pregnancy and motherhood feels like a secret club I haven’t been allowed into, but I’m doing what I always do and making the best of it, smiling through tears while telling everyone – including myself – that everything’s going to be fine. But in truth the irony of me comforting Amber through each stage of her birth wasn’t lost on me.

  It would have been so easy for me to resent everything about Amber’s pregnancy but I’d tried not to and tried enjoy it with her instead. I was there for the first kick, the name choosing, the pink baby shower I threw for her, which was fun, but not easy. Amber didn’t really know any of our neighbours and wasn’t in touch with anyone at work either, so I didn’t have a lot of options regarding guests. I thought a safe bet would be to invite the girls from book club and a couple of neighbours who live up the road who I thought Amber would like. But on the day Amber was tired and didn’t feel like socialising, and only made a brief appearance, charming everyone while offering her profuse apologies, and leaving after an hour to ‘get some sleep’.
I didn’t mind. How could I begin to understand how a woman feels at eight months? Though the event itself wasn’t easy, I enjoyed organising the baby shower. I loved all the pink balloons and cupcakes and felt like I was the hostess, especially when Mrs Shaw from next door asked if I was ‘the mother-to-be’. I looked at Kirsty, rolling my eyes, and she smiled back, understanding, and despite our differences, I warmed slightly to my old friend.

  When Mia was born, no one other than the book club girls sent Amber a new baby card. She doesn’t have any family; it was always just her and her mum, and she hasn’t seen her for years. ‘She wasn’t a good mother,’ she told me. ‘Always putting her latest boyfriend before her only child. I was lonely and neglected and I’ll never forgive her.’ Amber doesn’t seem to have any friends other than me either – says her relationships with colleagues are always ‘tricky’ because though no one knows about the true nature of their relationship, they resent her being close to Ben, ‘the boss’. I’m not convinced this is the only reason. I love Amber, but she isn’t the easiest person to love; she blows hot and cold even with me.

  I’d realised at the baby shower how much I missed Kirsty. We’d drifted apart and I wanted to offer the olive branch. So when Mia was a few days old, I invited her over to see the baby one Saturday afternoon. I wanted to see my old friend, and at the same time it might be useful for Amber to have an experienced mum around for advice. So Kirsty came over as arranged with a gift and cooed over Mia who was sleeping in her Moses basket downstairs while we waited for Amber to drag herself from her bed.

  Eventually Amber wandered into the kitchen and sat down while Kirsty held Mia and I busied myself making cups of tea. ‘I just feel like shit, Kirsty…’ was her opening line.

  Kirsty smiled. ‘Well, you’re a new mum, it’s tiring.’

  ‘Not this tiring. I feel terrible, all the time, no energy… You know?’