The Other Side Of The Wall: A Gripping Psychological Thriller

by Andrea Mara

  “That’s good you mentioned it,” the sergeant says, “but no doubt there’s nothing to worry about.”

  What does Sam look like, he asks, just in case he’s still with them – though they probably just dropped him off somewhere. Tall with dark hair, she says, in his early forties. He tells her to find the address and call him back. And not to worry.

  Rosemary listens to the one side of the conversation with her mouth open and her eyes wide. “Do you think something happened to them? Are you worried about Sam?”

  But Sylvia can’t answer – she goes inside to look for Jane’s address. The laptop won’t switch on at first, then it takes ages to load up. Where the hell would Jane’s CV be? Maybe in an email. Nothing comes up when she searches under “CV”, so she tries “Jane”. Dozens of results come back – including every email between Sylvia and Tom where Jane’s name was ever mentioned, and all the mails she’s sent to the Jane in Finance at work. Her fingers keep typing the wrong letters and her hands are shaking – this is going nowhere.

  She needs Tom. He picks up on the first ring, and she asks him to find Jane’s address.

  “They’re still not home,” she tells him, her voice catching in her throat. “I’m sure it’s fine but just in case there was an accident, I phoned the Guards. They want Jane’s address.”

  Tom, to his eternal credit, tells her he’ll get the address and phone the Guards back with it, then he’ll phone hospitals. She’s to sit tight in case Jane arrives home or phones.

  “Tom,” she says, just before he hangs up, “what if it’s something to do with that missing child – Edie Keogh?”

  “It’s not, I promise you that. The latest rumour is that the child’s father has her – the parents are split up and they’re saying he may have taken the child out of the country. Don’t worry. Jane wouldn’t let anyone near our two – I bet she’s just forgotten the time.”

  Pacing up and down, she clicks into news on her phone – there’s no headline about an accident, but then every accident wouldn’t be on the news. The Edie Keogh investigation is still the top story, though there’s nothing new to say today, it seems, and nothing about her father.

  Then, from outside comes the unmistakable sound of a car pulling into the driveway.

  Sylvia runs to open the door, just as the red Micra comes to a stop.

  Jane waves, and gets out to open the door for Megan.

  “Where were you?” Sylvia is close to tears now, as she takes Zack from Jane’s arms.

  Jane looks at her blankly. “Sorry, are we really late? I can’t find my phone anywhere. I got a flat tyre, so we had to go to a garage. I’d have called you but my phone has disappeared. I’m so sorry, Sylvia – were you worrying?”

  “Yes! I called the Guards and everything – I was afraid something had happened. You’ve never been out when I got home before, and then when I found your phone in the house, I didn’t know where you were.”

  Jane looks confused. She must think she’s a raving lunatic. Or that she sees her as a would-be kidnapper.

  “It doesn’t matter, you’re home now.” Sylvia smiles weakly at her. “I have a tendency to overreact where the kids are concerned. Sorry.”

  Jane frowns. “No, that’s fine, but I definitely had my phone with me when we left – I texted my mother just before we drove off – from the car – it couldn’t be in the house.”

  Shifting Zack up onto her shoulder, Sylvia gets the phone from the hall and gives it to Jane. “It was under the hall table. You must have texted your mother earlier and forgotten. Look, it’s grand. These things happen. And I totally overreacted. It was just when I couldn’t reach you . . . And then Rosemary said you gave Sam next door a lift, and I didn’t know what was going on.”

  Jane’s face reddens. “Sam, yes, he was walking down to the shops so I gave him a lift. Is that okay? Sorry, I would never normally give anyone a lift when I have the kids with me, but he’s a neighbour, so I thought it would be all right? It won’t happen again.”

  “I . . . yes, I think it’s better not to give lifts. And sorry, I must seem like such an eejit calling the Guards – I was just afraid there’d been an accident. Actually I’d better call them back now, and Tom too.”

  Jane waves her away, apologising again.

  Sylvia closes the front door and sits down on the hall floor, pulling Megan into a hug and kissing the top of Zack’s head over and over. She rings Tom to tell him they’re back.

  “I feel so silly now but, Jesus, it made me realise I take them for granted and let little things get on top of me. My God, when I thought they were gone – it’s really given me perspective.” She traces her finger along Zack’s face.

  “I know – look, I’ll phone the Garda station now, and then I’ll head home – I’ll see you very soon.”

  She disconnects the call but stays on the ground, hugging both children. After a minute, Megan wriggles out of her arms and says she’s a bit bored and wants to watch TV. Zack is whimpering and rubbing his eyes, and when Sylvia takes too long finding the right cartoon for Megan, he starts to wail. She tries putting him in his chair to watch TV with his sister but he cries harder. So she makes a one-handed start on dinner while balancing Zack on her hip, wondering if this is a world record for abandoning perspective.

  Chapter 32

  Sylvia – Tuesday, August 16th

  As fond as Sylvia is of Bailey, his hints at sleeping indoors go unheeded, as they do every night. Lazy dog, she tells him, rubbing his head and shepherding him out to his kennel. On the way back inside, she hears a car pull up out front – Tom’s taxi, earlier than expected. As she turns the key in the back door, she can hear him fumbling with his key in the front door, and he looks surprised when she pulls it open.

  “Oh dear, are you a bit tipsy?” she asks, stepping aside to let him in.

  “I’m grand,” he says, giving her a beery kiss.

  “Good, because I need advice.”

  “Ah, here – it’s nearly midnight. Could we do something else instead of advice?” He leans in for another kiss.

  “No, thanks, it’s advice I need. I’ll even make you a cup of tea – come on.” She leads him by the hand into the kitchen and puts on the kettle. “So, I contacted DBK – that’s who the two million euro was sent to. They have no record of an outstanding payment received – I thought I was going to throw up when they said that. They weren’t too interested but I got an email address for their investigations department and sent over the payment details.” She rubs her eyes and her voice gets wearier. “In the meantime, we’re still short two million, and Justin is still out sick. I texted him again today, asking him to write something up from home – just whatever he can remember about fudging the reports. Well, I didn’t say fudging.”

  Tom is making every effort to look interested, but his eyelids are drooping.

  She shakes his arm. “Tom, this is serious – I’m under huge pressure from all sides to fix this, and everyone seems to have forgotten I wasn’t even there when it happened!”

  He opens his eyes and straightens up. “Look, they know you didn’t make the mistake but you can’t expect them to preface every conversation by saying that – they just want to get on with finding it. My place is the same – no-one cares whose fault it is as long as it’s not theirs, and as long as it’s fixed.”

  “I know, I know, it’s just horrible being at the centre of it. And if Craig put as much effort into actually finding the money as he does into covering his ass, we’d have it by now.”

  “Well, then you keep doing that – keep trying to trace the money, and you get to be the good guy who fixes Justin’s mistake. If anyone can find it you can – that’s what you do best.”

  “Yeah, but I got hauled into Craig’s office again and told to stop texting Justin. Apparently he told HR and they say he could have a valid complaint if he decided to make one – because I’m ‘impeding his recovery’. It’s such bull. I’m fairly certain there’s nothing wrong with him a
t all.”

  Tom looks at the clock and waves away the tea she’s offering. “I know, but there’s nothing you can do about that now – just focus on finding the money. Don’t waste your energy on Justin. Come on, I need sleep.”

  Tom’s advice rings in Sylvia’s ears when she’s lying in bed, still wide-awake an hour later, trying very hard not to think about work. The soft stereo snoring from Tom and Zack isn’t helping. It’s too hot for a start. She throws off the duvet and tries again, scrunching her eyes shut and looking for something calming to think about. But work creeps back in every time. She’s never going to sleep tonight.

  Zack starts to cry, rousing her from a dream about Bailey and the garden next door. It’s 2.23 according to the clock radio. Scooping Zack up, she hugs him to her and he settles back to sleep immediately. Now the hard part – getting him into the cot. Each time she lies him on to the mattress, he stirs again and starts to cry. She grits her teeth and, holding him, slips into the nursing chair, rocking slowly and willing him to sleep. Tom is still snoring quietly, oblivious to all of it. And tomorrow she’ll be delirious with exhaustion, facing Craig and the missing money. This really isn’t fair.

  A noise. Sylvia snaps awake, her head jerking up. What was the noise? She can’t remember now. Her neck is stiff and she rubs it, still holding Zack with her other arm. He’s in a deep sleep now, and gently she transfers him to the cot. Looking at the clock is counterproductive, but she does it anyway – 4.02 say the bright red digits. Then she hears it – footsteps, and a door opening.

  “Tom!” she whispers, shaking him. He opens his eyes. “There’s someone downstairs!”

  He sits up, listening. They both hear it then. Faint footsteps, and a drawer opening.

  “It’s next door,” he says, lying down again. “Someone in the bedroom next door. It always sounds like it’s our house.”

  Jesus! The exhaustion is really getting to her. She slumps back against the pillow, and nudges Tom. “What’s he doing up and about at 4am?”

  “I don’t know – what are you doing up and about at 4am?”

  “Zack was awake,” she hisses at him. “If I had a choice, I’d be asleep.”

  Tom turns over and mutters goodnight.

  Sylvia turns over and dreams of running away.

  She’s still unconscious with sleep when Tom shakes her to say there’s tea on her bedside locker and he’s going in to wake Megan. His words are barely audible but he’s saying something about cups. It doesn’t make any sense and she’s too tired to open her eyes. She burrows further under the duvet. Another ten minutes fly by in what feels like thirty seconds, and this time she really does have to get up. Tom is already dressed and looking at his phone when she finally swings her legs over the side of the bed. The tea is lukewarm now.

  “Why did you put all the cups out?” Tom asks.

  “What cups?”

  “On the kitchen table. Every single cup – were you cleaning out cupboards in the middle of the night?”

  “No – I don’t get what you mean.”

  “Go down and you’ll see. Maybe you were sleepwalking. Or sleep-cleaning.”

  Down in the kitchen, she sees exactly what he means. Every single cup they own is on the kitchen table. Arranged in a perfect rectangle, all the way around the edges, like a ceramic daisy-chain. The Denby cups they got as a wedding present, the colourful Cath Kidston mugs, the logo-covered freebies they’d picked up over the years, and the little glass coffee cups she’d just bought in Ikea. It would be pretty if it wasn’t so bizarre. She picks up one cup and puts it back down, trying to work it out. Maybe it’s Tom’s idea of a joke? Because she was spooked by the noises from next door?

  But upstairs, he insists it wasn’t him.

  “If it wasn’t you, then who was it? Jesus Christ, Tom, does that mean someone really was in the house last night?”

  “Arranging our cups for us? A domesticated burglar?”

  “Tom, it’s not funny.”

  “You must have done it when you were up last night – do you not remember?”

  “I didn’t. I know it sounds crazy but I think someone’s been in the house. Remember the night Megan said there was a monster in her room? Then those photos were scribbled on, and someone laid out all the dolls on the chairs? And at night, I keep hearing noises. This all started when I saw the child in the water.”

  “When you thought you saw a child in the water. There was nothing there, remember?” He sits down beside her on the bed and takes her hand. “I think this whole thing with work is getting to you. And you’re wrecked with the baby up every night. Just wake me when he’s up tonight – I know I don’t hear him, but I’ll get up if you tell me to. And work will be okay – you didn’t do anything wrong, and you know DBK have the money. In another few days, it’ll be sorted. Trust me?”

  Sylvia nods, picking at the grey piping on the edge of the duvet. He’s probably right. But with all the stress in the world, she hardly laid out the cups in her sleep? And if it wasn’t her – if someone was in the house, why on earth would they be moving things around her kitchen?

  Then Zack starts to cry in his cot and her phone beeps with the first emails of the morning and there’s no more time to think about any of it. And in some ways she’s grateful for the cries and the beeps because the whole day lies ahead and night-time is never so far away as it is first thing each morning.

  Chapter 33

  Sylvia – Saturday, August 20th

  It’s alien to be sitting on the step in the midday sun – there’s a touch of guilt when the kids come to mind, but it’s fleeting. Anyway, after four hours at the laptop, she deserves a break. And it’s Saturday – nobody else is even working – certainly not anyone in Stanbridge Brown. Though, to be fair, three of the team had come to her office yesterday to offer to stay late to work on the missing-money investigation. She had told them to head on home, then regretted it when she was still on her laptop at midnight.

  Sipping her coffee, she looks around. It’s eerily quiet on the road – maybe everyone’s at the beach, making the most of the late summer sun. Her phone beeps, breaking the silence – a message from Tom with a photo of Megan on her grandmother’s lap. Tom’s mother had been thrilled when she heard they were going down for the weekend – she hadn’t seen them in months and months, she said, and they’d probably forgotten what she looked like. That wasn’t strictly true but it had been a while. Another twinge of guilt. It was a lot easier to visit when she lived in the city centre, no matter how often she claims Enniskerry is only a stone’s throw from Dún Laoghaire.

  An unfamiliar car pulls up outside the house next door, and a tall woman with short blonde hair gets out. Sam’s wife? Sylvia thought her hair was longer, but it might be her. She watches as the woman takes a suitcase from the boot and walks up to the front door. She waves and smiles, and the woman nods over then lets herself into the house. So it must be the wife. Goodness. Suddenly the jokey conversations about affairs and pole-dancers feel less jokey.

  Quiet minutes tick by, and the coffee is gone, but Sylvia’s not moving. She watches as the blonde woman goes back out to the car carrying a bag and a lamp, then goes inside for a box of what sounds like crockery.

  A voice from her left draws her attention away from Number 26. Rosemary has come out to take a look too, it seems.

  “Isn’t it well for you, getting a bit of sun there,” she says, walking over to the dividing wall. “Are the kids watching the telly? They should be out in the sun!”

  “Oh hi, Rosemary, no, they’re away for the weekend – down with Tom’s mother in Enniskerry.” Sylvia stands up reluctantly.

  Rosemary raises her eyebrows. “Oh, that’s very nice – lovely little break for you. What will you do with yourself while they’re away and their daddy is doing all the work?”

  “Well, it’s because I’m working – I’ve a lot to get done over the weekend, so we figured it’d be easier if Tom took them away.”

  “Why have you
to be working on the weekend? That was never the way when my Bob was working – did all the hours God sent during the week, but always took the time to be at home with us at the weekend.”

  Rosemary’s earnest blue eyes show no hint of malice – they never do – but, God, it could be draining.

  “Yeah, it’s just very busy,” Sylvia says, and looks at her watch. “Actually, I’ll have to head in now and get back to it.”

  Rosemary looks like she’s searching for more conversation topics but then her phone rings from inside of the house, and she rushes inside.

  God love her, she probably doesn’t get many callers, Sylvia thinks. Then conscious of eyes on her back, she turns to find the woman next door midway between the house and the car, another box in her arms. The woman nods towards Rosemary’s house.