S is for Stranger

by Louise Stone

  I sat on a bench now.

  ‘Bethany had gone on about how she didn’t think I would’ve liked the clubs she went to but, I realise now, she was protecting me from the truth that she was doing the extra escorting. We had always agreed no sex, but she had clearly gone down that route.’ I wiped my nose with the back of my sleeve. ‘I think she agreed to come that night because she felt guilty.’ A bitter taste developed in my mouth. ‘How ironic. Anyway,’ I continued, ‘we got ready as usual then met in the kitchen. It was our ritual. We had been to twenty or so events together over the past eight months with the agency and we always started with a couple of sneaky drinks in the kitchen, maybe a joint.’ Darren made a sound that he was listening. ‘It helped lessen any nerves,’ I explained.

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘No,’ I said, offended. ‘Nothing else.’

  ‘It’s just Oliver thought you did other drugs.’

  ‘Oliver is a jealous man.’

  ‘OK, I’ve asked you before, but do you have any recollection of the houses you were taken to? It could really help you now.’

  ‘Well, I remember bits of them but I have no idea where they were. I can see now that it was what the clients wanted, in case anything went wrong.’ I let out a hollow laugh.

  ‘Tell me about the evening you can remember, if you’re ready.’

  ‘At about seven, I turned off my music and gave myself a last look in the mirror. I remember I smiled at my reflection: I wore a long, black velvet dress that skimmed my slim figure and I had twisted my hair up into a chignon. I thought I looked good but, as I stepped into the kitchen, I wished I had tried harder.’

  Darren’s silence was strangely comforting and I found myself remembering details I hadn’t even thought about at the time.

  ‘I need you to focus, Sophie. Remember something about the house or your surroundings.’

  I closed my eyes and pushed my mind to think. I gasped. An image spun into my mind. ‘A cliff. I remember the house was near a cliff.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I can see Bethany lying by the cliff.’

  ‘Why was she lying by the cliff?’ He sounded on edge. The clicking sound was back.

  ‘Because …’ I held my breath, waited for my mind to open up but it shut down as quickly as I had stumbled across the memory. ‘I don’t know. It’s gone.’

  ‘That’s good, Sophie.’ He breathed deeply down the line. ‘I’m going to have to tell the police, tell DI Ward.’

  His words felt like a betrayal and I cut the call.

  I thought back to the CD. I had recognised the room but I didn’t know why. Then I remembered there had been a sign in view, behind Amy’s head. It bore a four-leaf clover. I wish it had had three leaves. I pounded the pavement faster now. I needed to get back to Faye’s, get on the Internet.

  As I opened the front door, I expected the house to be plunged in darkness. Instead, I could hear the quiet murmuring of voices coming from the sitting room. My heart quickened and I shut the door gently behind me. I tiptoed toward the sitting room, the door ajar a few inches, and listened. But the voices had stopped: they knew I was there.

  ‘Sophie, is that you?’ Faye. Her voice sounded strained. ‘Come on in.’

  I pulled the door to, my mind racing with the possibilities of who might be waiting on the other side. As I started to close the door, it squeaked on its hinges, and I stopped, my breathing sharp and shallow. I decided to leave again and slipped back through the front door. I moved quietly across the front paved area and hid in the shadows between Faye’s side alley and her neighbour’s house. It was the police, I was sure of it. Though, there was no sign of a car.

  I could feel a thin film of sweat covering my face despite the cold. I moved further back into the shadows as I watched a figure emerge from the house. I couldn’t make out their features in the strip of light. I held my breath, willing them to leave. The person raised their collar around their ears, said something else to Faye and moved off. I waited with bated breath and then, as the person neared the end of Faye’s drive, they looked back toward the house, their figure silhouetted against the street light, their features indistinguishable. I held my breath and watched as the figure disappeared down the road.

  As soon as I thought the coast was clear, I went back inside.

  Faye sat on the edge of the sofa; her gaze didn’t shift from the television. She was trembling and blinking rapidly.

  I finally spoke from the doorway. ‘Faye.’

  ‘Sophie, where have you been?’ She jumped up.

  Guilt swept through me; perhaps it had been wrong to turn up on Faye’s doorstep. I walked toward her and sat on the floor by her knees. Reaching up, she allowed me her hand but the motion was stiff, awkward.

  ‘Is that why you rang the police? Did you ring DI Ward? Tell her I was here?’

  Her hand twitched in mine. ‘I didn’t phone anyone.’

  I nodded. ‘Who was here then?’

  Faye moved her head now, looked down at me. ‘It’s just me.’

  Unease flooded through me. ‘Are you sure? I just saw a woman leave. Thought it was the police.’

  ‘No,’ she said and studied my face. ‘Have you been drinking?’

  ‘What did she look like?’ I tried to keep my voice calm, despite the fluttering in my stomach.

  ‘Sophie, have you been drinking?’

  ‘No,’ I lied.

  She gazed at me, concern filling her eyes. ‘You need some sleep. There was no one here.’

  My stomach lurched and I moved toward the wall, steadying myself with my hand on the cool wallpaper. I couldn’t tell Faye that the woman who had just been in her house had absolutely no right to be there. She would never sleep again. My gut instinct was right: that wasn’t the police. That’s why it had been such a low-key visit, that’s why the lack of car: Amy’s abductor had been in Faye’s house. She was enjoying it; I could see that now. This was all part of her thrill. She had just let herself in through the front door and left again. That’s why I had felt her eyes on me. She was playing games with me.

  ‘Where did you go, Sophie?’

  I shifted slightly. ‘My boss.’

  ‘Mr Thompson?’

  Squirming under her gaze, I nodded. ‘Yes.’

  She didn’t ask any further questions and I sensed her now inner disquiet. ‘You should get some rest, Faye.’ I squeezed her hand. ‘You need sleep. We both do.’

  ‘Your lasagne is on the side. I could heat it up in the microwave for you.’

  I smiled apologetically. ‘What kind of houseguest am I? Let me do it, you go to bed.’

  She conceded and rose from the sofa slowly. ‘See you in the morning, Sophie.’

  ‘Goodnight, Faye.’

  Once I heard Faye’s footsteps on the stairs, I eyed her drinks cabinet in the corner and I lifted myself off the floor to take a closer look. Faye had never drunk much but was partial to the odd gin and tonic. I opened the walnut veneer cupboard door and peeked inside. The cupboard light came on automatically causing the familiar green bottle to glint: taunting me. I sighed deeply.

  ‘Don’t do it, Sophie,’ I muttered to myself. ‘Don’t do it.’

  But, surely, another couldn’t hurt. Could it? It would just take away the pain, maybe it could rid me of the dull ache in my chest; fill the empty space where Amy used to be. I opened the cupboard door further and reached in for the bottle. It felt smooth and cool to the touch. I could almost taste it. Scrunching up my eyes, I willed myself to put it back.

  A voice somewhere, Amy’s voice, filled my head and I thought back to the CD. She needed me to be strong. But, on the other hand, I needed relief, to forget, just for a couple of hours …

  With a shaking hand, I unscrewed the cap, my whole body strung out with tension. Every fibre of my being was in danger of shattering. I sniffed the clear liquid and it burnt the back of my throat. I wanted the release. I turned from the cupboard and threw the bottle onto the sofa, b
efore collapsing onto the floor, my knees crashing onto the cream carpet. Silent tears tormented my body and I clawed at the rug. I thought I was losing my mind. Was this what it was like to go mad? Wiping the back of my hand over my cheeks, I tried to dry my tears. There was no point in abstaining from alcohol when my reason for living – Amy – was nowhere to be found.

  It occurred to me that for every moment I spent crying, any hope of finding my daughter was quickly fading. I needed to do something.

  I walked through to the kitchen, popped Faye’s lasagne in the microwave and sat down heavily at the kitchen table.

  A few minutes later, I grabbed the lasagne from the microwave, turned off all the lights downstairs and headed up to my room. I stopped briefly outside Faye’s door and I was pleased to hear her steady breathing as she slept. Shutting the door to my room, I turned on the desk lamp and the computer. I was famished and ate the lasagne fast.

  With a renewed sense of purpose, I remembered the sign behind Amy had read ‘Shamrock Place’ and I typed it into Google. An address came up for a small B&B on the outskirts of Dublin claiming to be ‘your home from home’. But further down there was a picture of a large Victorian house with a wooden sign out the front: its emblem a clover. My heart skipped a beat. Clicking through the site, it quickly became apparent that Shamrock Place was an independent mental health unit in Holland Park.

  I tapped my fingers on the desk and stared at the image of the Victorian house, thinking. Plucking a pen from the drawer, I scribbled a note to Faye on the back of an old envelope. Carefully, I opened the bedroom door and slinked back down the stairs. Within a few minutes, I had grabbed Faye’s car keys off the hook, perched the note to Faye on the fruit bowl in the centre of the kitchen table, gathered my coat, checking it still held my wallet and Faye’s phone before heading out the door. The clock above the hall mirror read twelve to five. My stomach did a somersault: the realisation that the deadline was today.

  Not a moment to spare, I opened and closed the door as quickly and as quietly as possible and jumped in the car. Faye was bound to hear the engine but I hoped the note would go some way to comfort her. I started up the Honda. At the first twist of the key, the car sputtered and conked out.

  ‘Oh, god. Come on,’ I mumbled. I looked up at the house and Faye’s light came on. I needed to leave before she asked questions. I tried again. ‘Please, sweet Jesus, come on.’ The engine coughed and died. I could have cried and hit the steering wheel in frustration. I tried for the third time, and it purred into action.

  CHAPTER 24

  I drove to Holland Park. The sat nav directed me down Holland Road, turning right into Oakwood Lane. I spotted Shamrock Place right away; the Victorian style house incongruous next to the Regency whitewashed building to its right, but most apparent was that it was boarded up. Plywood covered the windows and the entire building appeared to be derelict. I looked up and down the street and felt the shadows of memories shifting beneath the surface.

  I got out of the car and walked up to the gate. It had a heavy, rusting lock hanging off it. I tried to prise it open, but no luck. Deciding that I might have more luck at the back of the house, I crept along the side passage, hoping not to be seen. A quick glance upward at the side of the building confirmed that this place was not habitable. More wood covered the gaping holes where windows once stood.

  A gate at the end of the side passage prevented me from getting any further. I tried the latch, just in case, but as I had thought, it was locked. It wasn’t high, no more than five feet, and I judged my chances of scaling it without breaking something were pretty good. I took a couple of steps backward and launched my right foot at the gate, using the momentum to grab onto the top with my right hand. My foot started to slide, and with my feet scrabbling against the wood like a hamster on a wheel, I used my left hand to drag myself up and over. I landed awkwardly in a heap.

  But I had made it. A security light came on and I stopped, unmoving.

  When no one appeared, I crawled along the ground to the large set of doors at the back of the house. The old Victorian stained glass was intact here. Standing up now, my back against the wall, I turned my head very slowly and managed a sidelong view of the outside. Disappointed, I realised there was nothing to see except an old sofa rotting in the long grass and a wrought-iron bench covered in moss.

  I took a deep breath and turned my body 180, now facing the glass. My heart leapt into my mouth and I gasped, frozen, before relaxing: I was staring at my own reflection.

  ‘You silly fool,’ I whispered aloud, pushing down the feeling of déjà vu.

  I came up close to the glass and tried the handle and it turned. I tentatively opened the door. It creaked on its hinges creating a cloud of dust. I coughed and, unable to see anything in the pitch black, closed the door again. I didn’t know what I was looking for and, suddenly, the whole exercise seemed pointless. Backing away from the window, I looked down the long stretch of garden: at the end stood a shed.

  I thought I might as well take a look: no harm done. Though it, too, was likely to be locked. The frost-covered grass crunched quietly underneath my feet. There was something about the smell of the earth and the stillness that transported me back to that night. I remembered the dampness of the drive; it had been raining all day and, unlike the clear sky tonight, a wispy layer of fog had drifted above the fields and the house’s gardens.

  Shaking off the memory, I pulled the latch on the shed door, not expecting it to give. But it did. Slowly, I tugged the door open. Its springy hinges squeaked noisily, and I stepped inside, the door slamming shut behind me. The whistling, bitter winter winds couldn’t reach me here and I was struck by the eerie quietness of the small, protected space. It was dark too. No street lamp, no moonlight, nothing. The infinite blackness threatened to swallow me whole and I took out Faye’s phone. I pressed a random button and the screen lit up. It was hopeless; the glow lost to the cavernous darkness, like a single firefly making its way through the turbid black night.

  I took a step forward, both hands out in front of me: my right hand held the phone and I used my left to feel my way in the dark. Without warning, something wrapped itself around my ankle and I tripped, grabbing a solid shape ahead of me in order to steady myself. I shone the light at the floor. Several lengths of rope lay at my feet like sleeping snakes. There was a chair and duct tape: this is where Amy had been sat. I looked up and on the wall was a sign for Shamrock Place. Quickly, I realised I had steadied myself on a box, a kind of packing box. I felt around for the flaps, pushed them back and shone the phone’s light inside. The box, similar to the kind used in my office, was brown and would typically have been used to store records or files.

  But this was holding recorded information of a different nature. My heart thudded loudly in my chest as I realised what I was looking at: the box was full of newspaper records and clippings. The first, on the top, a clipping of my face, next to it the headline read: Missing child’s mother doesn’t show up for second press conference. I put that cutting to one side and took out the next. Child missing for over forty-eight hours: presumed dead. I was afraid to delve any further.

  The phone buzzed at me, indicating it had twenty per cent battery remaining.

  Quicker now, I plucked out each article, skim reading the titles. West London mother despairs as child goes missing at fairground; Fairgrounds no longer safe. I reached the end of those articles and read other irrelevant articles taken from what looked like health magazines: Mental health: more important than physical health; Dealing with depression; Jealousy: is it tearing you apart?

  The phone beeped this time: the battery sign flashing. The light caught the edge of another box and I ripped this one open. Time wasn’t on my side and I had to work fast. Shining the fading light into the next box, my breathing uneven, I spotted a bible and magazines cut to shreds. Opening the bible, alarm ripped through my body. The page, clearly well thumbed, was coming away from the binding. Inside, somebody had scrawled over
the actual text: To Love is to Protect. They had crossed this out and alongside it written: Kill.

  Seconds later, the phone died.

  CHAPTER 25

  I decided it was time to confront Paul. He needed to come clean. The drive from Holland Park to Hammersmith took less than twenty minutes. Soon, I was outside the large red-brick Victorian house: this place held so many memories – good and bad – for me. We had chosen the house together; shortly after we found out I was pregnant with Amy. Money had never been an issue. Paul had his security company, I was being paid extraordinarily well for a lawyer in her early thirties. I realised now, with open eyes, that my more than generous salary was probably all part of Zander’s therapy and his grieving process.

  The house overlooked the river and, as I climbed out of the car, I remembered the parties we would hold in the garden, particularly the boat party. Every year, during the Oxford versus Cambridge Boat Race, we would entertain in style. A pang of regret at the way everything had turned out momentarily wrenched my heart. That was then, this was now. I knew that. But remorse sat heavily on my shoulders as I looked out at the river. Perhaps I was being nostalgic. After all, it was clear from the very fact that I was here to question my ex-husband, that the past held many dark secrets and that these happier times I remembered weren’t the whole picture.

  I walked up the path to Paul’s front door and rang the doorbell. Less than a week ago, I had stood on the very same doorstep, with the detective, waiting with trepidation for what was to come. I could hear Paul’s steps on the floor and he opened the door a crack, the chain still across.

  ‘Sophie!’ He almost looked relieved. ‘I thought you had done something stupid to yourself.’

  ‘Paul.’ A gust of warmth escaped the house and rushed around my ankles. ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Um, I’m not sure …’

  ‘Paul. Is it because of Sarah? I’m not here to cause grief, I just need answers.’