Two Doors Down: A twisted psychological thriller

by Collette Heather

  But the water does not roar, nor is the shoreline sucked backwards. The ground does not rumble and quake beneath my feet. I cannot scream and I cannot move.

  Claire? Mark asks me. What is it? What’s happening?

  I cannot reply. The enormous, impossible wave cruises silently forwards, swallowing Mark.

  And then it engulfs me, the impact smashing me flat, killing me instantly.

  TWENTY

  I sit bolt upright in my pull-out bed with a gasp, clutching my wildly thumping heart through the ancient, oversized t-shirt.

  I feel like I have been wrenched from the deepest, dreamless coma, or come around from surgery, so absolute and obliterating was the latter part of my sleep. After a string of nightmares that I can no longer remember, I had sunk deep into a swamp of black nothingness. It had felt like I was choking on the blackness, that the darkness was sucking the air from my lungs.

  And it is flat-out disorientating.

  I fumble for my phone which I shoved under my pillow before I went to sleep. I blink at the lit-up screen; surely that can’t be right? It is almost eleven. I cannot believe that I’ve overslept so badly.

  I squint at the screen, which is blurred before my sleep-clogged eyes. I see I have a text message from Mark. It came in at eight this morning, but my phone was on mute.

  I open it:

  Bertie fed, watered, toileted. Only let him in garden, couldn’t be arsed to go for walk. Front door open. Upstairs painting. See you later, you dirty stop out.

  Groaning, I flop back down onto the bed and smother my face with the pillow.

  *

  I am on Mark’s doorstep fifteen minutes later. Most of those fifteen minutes were spent in front of the mirror, prodding and smoothing my puffy face. I am not dressed in anything too fancy, for I fear that would make it obvious that I am dressing up for him. As such, I am wearing last night’s jeans, and a favourite black rollneck that hugs me in all the right places.

  I knock on the door and immediately I hear Bertie on the other side of it in the hallway, barking excitedly, his claws scrabbling on the wooden floor.

  I push open the door and he launches himself at me, his front paws paddling on my thighs.

  “Hi boy,” I laugh, scooping him up. “At least you are pleased to see me.”

  He whimpers and pants and makes funny little yelping noises deep in his throat like he is speaking. Clumsily, he snorts and nuzzles my face and I twist my head to the side, wrinkling my nose and scrunching shut my mouth. Dog slobber is so gross.

  “Yeah, I missed you, too.” Gently, I place him at my feet. “Shall we go and see what Uncle Mark is doing?”

  I head for the broad, elegant staircase, feeling very much like an intruder. I know that Mark said for me to let myself in, and heaven knows, I do it often enough when he isn’t here, but I feel as if I am trespassing. Holly may have only been here for a couple of nights, but she has left her indelible mark on these surroundings, like the house has been tainted somehow by her presence. This is her territory, not mine, and I am no longer welcome here.

  I don’t know why I’m being such a drama queen. I guess seething, bone-crushing jealousy will do that to a girl.

  I stomp up the stairs, making as much noise as possible to alert Mark to my presence, for there is nothing worse than feeling like you’ve been crept up upon. But if he didn’t hear Bertie just now when I entered the house, then he probably needs to get himself a hearing aid…

  “Morning,” I shout as I stomp down the hallway with Bertie weaving in and out around my feet.

  I knock loudly on his open studio door, then poke my head around. Mark smiles at me and my stomach flips. The sight of him knocks my breath out, just as it always does. I love watching him like this, in his natural habitat, paint-splattered and wearing old clothes. I recognise the faded ripped jeans – they must be at least fifteen years old. His once black, now grey t-shirt has the barely readable letters, NIN plastered across the front – the trademark logo of the band, Nine Inch Nails. He is barefoot, his paint-flecked feet long, narrow and elegant, like his hands. Stubble darkens his jaw. Mark isn’t the hairiest of men, and at the age of thirty-six, he always bemoans the fact he is unable to grow an even beard. The local radio, currently playing irritating, jingly adverts, crackles in the background. Mark always paints with the radio on.

  “Afternoon,” he says.

  “It’s not that late,” I mumble, my cheeks heating.

  “Sure. Good night then, was it?”

  “Not really.”

  “Oh? It can’t have been that bad, seeing as you missed your eleven o’clock, Bertie deadline.”

  “It was okay, I guess.” I really don’t want to get into it and have to stand there spinning lies to him. “Watcha workin’ on?”

  I stride over to him where he stands painting at his easel, by the west-facing window overlooking the back garden. This spot affords him the most natural light until midday or so, where I suspect he shall then move over to the opposite bay window, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

  My gaze is drawn to the view from the window for no other reason than I need a moment to collect myself. The initial nearness of him always reduces my mental faculties. To the left, I can see a portion of my garden. The high conifers lining the backs and sides of most of the rear gardens along Grange Road offer more privacy than average. Mark’s parents – or his mum, specifically – was an avid gardener. I wouldn’t say that it has gone to ruin since their passing, but things out there are certainly a lot more streamlined. We share the same gardener – an older man called Steve who comes once a week to keep our respective gardens in order, mowing our lawns and ensuring the shrubbery is weeded and pruned.

  “Is Holly a keen gardener?”

  I am still faintly troubled by being in such close proximity to him. I know that I’ll be okay in a minute or two, but still. It’s embarrassing.

  He laughs softly. “No. She had – or has, I suppose – a big garden in Belgravia. She had a team of gardeners to keep on top of it. She barely even used it.”

  “Guess you’ll be keeping Steve on, then.”

  “You got that right. I can’t be arsed with any of that gardening stuff.”

  I steal myself to look at him. It is physically painful for me, being so close to him yet not allowed to touch him. His pale-blue eyes sparkle with kindness at me, and my heart aches. I hate Holly so much.

  “So, Holly got off okay then, this morning?”

  “Yeah. And I miss her already.”

  I turn my attention to the large canvas he is working on, propped up on the easel, lest he should see in my eyes how deeply his words cut me.

  Then I frown. “This is…” I search for the right word. “Different.”

  Usually, his oils are of derelict buildings, bathed in sunlight, with no human figures. But this one of an abandoned factory is set against a night sky. Not only that, there is a full, overly large moon above its decrepit roof. A tiny, shadowy figure stands in the foreground, dwarfed by the large building.

  For some reason, the painting chills me. I don’t like it at all, and I find myself reflexively taking a step backwards, away from it.

  “You’re right,” Mark says. “I usually avoid human interest in my work, but I suppose it’s good to switch things up now and then. I’ve been having the strangest dreams lately, I guess it’s been reflecting in my work.”

  My blood turns to ice in my veins. I may not remember last night’s batch of nightmares, but I remember waking up in a cold sweat in the early hours of the morning, terrified out of my wits.

  I am about to question him further but the song playing on the radio floats in the air around us, sounding so much louder and clearer than the adverts that have gone before it.

  …every move you make, every breath you take, I’ll be watching you…

  The moisture is sucked from my mouth and my heart is hammering.

  “Claire? Are you okay?”

  I barely hear him for the bloo
d roaring in my ears. Last night’s nightmare slams full-force into my mind – every last, vivid horrible detail of it. Me, sunbathing on Broadgate Sands. The day turning to night, so suddenly. Holly, reciting the lines of the pop song at me. Mark, standing so dazed and confused at the shoreline. The silent tsunami, washing us all away…

  And the big bright moon, so much like the one in Mark’s painting.

  “Claire,” Mark says, more sharply this time, snapping me back into the moment.

  I turn to look at him. “I’m fine.” I even manage a smile. “Just hungover. I haven’t even had coffee, yet.”

  “I could do with a break,” he says, dropping his paintbrush into a crowded glass of brushes with a shallow puddle of murky-looking turps in the bottom of it. The glass is perched in a sea of paint tubes and painting palettes on the workbench. The clutter jumbles together in my vision, making my head spin.

  …oh, can’t you see, you belong to me…

  I badly need to get out of his studio, away from the song and the painting.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Downstairs in the kitchen, I watch Mark fill up the percolator, then press a button on his MP3 player, next to the row of cookery books. The local station, Invicta Radio, comes to life.

  I shiver.

  I am still dwelling on the incident upstairs – the spooky coincidence with that Police song on the radio. How extraordinary that it was the same song from my nightmare, which in turn triggered the memory of my nightmare. Thankfully, the station is now playing some lame – if extremely familiar – eighties’ pop song, the name of which escapes me.

  “What is it with you and the radio?” I ask in a tone that is supposed to be light, all the while just wishing that he would turn the damn thing off. “You’re usually such a music snob.”

  “You know I like the radio when I’m in work mode,” he laughs. “It helps the creative process – makes me feel like I’m actually at work, you know, like, I’m working on a factory line, or something.”

  “As opposed to just painting them? You are so weird.”

  “And that’s why you love me.”

  You don’t know the half of it, I think sadly.

  “So,” I say, keen to get the subject off me loving him in case he twigs that it might actually be true. “Things are going well, then, with your new lurver?” I say the word lover with a ridiculous French accent.

  “Things are going great. I’ve never felt like this before.”

  His expression is positively dreamy, and I do my best to feel happy for him. God, it’s just so hard.

  “Good for you.” I take a deep breath, deciding there and then that I will take the fact I googled her dead husband to my grave. But there is one thing that I feel is okay to confess: “I googled her porn name, Anabelle Turner. Are you really okay with all that stuff?”

  His face closes over, and he turns his back to me, busying himself making the coffee. “Of course I’m okay with it. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Now he definitely sounds like he’s protesting too much.

  I shrug, even though he isn’t looking at me. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound offensive.”

  “You don’t. You’re not.” He sags over the countertop, visibly deflating. I watch him, watching the coffee percolate. “It’s just, I guess I’ve asked myself the same questions, you know? It is only a body, after all. It’s not like I think anything of attending a life class, there’s not much difference really, is there? And I am okay with it. It’s not porn though, you’re way off-mark with that. It’s just modelling. She didn’t do films, or insertions, or anything like that.” He turns around to face me, his backside resting against the countertop. “She’s just really open about her body, I mean, some people just are, aren’t they? And I respect that.”

  I’m touched and borderline surprised by this sudden outpouring of honesty. Emotionally I thought I had lost him; maybe our friendship isn’t dead in the water, after all. I would hate so much to lose him altogether. Any titbits of affection he throws my way is better than nothing.

  Also, I feel a bit bitchy for calling her a porn star. He’s right, I suppose. Sort of. But it all seems very porny to me.

  “If you love her, I guess none of that stuff matters. Everyone has a past, don’t they?”

  Mentally, I kick myself. Why am I being so supportive of his relationship? I should be trying to cast doubts on it, to take advantage of his vulnerable, fragile state of mind. I want to, but, by the same token, I genuinely want him to be happy.

  God, being in love with the wrong man is a complete bitch.

  He nods. “You’re right. I know you’re right. I am okay with it.”

  “What happened to her ex-husband?” I ask gently.

  “He was hit by a bus in London two years ago.”

  “What?” I do my best to look shocked. “That’s horrific.”

  “Yeah, it is.” Mark’s usually smiling mouth sets in a grim line. “Holly was in a bad place for ages.”

  He looks at me. I mean, really looks at me, as if he has found a window directly overlooking my thoughts and those thoughts are moving pictures. I blush hot, hating that I do so.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he says.

  “How can you possibly know that?”

  “She told you that her husband was considerably older than her. And you’ve probably gathered that he was obscenely rich, seeing as she inherited his house in Belgravia. Jasper Butler was a big deal in the financial sector, he was a millionaire many times over. I know that you think she only married him for his money, seeing as he was old enough to be her father.”

  “I have no opinion on the matter,” I say primly, because he is, of course, spot on. Spot on, and the rest.

  Now is not the time to mention that, not only do I believe she a heartless gold digger, but she also arranged for her husband to be thrown under the not-so-proverbial bus.

  “Yeah, you do. It’s written all over your face.”

  “You know her better than me. You love her, don’t you? Because I don’t think that,” I lie. “Maybe there’s a bit of projecting going on here?”

  He turns his back to me because the coffee has finished percolating. I watch how his back stiffens as he pours out our coffee into two mugs. That done, he carries them over, sitting down opposite me at the large oak table, sliding a mug my way.

  He regards me levelly, and I have to lower my gaze, so intense is the look in his pale blue eyes.

  “She loved him, Claire. I can see it, in her eyes, when she talks about him. I’m not worried that she was a gold digger, I’m worried that I can never measure up to a dead man.”

  For a moment, I simply don’t know how to reply, astounded as I am by the extent of the number she’s doing on him. The girl deserves an Oscar, I’ll give her that much.

  I attempt to pick my words carefully: “Do you doubt that she loves you? Do you think she’s on the rebound? Do you think she still holds a torch for her dead husband?”

  “I think she always will. And that terrifies me.”

  I decide to humour him, even if I do think he is severely disillusioned.

  “Maybe she just needs more time to get over him?”

  He shakes his head. “No, that’s not it. She’s over him as much as she’ll ever be, I really do believe that. It’s just…” He pauses. “It’s just, I think he was the love of her life. He was the one.”

  I’m still so bowled over by Holly’s acting prowess, I don’t quite know what to say.

  “Did her deceased husband have any family?” I ask carefully. “Any children, or anything?”

  “He had a son. They weren’t close.”

  “Oh? This son must be really angry then, if his dad left the house to his much younger wife, rather than him. I mean, I presume he was married before, to this man’s mother?”

  “He was. She died of cancer almost twenty years ago. And Jasper didn’t write his son out of the will completely, he left him a fair amount of money, apparently, so Holly c
ame to hear.”

  “So Holly’s not close to him, then?”

  My mind is whirring, trying to figure out how Bill fits into all this; I just wish that I’d had the guts to hang around last night and ask him a few questions after he’d finished playing. But I am a coward, and I didn’t.

  “No,” Mark says. “They barely know each other.”

  I wonder if that’s true. Maybe, I think, my imagination running wild, they were having an affair, and together they were plotting to kill him.

  Why haven’t I thought of this before? Or maybe I had, on a deep, subconscious level, which is why I wanted to go and see this Bill person so badly.

  God, I think, sickened by myself. How awful am I? What a terrible thing to think. And yet. It does make a warped kind of sense, the more I think about it. They both theoretically hated Jasper and wanted rid of him. They’re both the same age and drop-dead gorgeous. But who would manipulate who in such a situation? Or was it a mutual decision? Hey, let’s get rid of the old guy, take all his money, and live together happily ever after.

  But if this were true, then wouldn’t Holly and Bill be together now? Surely sufficient time has passed, and why would Holly have dug her claws into Mark? Or are they waiting for the right time to be together? Like, when they’ve gotten rid of Mark, and can have a nice house in Broadgate, as well as Belgravia? Blythe’s words sound out, clear as a bell, in my mind; Why would she bother? She’s rich, she can buy and sell Mark one-hundred times over…

  Whatever the ins and outs of it, something is badly wrong; I just wish I knew what that something was.

  “What are you thinking, Claire? It looks like you’re plotting something.”

  “Nothing,” I say hastily. “I was just listening to you.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “No, really. I was just wondering about Holly. Does she have any family? Did she have anyone to lean on when her husband died?”

  Like her dead husband’s son, for instance, I think darkly. The pair of them laughing all the way to the bank.