The Girl at My Door: An utterly gripping mystery thriller based on a true crime

by Rebecca Griffiths

  She didn’t understand why he was having this effect on her. She knew lots of men, her life was littered with them and their proposals, they blew around her as insubstantial as paper bags. What was so special about Charles Gilchrist all of a sudden?

  ‘Where’s Joy? I want to toast the two of you.’ She sipped her champagne and let the fox fur stole fall open, wanting to reveal the red dress beneath, in the hope of tempting him. ‘Isn’t she coming to her own party?’

  ‘She’ll be here. She’s out shopping with my mother.’ Charles snapped open a silver cigarette case and offered them both one. ‘You women… although, Joy did take some persuading…’ He broke off, looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘No matter how much you do, it’s never enough.’ The opinion was furnished with a long pull on his cigarette.

  She laughed. A false wheeze of a laugh; her throat constricting under the weight of her financial worries.

  Below them, the front door banged shut.

  Charles turned to the door. ‘They’re here.’ And he strolled out to the landing to lean over the banisters.

  ‘You’re terrible, you are.’ Terrence, his voice low.

  ‘Me? Terrible.’ She finished her drink. ‘Why?’

  ‘Come off it, Queenie. Flirting like that with Charles. What d’you think you’re playing at?’

  ‘Flirting? No, I’m not.’ She put her empty glass down on a table. ‘I’m just being friendly.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  * * *

  It was the frenzied yapping of a white dog which announced the arrival of Heloise Gilchrist. A sound not only at odds with the dog’s cuteness but also with its stylish owner.

  ‘Mother.’ Charles kissed the cheek of the woman who didn’t look old enough to have a grown-up son. He ignored the dog. ‘This is Queenie. And this is Terrence.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs Gilchrist,’ Queenie and Terrence chorused and rose to shake the black-gloved hand.

  ‘Oh, please… please. It’s Heloise.’ The woman Queenie recognised from the park – the woman she’d thought was Charles’s wife – jiggled the barking puffball up and down in a way you might try to placate a grizzling baby.

  ‘Please, please, it’s Heloise…’ Queenie’s muttered amusement was fortunately drowned out by the dog.

  ‘Hush now, mon chérie.’ The coiffured blonde head nuzzled the dog’s fluffy neck.

  ‘Dear me, you are a noisy little one, aren’t you?’ Queenie reached to stroke it, then changed her mind, fearful it would bite.

  ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She’s never displayed such awful behaviour before.’ Heloise, provocative, eyes glinting. ‘It must be that thing you’re wearing. Fox, isn’t it?’ A haughty tip of the chin. ‘I’d take it off if I were you, dear.’

  ‘Bichon.’ Queenie, ignoring the blatant put-down, brandished the word with a sudden flourish. ‘The breed of your dog, it’s a bichon, isn’t it?’

  ‘Bichon frise.’ The curt correction.

  She gave up. It was a waste of time trying to be friendly – the woman was as dry and unwelcome as dandruff. Queenie removed her stole and handed it to the hovering housekeeper.

  * * *

  Dinner at Heloise’s swish Regency-style house began with canapés that were served by the red-handed Dorothy, who curtseyed in and out of the shadows with salvers of asparagus on toast and shavings of beef. Queenie took one, then another. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d tasted beef. But it was like her father said: if you had money, you could have anything, even with rationing still in full swing. It irked her a little; the war didn’t appear to have touched the Gilchrists.

  ‘Thank you for coming tonight. It’s so lovely to see you and Terry.’ Joy had stepped into the room. With her auburn hair coiled high on her head – a style suspiciously like her future mother-in-law’s – and showing off a milk-white neck Queenie never knew existed. The transformation was astonishing; Joy looked the most alluring she had ever looked. Fitted out in a figure-hugging bodice, worn over full satin skirts.

  ‘I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.’ She gave Joy a peck on the cheek, breathed in her perfume. ‘Look at you, all dolled up.’

  ‘Do you like the new me?’ Joy pirouetted on her tiptoes.

  ‘You look lovely.’ Queenie gulped a mouthful of champagne, the bubbles fizzing up her nose. ‘Huge congratulations to you and Charles, by the way.’ They clinked glasses. ‘Where’s the ring?’ Reaching for Joy’s hand, she lifted it into the light. ‘I was expecting some huge rock.’

  ‘Charles is having it altered. It used to belong to his grandmother.’ Joy pulled back her hand. ‘It’s beautiful, I can’t wait for you to see it.’

  ‘You’ve certainly landed on your feet.’ Queenie’s gaze skimmed the riches they stood within. ‘Fast worker, isn’t he? You’ve only known each other five minutes.’

  ‘It’s like Heloise says – you have to go with your heart. She said it was the same when she met Charles’s father.’ Joy finished what was left of her champagne. ‘Do you mind if I leave you for a minute? I want to say hello to Charles, I haven’t seen him all day. I’d hate him to think I’m neglecting him.’

  ‘He looks all right to me.’ Queenie pursed her lips. ‘But if it’s what you want, don’t let me stop you.’

  * * *

  The dog was quiet now. Curled up asleep on Heloise’s black silk lap. Perhaps it was the absence of the fox fur, or perhaps it had been satiated by the morsels Heloise had fed it rather than feeding herself. Queenie joined Terrence on the couch and, sipping from what seemed to be a bottomless goblet – champagne finished, they had moved on to red wine – Queenie was tipsy already. The discussion she wasn’t part of bored her, and she looked around for Charles, but he had disappeared. To amuse herself, she held her glass of claret up to the spangled shards of the chandelier, admired its rich garnet blush. She didn’t notice him walk into the room behind her.

  ‘It matches your dress.’ Charles bowed to deliver the same observation she had made, before rejoining Joy and leaving a trail of aftershave her eyes tried to follow.

  There it was again. What he did to her hadn’t gone away. It was the same whenever he chose to turn his attention to her. That flip of her insides. The sensation not unlike the one she’d experienced as a child, riding bareback along the sands at Goldchurch. The thrill with Charles was the same as surging forward into a gallop. An element of danger. The power rendering her breathless, much as he did now.

  Queenie sank back into the couch and did what she had been dying to do since she arrived. She watched them. The betrothed. Each subtly orbiting the other as if engaged in some strange ceremonial dance. Their love – for this was something Queenie was forced to accept – delivered through silent gestures and furtive glances. Charles couldn’t stop himself from touching Joy. His hand seeking her out should she move too far away. Joy too, her fingers on their recurrent quest for the skin between the onyx dress studs of his evening shirt, leaning into him, planting kisses on his mouth. Picking a spot of fluff off his satin peak lapel. How exultant they looked, how effortless.

  Joy moved around the room with the grace of a ballerina and, observing the confidence this new Joy oozed, Queenie wondered who had persuaded her to dress up, apply make-up and do her hair. Thinking how often she had tried and failed. Joy then moved to sit beside Heloise. They exchanged soft smiles and Queenie saw the tender way Heloise patted Joy’s hand. The gesture provided the answer. As did the conversation in French they were having, setting themselves apart with their foreignness. She was hurt by it; hurt by Joy’s sudden superiority to her.

  ‘Joy looks stunning, don’t you think?’ Terrence barged in on her contemplations. ‘Wonderful to see her and Charles so happy.’

  Queenie nodded. Incapable of openly agreeing, she sipped from her glass. Why wasn’t it good to see her friend had finally shed the little-girl look she was always teasing her about? What was wrong with her?

  ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall…�
� Terrence, chinking his glass against hers. ‘Why so glum, Queenie, darling?’ The portentous weight of his hand on her arm. ‘Is it because you have competition for the number one slot?’

  She cracked a smile she knew didn’t reach her eyes. Terrence was right: this shift of power was going to take some adjusting to. She had always been the centre of attention; it had been that way forever. Certainly between her and Joy. Queenie was the beautiful one, the one everyone noticed. Damn that Gilchrist woman, she’d done this. But what was the appeal? Failing to charm Heloise herself, Queenie couldn’t imagine her taking to anyone. But she’d certainly taken a shine to Joy. Look at them sharing a joke and tittering together; it made her feel quite left out.

  Terrence extinguished his cigarette. ‘How’s about us going and checking that drummer out? I’ve heard him, he’s good. And if you give him the thumbs up, the band will too.’

  ‘Drummer?’ Queenie was only half-listening.

  ‘At the Blue Note. You remember me telling you? Joy and Charles could come along, we’ll make a night of it… Queenie? Have you heard anything I’ve just said?’

  ‘What?’ Focused on Joy, she squeezed her hands into fists, her nails digging into her palms.

  ‘Dear me, darling, your eyes have actually gone green. Is it because those two are getting on so well?’ He nodded over at Joy and Heloise. ‘Ooo, you’re really jealous. I know you’ve been like a big sister to her but you’re not going to be around much longer, you’re off to a totally new world.’

  ‘Too clever for your own good sometimes, aren’t you, Terry?’

  With a flash of irritation, Queenie left the room and went upstairs. Found the bathroom with its cast-iron tub on shiny black claws. The contrast to her outside privy, the tin bath she needed to rig up in the kitchen – it made her feel worse. She stared at herself in the wall of mirrors, her image reflecting off into infinity. Quite an improvement on your dreary basement, her silent thoughts to Joy. Queenie could see why she would snap this up and doing a quick calculation – pricing up the house, their outfits, the food, the wine – concluded, yes, there was money here, all right. Plenty of it.

  She turned on the taps. One hot, one cold. She washed her hands and, looking around for something to dry them on, spied a shelf of towels. Hothouse peach. She pushed her hands between the folds of Egyptian cotton to appreciate the sumptuous luxury before dropping her head to smell them. They smelled of money. Queenie longed to be surrounded with lovely things; she was sick of being hard up, of having to make do and mend. It wasn’t fair Joy got to have all this and not her. New York and all its promises couldn’t come quick enough now. Drying her hands, she gathered saliva in her mouth, spat on the towel and folded it away again. Such a pathetic act, but it made her feel better.

  She left the bathroom and went for a snoop along the corridor. Pushed open the door of a bedroom and looked at the bed. A large brass affair with a vermilion eiderdown and lacy pillowcases. It was quite the most romantic thing she’d seen. She stepped inside and sidled to the wardrobe, turned the key and opened it on to a row of clothes. Expensive things, she could tell by the deep hems and the quality of the fabric. She stooped to the shoes at the bottom and lifted one into the light. Turned it over to admire the hand-stitched soles, the elegant heel and deep red leather. Heloise’s, she guessed. It was at this moment she finally identified the sensation that had been prickling her all evening. Terrence was right: she was jealous of Joy. There she was, thinking she could just click her fingers and Charles would come running… He was only a man, after all. Not that she had wanted him until now. Strange that.

  A dangerous thing, jealousy. She’d seen what it did to others; others who were jealous of her. She ran her fingertips over the beautiful leather bow on the front of the shoe and the pearl button fastening. No, this was more than jealousy; what Queenie felt was hate, and pressing her thumb deep into the soft nap of the leather upper, she dragged it across, scoring it with her nail.

  18

  Joy slept with an arm flung out to the side. Her basement room was chilly. When she woke, she opened her eyes and didn’t immediately register where she was. Sounds of the city filtered through to her, throwing her back to the house of her childhood and the room where she would lie awake listening to her parents quarrelling. A house with a tidy garden and a woodshed filled with her father’s tools. A house with crumbling walls and hissing draughts. Where every time it rained, they needed to rush about with buckets, and her only playmates for miles were foxgloves the height of twelve-year-olds.

  On the other side of the glass, the coo coo of the woodpigeon she fed scraps to. Soothing in its monotony, it would be easy to drift back to sleep but she needed to get up. Setting a pan of water on the single gas ring, she brushed her teeth while she waited for it to boil. Looking around at the comfortless, damp-stained walls of her bedsit, she sniffed what remained of the onions she’d fried for last night’s meal. Fitted with a frugal mismatch of her landlord’s furniture, she wouldn’t miss this place; it belonged more to the mice than it did to her.

  She rinsed her mouth and looked out of her front window to see what the weather was doing. Where had summer gone? She hoped it would cheer up by the weekend, Charles was taking her to Dorset again.

  Hang on. She flinched.

  A blink of a silver button and like a magpie, she twisted to claim it.

  Only part of him was visible: a chunk of boot to belt, trapped between the pavement and railings. A smoker, judging by the swirl of cigarette smoke. Were policemen allowed to do that on duty? Why was he hovering around out there? Strange, wasn’t it – what was he doing?

  She put on her dressing gown and scooped a handful of crumbs from the bottom of the breadbin, then unlocked the door that opened on to the small stone entrance area with its steps that led up to the street. Tiptoeing outside, quietly, making no sudden movements, she stayed close to the wall and looked up at him. He stood with his back to her basement railings, and what struck her was that he looked too small for his uniform, that the peaked cap drowned him. A wavering recollection of the policeman who had leered at Queenie the morning they’d met up for her birthday. Hadn’t he been too small for his regalia too?

  The coo coo at her shoulder reminded her to open her palm and let the pigeon peck the crumbs from her hand. She had only turned away for a minute, but when she looked back, the policeman had gone.

  ‘Tant pis, my little friend.’ She stroked the bird’s soft, pinkish breast. ‘Whatever he was here for, it can’t have been to do with me, can it?’

  The water had boiled by the time she went back inside. She used some of it to make her morning cup of Camp coffee, the rest to wash in. A purple dress bought by Heloise was today’s choice. With little buttons from collar to hem, the flared skirt made her feel glamorous. Her friend Amy was back from holiday today and they were to walk to work together. She thought about how at odds they were with the others employed at the museum. The frustrated and heavily familied men, who hated working with women and only wanted automated machines. You could kick a machine, Joy thought, suspecting they would kick her and Amy if they could get away with it.

  She made the bed and checked her correspondence from Charles – the letters written in his violet ink, that she would read and reread, folding and refolding until the paper grew weak at the creases – was stowed under her pillow and the keepsakes she was steadily procuring were safe in their shoebox under the bed. She drank her coffee black. Breathed out against the steam. Thought of the small gifts they had exchanged like the lock of her hair and the yellow rock rose she had picked for him in Dorset that he pressed between the pages of his Matthew Arnold poems.

  Joy combed out the knots in her hair: hair that never did as it was told. It was another of her failures, so her mother said. Heloise was going to take her to have it cut soon. Did she mind being remodelled this way? No, she liked it and thought, as she had a few minutes to spare, she might as well apply some rouge from the make-up bought from Woolworth
s. When Heloise gave her beauty tips, it felt different to Queenie: less like a scolding and more of an encouragement. Joy put on the stylish raincoat Heloise had also bought her and pinned the apple brooch to the lapel. She put the diamante hair clasp away in a drawer. She only wore it when she was waitressing at the club to please Queenie; she didn’t think it suited her. Then, collecting her handbag, she set off with a jaunty step, aware it was quite a different girl who locked up her bedsit today. One who trotted up the stone steps and into a world she couldn’t wait to be part of.

  Amy was there with her generous smile bunching her freckles.

  ‘Hello.’ Joy hugged her and cast around for the policeman. The sight of an officer of the law was usually reassuring, but there was something about him that hadn’t felt right. ‘Did you enjoy your holiday?’

  ‘Never mind about me.’ Amy clapped her hands. ‘You look like the cat who got the cream. What’s been going on?’

  Joy did a little swirl. ‘It’s my new outfit.’

  ‘It’s not the clothes, although they’re lovely. It’s you. You’ve changed into this whole new person. You better tell me everything.’ Amy fizzed with enthusiasm.

  They were about to go when Joy’s landlord emerged from the communal door of the house.

  ‘You’ve had post. Pink.’ He stated the obvious.

  ‘Give it to her then.’ Amy, bolder than Joy could ever be. ‘Standing there like an idiot.’

  ‘Merci, monsieur.’ Joy took the letter.

  ‘From your sweetheart?’ His amusement followed them down the street along with the callous pale blue gaze of the man dressed up as a policeman who stood in the empty doorway opposite.

  ‘Is it?’ Amy bobbed alongside.

  Joy tucked the envelope in her bag. ‘No, it’s not.’ She groaned. ‘It’s from my mother.’