The Woman Next Door: An unputdownable psychological thriller with a stunning twist

by Sue Watson

  The first time I became aware of my sexuality was with one of my mother’s boyfriends; he wanted me so badly, said I was teasing him. I let him do things to me, and afterwards he gave me ten pounds and told me not to tell my mother.

  Those early experiences can set one on a course. It became far more refined as I grew older, but looking back it wasn’t so different in the beginning with Ben. He wanted me and rewarded me for sex, just like the first man all those years ago – the disgusting beery breath was replaced by a fresh minty one, and the stench of unwashed armpits was now something French and expensive. Ben didn’t give me money, it was far more subtle than that, but he used me just the same – paying for my services with lucrative presenting jobs and the promise of marriage one day. I like to think the transaction eventually turned into something like love. At least it did for me, but then he let me down, like all the other men I’d ever known, except Matt, who was different. Matt was more like Michael, my husband. He was genuine, good and pure – just like Lucy really – and I was like a nasty stain on their scrubbed-clean lives.

  It was bad enough before, but after Mia was born the situation at the house became impossible. Matt and I had decided that we were going to move back to my house together and take Mia with us, but Lucy was under the impression it would just be Mia and me moving back. We kept putting off telling her, until one night when she virtually told me to get out. She said it was time I left, which I saw as the perfect opportunity for us to go, but still Matt was dragging his feet, so I told him I was going whether he came with me or not.

  I knew he wanted to leave with me, but it wasn’t my first rodeo, and after Ben I really didn’t know if I could rely on Matt. And so there I was again, with another woman’s husband, just hoping he’d come through for me. I don’t know how much longer I could have taken it. I longed to be with him, for Lucy to be out of the picture so we could be together – but still the guilt. Always the fucking guilt, traipsing behind me like an unwanted dog with big sad eyes. The whole thing with Lucy’s phone was awful, but it brought me and Matt closer and despite her being his wife, when he saw it was her phone and realised the implications, he said he wanted nothing more to do with her.

  It didn’t take us long to put two and two together after finding her phone hidden at the back of the drawer. Then, of course, there was the knife she’d hidden in their bedroom, and we found the pregnancy test there too. She’d ferreted that away in the back of the wardrobe, wrapped in the scarf I’d lost – the one she liked with stars all over it. Matt opened it up on the kitchen table and there it all was. I feigned surprise and said I knew the knife was missing but had no idea where it was or how Lucy had got her hands on it. I did feel bad about the knife; it was definitely the one I’d hidden in my car boot when I’d slashed the tyre. But then again, what the fuck was she doing with it?

  ‘Mmm, we have to assume that the night she said she’d encountered an intruder in my home was the night she took my knife from the kitchen. She was the intruder, wasn’t she?’ I said, making sure Matt understood. ‘She seemed like such a lovely woman, a kind friend. Who could have imagined the darkness inside her?’ I added. ‘I can’t believe my best friend was my stalker.’

  So the night we found her old phone and the incriminating text Lucy was interviewed y the police and kept in for twenty-four hours. I’d deleted all the previous stalker messages on my phone, so couldn’t offer any evidence but it didn’t matter because the single text found on her old phone was enough to charge her with sending malicious messages. I urged Matt to tell them about the knife and pregnancy test too, all wrapped in my starry scarf. I think he still found it hard to believe she could be so creepy and hated giving the bundle of evidence to the police, but as I said to him, ‘Your marriage is over – you owe her nothing.’ I knew he felt guilty because he cheated on her, but as I pointed out, ‘She deceived us far more than we ever deceived her.’ I finally convinced him to take the knife and the test to the police, pointing out that if he didn’t I would. ‘Matt, we are withholding evidence,’ I said, ‘and she needs to be convicted – she’s a danger to herself and others.’

  ‘That’s funny, that’s what she said about you – she said she’d found the knife in your car and that’s why she hid it in the wardrobe, because you were a danger to yourself and others,’ he said. The irony! And the cheek!

  ‘That’s rubbish, why would I be driving round with a bloody kitchen knife in my car?’ I said. ‘How dare she, of all people, say I’m a danger.’

  After that I worried she might tell the police about finding the knife, so when I heard she’d been released awaiting trial, I told the police I was concerned for mine and my child’s safety, that she was quite unhinged, and made it clear that if she was walking the streets we needed a restraining order. I told Matt as much, but he didn’t seem overly concerned.

  ‘Amber, she’s not in our lives any more, it’s over,’ he said, but I wasn’t so sure. I wouldn’t be happy until she was in prison.

  ‘She had a fucking knife hidden in the house,’ I yelled at him, ‘and wait until she finds out about you and me… God only knows what she’ll do.’

  I’d stayed on at their house, everything was there that we needed, and I couldn’t afford to keep my house, so for now it was decided we’d stay put. But I told Matt she might even have kept her house key and could come in with another knife and murder us in our beds. I saw the fear in his face and knew I’d finally managed to convince him that she was very dangerous and capable of anything.

  So, now she’d been charged and is awaiting trial and we have a restraining order and the crazy bitch can’t come anywhere near me, my baby or her soon to be ex-husband.

  Matt and I both feel that her affection for me bordered on obsession, but even we were shocked at the level of weirdness. My pregnancy test… What the fuck was that about? Maybe she was pretending to herself that she was Mia’s biological mum? After all, she told the hospital she was when she took Mia there with a cold. ‘God, she was always making a fuss over Mia, wanting to hold her and feed her,’ I said to Matt. ‘She was so highly strung about every little thing, running at every little cry or whimper, and the way she looked at Mia was so adoring, so… possessive.’

  Matt was beside himself; everything he’d thought about his wife and their life together had shattered. ‘I know, but she loved Mia, even if at times it felt a bit over the top. I just can’t believe I was married to someone for ten years, and I didn’t know her,’ he said.

  We were lying in bed together talking about her, about everything that had happened. ‘I know. She was my best friend and I feel the same,’ I said. ‘I’ve never been scared of being alone before, but the texts, the creepy gifts, eventually it just got to me – I thought she wanted to help, but clearly she was the one doing it. I wasn’t too concerned about the texts at first, and she kept trying to scare me, going on about how these things escalate, but I didn’t rise to it… It must have been so frustrating for her.’

  ‘Yeah… so she ramped it up, sent that dead bird, pretended the stalker was at your house. No one actually saw anyone, but she created real fear and panic until you gave in and came to stay with us.’ He sighed.

  I think Matt’s quite a gentle person. He’d been manipulated and lied to and now it was like he was in shock, unable to believe anything.

  ‘And when she thought I might leave and go back home she left the booties. I can’t believe we didn’t put two and two together. No one else knew I was even pregnant,’ I added, putting the final pieces of the jigsaw in place.

  ‘I guess it was her way of making you stay… She had you and Mia under her roof, so she could look after both of you,’ he said.

  ‘Control us, you mean.’ I wished he was more on board with this; the language he used about her suggested a far more forgiving approach than mine. ‘I just shudder to think what might have happened if you hadn’t found that phone.’

  ‘It was luck. I called the number and presumably she’d forg
otten to switch it off. Amber, I should have seen this, should have realised what was going on… I feel responsible that this happened to you…’

  ‘Matt, don’t even think it – you rescued me. You always have and always will.’

  ‘I let you down, babe.’

  ‘You could never let me down, you’re my everything.’ I sighed and leaned into him as he kissed me on the top of my head.

  And in that moment I felt like I’d finally found what I’d been looking for, sitting there together, entwined on Matt and Lucy’s sofa – except now it was Matt and Amber’s sofa.

  A month after her arrest I hear Lucy has no job and is living in a crummy rented flat. Basically her life’s gone tits up and it’s all her fault. Serves her right for all the shit she’s put me through. She appeared to be so sweet. I’d never have guessed. In spite of everything, I’d felt really close to her – but perhaps that was the problem. We became too close. There were times when I didn’t know where she ended and I began. But I’m glad it’s all over, and I’m glad we got the restraining order, because I sometimes think I hear her at night.

  Along with all the other madness, it seems she’s spread all kinds of gossip about me too. The irony of her telling Matt she took the knife away from me because I was dangerous is hilarious. I wasn’t the one hoarding knives in the back of my wardrobe.

  Her court case is coming up soon and I hope to God she’s found guilty, because that will stop her blabbing to the papers. If she goes free she can deny everything and even implicate me – I can see the stories now, plastered across the tabloids: ‘Amber Young “weathering” knife storm: best friend says she’s a danger to herself and others. Today, Lucy Metcalf, 43, described how her former best friend, weather girl Amber Young, was a suicidal maniac hell-bent on killing herself and anyone who got in her way. With a big old kitchen knife she carried in her car.’ Okay, I exaggerate, but I’m shuddering at the thought of the scorned woman/priapic press combo. Together they’ll stop at nothing.

  The worst, though, is Ben; I keep thinking about the newspapers having a field day with everything Lucy has to tell them and him reading about my potentially suicidal/murderous ways and want to die. But why am I still worrying about what Ben thinks? My own mother is still alive somewhere, but I don’t care how she’d feel if she opened the paper and read about my penchant for the blade courtesy of Lucy. Mind you, she wouldn’t be surprised; she always said I was evil. Like mother like daughter, I suppose.

  Talking of Ben, I wish I could eradicate him from my head, from my life, but I can’t because Mia looks so much like him – big dark eyes, dark hair, dimples when she smiles. Yes, I think we know which tree that little fruit fell from. Sometimes I want to call him up and tell him he has a daughter, but given my history with men, why would I want to saddle her with an absent father? Ben might pay money if the courts forced him, but he wouldn’t take any responsibility – a baby with his former mistress wouldn’t fit into his shiny new life with the slut. (I heard they’d moved in together. She got what I didn’t. Slut.)

  As for Matt, while he thinks Mia might be his he’ll be more invested in us as a couple, and right now I need the emotional security Matt brings. I love living with him in his cosy little home, and Mia’s happy here too. We are a little family, and that’s what I’ve always wanted. I stay at home in the day looking after Mia, cooking dinner and waiting for Matt to come home; he often brings me flowers and always makes Mia laugh. I love our life, it’s simple, and for me it’s so different to anything I’ve ever had before. I’ve always been single, snatching nights and weekends with Ben, but this is real.

  Sometimes, though, I wake in the night, and a shadow comes over me, worrying what Lucy might do when she finds out about me and Matt. I just keep thinking about a conversation we had once when she talked about what she’d do if she caught Matt cheating. ‘I don’t know what I’d do, and I don’t want to be tested,’ she’d said, ‘but I’d probably kill them both.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Amber

  The trial didn’t last long; Lucy was found guilty of trespassing and making a malicious call and got a six-month suspended sentence. I wept at the injustice.

  ‘It’s nothing for the year of agony I went through,’ I said to Matt. ‘All the torment, the fear, the texts, the stashed weapons, the “gifts” and constantly feeling like I was being watched.’ But I’m glad it’s over now. I feel I can get on with my life and am even considering moving to London, or finding TV work in Cornwall or Devon, so I can forget all the horrible things that have happened here, behind the floaty curtains on Mulberry Avenue.

  I think Matt senses my slight withdrawal, and though I don’t want to hurt him, I don’t want to make promises to him that I can’t keep. And now the court case is over, he wants to talk about finding out if Mia’s biologically his, settling down and starting a new life. ‘We could even have more kids,’ he said to me this morning before he went to work.

  Sometimes I feel a bit trapped with Matt and I don’t think I want to commit to a family/settling down/a wedding with him. Before the court case, I was feeling very insecure. I was struggling to look after Mia without Lucy and I welcomed Matt’s big, strong arms around me. But now, despite it being a terrible outcome for us, I feel like I’ve moved on. I’m stronger, I want to go back to work full-time, I’m ready to go out there and fight again. And when Matt embraces me with those big strong arms now, I feel like I’m being pinned down and I feel this rising panic and want to shout at him to get off me. The problem is that Matt wants forever. He wants to divorce Lucy and head straight down the aisle with me, but I don’t know any more.

  He’s changed since Lucy left, isn’t as laid-back – he wants to know what I’m doing, where I’m going, just like she did, and I find it a bit of a turn-off. I think I must be like Ben. I want to do a bit of the chasing; I don’t like it when it’s too easy. For twenty years I was ‘the other woman’, and then I went and did it again, but this time I got him – and now I don’t know if I really want him. I’m beginning to wonder if me and Matt only worked when Lucy was around and I wanted her gone. Be careful what you wish for.

  ‘You don’t love me any more, do you?’ he said the other day, just as I was going out to work.

  My heart sank – not again. The pained look on his face, the repulsive spectre of a grown man being needy.

  ‘I’m not sure how I feel,’ I said, in all honesty. ‘I need to work out what happens next.’

  So the following evening Matt cooked a meal, set the table, lit candles and bought good wine. It was lovely, and I was delighted, until I saw a box on the kitchen counter that looked suspiciously like it might contain a ring.

  ‘Babe,’ he said, ‘we’ve had a difficult few months, but now the court case is over and the divorce is going through, I was thinking…’ His eyes were all gooey in the candlelight. His hand reached for mine across the table, and I immediately moved my hand away.

  ‘What were you thinking, Matt?’ I asked, trying not to show the panic in my face.

  He reached over to the counter to pick the box up. My heart was on the floor. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I didn’t want to marry him either. So before the circus began, I put my hand over his to make my point, and hopefully prevent him opening the bloody box.

  ‘I may be going way too fast here, cowboy,’ I said brightly, to make my rejection seem softer, ‘but if you’re going to ask me to be your wife, I’m delighted and flattered… but not ready… yet.’

  In an instant, he went from pert and hopeful to absolutely crushed.

  ‘Don’t take it the wrong way, darling. I’m not saying no, I’m saying let’s wait. You know I love you to bits… but we’ve both been married before, and we have a few things to get through before we even think of marriage.’

  ‘But we can get engaged…’ he said, a flare of hope in his eyes.

  ‘No, babe… not yet. You have to get divorced first and we both need to be sure we’re doing the right thi
ng for us… and for Mia.’

  ‘We are, I know we are. I’ve never been more sure of anything…’

  I gently kissed him. Long, promising kisses that soothed and placated him and led us to the bedroom, where I managed to magic away his marriage angst and make a rejection feel sweeter than it should.

  Of course I tell him I love him. I say he’s the love of my life and all the other clichés – but who knows? I didn’t have love as a child. Mum had her own problems and I was lonely. I didn’t feel anything like love until I met Michael. For years he was my first protector, my lover, my rescuer, but loving me weakened him, and it seems to have done the same to Matt. Ironically, this has made him less attractive to me – I want the manly rescuer, not some guy sitting at home complaining I’m never there, trying to kiss me every five seconds and asking where I’m going if I so much as leave the room. He seems to do less and less outside the house, doesn’t work late, isn’t as involved in the plays like he used to be and he’s even given up on the gym.

  ‘I only went so I could get your attention with my new body,’ he said the other night. ‘I’ve got you now.’ And the way he’s acting, he’s determined to keep me.

  The only ‘me’ time I have now is when I go to work. I present the evening weather permanently, so it works well because he can look after Mia in the evenings. Sometimes I go for a sneaky drink after work and tell him I had to do the ‘tech clear-up’ – there’s no such thing, but he doesn’t know that.

  Yes, Matt’s become far too clingy and it’s made me realise the reason I found Ben so irresistible for so long was because I was never sure of him. And that was part of the excitement.

  I met Ben when I was still married to Michael. We were happy – Michael and I – we had a nice flat, both had decent jobs and a good life. We’d met in a bar in London; I’d left home, I was very young, he was ten years older and he knew about life. Within weeks of meeting him, I’d moved into his flat and within a year we were married. His family didn’t approve. I was some working-class girl from the wrong side of the tracks; they said it would never last, but he said we’d prove them wrong. And we did… for a couple of years. Michael gave me the home, the security and, most importantly, the consistency I’d craved growing up. I always knew he’d be there, he never let me down and for a while I was in heaven. But it wasn’t what I was used to, and it wasn’t long before I craved uncertainty, the not knowing, the fear that had filled my childhood. It was what I knew. So I had to go and spoil things and sleep with Ben Bradshaw, the enfant terrible of television, the talented maverick… and married with children.