The Woman Next Door: A dark and twisty psychological thriller. Cass Green

dunno, I only did it for a joke,’ he says. ‘I thought it would be funny to see you a bit pissed because you’re always so …’

      ‘Nathan!’ barks Saskia.

      ‘Sorry,’ he shoots another panicked look at his mother, then turns back to me. I can’t help feeling this entire apology is only really aimed at her.

      ‘I mean, I just didn’t … think,’ he says.

      ‘No,’ I say.

      I can imagine so very clearly what it would feel like to strike that cheek. The smoothness, despite the speckle of juvenile beard. It’s so vivid in my mind, the satisfying slapping ring, the warm tautness of his young skin against my palm, that for a second I think I have actually hit him.

      They are both staring at me, a little curiously now.

      ‘I really am sorry, Hester,’ he says, a bit more boldly. ‘I bought you these to apologize.’

      I eye the flowers and then reach for them. They are beautiful and totally out of my budget. But I can’t bring myself to say thank you.

      ‘He bought them with his own money,’ says Saskia, a wheedling note to her voice. As if I should be impressed!

      I want to tell them to go away but force myself to be polite. I will not stoop to the level of these appalling people.

      ‘I have things to attend to,’ I say. ‘Good afternoon.’ And I close the door in their faces.

      I do still have some vestige of dignity.

       MELISSA

      Melissa takes the last bag of bottles out to the recycling bins in the alley at the side of the house. She has been working on the aftermath of the party all day. Furious, almost frenzied, cleaning that has made her old lower back injury throb and her arms ache. But the activity has done nothing to quash the thoughts that still swirl in her mind like dirty, buzzing flies.

      Tilly, thank God, wanted to sleepover at a friend’s house tonight. Melissa had jumped to the task of driving her to Chloe’s in a way that made Tilly look at her askance.

      As she was climbing into the car, she’d wondered about leaving Jamie alone in the house and hastily hid her laptop and jewellery in the safe upstairs. When she got back, he was still sleeping in the second guest bedroom. He has been there all day. No doubt luxuriating in her good sheets, like a pig in mud. Maybe he realizes that she’s getting rid of him the minute he pops his head out of that door.

      She lifts a weary hand now to wipe away a strand of hair that has fallen from the band of her ponytail. Coming into the kitchen she tries to take pleasure in the way surfaces gleam, taps and sink sparkle. Nothing is cluttering the surfaces, which hold only a large pewter bowl, crowded with bright green limes, and the heavy stone pestle and mortar set that she had found in a village in Tuscany last year. It was so heavy they’d had to pay a fortune to get it shipped home. It is bluish-grey and speckled with little chips of gold and silver; a thing of such beauty that she has never actually used it to crush spices.

      The rain has passed and the sun streams buttery light over the floor. Usually this room can calm her like no other place. This is her home. Everything in it is beautiful or useful. A great deal of money, time, and care have gone into making it like this.

      It’s her sanctuary.

      No one can take it away. But the gravitational pull of the past seems to suck at her.

      The kitchen feels as insubstantial as if it were projected on one of those green screens they use for special effects in the movie business. Like it would be a second’s work to make it vanish.

      She looks down at her hands and presses them to the table in an attempt to stop the trembling. Acid sloshes in her stomach. She has only had a piece of toast and honey all day but can’t face eating anything else. Sliding onto one of the kitchen chairs, Melissa puts her head in her hands, resting her elbows on the table.

      Oh God, what have I done? she thinks. If someone had handed her a script for what not to do last night, she couldn’t have handled it worse.

      The first mistake was letting Jamie cross the threshold. She should have quietly pulled the door behind her and told him that she didn’t want him here; that he wasn’t welcome. He would have complained, of course, put up an argument. But she could handle Jamie. Or, she could, once.

      If Tilly hadn’t arrived at that precise moment, bursting with good intentions like the nice, well-brought-up girl she is; all wide-eyed with curiosity about this blast from her mother’s past, it would have been so much easier to get rid of him.

      Blast was right. Jamie’s presence felt incendiary.

      When she had emerged from cleaning up Hester’s sick, and got the bleary-eyed, apologetic woman into the main guest bedroom, Jamie was still in the sitting room as instructed, but he was now holding a beer and chatting to Tom and Lucy from down the road, who were among the last straggling guests.

      Her one piece of luck had been that Saskia had taken a very drunk Nathan home early and had somehow missed Jamie entirely.

      Tilly wasn’t there; perhaps, thought Melissa, she had trotted off to get him a fresh drink, an extra cushion, or a three course bloody meal.

      He was telling a story; something about an old lady with a well-spoken voice berating a group of teenagers with a barrage of foul language on the bus. Melissa winced at the words, ‘And don’t you forget that, you little cunts!’

      Tom in particular was laughing so hard he’d gone quite purple in the face.

      ‘The gob on her!’ said Jamie, basking in the attention.

      This was new too. This raconteur who was comfortable taking centre stage in a house like this one.

      Melissa had been swept up in conversations with other guests who were leaving then, but a little later, she’d come back to find Tilly ensconced on the sofa, long legs curled to the side, feet bare.

      She’d let her hair down from the habitual bird’s-nesty bun and even brushed it, so it lay in soft waves around her face. Melissa peered at her daughter. Was that mascara? She barely ever wore make-up. Melissa felt a sick lurch.

      But she was more concerned about what they may have been discussing. Flickers of real fear licked at her.

      Her daughter knew her mother had had a difficult childhood with a short period (so she thought) with foster parents. But she hadn’t given her many details, just said that her mother had been ill and died young. Tilly had a phase, when she was seven or eight, of being quite obsessed with the subject. ‘Did your mummy have freckles on her nose like me?’ she’d ask. Or, ‘Were you really, really sad when your mummy died?’

      Melissa thinks Mark eventually took Tilly to one side and explained that Mummy didn’t like to talk about her past. He had long since stopped asking and so had she.

      Tilly’s voice now, still so high and young, despite her belief in her own sophistication, was filling the room. She was telling Jamie about her Duke of Edinburgh Gold, which had involved a night rough camping in the Lakes. And exaggerating wildly. She made it sound as though a bunch of wealthy teenagers, North Faced to the eyeballs, were polar explorers.

      Jamie was all smiles and open body language, listening to Tilly speak, and Melissa had the strongest urge to grab this dirty magpie by the shoulders and forcibly eject him. He was sprawled with his legs apart, arms stretched proprietarily along the back of the sofa. Owning the space. Showing that he too might belong here, given the right circumstances, just like she did.

      No.

      But she knew she’d have to play this just right, remembering a hard seam of stubbornness in Jamie.

      ‘Mum, I’ve been trying to find out what you were