The Day She Can’t Forget: Psychological suspense you’ll just have to keep reading

by Meg Carter

  ‘Only your friend says it’s one of your favourite pubs.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘She says you’ve often talked about it.’

  ‘What?’

  He laughs, holding up a book of matches Viola has left next to her sunglasses on the table. On one side is the name of the pub they are now in. The Bricklayers Arms on Rivington Street. Then, as Alma remembers the handsome stranger who came to her aid that night in the bar in Soho Square, her eyes widen. A sudden reminder of the days she spent wondering about him on and off. Embarrassed, she coughs then covers her mouth with her hands in a vain attempt to divert attention from her burning cheeks. Alma flicks open the book of matches. Only three have been used. Did Viola have this the whole time? Or has it been lying somewhere in their room for weeks, unnoticed and overlooked? ‘I only came in because I broke my heel,’ she mumbles.

  ‘And you were passing.’

  ‘Yes, just passing.’

  ‘That’s not what your friend says.’

  Alma shifts in her seat.

  The man grins. ‘I think you wish you’d worn those lace-up plimsolls you almost put on this morning but then decided not to. You’re annoyed you didn’t bring that A-to-Z, so you could have found that shop you’re looking for more quickly. You pray your friend would stop being so… just like she always is – at the bar. And, I think, Alma, that you’d rather I would just piss off and leave you alone.’

  ‘No!’ she objects, uncertain if he is serious or teasing. The last thing she wants is for him to leave her be.

  He laughs, going into his back pocket for a pouch of tobacco which he then unfolds onto the table. Tongue-tied, she watches in silence as he rolls himself a cigarette. She passes him the matches, which he accepts, then wrestles with for a second or two while Alma turns to the bar where Viola is still sitting, looking away. When she turns back the man is taking his first drag on the roll-up. Then he holds out his hand.

  ‘Sorry, maybe we should start again,’ he offers, contritely. ‘I’m—’

  ‘Pete,’ Alma blurts. ‘I know.’

  They both laugh.

  ‘So. How are you doing?’ he asks, ignoring the opportunity she’s given him to make more fun.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And your music?’

  ‘Fine. Yes, good.’

  Touched he’s remembered, Alma smiles as she tells him about the past month or two. The mid-year music theory exams she is currently cramming for. A piano recital she attended at the Wigmore Hall the night before. And as she speaks, Pete listens with the attentiveness she remembers from their first meeting. He seems genuinely interested in her, how she’s coping, what she is going to do next – almost as if it matters to him.

  Switching his attention to her socked foot, Pete offers to fix the broken heel. He is sure he had some gaffer tape in the studio flat where he lives, just upstairs. Maybe, even, some heavy duty glue. If Viola doesn’t mind waiting they could go up and see.

  Pete’s place is up a narrow set of stairs behind the bar. It’s a single open-plan room of the same proportions as the public bar two floors below but the ceiling is high and the walls painted white which makes the space feel even bigger.

  An old brass bedstead has been artfully pulled away from the wall to make the most of the view through a wide bay window. On the other side of the room is a tattered brown leather sofa and, behind that, camera paraphernalia, a mountain of photos and film on an old trestle table.

  Alma finds herself staring at a small, open-plan kitchenette. To its left, a boxed out area separated by a pair of wooden, slatted doors must be the bathroom.

  ‘What you see is what you get,’ he declares, sweeping an arm across his domain. ‘So, what do you think?’

  ‘Very… homely.’

  Alma takes a seat on the sofa, which is lower than she expected. Adjusting her position, she turns towards the wall behind and notices a large frame standing against it on the floor. Inside is a black and white photographic print of a Brixton-bound number thirteen Routemaster. Its driver, an elderly Jamaican, has two enamelled badges clearly visible on the left breast of his meticulously pressed black tunic and matching cap. Its sole passenger, an elderly white woman whose wrinkled face is encircled by a fluffy woollen balaclava, is seated on the top deck directly above the driver. With identical blank stares, both are looking straight ahead.

  It is an arresting image, Alma decides, made all the more compelling by its simplicity and depth.

  ‘I love that photo,’ she exclaims. ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘That one?’ Pete follows her gaze. ‘I took it. I’m glad you like it.’

  Though impressed, Alma is unsure how best to show it. ‘Got any others?’

  ‘Plenty.’ Placing her boot on one end of the table, Pete squats down on his haunches to pull a large box from beneath. Removing its lid, he plunges his hands inside to sift through its contents. ‘Right then, let’s see what we’ve got in here.’

  Alma takes in the finer details of the rest of the room. The pull-down blackout blinds on the curtain-less windows. A crowded garment rail acting as wardrobe. Photography, cookery and travel books piled on top of an ancient sailor’s trunk. A sheepskin off-cut providing a bedside rug. The mantelpiece of the fireplace opposite is part of an old railway sleeper. And in the hearth, two empty red wine bottles with a half-burned candle wedged into their necks.

  ‘Here, remember this?’

  Still crouched on the floor, Pete holds out a black and white ten-by-eight of a young woman leaning against a lamp post on the corner of a street beside a city square. It looks like late autumn, with sun shining through the empty branches of the trees in the foreground like shafts of smoke. The jacket the woman is wearing is ill-fitting though stylish; her short bobbed hair dishevelled. The way the light catches her skin makes the side of her face, just visible, seem translucent.

  ‘Goodness!’ she exclaims. ‘That looks like me. In Soho Square.’

  Pete nods. ‘I was going to come over and say hello, but then Brian turned up. And then his dad. I thought maybe I’d run into you again inside.’

  Unnerved, Alma shakes her head. ‘We’ve not been back.’

  ‘You were beautiful that day,’ Pete murmurs, turning his attention back to her boot, which he is still holding. ‘Still are. So listen, here’s an idea. Once I’ve got this fixed, before you and your friend head off, shall we fix a date to meet?’

  13

  Camden, February 2016

  ‘Mummy!’ Matty cries, hurling himself into her arms before the door is fully open. ‘I got you a surprise, a present. You’re going to like it, it’s a—’

  ‘Don’t spoil it,’ Richard interjects, placing his son’s travel bag on the floor beneath the radiator.

  Zeb’s ex looks tired even though his face is lightly tanned, she notices, smug with the hope that he has discovered that solo parenting is harder than it looks. Though with Helene there too, he’d not really taken their son to Valderrama for a week on his own, had he?

  ‘Oh it’s so good to see you, pumpkin,’ she cries, burying her face into her son’s neck; joyously drinking in the warmth and softness of his skin, his sweet and milky smell. ‘Was it sunny? How was flying? Did you have fun?’

  ‘It was sooo good,’ her son declares, wriggling free. ‘I swam every day and learned to butterfly,’ he grins, swinging both arms around in their sockets to show how. He starts to force-gasp. ‘And proper breathing, like this—’

  ‘He can swim a whole width underwater, too, can’t you now, champ?’ Richard chuckles, ruffling the child’s hair. ‘Helene taught him. You should see the pair of them, really, it’s like they both have webbed feet.’

  Zeb bites her lip. It is typical of him to spoil the moment by being brusque and dismissive, but the insensitivity of this last observation is impressive – even for him.

  As Richard wrestles to undo the knotted laces of Matty’s Kickers, she stares down in anger at the bald patch on the top of his head. R
egisters with loathing the sharp creases pressed into each sleeve of the Lacoste shirt he wears tucked into a pair of mustard-coloured chinos.

  What is it about men of a certain age and income and inappropriately-coloured casual trousers? she thinks. Wonders, too, and not for the first time: what did I ever see in him? This was the first question Dad asked when she told him they planned to marry, too – concerned, perhaps, by the twelve year age difference.

  Richard was never the father figure Sam once suggested he was, that much was for sure. At first she’d found the assuredness that came with his age and responsibilities at work made him seem dependable. But then, as he grew frustrated – by what he saw as her childish emotional over-dependence on her father, her over-protectiveness of their son – she came to see him as he really was: bombastic and condescending. And her dad had never been like that. ‘Good for you!’ Zeb exclaims as her son hurries past her towards his bedroom. ‘And thank you for dropping him off.’ She motions towards the open front door. ‘I’m sure you’ve got lots of unpacking to do so I won’t keep you…’

  Richard jiggles his car keys. ‘Oh, Helene takes care of all of that.’

  Taking a step forward, Zeb drops her voice. ‘Well isn’t that nice of her?’

  Her ex, ignoring this last comment, steps out onto the landing then pauses. ‘I almost forgot,’ Richard exclaims. ‘Matty’s got a party this afternoon – at Kirsty’s, from three to five. But it’s all sorted because Fred’s mum said she’d pick him up and drop him off as you’re on their way. We got him a present to take so don’t worry about that – it’s in his bag.’

  Something else Helene probably sorted, Zeb thinks, grimly. ‘Oh, right. Thanks,’ she mutters.

  How dare he make arrangements for Matty to be out again so soon after dropping him back? She is desperate to spend time with him. The morning is brightening; she could have taken him to the park. But she is being selfish. Of course Matty would want to go to Kirsty’s party. She remembers Kirsty’s mum mentioning something a while back about booking a party entertainer who did tricks dressed up as a mad scientist. She’ll just have to wait: after all, there’s plenty of time.

  Looking up, Zeb notices Richard staring at her, intently.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asks. ‘Only, you look really pale.’

  ‘Fine, why?’ Probing for evidence I’m struggling to cope, more like, she thinks. Being unreasonable. Irrational. Working too late. Drinking too much. Any reason for Matty to spend more time with them.

  ‘No reason,’ he shrugs. ‘Just asking.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m just a bit tired,’ she smiles, relieved by the sudden realisation that he must have missed what coverage there was of the media appeal while she was in hospital. ‘But thank you so much for asking.’

  As soon as he is gone and the door is closed, Zeb’s spirits surge. ‘Matty?’ she calls, spinning around on her heels. ‘Come into the kitchen and I’ll make you a hot chocolate with marshmallows. I want to hear all about what you got up to. And what’s this about a surprise?’

  * * *

  The repeated buzzing of the doorbell wakes Zeb some time around three.

  After tidying the flat in readiness for Sam’s arrival she has drifted off, lying on the sofa. A simple and mundane task, completing the housework felt like a minor triumph – a barely perceptible regaining of control. I can make this work – my new life here, on my own with Matty, she has decided. I will show the world that I am strong. A good mother. Now, rolling onto her side, she frowns. It’s too early to be Fred’s mum dropping Matty back off.

  By the time she gets to the door the entry phone has fallen silent. Lifting the handset, all she can hear is the irregular pulse of traffic. The caller has gone.

  Day is fading, drained of light by dark, low-hanging clouds. A silver saloon is parked outside the house opposite – she can just make out the blunt profile of the driver, who appears to be smoking a cigarette, and a wisp of white that curls from the exhaust. A taxi perhaps. Otherwise the pavements and road, flanked on either side by cars packed nose to tail, are empty.

  She stares at the rug which half covers a red wine stain on the carpet beneath, a distant echo of the Christmas party Zeb hosted just a few months earlier. How recently the natural rhythms of her life had seemed so normal, ordered and predictable, when everything now feels like it is spiralling wildly out of control.

  Salt it thoroughly, Dad would have advised. Left to dry properly, the wine is less likely to stain.

  With just enough time before Matty’s return and Sam’s arrival, Zeb runs herself a bath.

  Gingerly, with arms braced against the enamel, she lowers herself into the water. Though the heat makes her body stiffen, the intensity of it is irresistible. She dips beneath the filmy surface, shakes her head then pulls herself up. She feels purged.

  As her body grows used to the temperature, she settles back, allowing her arms and knees to float. A collection of bath toys have been left beside the tap at her feet: the stackable multi-coloured cups Matty was given as a toddler and still loves makes her smile. There is a rubber shark with a hollow stomach that lets you squirt water, and a bizarrely aquatic Action Man complete with hand grenade, belt pack and flippers grafted onto his feet. The mirrored doors of the cabinet that hangs on the wall above the sink are milky white.

  Zeb pats her sweating face dry with Matty’s Pooh Bear flannel.

  Without warning, a stuttering thud-thud from the corridor makes her brace. Barely daring to breathe, Zeb turns towards the door and hears a distant whirring from the kitchen marking the washing machine’s movement towards its final spin. Her shoulders start to relax, but before she can lean her head back against the bath she hears something else just outside the bathroom door. The unmistakable tread of footsteps.

  Zeb realises with a clench of fear that she has left the bathroom door ajar. The horror of being confined within her own flat, naked, with an unseen intruder, is overwhelming.

  She quickly decides she must do two things. Cover herself. Secure the door. Though not necessarily in that order, she thinks as she slides across the tiles, flicks the lock, then wrestles jeans over her still damp body. She fumbles with the clasps on her bra then quickly discards it, slipping back on her long-sleeved T-shirt.

  Crouched like a sprinter at the foot of the door, Zeb waits for the heaving in her chest to subside so she can listen, her instinct to run made pointless by the knowledge there is no place to hide. The footsteps approach, draw level, slow, then stop. Is it her imagination or can she hear the breathing as whoever it is leans in towards the door?

  An abrupt rattle as the doorknob receives a single, sharp turn. Then there is nothing. Just silence, she thinks, slowly dropping to her knees and laying her head against the floor to peer at the corridor beneath the bathroom door.

  Through the narrow gap, Zeb can just make out the hallway outside is in darkness. The strip of carpet, illuminated by spindles of light from the bathroom, is empty. She slowly stands, her ears straining for any evidence of movement outside. But now, it seems, even the washing machine is still.

  Zeb tries to think what’s best to do. Whether to risk a peek into the hall. Whether to force the window, somehow.

  Instinctively, she brushes the front right pocket of her jeans with her hand but remembers leaving her new mobile on the table in the sitting room. Gazing upwards, as if seeking divine inspiration, she sees the ceiling is obscured by a thick halo of steam.

  Pull yourself together, girl, she tells herself. Be practical.

  Beside the laundry bin is a wicker basket containing a selection of shampoos, conditioners, body lotions and a can of hairspray. The latter has got to sting, surely, if sprayed into your face full blast, she thinks, slipping it into her back pocket. In the far corner propped against the wall behind the loo, she spots the long arm-hook Dad bought her – though she’s never used it – to open the kitchen Velux. Weighing it in her hand, Zeb notices with satisfaction the rigidity of the stick’s aluminium
shaft.

  Gripping the pole tightly, she extends her free hand towards the lock.

  As the bathroom door swings open Zeb can see only a sharp shaft of sun from the glass panel above her front door. And it is into this spotlight that, before she has taken more than a couple of strides, a broad-shouldered figure suddenly steps. It is a man, she knows, even though his face is obscured. Stumbling back inside the bathroom, she slams home the bolt on the inside of the door.

  Three elements are burned into her mind’s eye. His outline with its thick-necked bullet head and close-cropped hair. His long overcoat, still buttoned. And the fact that he is wearing gloves.

  Heavy steps approach the door and a hand worries the handle, loosening paint dust from around the frame.

  Thinking fast, Zeb shoves the old chest she uses for storing sheets and towels against the door. There is a fire escape a short drop beneath the sealed window. She remembers how Dad secured the sash when she’d moved in – another security measure, she recalls now with an acid smile. Maybe if she broke a pane of glass she could clamber through the window, but would there be time?

  The door frame shakes as the intruder pounds the door.

  Once. Twice. Three times.

  Just like before, Zeb realises, as her waking dream once more nudges reality.

  The world had seemed to slow as she jiggled the catch, forcing it one way and then the other, in her desperate attempt to open the sash. And as it began to give, oblivious to the dank smell, and the catacomb tangle of cobwebs obscuring her escape, she’d grown almost hopeful. Until, after easing, briefly, it snapped off in her hand.

  Pinioned beneath a naked light bulb, silent and unmoving, Zeb had desperately scanned the confines of the room only to find she was out of options. Luck, too. The only choice was to go back the way she’d come in. Somehow front it out. String him along. Then, as soon as the opportunity arose, make a dash for the front door.

  Clinging to the cracked porcelain, she caught her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was lank. Her cheeks flushed and sweaty. Then, driven by the sound of his approach, she tugged the ancient chain that hung down from the water cistern.