by C. J. Skuse
‘I’m not sure,’ I say, checking my boarding card. Ophelia Jane White. Booked on the 7.15 p.m. flight from JFK to San Diego International. I stare hard at my name – the name of the person I am now. The name of the person I so desperately want to be.
But my baby girl needs me. My baby girl’s in danger.
‘I love you, OJ.’
‘I love you too.’ My eyes flick up to the Departure boards. They go from one to another and back again. San Diego. London. San Diego. London. San Diego. London. My legs are still jiggling.
‘Come home soon, won’t you?’
My heart picks up its familiar thump thump rhythm. My fingers lengthen. I can’t catch my breath. Everything outside is chaos. Suitcases rolling. People running. Announcements blaring.
But everything inside is suddenly so simple.
‘I’ll be with you soon, baby, I promise. I’m coming home.’
Acknowledgements
Jon Appleton, Roxie ‘Joan Wilder’ Cooper, Georgia ‘Rhiannon’ Maguire, Emily Metcalf, Laura Myers, Jenny Savill and all at Andrew Nurnberg Agency, Katie Seaman, Lisa Milton, Joe Thomas, Becca Joyce and the whole team at HQ, Penny Skuse, Maggie Snead, Matthew Snead, Kirstie Swain, Sensitivity Reader Melissa Vera at Salt and Sage Books, Patrick Walters at See Saw Films, Magda Wasiczek for her beautiful cover designs and my lil Teddy Bear who has walked me along many a field, furrow and pavement until all my plot knots have been thoroughly unpicked. Yes, even my dog got an acknowledgement. This is what happens when you hit 40 and you don’t have kids – you namecheck a Jackahuahua.
My Bath Spa buddies, namely Lucy Christopher, Steve Voake, Jo Nadin and Sue Bailey-Sillick and all the BA and MA students I have had the pleasure of regaling with my writing advice that was all stolen from Kurt Vonnegut anyway.
I’d also like to thank all the bloggers, reviewers and murderous darlings who are still buying, borrowing or stealing Sweetpea and In Bloom and shouting the bad name of Rhiannon from the rooftops, namely: Ashlea Dunstan, Bookie Tracey, Brian C, Charlotte Lucy @ Books and Bargains, Chloe’s Reading Room, Emma @ Book Love Life, Em @ Faffing At Life, Gaby @ GNTxReads, Gem Loves Books, Jade @ Best Books to Get Buried In, Jen @ PrettyMachine, Jessica @ llanaReadsBooks, Joanne Easton, Karen JK Hart, Karen’s Reads, Kayleigh @ Once Upon a Thrillerl, Kayleigh’s Reading Corner, Killer Reads, Kirsty @ Kirst Edition, Laura’s Book Corner, Lucinda Is Reading, Melanie’s Reads, Mia @ Turning A Page, My Bookish Life, Rebecca @ Bookworm Rebs, Sara @ My Bookworm Life, Sarah Hardy, Sarah Jane Huntington, Shona Louise blog, Sophie @ So Little Time for Books, Soph’s Bookshelf, Terri and Catherine @ Haribo Reads, The World of Sophie, Tracey Gibson @ Tea Please, Tracy Fenton @ Compulsive Readers, Victoria Loves Books, What Ella Reads, What Victoria Read, Zooloo’s Book Diary.
Consider yourselves ALL off The List.
Thank you again all for your hard work, support, enthusiasm and/or time in helping me to bring Sweetpea, In Bloom and Dead Head to life. It is massively appreciated more than mere words can say.
Make sure you’ve read the rest of the Sweetpea series featuring everyone’s favourite girl next door serial-killer, Rhiannon Lewis.
Book 1
Although her childhood was haunted by a famous crime, Rhiannon’s life is normal now that her celebrity has dwindled. By day her job as an editorial assistant is demeaning and unsatisfying. By even she dutifully listens to her friend’s plans for marriage and babies whilst secretly making a list. A kill list.
From the man on the Lidl checkout who always mishandles her apples, to the driver who cuts her off on her way to work, to the people who have got it coming, Rhiannon’s ready to get her revenge.
Because the girls everyone overlooks might be able to get away with murder …
Buy here
Book 2
Rhiannon Lewis has successfully fooled the world and framed her cheating fiancé Craig for the depraved and bloody killing spree she committed. She should be ecstatic that she’s free.
Except for one small problem. She’s pregnant with her ex-lover’s child. The ex-lover she only recently chopped up and buried in her in-laws’s garden. And as much as Rhiannon wants to continue making her way through her kill lists, a small voice inside is trying to make her stop.
But can a killer’s urges ever really be curbed?
Buy here
Don’t miss the standalone funny, twisty thriller that will keep you guessing
Joanne Haynes has a secret.
That is not her real name.
And there’s more. Her flat isn’t hers. Her cats aren’t hers. Even her hair isn’t really hers.
Nor is she any of the other women she pretends to be. Not the bestselling romance novelist who gets her morning snack from the doughnut van on the seafront. Nor the pregnant woman in the dental surgery. Nor the chemo patient in the supermarket for whom the cashier feels ever so sorry. They’re all just alibis.
In fact, the only thing that’s real about Joanne is that nobody can know who she really is.
But someone has got too close. It looks like her alibis have begun to run out …
Buy here
Keep reading for the first chapter …
1
ELLIS
Monday, 21st October
I can’t read this Hello! magazine again. There’s only so many times I can admire Brooklyn Beckham’s left armpit. It’s not as though there’s anything else to read either. There’s a Vogue with dried snot on the contents page. And Charlize Theron is on the cover of Cosmo so I can’t even touch that one. I’ve been afraid of her since Snow White. Keep thinking she’ll come out of the page and bite me.
So, in the absence of reading material, I’m squinting at a cockroach scuttling across the floor with a clump of shorn hair on its back like some tiny game show host. My own hair sits lankly around my ears – it can’t wait another day. I’ll give it another five minutes before I go back to the flat and dye it myself over the bath with a kit.
And now the baby’s grizzling. I’ve tried sticking my knuckle in her mouth but she’s hungry. I’m not feeding her here. How can you talk to a perfect stranger quite politely one moment and then flop your boob out the next? How do women do that? And what is the stranger supposed to do? Not look at it? A boob is my third most private part after my feet and my noo-noo. I’d look. Not for long, but I would look.
After fifteen-and-a-half full minutes, a short Roseanne Barr-ish woman scuffs through the beaded curtain. She has Hobbit feet wedged into mint-green flip flops and tattoos up and down both forearms – Tom Hiddlething as Loki all up her right, Chris HemWhatNot as Thor all up her left.
‘Hiya, I’m Steffi. Is it Mary?’ Her eyes don’t smile.
‘Yes. Mary Brokenshire.’
Steffi’s in a washed-out Gryffindor T-shirt and her hair is spare rib coloured, parted and shaved severely up the side.
‘If you’d like to come this way …’
Steffi leads me through the beads, across the glittery black floor tiles and through a grubby woodchip archway, towards the sinks but not quite at them. We swerve over to a side chair with a mirror in front of it and she sits me down and places her hot hands on my shoulders. She gives me an unnecessary chat about what I want done even though she already knows because I came in last week for a patch test and we went through it all then.
‘Right, black it is then. Have you been offered a tea or coffee?’
‘No.’ I don’t like tea or coffee. I’d prefer a juice but they don’t have juice, only some value squash which I only have to look at to feel my teeth rotting at the roots. Even I know asking for a milk would be too childish in this environment so, for appearances sake, I say, ‘I’d love a tea, thanks.’
Steffi disappears and returns with a cape but no tea. She waits for me to take Emily out of the papoose and transfer her to the pushchair, hoping to catch a glimpse. I get it: people love babies. I tuck her into the buggy and drape a muslin over the opening. I don’t like people looking at her, or me, for too long.
Just in case.
Steffi sweeps the cape around my body, rendering everything but my head invisible. I used to like wearing a cape. Or an oversized bath towel. There’s nothing quite like that feeling of getting out of a hot bath, wrapping the big bath towel around you and pretending to fly up the corridor with the towel flapping along behind. Me and my cousin Foy used to do that all the time after our baths. Or was it only once?
‘How are you coping with the little one?’ Steffi asks.
‘Fine, thanks. She’s our fifth, so we’re used to being tired all the time. You know what it’s like, I’m sure!’
‘Oh yeah,’ she says, face brightening. ‘We’ve got four and it’s chaos. We love it though. Love the chaos!’ We share the laugh only parents can share as she begins pasting on my colour. ‘Have you got anything planned for the rest of the day?’ I get the impression she’s asked this question 11,000 times. There’s no inflection. No real note of interest. I still answer.
‘Not really. A bit of shopping. Pick the kids up. I’m still on maternity leave from my practice so it’s nice not to have such a rigid timetable.’
‘What sort of practice?’
‘I’m a doctor. A GP.’
‘Oh right. Where are they all today then? At a friend’s house?’
I’m momentarily confused. ‘My children? They’re all at school.’
‘They not on half term?’
‘They’re all at private school,’ I say. ‘Their half term was last week.’
‘Oh,’ she says, with more than a hint of lemon juice about it. ‘You’ve got four of them at private school?’
‘Yeah,’ I tell her proudly, rocking the buggy. ‘Apples of their daddy’s eye. We’re stopping at five though. I’m having my tubes tied in January, I’ve told him already. He’d have a football team, given half the chance.’
‘Yeah, I think mine would!’
‘It’s our anniversary today so my mum and dad are going to have the kids tonight so we can go out for a meal.’
‘Ooh, where are you going? Anywhere nice?’
What a stupid question that is. No, we’re off to a complete dive with a one-star hygiene rating and a chef who wipes his bum on the lettuce. ‘The China Garden. The one with the gold dragon hanging from the ceiling? His treat.’
‘What does he do then, your bloke?’
I ignite when she says ‘Your bloke’. It’s lovely to have a bloke who belongs to me. ‘He’s a personal trainer.’
‘Nice. I wish my old man would take me out. Do you know I don’t think we’ve had a night out since our Livvy was born. And she’s starting Reception next month.’
‘Oh really?’
‘Yeah. We can’t afford it anyway. Rich’s been laid off from the airport.’
‘Oh right,’ I say, with the hint of gloom she seems to expect. ‘What did he—’
‘—baggage handler at John Lennon. Twenty years he gave them. Went in on his days off when they were striking and everything. And he caught a terrorist.’
‘Oh gosh.’ Cockroach Game Show Host scuttles back along the skirting board. I pretend to have a coughing fit and Steffi asks if I’d like some water, which is when she’s reminded about the tea she hasn’t made me yet and scurries off to see ‘where it’s got to’ like tea has a mind of its own.
I’m finally brought my tea and two Custard Creams – one with a corner snapped off. I remove the top of one biscuit and scrape out the cream with my bottom teeth. I put the two sides back together and munch it until it makes a neat circle of spitty biscuit between my thumbs, then I put it in my mouth ’til it dissolves. I don’t realise until I swallow that Steffi has been watching me. My cheeks flame as red as my roots.
But then my phone pings in my handbag and I rifle around to find it. ‘Probably Daddy, checking in on his girls.’
‘Ahhh,’ says Steffi, all misty-eyed.
It isn’t Daddy. It’s an email from eBay, letting me know about their half term sale on personalised school stationery.
‘Was it him?’ says Steffi, combing my colour through.
‘Yeah. He’s asking if I want anything brought in. Bless him.’
‘He sounds like a keeper.’ I hold up my iPhone screen to show her his photo. She takes it off me and squints. ‘Blimey, he’s gorgeous.’
I know what she’s thinking – that a woman like me couldn’t have possibly ‘got’ a guy like him. ‘I’m very lucky.’ She returns me the phone and I put him away safely in my bag. ‘We were childhood sweethearts.’
‘You started early then. I thought you looked young to have five kids.’
‘I had the first one at fourteen.’
‘Blimey.’
‘Then the twins, then Harry. Wasn’t easy with the medical degree, but we managed. Then this little surprise came along.’
‘I met my Rich on a hen weekend.’
I hadn’t asked and it’s not interesting to me but I pretend it’s the most interesting thing because for some reason I’m happy in her company. Two married mums together. ‘I love a good knees-up.’
‘Yeah it did get a bit rowdy,’ she laughs. ‘He did karaoke to “Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady” and pointed at me when he was singing. I knew then he was The One.’
I smile at the mirror. ‘The One. It’s a nice feeling, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, we have our moments. He woke up yesterday with a cold, right? And his breathing has become all like that Darth Wossit. And I said to him “Rich, I swear to God, if you breathe like that anymore, I’m gonna ram your head in the bacon slicer.” He was winding me up that much.’
I don’t get that. Why stay with a person whose breathing makes you want to commit actual murder on their head? So I ask her.
‘So you don’t love him anymore?’
‘Oh, course I do,’ she laughs. ‘I were only joking. Just wish he worked on an oil rig or summut, so he’d leave the bloody house once in a while, you know?’
I don’t get that either but, before I can ask, she hands me the same magazine I read six times in the waiting room and I’m treated to another glimpse of hairy Brooklyn and interviews with Liam Payne’s mother and the Britain’s Got Talent failure who’s had twenty facelifts and still hates himself.
We used to play Britain’s Got Talent at the pub. It would be after the kitchen had closed for the evening. Auntie Chelle would be helping Uncle Stu in the bar and the boys would be upstairs and me and Foy would sneak down for midnight feasts of still-warm chips from the fryers and leftover baguette ends dipped in salad cream. We’d take it in turns to come through from the utility room, telling a sob story to the panel of stuffed toys on the breakfast bar then screech ‘Flying Without Wings’ into a vinegar bottle. Miss Whiskers and Thread Bear always put us through to Bootcamp.
After half an hour, Steffi returns. ‘Let’s get you washed. Leave her with Jodie.’
The one called Jodie, with the shoulder tattoo of moons and stars and the white DMs, appears beside the buggy, all smiley and young. ‘Yeah, I’ll watch her for ya.’
‘Don’t let her out of your sight, will you?’ I say.
‘No probs. Can I have a little hold if she wakes up?’
‘No, I’d rather you didn’t. Thanks. She’s better left to her own devices.’
Steffi leads me back across the glittery floor to the sinks. I must get some glitter. I don’t know what for yet but I don’t use nearly enough of it. It’ll be November soon so I could get a head start on decorating for Christmas. Steffi’s pressing buttons and running water before I’ve even sat down. As I do, a bizarre kneading sensation begins in my lower back, rising up my spine and into my shoulder blades.
‘Oh my god!’ I jerk forwards and I realise it’s one of those massage chairs.
‘Is it too hard for you?’ she asks.
‘Um, no, sorry. I just never tried one before.’
‘Do you want me to turn it off?’
‘No, it’ll be fine. I think.’
‘It’s supp
osed to help you relax,’ she says. ‘But some people don’t like the feel of it. Let me know if it gets too much.’
I lie back again and within moments I’m letting out involuntary grunts at the luscious deep kneading all over my back. I’m making noises people usually only make when they do naughties. Luckily, there are too many dryers on for anyone to hear me.
‘I’ve recently started selling Avon on the side actually,’ says Steffi out of nowhere. ‘Would you be interested in a catalogue?’
‘Uh—’
‘And I’m organising a party at my place on Saturday night if you’re free?’
I’ve done nothing to warrant this invitation but I’m imagining she gets the smell of money off me, knowing I have four children at private school. ‘It would be difficult,’ I say, between grunts. ‘Saturdays are our family days normally.’
‘Bring ’em all along. Our kids’ll be there. They can watch Disney in the family room. The blokes usually go down the pub.’
‘My Kaden doesn’t drink. He’s more into his coconut water and plankton shots.’
‘Well he can sit in the other room watching Ant and Dec, can’t he? Go on, it’ll be a laugh. I can’t promise any food but people usually only want Pringles and Prosecco at these things, don’t they? Bring a bottle.’
‘Well I can’t drink at the moment because I’m breastfeeding but it sounds great. I’d love to come. Thank you.’
And while my lips are saying I’d love to, I know I won’t go. I’m breaking into a sweat thinking about it. I’m like Ariel in The Little Mermaid. I’m ginger and I want to be with them – up where they walk and run and play all day in the sun. But I can’t be part of that world. And I absolutely cannot be ginger. That’s just how it is.
But I say no more and after divulging her address, Steffi doesn’t ask me again. She vigorously rubs my head and I’m in ecstasy. By the time we’re on the second shampoo I’m used to the sensations and I just want to feel the pressing of her fingers into my scalp; the rubbing and rinsing and smoothing; the kneading into my back and shoulders. I want to lie in this synthetic coconut paradise forever. I crane my neck through the archway and see Jodie rocking the buggy while scrolling her phone.
