In Spite: A terrifying psychological thriller with a shocking twist you won't see coming

by Collette Heather

  *

  We catch Shane in the kitchen, his back to us, watching the state-of-the-art coffee machine do its business. He spins around on the spot, his dark eyes wide, his lips parted in an ‘O’ of surprise.

  “Hello, little brother,” Kirsty says brightly.

  She always calls him little brother, even though there are only two years between them – Kirsty is forty-eight to his forty-six. I am the baby of this setup as, at thirty-four, I am a full twelve years younger than my husband.

  “Tess. Kirsty. You’re home early.”

  Maybe I am imagining it, but I’m sure he quickly shoved something into the front pocket of his ancient, pale-blue jeans. I glance down at it – there’s no mistaking that it’s a phone bulge.

  The words of the woman from the shopping mall who had introduced herself as Alice jump unbidden into my mind: Check his phone, his laptop… Everything you need to know will be on there…

  I’ve had my suspicions for a while now that he’s playing around behind my back. Two weeks ago, I found a text from a woman he works with called Isla. It wasn’t one-hundred percent incriminating, but it more than aroused my suspicions. The opening line of her text had appeared on the screen while it was charging next to the kettle and he was in the shower. I couldn’t resist opening it.

  Hello Shane, it had said. Yesterday at work was fun. I hope we can do it again sometime x

  She could’ve been referring to pretty much anything. Maybe even a cake run, and some people meant nothing by it when they put kisses at the end of a message.

  I tell myself this, but I don’t quite believe it.

  He has since tightened up the security on his phone, changing his lockscreen password which used to be his date of birth, and he’s a lot more careful nowadays where he leaves it.

  “We didn’t manage lunch; Tess has a migraine,” Kirsty is saying, snapping me back fully into the moment. “Probably for the best, I need to hit the road, anyway. Jemima will be home, soon, and Mum’s expecting me before six.”

  An awkward silence befalls us – Kirsty has said the ‘M’ word. Mother. Shane carries with him a hefty dose of denial and guilt, and the subject of their mother doesn’t exactly make for light, fluffy conversation.

  “I’m going to see her next weekend.”

  “You are?” I say, a kneejerk reaction to the fact he has never mentioned this to me. More importantly, he has said I, rather than we. Perhaps he meant we…

  “Yes, I am,” he replies.

  And there I have my answer. Definitely I, singular. He shuts me out. Every. Single. Time.

  “What time are you driving back on Sunday?” Shane asks Kirsty.

  The four of us – or five, including Jemima The Pubescent – have a longstanding dinner arrangement for Sunday night. It’s Jack’s birthday, and he will be turning forty-four. Kirsty has planned a surprise meal for her husband, which she will be helping me cook, here. Helping me is code for she will be performing cooking duties in my kitchen.

  “Early afternoon,” Kirsty replies. “I have Monday morning off, so I intend to drink all your wine, and go home in a taxi. You’re not working on Monday either, are you Shane?”

  “I’m not going into the city on Monday, no,” Shane says.

  “Great. We might need you. I think I’m just going to drive straight to you on Sunday. Then Jack and Jemima will follow a little later in a taxi, and we’ll all get a taxi home. You can pick me up on Monday so I can collect my car.”

  “Right,” Shane says.

  This isn’t too much of a problem, as Kirsty and Jack live in Cliftonville, just a few miles down the road from Broadgate. But still – I can’t help but smirk. Kirsty can be so bossy.

  “Great. That’s that settled then. I thought you were making coffee?” she says when Shane just stands there, looking decidedly henpecked.

  *

  The conversation around the kitchen table drifts over me, not a word of it penetrating the thick fog of pain that fills my head and smothers my thoughts.

  My head is now screaming – it feels like there is a knife twisting in my brain. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee drifting upwards from our mugs and wafting under my nose causes my stomach to clench in despair, accompanied by fresh needles of pain to stab behind my eyes and at the inner walls of my skull.

  I can’t take the torture of being vertical and awake for a second longer – the Paracetamol I’ve taken isn’t even touching this.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, lurching to my feet and interrupting whatever it is that they are saying.

  This small action causes fresh waves of pain to radiate outwards from my brain, and my tongue is floating in a pool of mouth water. I close my eyes for a second, swamped as I am by a sudden sweat that has broken out all over my body, immediately turning cold and icky on my skin.

  “You look terrible,” Shane is saying to me.

  He too, has got to his feet, although I didn’t notice him doing so.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeat.

  I feel like the innards from my neck upwards have been scooped out and replaced with cottonwool.

  “Nothing to apologise for,” I am dimly aware of my sister-in-law saying. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have stopped for coffee. You should be in bed.”

  “Bed,” I say, recognising that I sound like a zombie. “Yes. Bed.”

  It’s true. Bed is the only thing I’m good for when I’m in this state. Usually, a minimum of twelve hours lying down in a darkened bedroom is the only thing that brings me back to myself.

  I grow aware of a pressure on my upper arm, and when I focus my vision, I see that Kirsty is standing right in front of me, peering up at me with a somewhat doctorly concern. She squeezes my arm.

  “You need to go to bed.”

  And I am in full agreement.

  *

  “I can manage,” I snap at Shane when we are in the upstairs hallway.

  He is lightly holding my shoulders, steering me down the hallway like I am a child on a bicycle, and I shrug out of his grip.

  “I’m just trying to help,” he says defensively.

  My head hurts too much to emphasise with anyone else’s feelings right now, so I merely grunt in reply. I walk past our bedroom door, clutching the glass of water so tightly it sloshes over my hand and lands on a foot, instantly soaking through my sock.

  “Where are you going?” Shane calls from close behind me.

  Why does he have to shout? I think, gritting my teeth in irritation. His voice is like shards of glass stabbing in my brain.

  “To bed.” Where do you bloody well think I’m going? I just manage to stop myself from adding.

  “Don’t you want to sleep in our room?”

  I want to ignore him so badly, but manners trump the pain I am in – just. I turn around on the spot when I reach the closed door of the bedroom I wish to enter.

  Our house has four bedrooms, two of which are en-suite. Our bedroom has a bathroom attached, as does this room – a room that I have come to think of as my own, private space. If I am sick, or I have a migraine as I do now, I prefer to slope away into this room, rather than turf Shane out of our bedroom. I suppose that this is the equivalent of an animal crawling into a hole to die in peace…

  Okay, so that analogy is a bit drastic, because I have no intention of dying, but I do prefer my own space when I am unwell – a space that is completely Shane-free. The last thing I want is to sense any traces of him when all I want to do is be quiet and lick my wounds.

  “You know I like to be in here when I don’t feel well,” I tell him curtly.

  “I know,” he says. “It’s just, I feel like I’m kicking you out of your own room when you’re sick, and it doesn’t feel right.”

  That isn’t entirely the truth, and we both know it. What he really means is, he doesn’t like how I shut him out when I’m unwell.

  “I’m sorry. Please, you know what I get like. I need space, that’s all. I need sleep. All I want is a bed, a toilet, runnin
g water... Please, just leave me to get on with it, okay? And don’t check on me; if I’m asleep, I need to stay that way.”

  Shane doesn’t argue; he knows the drill, even if he doesn’t like it. We went through this exact same thing last weekend, as well.

  “Fine,” he says. “Then I guess I’ll see you on the other side.”

  I try to smile, but I suspect it looks nearer a grimace, for it pains my face.

  “Good night,” I say, even though it is only half past two in the afternoon.

  I disappear into the room, shutting the door behind myself. I don’t even want to look at my husband right now; I am too confused, and my head hurts way too much to process everything.

  CHAPTER THREE

  When I am alone, I like to sleep naked. On the other hand, when I am sharing a bed with my husband – which is most nights – I prefer to at least wear something, even if it is just a t-shirt. It’s the same after sex – I always like to throw something on.

  But, if I am alone, I feel freer. One would think it would be the other way around, that if I’m alone I should feel more vulnerable, and therefore feel the need to protect my body, and if I’m with Shane, I should feel safer, and therefore able to relax more. At the best of times, I’m not sure I’m up to analysing what that says about the state of my relationship, yet alone when I feel like this.

  Either way, I pull off the figure-hiding, cable-knit, fisherman’s style jumper I am wearing, and step out of my gently-flared jeans, letting them fall where they may. In my unexciting, comfortable cotton underwear, I wander over to my glass of water, which I have left on the bedside table.

  I take a sip, holding the side of the glass, damp with condensation, against my burning temple. As I do so, I gaze out of the window, which overlooks our large, back garden.

  I’m so lucky to live here, I think absently. The perfect house. The perfect garden – a garden that I don’t have to lift a finger in because a gardener comes a couple of times a week to keep things pretty for us.

  Yes, I have the all-round perfect life.

  Apart from my cheating husband, comes the unbidden, most unwelcome thought.

  No. I don’t want to go there. Not yet. Not now. Just thinking about Shane’s possible affair with this Alice woman causes fresh pain to stab inside my skull.

  “Ow,” I groan softly, the hand not holding the glass flying up to cup my throbbing forehead.

  One eye hidden by my cupped hand, I squint over at the window, at the garden beyond on this grey, overcast, winter afternoon. Wincing in pain, I drift over to the window and rest my throbbing, hot head against the cool pane of glass. Except, it isn’t a window as such, but a glass door that is always kept locked. It opens out onto a tiny, wrought-iron platform, surrounded by chest-height walls in the same lattice design as its floor. This fire escape leads onto a matching, wrought-iron staircase, spiralling downwards in tight circles onto the wooden decking patio.

  The garden – as carefully landscaped as it is – retains a certain wild, woodland quality to it, largely thanks to the Ash trees dotted throughout. These trees give the garden the appearance of a park, like it is a well-groomed portion of the grounds of a stately home, open to the public.

  In the middle of the garden, beneath one of these trees, is a wooden, park bench.

  A fresh wave of terror washes through me when my gaze latches onto this bench, for there is a figure sitting on it.

  A figure in a cropped, bright red, leather jacket.

  “No,” I gasp, my head swimming in shock.

  My hand drops from my eye – I was clawing at my forehead until I catch myself, and I have to force my fingers to uncurl.

  I blink – hard. I’m seeing things, I must be, because there is no way that woman from the shopping mall is here, sitting on my bench, and staring up at me in my goddam underwear.

  And yet. There she is.

  There is no doubt in my mind that it is her. She is too far away to make out exact details, but the dark hair, pale face, and that red jacket is unmistakable.

  She followed us home from the shopping mall.

  My flesh creeps at the sheer magnitude of this. This means she must have got into her car the same time as we did. She must have driven behind us all the way home.

  The bedroom tilts around me and my legs feel suddenly numb and insubstantial, close to buckling. I squeeze me eyes tightly shut as the skin of my back prickles hot then cold, leaving me bathed in another cold, clammy sweat.

  When I open my eyes again, Alice is gone.

  I stare at the empty wooden bench until my eyes begin to water and ache. Until the pain in my head reaches epic proportions and I can stand it no more.

  I’m losing my mind, I decide. I’m seeing things. I’m crazy.

  With a low groan of despair, I back away from the window, before swooshing shut the thin, dark-green curtains with one hand, plunging the room into green-tinged shadows.

  Movement in the newly darkened bedroom to my left catches my eye, and I spin around in shock, a fresh surge of adrenalin coursing through me. For a horrible, all-too-real moment, I am convinced that there is another person in the room with me. Another woman.

  And, in that same crazy, sickening moment, I think it is Alice in here with me, in my bedroom. I stare at the equally shocked woman, who stares back at me in her white cotton underwear, her eyes wide in her blanched-white face.

  It is myself I am looking at, in the full-length mirror of the wardrobe door. A funny little laugh escapes my lips, but it comes out nearer a strangled sob. I have spilled most of the glass of water I am holding over my bare feet, and I carry it over to the bedside table, setting it down there. I turn my attention back to the mirror.

  “You crazy cow,” I murmur softly to myself as I approach my reflection. “You need to go to bed.”

  I go right up to the glass, my gaze never leaving my reflection’s. My own, dark eyes bore into me, sparkling with a crazed light that I can’t say especially fills me with joy.

  I take in the familiarity of my own features in the gloom, trying to draw comfort from them. I fancy that I look different today, and not just because my face is scrunched up with the force of my headache. I think I look older. Harder.

  My usually full, wide mouth is set in grim, white line, and my complexion is red and splotchy. I am a slim woman, borderline thin, which gives my long, narrow face sharp cheekbones and lean cheeks. Usually, I think my low BMI suits me, as if my face were meant to look this way, but right now, I just think I look gaunt. My round, close-set dark eyes with the wide expanse of upper eyelid look more sunken than intense, as they have been described by various people in the past. I have a long, straight nose, and an angular chin, which again, has been described as elegant on more than one occasion.

  As my cheeks suddenly now appear so gaunt, my eye area so hollow, it throws my entire face out of proportion. My nose is no longer elegant, but horsey-looking, and I can see fine lines on my high forehead and fanning out around the corners of my eyes that I’m quite sure weren’t there this morning.

  I scrape back my long, dark brown hair off my forehead with both hands, staring in wide-eyed disgust at my reflection. I stay in that position, elbows raised to the level of my thin, dark eyebrows, thinking how old I look. The way I am holding my arms makes me look even thinner, my elbows appearing too long, too spindly. This action also forms a sharp indent in the hollow of my throat, and causes deep, vertical shadows to appear on my chest wall with my protruding bones. My collarbone looks like it’s about to burst through my pale skin, and my eyes are cast into deep shadows beneath my heavy browbone.

  The overall effect is that of a skeleton, and I shudder, turning away from the mirror in revulsion. It is time for me to go to bed. In a daze, I pull back the green duvet cover and slide into the double bed, relishing the sensation of finally lying down. The cotton is so soft against my skin, the clean-sheet aroma filling my nostrils, going some way to calming me. I wriggle out of my knickers, unhook my bra,
and toss them over the edge of the bed.

  Everything’s going to be okay, I tell myself.

  The green shadows gently settle over me, and I drift off to sleep, imagining that I am sleeping under a canopy of trees in a sunlit, enchanted forest. I don’t think about Shane, or the miscarriage. I don’t think about anything bad as I sink into the waiting oblivion.

  I don’t think about anything at all.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ALICE

  My plan is to make Jack fall in love with me. I think, perhaps, he already has – as much as a man like Jack Aitken is capable of loving anyone, anyway.

  “That’ll be eight eighty,” the taximan says, craning his head around to peer at me on the backseat.

  “Right,” I say, snapping back to reality, pushing all thoughts of Jack aside.

  We park outside Pink Flamingos on double yellows, the engine idling.

  I hadn’t even noticed that his silver Skoda had stopped. What can I say? I am a total space cadet most of the time; I tend to live in my own dream world.

  “Keep the change,” I say on handing the man a tenner.

  I exit the vehicle and stand on the pavement, shivering in the early-winter air, wrapping my red leather jacket more tightly around myself. I pause for a moment to gaze up at the façade of the strip club, tucked away up one of the many sideroads that fan outwards from Broadgate promenade at not-quite right angles. It’s nothing special to look at from the outside, just a regular, square, two-storey building, wider than it is tall, and around the size of your average chain pub. There are no windows, save the row of six, sash windows on the upper floor. The wide entrance is guarded by Wayne, the steroid-pumped dimwit who works the door Friday nights.

  It looks less like a club and more like a factory with its characterless, grey brick, and the fact it is sandwiched between a derelict warehouse and a row of fast-food takeaways, all of which are shuttered during the day. Even the sign above the door is tiny and unshowy, with none of the flashing, neon lights one normally associates with a strip club.