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

by Sue Watson

  MADDIE: [Nods]

  AMBER: Then one evening she told me how, when she was much younger, she’d been in a sexual relationship with an older woman, her teacher. It sounded to me like she was obsessed, but I didn’t think anything of it. She was just sixteen. I didn’t see the significance then, but this was clearly a pattern: she finds a friend, becomes obsessed and it takes over her life. I’ve had time to think about it all and her behaviour probably all stems from having a difficult childhood. Her mother never really gave her any attention, any love, and so she latched on to other women in her life. But throughout the court case, I clung on to the vain hope that it was all some horrible mistake. Sadly it was true. My best friend, my neighbour, the woman with whom I’d shared everything, was also my stalker.

  MADDIE: Thank you, Amber, I know that was tough. [MADDIE turns to camera.] That was just a taste of the horrific ordeal that Amber Young went through with the person who stalked her – her best friend. Coming soon, an hour-long documentary special telling the full and frank story in Amber’s words – Amber Young: My Friend, My Stalker.

  That interview was only the beginning. Maddie played it just right. Sympathetic but not too soft that she stopped the interview when I wept, and she asked all the right questions – she would, she’d been well briefed. Apparently, the viewing figures went through the roof, and the documentary was shown a week later on network TV throughout the UK and has been tipped for several awards already. It’s since been syndicated and been shown on TV news stations all over the world, something I never expected in my wildest dreams. Along with instant fame, the documentary gave me the opportunity to announce that I would be campaigning to make stalking laws more rigid. And it was all part of the new package – Amber Young, former victim turned mother, role model and now campaigner.

  I went on as per script about how the whole ‘traumatic experience’ had affected my life and the lives of those around me and eventually went in for the money shot. Holding Mia for the cameras, I cried and said, ‘This isn’t about me. It’s about her… She’s who I’m doing it for, and with your support, we can make this a better, safer country for all our children.’ It was better than any weather report I’d ever done, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house as they say.

  So now, everyone wants my story and ‘TV’s Amber Young, stalked by her best friend’ is suddenly worth a lot of money. I’m receiving offers every day, from network interviews on prime time and a slot on Loose Women to advertising deodorant and HRT, which my new agent said to give a wide birth – I have to think about my brand now. And trust me, it’s so much better than thinking about washing Matt’s dirty socks and thinking I had no future.

  Yesterday I had a call asking if I’d be interested in flying to the US to do talk shows there and this morning my agent said several publishers have expressed an interest in the rights to my story. I actually cried – real tears too. Life is mad, isn’t it? Just a few weeks ago the very the notion of writing my life story (not to mention the advance, which my agent reckons could be in the six-figure region) was unthinkable. Yet here I am, Amber Young, back in the game, only this time sharper, more tuned in and ready for anything.

  I’m thinking I might call the landlord and see if he’s rented out number 13 yet. I haven’t seen anyone move in, so I’m hopeful it’s still empty and if it is I can now afford to buy it and move back in, leaving Matt to sulk in the shed he calls a home. Although perhaps it’s a little too close for comfort, especially with the other development that happened in the last few days.

  Yes, breaking news – I finally gave in to Ben. It’s all over with the slut from accounts, and I heard this from several reliable sources so I knew it was a matter of time, and when he arranged dinner at a fabulous hotel, plied me with champagne and told me he’d booked the penthouse suite for the night, I’m only human – how could I resist? Mia was safe with Stella, and I rang Matt and told him I was working so late I would be staying with my female colleague at her nearby flat. I wasn’t ready for the conversation with Matt, but I was so ready for a night with Ben, especially when I saw the suite. The space was wall-to-wall glass and chrome, high-count bed linen in fifty shades of grey, champagne in the ice bucket and rose petals on the bed. It would have been rude not to.

  It was the most amazing night. We made love until dawn and after breakfast we did it again. It’s early days, but we have the great excuse of lots of lovely late-night ‘meetings’ to discuss my career and I’ve asked for his ‘guidance’ on what to do next. Matt isn’t too chuffed about it, but what can he do? The truth is I’ve outgrown him and I think he knows it. I feel a bit sorry for him really. He keeps asking when we’re getting married, but as I told him, I never actually said yes. I placate him by saying I won’t leave him, but that’s only because I have to – until the advance from the publisher comes in. As number 13 is still empty, the landlord will sell to me and I can pay outright and move in immediately once the advance is through. Obviously Matt knows nothing about this and I do feel terribly guilty – but it’s for the best. I know he thinks he loves me, but even he isn’t happy – we just make each other miserable. It’s a shame really, how much Matt wants a family, and I do feel guilty because he has no family himself. His father died when he was a baby, then his mother died when he was quite young in some tragic accident. He’s been through the mill and just wants the white picket fence and someone to love him, but sadly that isn’t me. I now see it for what it was: a fling. I’d thought it was love, but it was just lust. For me anyway.

  ‘I’ll never love anyone else,’ he says. ‘Even if you leave me, I’ll just sit here and wait for you.’ He probably thinks it’s what I want to hear, but it’s actually the opposite of what I want.

  Last night he’d cooked a special meal as it was my night off, but I had to break it to him that I was going to a meeting and it involved my publishers and dinner, so I wouldn’t be eating or staying home.

  ‘Can I come along?’ he asked in all seriousness.

  ‘No, because someone needs to be here for Mia, and besides, it’s just boring stuff about my book.’

  ‘Yeah, but I could talk to your publisher about my autobiography,’ he said, and I almost laughed.

  ‘Sorry babe, another time, eh?’

  ‘I don’t believe you’re even meeting your publisher.’ He started again with all the paranoid shit about me being ‘unfaithful’. ‘You’re seeing him, aren’t you?’ he said, and he seemed really angry, which isn’t like him. I think he’s feeling insecure because we’re coming to the end of our rainbow, as someone famous once said about their divorce. Can’t recall who it was – in fact at the time I thought it was quite pretentious – but I think it says it all and has inspired the title of my autobiography, The End of My Rainbow. There’s a vague link to weather, and it hints at sunshine and rain, which one would expect from a weather girl – it’s perfect. And my agent bloody loves it.

  Anyway, the end of mine and Matt’s rainbow is definitely on the horizon. He had a mood on him last night and refused to look after Mia while I went out. ‘I’m not sitting here alone caring for your baby while you go sleeping around,’ he said.

  I was furious, it wasn’t like him to say things like that, but it hadn’t taken him long to change his tune. ‘What happened to “I don’t care whose baby she is – she’s part of you, so I’ll always love her”?’ I yelled as I packed all her baby stuff to ship her over to Stella’s.

  He was so pissed off when I stormed out, but there was nothing he could do because I’m clever enough not to be dependent on him, which is quite delicious. No man is ever going to tell me what I can do and where I can go – I’m not my mother. She was a mess, completely manipulated and ruled by men all her life. She lost her mind and in the end she couldn’t even parent me. She had to get the local council to do it. I may be a lot of things – not all of them good – but I will never be my mother.

  Stella was delighted to see me. ‘Ooh, I’ve been watching you on the telly, and in
all the papers,’ she gushed.

  I pretended it was all nothing and promised I’d take her out next week as a treat for looking after Mia. ‘We’ll have cocktails at JoJo’s. It’s so swanky in there. It will blow your mind,’ I said. She was so excited, I honestly thought she might wet herself – after all, she’s got three kids. That pelvic floor’s got to have taken some pounding.

  That said, I won’t need Stella for much longer. I’ll soon have enough money for a nanny, but I don’t want to be one of those celebrity mothers who dumps their kid on some teenage nanny. I want to be a good mum too, and be involved in her life and her upbringing. I want to show Mia how to be just like me, self-sufficient and independent. If I teach her one thing, it will be to know that in the end no one’s looking out for you, not even your lover or your best friend – the only person you can rely on is yourself.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Lucy

  I tried to be a good wife, a good friend. I didn’t do anything wrong, yet here I am, on my own. Since the day I was arrested, no one has been in touch: friends don’t answer my calls and texts, and old neighbours cross the street or look the other way so they don’t have to speak to me. I’m ‘the stalker’, and thanks to the court reports and all the interviews and publicity she’s created, I’m as famous as she is – and not in a good way. I still feel shocked by everything: Matt’s complete abandonment and the way Amber’s spoken about me publicly. I know she’s upset, but I honestly thought she might have reached out to me, yet instead she’s vilified me, said such terrible things, and I can’t believe she’s repeatedly told the nation the secret I shared with her all those months ago. She revealed it in court which was devastating enough, but to be discussing this and elaborating during TV interviews is so hurtful. This was my friend, someone I trusted more than anyone, except perhaps my husband, and she seems to have no remorse, no shame. And each time I hear an interview or read an article it’s as if she’s taking the knife out and plunging it back in again and again. I know I should just wait for the storm to pass, for people will move on and forget. But I can’t forget – and now the local kids have discovered where I live I’ll never be allowed to forget. I often wake up to blood-red graffitied windows declaring my new status as ‘stalker’ and ‘psycho’. Yesterday they rang the changes with ‘fucking lesbo’, yet another reminder that she’s shared my deepest secret with a million strangers.’

  When a middle-aged woman is accused of stalking she’s judged far more harshly than if it were a man accused of the same thing. And despite my protestations of innocence, no one wants to listen because it’s a macabre fascination, a great story. I’m also convinced the vile criticism constantly levelled at me is made worse by the fact that I’m not young or beautiful, or a mother – it’s like I’m not even a ‘real woman’. As someone who didn’t know me pointed out loudly in Tesco Express the other day, I must be ‘fucking sick’. I’ve never thought about it before, but it’s easier to publicly abuse a woman. For a start I probably won’t thump my abuser, and more is expected of me, because of my age and gender. A woman of a certain age. Old enough to know better. So when total strangers call me up and shout ‘you sick fucking bitch, I hope you die’ down my phone, I apparently am the one with a problem. No one has yet even taken the trouble to ask, ‘Lucy – did you really do it… and if so, why?’ That’s the slash-and-burn world we live in, I suppose, but ironically, I’m scared to walk down the street at night in case someone recognises me and decides to take revenge on behalf of ‘lovely’ and ‘brave’ Amber Young.

  Amber’s story is all over the tabloids: moody reflective photos of her staring out over my garden telling of her ‘shock’ and ‘horror’ when she discovered the stalker was her ‘best friend’. Apparently I’ve ruined her life, turned her into ‘an anxious mess’, but she seems to be doing okay, sitting on Loose Women in her designer blouse, her hair all curled, her lips glossy, a tissue never far away on set. Of course, she’s telling her own narrative, not mine, and though the truth lies somewhere, it isn’t in her tear-jerking tales of best-friend betrayal. She’s the betrayer, and it’s her who ruined my life.

  I can only imagine the conversations around the dinner party tables of Treetops Estate over coffee and mints. ‘She seemed so normal’ and ‘She taught my Jack. If I’d known she was so dangerous I’d have taken him out of that school.’

  But among the estranged colleagues from work and old friends who don’t pick up their phones and keep their distance in case what I have might be contagious – there has been one light in the darkness.

  Just after the trial, Kirsty texted, asking if I’d like to meet somewhere to chat.

  I told you I’d be here for you when you needed me, and I won’t say I told you so. I’ll just say do you fancy a Chinese? I reckon a nice meal will cheer you up.

  I almost wept, I was so touched. Poor old Kirsty, who had worked out what Amber was like right from the off, who I’d unceremoniously dumped for my exciting new friend, was throwing me a lifeline. I immediately texted back to say yes.

  I can see it all so clearly now. Amber stopped me from living my life. I gave up my friends because she offered more exciting alternatives. She dangled a new and different life in front of me like a sparkler in the darkness, and I grasped it and got burned. My marriage was stale, I was childless and jealous of my friends with children. I had nothing – and she saw that weakness and seduced me. She filled me up with her needs until I couldn’t fit anyone else in. I made her feel valued and valuable when she was at her lowest. And then Mia came along and I was useful to her, on a practical as well as an emotional level. She knew I loved that little girl and would do anything for her – I still would – but Amber’s so bitter I sometimes think I’ll never see Mia again, and that’s what hurts most of all.

  Amber told the court that once she’d moved into my home, I’d isolated her, manipulated the situation, and wanted her life, her baby. She said that I sent the texts and the gifts so she’d move from her house and stay with me, describing me as her jailer, but I wasn’t. Amber was my jailer, and in a very subtle way, she took over my life until I was the isolated one, left with nothing.

  The very prospect of meeting up with Kirsty restored my faith in friendship – though after what I’d been through I was perhaps a bit more cautious than I would have been before. But Kirsty and I had been friends for years (as she pointed out during one of our last rather heated discussions) and when no one else wanted anything to do with me, she was offering to go out with me in public.

  Kirsty and I met outside the Chinese restaurant and when I saw her teetering down the road in heels, I wanted to cry with happiness – and regret.

  With tears in my eyes, I reached out to her. ‘Kirsty, I’m sorry. What can I say?’

  She smiled kindly. ‘Nothing, you daft cow. Now let’s get inside or we’ll both catch our deaths.’

  We sat down and ordered the Royal Peacock Banquet for two, and it felt like old times. Before Amber.

  ‘Thanks so much for getting in touch, Kirsty,’ I said, tears of gratitude springing to my eyes again. ‘This has been the worst year of my life…’

  She discreetly handed me a tissue under the table. ‘I know, love, I know. And I wasn’t going to say I told you so – but I saw what she was like from the beginning… You just wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘I honestly didn’t see it. I just really liked her. She was so funny, and so fun. Then there was the pregnancy, and what with all the calls and creepy gifts, she was alone and I just felt like she needed a friend. And I was worried for the baby. God, I still worry about Mia. I miss her.’

  She smiled affectionately and put her hand on mine. ‘I know. I can see only too clearly how it happened. You’ve always been a bit too kind, Lucy. People take advantage of you. Amber used you, anyone could see that.’

  ‘I know that now,’ I said, feeling rather foolish. ‘And the minute she didn’t need me any more she got rid of me… I’m so sorry I didn’t listen to you,
Kirsty.’

  ‘Don’t keep apologising. I’m just glad you came to your senses… eventually.’ She sighed, putting down her wine glass and starting on the spring rolls.

  ‘I think she liked the attention,’ I said. ‘She said it didn’t matter, told me she’d had loads of weird texts and calls in her career. It came with the territory apparently… yet she seemed to make more of a fuss in front of other people. Then the night she got the text at our house – the one they were able to pin onto me because it came from my old phone – she went bonkers. So dramatic, throwing the phone to the ground and sobbing. It just doesn’t add up.’

  ‘What are you saying? Do you think it was her all the time? Pretending she was being stalked?’

  ‘It’s crossed my mind – but why would she blame me? She’s lost her babysitter, she’s lost her best friend… It doesn’t make sense.’

  She pushed the plate of spring rolls towards me. ‘Eat up, you’ve lost weight… It makes sense to me.’

  ‘How?’

  She held a crispy roll aloft and looked at me in exaggerated surprise. ‘Lucy, you handed everything to her – you even moved her into your home with you and Matt!’

  ‘It was just to keep her safe.’ I sighed, knowing the three-in-a-bed story was probably another one being peddled around Treetops Estate. ‘I thought she might do herself harm. She was pregnant, someone was stalking her and there was a baby involved… I just wanted to keep her and Mia safe.’

  ‘You keep her safe? Trust me, Amber Young can look after herself, my love. It was you who needed looking after. I should have done more,’ she added. Then, taking a glug of wine, she dabbed her napkin, leaving a bright pink lipstick stain on the white linen.