The Downstairs Neighbor

by Helen Cooper

  She called Freya’s school next, praying someone would still be there and cursing herself for not trying earlier. A security guard made sympathetic noises to Steph’s garbled explanation, then managed to intercept an administrator just leaving for the night. After some pleading from Steph, she went back into the office and checked their register system, confirming that Freya had been in all her normal lessons. Steph thanked her far too profusely, but once she’d hung up she didn’t know whether or not to feel reassured. She stared at her prized Family Calendar & Organizer (which Freya loved to make fun of), as though something illuminating might’ve replaced what she knew was there: Freya driving lesson (lunch) and Paul gym. Freya had scrawled a doodle of a Mini Cooper underneath: another unsubtle hint about the car she coveted. Steph had started drawing them, too, in the corners of the banknotes she gave Freya for her driving lessons: her way of telling her daughter that maybe, if she was lucky, they’d buy her one for her eighteenth.

  Perhaps her driving instructor could shed some light. Maybe Freya would’ve mentioned something to him about going somewhere after school. And Chris lived two floors below, in the basement flat. Steph remembered when he and his wife had moved in, just over a year ago, she’d welcomed them with some half-joking comments about how handy it would be having a driving instructor in the building when Freya started to learn. When Freya had turned seventeen, Steph and Paul had felt obliged to send business Chris’s way. And, actually, he’d built up a decent reputation by then, teaching several of the neighborhood kids to drive.

  There had been some tension lately, though. Steph cringed as she thought about the last proper conversation she’d had with Chris. At the prospect of asking him now for his help, her old shyness threatened to sneak back in, the tendency toward social avoidance she’d spent years training herself out of. She gulped her wine, squared her shoulders. A touch of awkwardness was nothing if it might help her track down Freya.

  Pulling on the nearest coat, which turned out to be Paul’s heavy wax jacket, she locked her flat and flew down the stairs. In the hallway she paused with Emma’s door on her right, and the exterior door straight ahead, hit by another pang of nerves. The limestone floor made the hall permanently chilly. Steph rested her foot on the slab that had been wobbly for years, soothed by its familiar tilt, then shook herself and left the house.

  The street smelled of evening meals being prepared behind dozens of glowing, shrouded windows. Steph swung through the iron gate that led down to Chris and Vicky’s separate entrance. Servants’ entrance, she remembered Chris quipping awkwardly when they’d first met, as he’d dragged a mattress down the narrow stone steps. It seemed extra dark down there now, the night pooling in the small, weed-riddled space in front of the basement door. There was a whiff of blocked drains, which would raise eyebrows among their more street-proud neighbors.

  Steph rang the spluttery bell. Faint music leaked out as she waited—Pink Floyd maybe. She was about to press again when the door opened and Chris stood there in jeans and a gray hoodie. He was slightly younger than Steph, with short dark hair, attractive eyes, and almost always a light spray of stubble on his face. On the occasions she saw him clean-shaven, she would puzzle over what was different. Now his hair and skin glistened slightly, as if damp.

  He stood a pace or two back, as though braced for another reprimand. The memory of their last conversation bristled between them.

  It must have been about a month ago. They’d seen each other on the street one morning, both de-icing their cars after a frosty February night. Steph hadn’t intended to confront him but something had been niggling at her. She’d had a restless night, and her fingers were cold, her mood unusually gray.

  Freya seems to have had an awful lot of lessons, she’d found herself saying, her voice sharpened by the chill in the air. She’d tried to lighten her tone as she’d added, Feels like I’ve been handing cash over to her for months and months! Tell me she’s ready to take her test.

  Chris had paused as he’d cleared ice from the logo on his navy car. His breath had clouded in front of him but no words had followed. He’d seemed to look meaningfully at Steph’s BMW, emerging from beneath its own layer of white.

  Eventually he’d said, She’s getting there.

  Steph had been able to hear his gritted teeth, grinding away any lightheartedness.

  From what I can see she’s pretty competent, she’d said. I hope you’re not spinning things out.

  Chris’s expression had tightened and Steph had regretted being so blunt. She’d been thinking for weeks that maybe Chris was taking advantage of them, charging for unnecessary lessons, and Paul had agreed with her, in his own semi-distracted way. But once she’d blurted it out she’d begun to doubt herself.

  That’s not the way I do business, Chris had said, with more anger than Steph had expected. He’d always seemed a mild-mannered guy, always greeted her with the same quiet smile. Why was she creating this awkwardness? Why hadn’t she just let it slide?

  Something had stopped her backtracking, though. They’d stayed locked in the moment, the frost on her windshield crackling softly as it thawed. Then Chris had got into his car—and had he slammed the door, or had the noise just been amplified by the freezing silence of the street?

  She tried her best to smile at him now. To push aside the disagreement. “Sorry to bother you, Chris. You saw Freya today, didn’t you?”

  “At lunchtime. Was there . . . a problem with the lesson?”

  She flushed. “No, no. I just wondered if she’d said anything about her plans for this evening. She”—her throat narrowed—“she hasn’t got home yet.”

  “Oh.” He passed a hand over his cropped hair. “No, she didn’t say anything.”

  “And she seemed okay? She went back to school afterward?”

  “She seemed fine. Yeah, I dropped her off there.”

  Steph paused. She felt she should ask more questions but her thoughts were a tangle. “Thanks,” she said. “Sorry, I’m letting all the heat out of your flat . . .”

  As she retreated up the steps, he called after her: “I could have a drive around if you like? Look for her?”

  Steph stalled, almost at street level now. She glanced at his car parked nose to tail with hers—chris watson driving school—and imagined it creeping through Kingston, headlights sweeping the darkness in search of her daughter. It was a scene from a TV drama. It dropped a shudder through her core.

  “No,” she said, looking down at him. “Thank you, that’s kind. But it’ll . . . She’ll be back soon, I’m sure.”

  “I’m sure.” Chris nodded, his brow creased as he watched her go.

  Steph hurried to her own front door, a sudden longing for Paul piercing through her. He’d probably be showering at the gym now, trying to ease himself into relaxation mode, oblivious to her soaring anxiety. She fumbled with her keys, eager to get back to her phone. A cobwebby sensation brushed across her spine and she whipped around.

  Nothing there. Just the street they’d lived on since Freya had started “big school,” the half-hexagons of bay windows making a geometric wave along the terrace, the black iron railings, which didn’t normally look so jagged.

  3.

  PAUL

  He hadn’t intended to stay so late. As warm water sluiced over his head and shoulders, Paul’s muscles groaned with what should have been the satisfying burn of a good workout, but smacked more of cramp and middle age. Hopefully, after a glass of wine at home, his exhaustion would cozy itself around him, like a sleep-inducing blanket. Or maybe he’d find himself in one of those states where his body felt drained while his mind was under-stimulated. These days, the closest he got to a mental workout was this shower spitting hot and cold, requiring deft nudges of the dial. Paul imagined he was trying to outsmart it, predicting and pouncing on its next temperature lurch.

  Striding out of the gym, he glanced at his office bu
ilding across the road, looking fittingly two-dimensional against the black sky. analytics solutions blared neon above the rows of windows. How could a building with so many windows seem to have so little natural light when you were inside? Paul looked away, but realized too late that one of his younger colleagues was beelining toward him, his hand lifted in a static wave. As they walked together to the car park, Ollie kept mentioning that he’d been working late (“I just can’t walk away from an incomplete spreadsheet, can you?”). Paul counted the number of buzzwords that Ollie sprinkled into his monologue, his favorite phrase seeming to be “going forward.” Going forward, he reckoned they ought to have a regular spot for “blue sky thinking” in all their meetings, and going forward he wanted to see what the new “resource” in their team would “bring to the table.”

  Paul was a bit of a mystery to his colleagues, he suspected. And he had to admit that a part of him reveled in that. Even the co-workers he liked saw only a cardboard cutout: Paul the semi-senior data analyst, a man of few words and an uncluttered desk, photos of his family nestling in his drawer. He gazed out of the window in meetings, never got involved in office politics, failed to show excitement about the layout of an evaluation form or a new policy on shredding. Yet he was unfazed by any task he was given, and had noticed how everyone leaned forward attentively on the occasions he did voice his opinion. Perhaps that was why he’d been promoted three times in his ten years there, despite surely appearing unambitious. He knew they all wondered what he’d done before joining Analytics Solutions, what he was like outside their open-plan office, which reeked of microwaved lunches and photocopier ink.

  “Up to much tonight?” Ollie asked as they prepared to branch off to their separate cars.

  “Just the usual . . .” Paul was about to elaborate, picturing Steph in her PJ bottoms, reading in a halo of light from a lamp; Freya strapping an ice pack to her knee and dripping water all over the sofa; himself beside them trying to be in the moment, in the warmth of his home.

  Instead he gave a vague smile and wished Ollie a pleasant evening.

  Let them wonder.

  * * *

  —

  In his car, he checked his phone. There were three voicemails from Steph, and he expected a message about picking up milk or bread, perhaps cherry-flavored Lucozade, which Freya treated like a necessity. It was a surprise to hear Steph’s higher-than-normal voice asking if he’d heard from Freya. Paul returned the call but the line was busy, so he tossed his mobile into the drinks holder, frowning at the time: 20:10. He’d get home as quickly as he could. Freya was probably back by now, in the doghouse for breaking a cardinal rule.

  The traffic on the fringes of London felt like a personal insult. No matter how late he left work, every evening was a war of lane-changing and gambling on shortcuts. Sometimes he liked the challenge. Whenever Freya was in the car he’d treat her to a commentary of his traffic predictions and genius work-arounds, not that she was remotely impressed. Now, though, he wished he could cut through the congestion with a wailing siren. When he finally reached his street, he glimpsed Steph’s familiar silhouette behind their curtains. If she was glued to the window, did that mean Freya wasn’t back? He parked behind the driving instructor’s car and sprinted inside.

  There were no smells of cooking or murmurs of TV, no sounds of Steph and Freya chatting or calling out questionable song requests for Spotify. The apartment was quiet and dim: The many lamps that Steph usually switched on in the evenings were dark.

  She turned from the window, mascara smudged beneath her eyes. “I know she’s practically an adult, but . . .”

  Paul drew her in, her head slotting below his chin, the back of her hair giving off a strange heat. They didn’t melt against each other for a few seconds of mutual rest, like they often would after a long day. Steph’s body was rigid.

  “Her phone’s going straight to voicemail,” she said to his chest. “None of her friends have heard from her—the ones I’ve spoken to, anyway.”

  Paul swallowed. “When did she leave school?”

  “Normal time, far as I can tell. I’ve not actually been able to contact anyone who was in her last lesson with her. But the register says she was there, and her other friends reckon she usually leaves pretty sharpish for the bus. I spoke to Chris too—everything was normal with her driving lesson. She didn’t mention any plans for after school to him.”

  “Snapchat? Instagram? Whatever she uses these days?”

  “No clues.”

  “Have you had a good look for other people she’s been connecting with or tagging or whatever they call it? She might be with a mate we don’t know.”

  Steph shook her head. “I can’t see her profiles anymore, can I? Another condition of the infamous Freya’s Privacy and Independence Bill. That’s why I feel bad snooping around. Jess and a few others checked for me. They said she hadn’t been online tonight.”

  “We’ll give them another ring.”

  “Are we making a fuss over nothing?”

  Paul checked his watch. It was almost nine p.m. “Well, if she’s going to give us radio silence, we’re entitled to some light snooping.”

  He fought to keep his voice steady, to balance out the fear in Steph’s posture, her hands clutching the back of his shirt.

  * * *

  —

  Paul phoned round Freya’s mates for a second time, adding a few more as Steph thought of them, disguising his worry beneath a daft-dad performance that would have made his daughter cringe. He kicked off a phone tree of her volleyball and running-club friends, and asked Jess to read out every one of Freya’s social media posts from the last month. Most were about loving driving, hating the stats part of her business coursework (“but, in a weird way, enjoying hating it”), and “destroying” volleyball rivals. Some of the posts were funny and eloquent, though Freya would probably give him her best whatever look if he complimented her on them. She was surprisingly self-conscious about everything but her sporting abilities, her intelligence most of all.

  Once they’d run out of ideas, Paul looked at Steph. It was a quarter to eleven. The heat had gone off and the flat was glacial, though they were only just noticing, rubbing their goose-pimpled arms. Paul didn’t have to ask the question out loud. Steph nodded grimly and he reached again for his phone.

  The on-duty PCs who arrived were young, the man still in training, Paul guessed. He said all the standard things—that these situations usually resolved themselves, and she wasn’t officially missing yet—but he had an awkward manner, as if he was still learning his lines. The woman sat looking around their home, appraising their life. Freya’s framed image decorated every surface, a gallery of different ages and haircuts: disappearing puppy fat and emerging cheekbones, freckles that came and went with the sun. She smiled from the blue-gray walls, too, closed mouth when she’d had her fixed braces on, flashing her liberated teeth once she’d had them removed.

  When Paul took the police up to Freya’s attic room, it had a tableau-like stillness. Her black Adidas kitbag hung from her favorite swivel chair. A glass of cherry Lucozade gave off a powerful scent from beside her bed. Pairs of snow-white sports socks were arranged with precision in the drawer, but her makeup spilled over the dressing table and her en suite was a bombsite of balled-up towels. The room was a scene of contradictions: meticulous in some ways and chaotic in others; simultaneously adult and childish, with weighty psychology textbooks next to threadbare teddies she’d had forever. There was nothing obviously missing, apart from the handbag and jacket she’d taken to school—of course, Steph remembered she’d been wearing her navy Puffa and Paul felt a failure for not having a clue.

  Back in the living room, the questions began.

  Who would have seen Freya today?

  Does she have a boyfriend? (Paul and Steph shook their heads in unison, then glanced at each other with a silent appendix: “Not as far as w
e know.”)

  Does she drink alcohol? (“She’s more into fitness . . .”)

  Take drugs? (Steph’s outraged “No!” was directed right at the female PC’s note-taking hand.)

  And you’re certain this is unusual behavior for her? (Paul’s voice rose at last, steely-edged: “We wouldn’t have called you if it wasn’t.”)

  Right near the end, the woman caught him off guard: “I know this sounds extreme, but we need to get the full picture . . . Do either of you have any enemies? Anyone who might want to harm or threaten you? For any reason?”

  Paul flinched, then froze. Steph must have felt it, sitting next to him, because her head turned his way. From the opposite sofa he saw the PCs’ surprise at this break in the routine. Most parents probably dismissed this question in an instant: Ridiculous, of course not.

  Steph was still looking at him. They all were. He shook his head and the police officers seemed to make a silent decision to move on, asking about Freya’s recent state of mind. Paul stared at the photos on the wall and tried to deny the dread that was welling from his stomach.

  Don’t jump to wild conclusions. She’s at a friend’s, forgotten to charge her phone. She’ll be back by morning and we’ll make her promise never to scare us like this again.

  Another voice wormed its way forward. You complacent idiot, Paul. Of course something like this was always going to happen.

  4.

  KATE

  Twenty-five years earlier

  My socks slide down inside my shoes. Bag bounces painfully against my hip. I’m running full-pelt up the hill that separates school from home, and I’m not even trying to avoid the splats of gray chewing gum on the pavement. If I can just get back, I might be able to snatch ten minutes with Mum before he arrives. Ten minutes is better than nothing.