The Love Trap: an unputdownable psychological thriller

by Caroline Goldsworthy

  ‘I am, aren’t I?’ I said. ‘I think I’m going mad. I'm not quite sure what's wrong with me.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly, Lily. You’re the sanest person I know,’ Stephanie picked up the menu and started perusing it. ‘What's really up?’ she asked, as she fixed me with a stare over the top of the menu.

  ‘I’m pretty sure it wasn’t an accident.’

  Stephanie put the menu down. Her mouth fell slightly open. ‘What do you mean it wasn’t an accident?’

  ‘I had a letter from a firm of solicitors the other day. When I opened it, I read that they’re suing me for a sum of money based on the fact that the vehicle I had hired was returned so badly damaged they had to write it off. The… the waiver or something hadn’t been signed. I hid the letter, but now it’s not where I left it. When I checked the credit card statements, there was a payment that I couldn't reconcile.’ I take a swig from my wine. ‘I'm sorry, Stephanie I know I’m not making sense.’

  ‘Show me the letter.’

  ‘I can't,’ I told her. ‘It’s gone.’

  ‘What do you mean it’s gone. Did you throw it away?’

  ‘No, Stephanie. I didn't throw away. I put it back in its envelope and I tucked under my mattress and now it’s gone.’

  ‘So Heather must have it. She must have found it when she changed sheets or something. Mystery solved,’ she announced.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I replied. ‘I’ve been in the room when Heather has changed the sheets. Somebody else has got the letter.’

  ‘So who do you think has got it?’

  ‘Topher,’ I told her.

  Stephanie just looked at me and started to laugh. ‘You're kidding me aren’t you?’ she said.

  I shake my head. ‘No, I'm not kidding.’ I reached around where my handbag was hanging on the back of the chair and I retrieved my smart phone.

  ‘You need to look at these,’ I said. ‘I took a copy of the letter and downloaded a PDF of the credit card statement.’ I opened up the phone with my key code and I slid it across the table to her.

  Stephanie was silent for several moments while she read the letter, looked at the statement. Finally, she put the phone down and pushed it back across the table to me. ‘What’s this all about, Lily,’ she said.

  ‘I think Topher’s trying to kill me.’ There I’d said it, it was out in the open and there was no going back now.

  ‘Are you kidding me? This is bonkers. What are you going to do?’

  ‘I honestly have no idea,’ I muttered.

  ‘Why would he want to kill you?’

  ‘Because I’m trying to leave him. I can’t take it anymore.’

  ‘Can’t take what?’

  I raised my eyebrows at her. ‘What do you think?’ I said.

  ‘You’re trying to tell me he’s been abusing you?’ she said, her face incredulous, her mouth slack. ‘How long has this been going on?’

  ‘Quite some time.’

  ‘But you always seem so happy together.’

  ‘On the surface we are, but Topher doesn’t like anything to be outside of his control. He didn’t like me working and so I left the orchestra.’

  ‘Yes, but you had to.’

  ‘Did I?’

  Stephanie looked at me, realisation dawning across her face. ‘What?’

  ‘It wasn’t an accident. Topher did that to me.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lily

  The waitress brought our food. Stephanie hunched over her salad, open-mouthed. ‘How long has this been going on? From the start of you dating him or since you married him?’ she asked.

  ‘It started not long after we were married.’

  ‘But you never said anything?’

  I shrugged. ‘What do you say? How do you tell your friends the man you married isn’t the man they think he is? Who’s going to believe me? Every time I tried to discuss it with my mother, she either told me I was ungrateful, becoming depressed again, as though I was making it up, looking for attention.’

  ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘I wanted to. I tried to. But I couldn’t bring myself to. I was scared. It’s like an admission of what a failure I am. You know what I’ve been like all my life. I’ve always been untidy. I’m always losing things. Now I think that when I’ve lost things, they’ve been hidden instead.’

  Stephanie put her fork down. ‘How do you mean hidden?’

  ‘Oh come on, Stephanie, I’m five foot three barefoot. Would I really put my sunglasses on top of a six foot tall bookcase?’

  ‘It seems unlikely.’

  ‘And my car keys? Why would they be in the freezer?’ I stabbed a piece of potato onto my fork.

  ‘The freezer? Why would you leave them in the freezer?’ She covered her mouth with her hand and giggled.

  ‘You see you’re laughing at me, but I didn’t put them in the freezer. That’s where Heather found them. I’d been looking for them on Monday morning and then later when Heather came in, she was making some space in the freezer for the leftovers from the party and that’s where she found them. Then there’s the milk cartons, the juice cartons.’

  ‘What about them?’ Stephanie pierced a chard leaf, raised it to her mouth and put it down again.

  I paused before speaking. This seemed ludicrous, even to me. ‘Topher is always complaining I put empty cartons back in the fridge. So, I always rinse the cartons out, before I put them in the recycling and lately, I’ve been putting a black mark with a permanent marker on the base of cartons before I put them in the blue bin.’

  Stephanie looked at me an eyebrow half raised her head tilted to one side. ‘This sounds mad,’ she told me.

  ‘It is all mad,’ I told her. ‘I really have thought I am going around the twist. However, what I’m finding is that, when Topher picks out a carton from the fridge, waves it at me and says I’ve left an empty one in there, I take it from him. I go to rinse it out, but I always tip a little bit of juice or whatever is in the carton down the sink. A lot of the time there’s just clear water coming out of it, from when I rinsed it and then I look on the base, and I see my black mark. I tried to talk to him just before the party, but we had an argument about it, and he said I was making it up. He said I’m imagining things, but I know I’m not. Then a couple of days after the party I had this accident and now, here I am housebound, unable to do anything for myself, trapped in my own home. He’s got me where he wants me. I took a photograph of the letter before I tucked it under the mattress because… because Stephanie, I feel like he’s spying on me in my own home.’

  She reached a hand across the table and squeezed mine. ‘You think he’s gaslighting you?’

  I nodded. ‘I’ll get to that in a minute, but there’s another thing. I’m not as clumsy as everybody thinks I am. My hand, my wrist on the day of the party? I hadn’t trapped it in a door. Topher twisted it around during our argument about the cartons.’

  Stephanie stares at my hand. ‘Lily, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Why do you think he’s watching you? How do you think he’s watching you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied, ‘but he always seems to know things that he shouldn’t. Things that he couldn’t know because he wasn’t there when it happened. That’s part of the reason I think I’m going out of my mind.’

  ‘What are you going to do about it?’

  ‘That’s where you come in,’ I told her. ‘I need a huge favour from you.’

  Go on,’ she said. ‘Whatever you need, I’m your woman.’

  ‘I’ve been to see a solicitor. She suggested, I keep a record of everything that’s been happening to me and, she recommended a therapist.’

  ‘And this therapist has told you Topher is gaslighting you?’ Stephanie said.

  ‘We’ve discussed it, yes, and now I know what I’m looking for, I can see all the signs. She’s made me feel as if I can regain some sanity. That’s where you come in.’

  Stephanie raised an eyebrow but simply sipped her water.
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  ‘I need some way of getting closer to him. Someone who can get so close they know what he’s doing. Close enough to get evidence of what he’s trying to do to me.’

  ‘A spy you mean?’ Stephanie gave me a quizzical look as she dabbed her delicate pale pink lips on a napkin.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But it can’t be just anyone. It has to be somebody who can get really close to him. Somebody he’ll trust. Somebody he thinks he can control. Have you got a female investigator you know who could do it or perhaps a call girl?’

  She looked at me. ‘That sounds more like an affair. That would be expensive and in any case, no investigator is going to sleep with a target. That’d be absurd, plus they’d lose their licence.’

  ‘Then what do you suggest? Are you going to do it?’

  ‘He may be easy on the eye, but this—’

  ‘It would make sense.’ I tapped my fingers on the tablecloth. Mind racing. It could work. He would trust Stephanie. ‘Can you get close to him, find out what’s going on?’

  Stephanie stopped playing with her salad. All throughout our conversation, she’d been moving pieces of lettuce, tomato, and cucumber around the plate.

  ‘I’m not in the least bit comfortable with this, Lily,’ she told me.

  ‘I think I’d be more disturbed if you were comfortable with it,’ I told her with something approaching a smile. ‘You’re the only person he will trust. If you are having an affair with him, he’s hardly likely to believe you’re going to tell me anything. Will you do it? Will you help me before I lose my mind?’

  Stephanie put down her fork, reached over, grasped both my hands, and squeezed them. ‘I’ll think about it.’

  I returned the smile and called the waitress over to pay for lunch. She brought the machine and I tapped in my PIN. The machine bleeped. The waitress frowned. ‘Card declined,’ she sniffed at me. ‘Got another one?’

  Stephanie leaned over. ‘Don’t worry, use mine,’ she said. Her card was accepted with no fuss at all.

  ‘That’s something else he does,’ I said. ‘I checked my bank account a few days ago and I certainly had enough to pay for lunch.’

  ‘Well perhaps there was a bill you forgot about?’ Stephanie replied.

  ‘Don’t! Don’t do that. Don’t make excuses. I’m telling you this is what he does. He moves my money around, without my permission or knowledge. I’ve even contacted the bank and had my passwords changed, but it’s still happening.’

  ‘Can’t you change them again?’ she said.

  ‘That’s the point, I complained to the bank, but they told me Topher has Power of Attorney for my bank account.’

  ‘He has what?’ She gasped. ‘How has he done that?’

  I held up my hands and wriggled my mashed fingers in front of her. ‘This, he had me committed afterwards on the grounds I was a danger to myself and possibly to the baby as well. That’s when he obtained Power of Attorney. I didn’t know, so I’ve not been able to challenge him about it. He’s made sure all my money has been used to do up the house. Without a job I have nothing of my own. This is why I need your help.’

  Stephanie reached across and held my hands, gently in hers. ‘I love you,’ she said. ‘I’ll do almost anything I can to help you.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Stephanie

  ‘To be honest, I’m not entirely thrilled with Lily’s suggestion.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Denise. She poured the last drops of wine into her glass, giving me a chance to hide my face from her as I grabbed another bottle from the fridge. Am I going to do what Lily wants or not? I don’t know, I told myself.

  I sat down, putting the fresh bottle in the wine cooler. There was a pool of condensation on the coffee table. Knowing that I should wipe it up, I let it expand across the table. Denise made me jump when she headed into the kitchen for a cloth.

  ‘What does she want you to do?’ Denise said.

  ‘Get close to him and find out what he’s up to. Have an affair if that’s the only way I can get close.’

  ‘Why would you even do that?’ Denise sat again, crossed one foot over her knee, resting her wine glass mid-thigh. ‘Has she got something on you?’

  ‘No, not exactly but I do owe her a favour.’

  ‘Such as?’

  I twisted my glass around in my hands. It wasn’t an easy question to answer. I’d hidden the story for so long, it seems as if it happened to someone else. ‘Ibiza,’ I said at last.

  ‘She bought you the island?’ Denise laughed, but I’d owe Lily less if the favour had just been a property deal.

  ‘Where to begin?’ I said. I sucked in a lungful of air, breathed it out slowly. ‘We went there for holiday to get away from university stress. Lots of sun and sangria, letting our hair down, dancing. You know the sort of thing.’

  Denise nodded.

  ‘We’d been there a few days, and somebody mentioned a bar near the beach.’ I took a sip of my wine and hung my head.

  ‘Go on,’ said Denise.

  ‘I met a guy. He seemed nice. We danced. And then he asked me to come back to his flat. So I did. I told Lily where I was going so she wouldn’t worry, and I left with him.’ I paused, not sure if I could continue the story. Denise came and sat next to me, she put her arm around my shoulders and I rested my head on her chest.

  ‘Fortunately, Lily had watched us leave, and the group of his friends who followed us.’

  Denise tensed.

  ‘I don’t really remember much of what happened after leaving the bar. I can scarcely remember walking back to his flat. I woke up the next day in hospital, bruised and battered.’ I sat up to drink some more wine. ‘He’d put something in my drink when I went to talk to Lily, made me drink up when I got back to him. Lily had followed us outside, and had called the police. She saved me. Possibly even saved my life. The police told me later, that their previous victim had not been so lucky. So you see, I really do owe her.’

  Denise pulled me into a hug, which I returned. She eased away from me, and looked deep into my eyes. She leaned into kiss me and I leapt from the sofa.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ I yelled. ‘I tell you a story where I’m nearly raped and murdered, and you respond by trying to stick your tongue my throat!’ I raced to the kitchen and splashed water my face. Drying my face with a tea towel, I looked at Denise. ‘You’ve got to go,’ I said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Bad timing.’

  ‘Bad timing?’ I retorted. ‘Bad judgement more like. I thought we were friends. I don’t see you like that. I need you to go, Denise. I feel like you’ve betrayed me.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, picking up her bag. She gulped down the rest of her wine, and left.

  I collapsed onto the sofa and wept.

  The following morning, I’d decided. I owed Lily, but I also wanted to renew my connection with Topher. At university I’d seen him first. As a law student he was in the same lectures as me. And who could’ve failed to notice his tall, slim figure with brilliant blond hair, cut into short tufts.

  Although neither of us had told Lily, Topher and I’d had a brief affair before he met her. Once he’d seen her, I was history. Strangely, at the time, it made sense. I could see the connection between them as if it were tangible. Like a silken web, woven between them.

  Now I had carte blanche from Lily to smooth down his hair again. Though, of course, I had a mission. She’d made sure of that. But I wondered how much truth there was in her tale. Obviously, the letter from the solicitors seemed genuine, but since she’d lost the original I had no way of checking. And yes, of course, the name of the car company in the credit card statement and the name of the car company in the solicitor’s letter matched. I’ll call the company on Monday to get their side of the story, I decided, but part of me wondered how much of this was Lily’s doing. How much was part of her imagination, part of her need to be the centre of attention.

  She’d not always been like this, of course. When I fir
st saw her sidling into the bar, all those years ago I had a pretty good idea who she was. I’d thought she’d be full of herself, but I’d never met anyone so shy. During Freshers’ Week her name was on most people’s lips. Lillian Stanton, the wunderkind. She was an amazing violinist, a genuine protégée if ever there was one.

  She didn’t rest on her laurels, however. She was always a dedicated student and, as our friendship grew, I knew better than to take her away from her studies. Sometimes she would allow me in the music room, and I would sit in a corner, pretending to study, but watching her play. The experience of Lily’s playing was as much visual as it was aural.

  She had an exquisite touch on the violin. She could make it soothe your soul, she could make it sing, and she could make it squeal. I have often wondered what those hands could do to Topher Gundersen. Now I had a chance to remind him what my hands could do. It did seem very strange and I struggled with the idea that Topher would do anything to harm Lily. In the first year at university I watched the pair of them fall in love. Again, like her mother I did worry about some of Lily’s depressive episodes. None of us believed the accident was simply an accident. Lily’s career was beginning to wane and we’d believed it was a convenient way for her to step down from a glittering career, without seeming to give up too much. Now, although I knew about the damage to her hands and how convenient it had been for Topher, I still couldn’t believe he was that violent. It didn’t reconcile with the man I’d known at university.

  I got up from my bed and strolled down the hallway to the second bedroom in my flat, which served as my dressing room. I flicked through the outfits I had hanging there, holding each one up against my body and flinging them down again. Next week, Lily, Topher and I have been invited to dinner at Judge Mayhew’s and I want to make a good impression on the judge herself obviously, but I also want to make a good impression on Topher. I sighed and slammed the wardrobe door. I have nothing that will sufficiently dazzle the judge or Topher. Grabbing my car keys and handbag, I grinned. There’s nothing I love more than a shopping expedition.