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

for a cuppa’ after the class on the first week. I said, ‘I’m afraid I don’t really drink tea,’ which was a bit of a white lie, because I do in fact drink it a great deal!

      But she is one of those women who positively exudes her maternal bounty like an aura. I’ve heard her going on about ‘my daughter’ and ‘my newest grandson’ to anyone who will listen. She even, if you can believe this, has a tote bag with ‘World’s Best Grandma’ and a giant picture of a gurning infant on it. She is one of those women entirely defined by the workings of her womb. I know that, if I had taken her up on her offer, the ‘cuppas’ would barely be on the table before she would be saying, ‘So Hester do you have children?’

      Why do women ask this question so readily? It’s not as though we talk about the intimate workings of our bodies in any other context. It’s a very personal question and I have never really found a comfortable way to field it. I want to reply, ‘That’s none of your business’, but I’m aware that would be a little rude.

      No, she is not really my sort of person. My mind drifts back to my baking plan and I muse on what sort I could make. A nice lemon drizzle, or a rich fruitcake perhaps. But the gloomy feeling I have been trying to hold off is descending now, falling around my shoulders like a dank shroud.

      I know what will happen if I embark on a baking project. I will have a couple of pieces of whatever it will be and then the rest will just sit there, wasted, drying out, until I throw it into the wheelie bin. I can’t give any of it to Bertie. It’s very bad for dogs to have sweet things. They can get diabetes and heart disease just like we can.

      If I was like Binnie over there, I expect the cake would last five minutes before sticky-fingered little ones were cramming pieces into their mouths like hungry birds. It really is so unfair. All of it.

      ‘Are you all right, Hester?’ Hister.

      I look up. Alice is peering directly into my face, for once, with an expression of sugary sympathy. Glancing around I become aware that several of them are looking at me now. Binnie’s eyes are wide, and Jackie has paused mid-munch of his sandwich, his bottom lip glistening with grease and hanging slightly open.

      So many eyes. All on me.

      ‘Yes, why on earth do you ask?’ I bark a short laugh but it sounds entirely unnatural.

      Alice hesitates and then actually puts her grubby little paw on my shoulder. I look at it until she takes it away. She clears her throat.

      Blushing (rather prettily) she says, ‘It’s just that you seemed to be, um, muttering something? I wondered who you were talking to?’

      My tummy seems to flip over and my breath catches so I have to cover it up by pretending to cough. I can feel the heat creeping up my throat and flooding my cheeks.

      Oh dear God. I have finally started talking to myself? What am I doing?

      ‘Hester?’ she says again.

      I stiffen my spine and meet her gaze full on so that she is then the one who is blushing. I gather my handbag from where it is resting next to the computer monitor and rise to my feet.

      ‘I am quite well, thank you,’ I say. ‘I think I’m going to go home now.’

      ‘Oh, okay?’ she says, in that annoying singsong voice. ‘It’s just, we’re all planning to go the pub? You’re very welcome to join us?’

      I can’t think of anything I’d like to do less. I can just picture it. Alice, all full of fake bonhomie; the oldies getting squiffy and promising loudly (and falsely) to keep in touch.

      No. I’d rather stare at my uneaten cake and find out what’s on Radio 4.

      Yet it stings.

      It’s the, ‘You’re very welcome to join us’, thing. It wasn’t, ‘Oh no, Hester, you have to come to the pub! It wouldn’t be the same without you!’ Ha! It’s like I’m an afterthought. And now my silly eyes blur and kaleidoscope Alice’s face in front of me.

      But I still have my pride. I have achieved what I set out to do. I have learned how to use a computer. I am finished here.

      ‘No thank you,’ I say and then the lie just slides out of my mouth. ‘My daughter and grandchild are visiting later. I have things to do today.’

      ‘Oh?’ Alice seems to chew the word and then the bright smile is plastered over her face once again. ‘Well, I hope you have a lovely time with them? It’s been great meeting you?’

      ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ I say, before walking quickly away towards the exit.

      I catch Binnie’s eye, and I can see her look of surprise.

      I expect Terry is laughing in his grave.

       MELISSA

      As the stylist cocks the mirror to show her the back of her hair, Melissa can’t help picturing a shaven-headed teenager in a Moscow bedsit.

      ‘Looking gorgeous, don’t you think?’ says Susie.

      Melissa nods and forces a tight smile. They say the best hair comes from Russia, and this type of blonde is worth every penny of the £400. If only she could get rid of the lurid Gulag imagery.

      ‘Those’ll see you right for another six weeks or so,’ says Susie, with a kindly squeeze of her shoulders.

      ‘Great, thanks Susie.’

      But it’s hard to feign the enthusiasm she knows is expected. The whirr and blast of hairdryers and the tinny thud of the background music have anaesthetized her into a kind of stupor. She can’t even quite remember what she and Susie had been talking about during the endless hours she has been sitting in this chair. She feels somehow bonded to it.

      Her reluctance to get up prompts Susie to speak quietly into her ear.

      ‘Why don’t you finish your tea before you go?’ she says in her soft Geordie accent. ‘Boss likes to get people out the door, if you know what I mean, but you’re all right for a bit longer. My eleven o’clock hasn’t even arrived yet.’

      Melissa murmurs her gratitude as Susie bustles away and reaches for the delicate china teacup cooling next to the jumble of brushes, scissors, and tongs in front of her.

      The cloth pyramid of camomile tea has a greasy shine to it and the liquid is tepid and almost slimy as it slips down her throat, which feels scratchy. She coughs experimentally and begins to fret. It would be the worst time to come down with something. She could picture herself croaking miserably at people over the music of the party. There’s some zinc and vitamin C at home. She’ll dose herself up with them later.

      Looking back at her reflection, she runs a hand through her hair, turning her head this way and that. She takes care not to snag the tiny plugs woven into her own thin, expensively dyed tresses, which now hang in glossy waves the colour of butterscotch, wishing yet again that she didn’t always do this. Wonder about the provenance of the hair, that is.

      Surely there’s nothing wrong with it? It’s no different from the Bio Gel that adorn her fingers in a colour she is told is ‘French Nude’, although Melissa thinks her fingertips look a bit creepy. Android, almost. She wonders what percentage of her is now artificial.

      But the extensions feel different. She pictures some poor pretty girl losing the only asset she has so that a rich woman thousands of miles away can enjoy the weight of it on her shoulders. All too easy to picture the grubby transaction involved in selling your own hair.

      It is as she is musing gloomily on this that she feels a strange prickle of unease, like there has been a ripple in the atmosphere, a tiny, fizzing depth charge deep in the primeval part of her brain.

      She frowns and looks around.

      Someone is watching her. Melissa turns