All in Her Head: The gripping debut thriller that readers are going crazy for in 2020

by Nikki Smith

  The baby opens her eyes and starts to cry. Her blanket’s fallen onto the floor and I pick it up. I reach out and touch her hand, stroking her tiny fingers that are squeezed into tight balls. Flawless replicas in miniature, without any of the imperfections that come with age. Her mother frowns and takes the blanket from me, her smile fading as I continue to look at her daughter. I start to speak, but she pretends she can’t hear me as she moves towards the cashier, leaving me staring after her.

  When I get home, I park outside my flat and hold my key fob up to the panel by the main entrance, struggling to push the door open at the same time as carrying a loaf of bread, a pint of milk and a ready meal. Putting the shopping down onto the kitchen counter, I stick the kettle on and stack the dirty plates on top of each other to clear some space. I glance briefly at the door at one end of the hall, checking it’s firmly shut. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve opened it in the last year. It’s the one place in the flat I avoid going into if I can help it.

  As I wait in the kitchen for the kettle to boil, I remember us standing on this spot when we’d first moved in, looking at the many squares of ridiculously named colours I’d painted on the wall. Ali had slid her arms round my waist and rested her head on my shoulder as we’d considered the possible options. I hadn’t moved, feeling the warmth of her breath on my skin, until she’d started kissing my neck and I’d turned around, dropping the brush I was holding, and we’d forgotten about having to choose anything at all.

  I open a window in the sitting room to let in some air and turn on the television as the doorbell on the intercom buzzes. There’s a grainy image on the small video entry screen and I press the button to let Em in.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ I say as she comes up the corridor. ‘I thought you and Harry were coming on Friday?’ I go to hug her, but she pulls away. She looks flustered as she pushes her sunglasses onto her head.

  ‘I know. It’s just a flying visit. I think Harry left Jessica’s toy dog here yesterday and she’s hopeless at sleeping without it. Have you seen it?’

  I shake my head. ‘The flat’s in a bit of a state, but I can’t remember coming across it amongst the mess.’

  ‘Do you mind if I come in and have a look?’

  I nod and she steps inside.

  I wonder if Harry’s told her about my fictitious doctor’s appointment and she’s come to check up on me. She hesitates, seeming unsure of what to say next.

  I scan the counter and underneath the table in the kitchen. ‘There’s nothing here,’ I call out.

  ‘He said she was playing with it in the sitting room,’ Em says.

  I search whilst she leans against the doorway, pretending she hasn’t noticed the junk mail and pile of unopened letters that litter the table.

  ‘I should have bought two of the damn things,’ she says. ‘Always have a spare one as a reserve, that’s what all the super-organised mothers do, according to the magazines.’ She pauses as she glances towards the room at the end of the hallway. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean …’

  ‘It’s OK, Em.’ She perches on the arm of the sofa whilst I lift up envelopes and items of clothing to check there’s nothing hidden underneath.

  ‘Harry said you had a doctor’s appointment this afternoon. Nothing serious I hope?’

  I shake my head. So she has been sent to check up on me. ‘No, it’s fine. Just a routine check. My blood pressure was a bit high the last time I went in.’

  ‘You need to take better care of yourself, Jack. When you came over last week, the amount you and Harry drank was ridiculous.’ I can’t remember much about that night. I don’t even remember getting home. ‘You were hammered.’ Her tone exacerbates my sense of discomfort and I fold up a sweater that’s been flung over the back of a chair whilst I continue to search to give myself something to do. ‘That’s actually the reason I came …’

  Her phone bleeps and she takes it out of her pocket to look at the message. I try to think back to that evening, but everything after we’d sat down to eat is a blur.

  I change the subject before she has a chance to start talking again. ‘I can’t find it anywhere, Em. Sorry.’ The tight feeling in my stomach that I’d had after Harry mentioned how drunk we’d been resurfaces. I swallow and blink to hide the memories I don’t want her to know about, so she doesn’t see the guilt on my face.

  Em stares at me as she puts her phone in her pocket. ‘Did Harry say anything to you?’

  I swallow. ‘What, about last week?’ I shake my head and walk to the doorway. I need to get out of the room. I have a horrible feeling something happened and I have no recollection of what it was. And she does. I wonder if I said something to offend one of my oldest friends and she’s waiting for me to apologise. ‘I’ll have a look in my bedroom for it if you want,’ I suggest, hoping she doesn’t see how awkward I’m finding this. ‘I don’t think Jess went in there, but it’s tidier, so at least it might be easier to spot.’

  She follows me as we walk down the hallway. I catch her as she glances at the door at the other end of the corridor and shivers. I switch on the light in my room and draw the curtains that I haven’t bothered to open this morning, hoping she doesn’t ask me anything else. Crouching down on my hands and knees, I peer under the bed, waiting for the colour in my cheeks to fade before I get up. There’s a mountain of dust and the odd sock, but I can’t see any soft toys.

  ‘I’m sorry, Em. There’s nothing here. Have you checked your car? It might have fallen under the seat.’

  She watches me as I get up. ‘I’ve looked there already,’ she says, opening her mouth as if to say something, but then she changes her mind and walks back into the hallway. She pauses as she spots a photo of me tucked into the corner of our

  pinboard.

  I’d been nine or ten, still in my junior school uniform. A smile had turned the edges of my mouth upwards, but the emotion hadn’t reached my eyes. I remembered sitting on the small wooden stool whilst they’d adjusted the lighting umbrella. The Headmaster had stood behind the photographer, grinning at me, desperate for the shot to be taken so he could step forwards. As soon as I’d seen him, I’d known something was wrong. His appearance for a quiet chat had always meant bad news. I had prayed that I’d disappear when the flash blinded me, but when the spots had stopped dancing in front of my eyes, I’d still been there.

  He’d ushered me to a classroom, where my father was waiting. We’d driven to the hospital in silence. I’d been shocked by the number of stitches down my mother’s forehead. I think my father had been too. The way he’d sat on the end of her bed, adjusting the thin blanket and stroking her hand; it had been the most contrite I’d seen him. I knew he’d never actually admit he’d been the one responsible for putting her there in the first place. It seems I have more in common with my father than I want to admit.

  ‘Is this you?’ Em asks, pointing at it. I nod. She unpins it and peers at it closely. ‘Oh my god, Jack. You’re so cute! How old were you here?’

  ‘Not sure. About ten, I think.’ I hold out my hand for it. I don’t want Em looking at it. I’d forgotten it was there. Ali had wanted to put it up and I hadn’t found the courage to tell her why she shouldn’t.

  Em gives it to me and I slide it into the rear pocket of my jeans. I’ll get rid of it later.

  Her phone buzzes again and she reads the message. ‘I need to go. Harry says the kids are playing up.’ I don’t try to stop her. I don’t want to give her the chance to talk to me about last week before I can remember what happened.

  ‘See you Friday?’ I say as I walk towards the front door.

  ‘There it is!’ She bends down and extracts a small blue leg out of the wicker basket full of shoes in the hallway. ‘Thank God I found it. We might actually get some sleep tonight.’ She tucks the toy dog into her bag. ‘Yes, we’ll see you about seven.’ She stares at me, then adds, ‘Hopefully we’ll have more time to talk.’

  I nod, knowing I need to speak to Harry before they
come over to see if he can remember any more about that night than I can.

  I open the door and she walks straight out. That’s unlike Em. Normally she hugs me, or at least gives me a kiss on the cheek.

  I’m still wondering what I’ve done to put up a barrier between us as I stick my ready meal in the microwave and then hesitate for a moment before opening a bottle of Merlot. Just one glass. Two at the most. That can’t hurt. I check my phone to see if I’ve had any messages from Sarah, but the screen is blank. I need to be patient; it’s only been a couple of hours. The timer beeps to tell me the food is cooked and I rip off the plastic cover, swearing as the hot steam scalds my hand, spooning out the contents of the black plastic tray onto a plate. It’s an improvement on my usual behaviour. Yesterday morning I woke up to find I’d eaten straight out of the container. I run my hand under the cold water tap until my skin is so numb I can no longer feel it and take my dinner into the sitting room, picking at it on the sofa whilst half-watching the television.

  One glass of wine doesn’t last long, so I generously refill it before putting the bottle back on the counter. I need the fuzziness to soften the sharp edges of everything so I can sleep. Enough to stop me going straight to where I least want to be, the minute I shut my eyes.

  The photo digs into me as I sit back down. I reach into my pocket and pull it out. I barely have any pictures of me when I was young. The few my mother took were mostly too dark, or too out of focus to keep. But here I am, preserved in a single moment of time which in reality has long since

  faded.

  Getting up, I go to my bedroom and lift a small box off the top shelf of my wardrobe and take it into the sitting room, where I put it on the coffee table and open the lid. Different items I’ve collected over the years lie jumbled together. I take out a suitcase luggage label, an old photo, the tickets from my graduation ball and some tarnished football medals, until there’s only a black and white card, a small plastic wristband and one of Ali’s T-shirts left in the bottom of the box.

  I take a large gulp of wine as I pull out that last item and hold it against my face. The smell is powerful enough to bring her back, releasing memories that explode in front of my eyes like a series of colourful fireworks. It sharpens the tiny details of her face that I’ve forgotten about. The freckles on her nose. The small scar where she put her tooth through her lip when she was little. I force myself to put it down. As long as Sarah does what I’ve asked, I won’t have to summon up a ghost for much longer.

  The medals jangle together as I lift them back inside. I remember how my mother had sat next to me on the sofa, holding one of them by its cheap silk ribbon. I had stayed silent, staring at her whilst the light in her eyes had faded, trying to guess what she had been thinking. Her expression hadn’t given anything away, but I’d been sure it had been about my father. And how much she’d been dreading him coming home. I’d wanted to tell her I felt the same way but hadn’t wanted to add to her guilt.

  I shudder and drop the school photo into the box with the other items, shut the lid and carry it back into my bedroom, where I put it away in the wardrobe. Picking up my glass off the table, I walk into the kitchen, tipping it up to get out the last few drops that take forever to run down the inside before pouring myself another.

  The phone buzzes and jolts me awake. Ten fifteen p.m. I’ve been asleep on the sofa longer than I thought. There’s a metallic taste in my mouth and my headache is worse, throbbing each time I move. I squint to read the message. Harry.

  I’ve got client meetings tomorrow and Weds. Don’t forget presentation on Thursday – see you at Marley Brown’s offices at 9am.

  I shut my eyes. Another early start later this week to look forward to.

  I let my mind wander, the alcohol swirling my thoughts into incomprehensible patterns until I don’t even notice crossing over the boundary into sleep.

  I’d had my hands round her wrists as I’d held onto her in our bedroom, my face inches from hers. ‘What are you doing? You can’t leave. I won’t let you.’ She hadn’t known what she was doing. I’d been trying to protect her.

  ‘Please, get off me,’ she’d whispered as she sank down, curling herself into a ball. I’d kicked out at the wall, scuffing the paint.

  ‘You need to listen to me.’ I’d crouched down in front of her as she’d tried to pull her pyjama top across her chest and had brushed away the tear that fell down her cheek with my finger. ‘You know how much I love you, don’t you?’ She hadn’t looked at me. ‘I’m trying to keep you safe. You don’t believe me, do you?’

  She’d nodded slowly, but I’d seen she was already slipping away from me and I didn’t know how to hold onto her.

  I couldn’t bear to let her leave.

  NOW

  Alison

  I wake too early, startled by a noise that fades before I have a chance to open my eyes. My senses begin to focus, but I bury my head in the pillow, unwilling to return to

  consciousness.

  Skimming the surface of sleep, I dream of Jack. We’re sitting next to each other on a bus, but he leans forward on the seat to talk to the person in front of us and, as they turn around, I can see it’s Sarah. She smiles at me. He reaches over to hold her hand, and I try to grab the arm of his coat to pull him away, but he shakes me off. I see how their fingers interlock, hers pale against his, and I want to sink my teeth into her. Rip through her skin until it’s a bloody pulp and he doesn’t have anything left to grasp at all. He whispers something in her ear, but there’s a beeping noise and I can’t hear him properly. I’m pleading with him to let go of her, but his coat slips out from between my fingers when I try to hold onto it and the sound gets louder and I wonder why the bus driver is hooting and then I realise my alarm is going off and he was never here at all.

  My skin glistens with a layer of sweat and my face is wet. I think I have been crying and have to wipe the dampness off with a towel as I get ready for work. The bruise on my wrist is now purple. In a couple of days, it will turn from blue to green and finally to yellow. I’m familiar with that process. The top of my arm is sore when I touch it. I don’t remember hitting it when I fell, but I must have scraped it as there’s a tiny scab on it, no bigger than a freckle, which feels rough under my fingers.

  Trying to recall how I know Sarah is like having a word on the tip of my tongue, but the harder I try, the further it retreats. I struggle to think back, but I can’t get past images of Jack; Jack with a girl who looks like me, but who is so different from the person I am now, I barely recognise her. He’s twisted me into a lesser version of myself. Someone who doesn’t live in the present. Someone who spends their time watching the past, waiting for it to catch up with them.

  I linger in my seat in the canteen at work, taking my time to chew and carefully swallow every mouthful of my sandwich, not taking my eyes off the entrance. Sarah doesn’t come in and I can’t wait any longer. The large wall clock shows me that Mrs Painter will be starting to wonder where I am. I’ll try again tomorrow.

  I head back to reception to the stairwell as the lift doors slide open. Sarah stands in front of me, her bright red jacket matching the shade of her lipstick. She’s a vision of complete co-ordination. For a moment she looks unsettled, one hand reaches up to adjust her scarf, but then she smiles and any momentary slip in composure vanishes.

  ‘Hi, Alison.’

  ‘Hi.’ I don’t move.

  ‘I’m just going out for some lunch,’ she says. ‘Can’t face the canteen today.’

  ‘I wondered where you were.’ I don’t tell her I’ve been looking for her. Or dreaming about her.

  She puts her hand on the side of the lift doors to stop them closing. ‘I thought I’d have a change for once. Sorry … can I get out?’

  ‘Sure.’ I step to one side. ‘Perhaps I could come with you?’ I blurt out the words, not knowing how to stop her from walking off.

  She stares at me and then looks at the floor. ‘Maybe another time. Aren’t you due bac
k in the library?’

  Of course I am. I’ve already had lunch. What am I thinking? For some reason, I have a lump in my throat.

  She smiles kindly at me. ‘I can pop in to see you later if you’d like? There’s another book I want to borrow.’ I shrug, not trusting myself to speak as the lift doors close and it moves off. She pats her pocket, checking she has her keys. ‘Well, I’d better go. Need to make the most of the break. It’s hardly enough time to get anything useful done.’

  I watch as she walks out through the glass doors and across the car park, her red jacket highlighted against the grey tarmac as if someone has deliberately marked her out in felt-tip pen for my benefit.

  My mother used to have a whole row of suit jackets in her wardrobe. In a range of appropriate office colours, they’d all been immaculate, hung on identical wooden hangers, sheathed in dry-cleaner’s clear plastic bags. She’d told me she hadn’t worn them since I’d been born. She’d let me try them on, the shoulder pads sticking out at ridiculous angles as I’d stood in front of a mirror in her bathroom, my small feet stuck into the front of a pair of her black high heels, in which I’d shuffled across the carpet. I’d asked her why she didn’t wear them anymore, but she hadn’t answered my question, tucking them neatly into their plastic covers before hanging them up. She’d taken a long time smoothing each one out, telling me she wanted to be sure she didn’t leave any creases for the next time she needed them, before she’d shut the wardrobe door.

  I want to avoid walking past the people who are gathered around the entrance to the stairwell, so I wait in reception for the lift. The doors slide open and I press the button impatiently for the first floor before anyone else can get in. As the lift rises upwards, I wonder if I can find where she works. Maybe something in her office will jog my memory. I push the button for the fourth floor. Sarah’s floor. There’s a buzzing noise. ‘Please present pass’ flashes up in small red letters on the control panel. I hold up my ID card. The letters continue to flash and the lift halts its ascent, the doors opening at the first floor. The entrance to the library is ahead of me. I try holding the button down once more, but the lift remains stationary and the same instruction blinks repetitively on the panel.