Perfect Stranger: A gripping psychological thriller with nail-biting suspense

by Jake Cross

  ‘Does this make you think about your own father?’

  When Chris didn’t answer her question, she turned to him. They were sharing the shower, their backs to each other. She put a hand on his shoulder, and that was when he spoke.

  ‘That’s not the same. Not at all.’

  He left the shower, still soapy. She gave him a minute then followed. He was sitting on the bed with a towel around his waist, torso still wet and his phone in his hand.

  ‘Nothing yet,’ he said.

  ‘Too early,’ she answered.

  They dressed. He finished first, but waited so he could towel dry her hair. Like clipping her toenails, it was one of a few activities she didn’t mind needing help with.

  ‘Did you never suspect? Never wonder? With Eve. About a pregnancy. If you knew you hadn’t used protection.’

  Behind her on the bed, he stopped rubbing her hair. ‘No. It was a drunken late night. I didn’t think about it at the time. And I guess I just assumed afterwards that… we’d been lucky.’

  He continued rubbing her hair. When it was dry, he left the bedroom a step ahead of her.

  Julia’s door opened and she stepped out. She wore jeans and a Baywatch T-shirt with doll-like people in swimwear running along a hot beach. Perhaps sensing parent-talk had been interrupted, she quietly rushed past. Chris got a whiff of deodorant from her room. It wasn’t a feminine smell.

  ‘Morning, old ones,’ she said as she glided down the stairs. She waved her phone over her shoulder. ‘My pal Simone is down today, remember? Can she stay here?’

  ‘Of course,’ Rose said.

  ‘The one with the togmuppet ex?’ Chris asked.

  Rose looked puzzled. Julia stopped and turned, quickly explaining a story Chris had already got. She added: ‘Simone moved out of their flat, so she’s got nowhere to stay. Can you take me to pick her up from the Lost Valley?’

  A question for Chris. She laughed at his puzzled face. ‘It’s a pub in Sheffield, near the train station. We want a quick drink before we come back. But can you wait in the car? About nine o’clock okay?’

  ‘What if people see her in my car and think I’m her boyfriend?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The togmuppet’s going to kill her boyfriend, isn’t he?’

  Julia had to quickly explain that for her mother, too. ‘But Marc’s not going to chase her or anything. He won’t come here looking for her. There’s nothing to worry about. Can she stay?’

  Again, a question for Chris. ‘Your mum just said it was okay, so I haven’t got a say.’

  Like a striking cobra, she darted up the stairs, kissed his cheek, and was on the ground floor two seconds later. Chris made a mental note to remind her not to bounce around like a ninja in front of her frail mother. He went to her open door and sniffed.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Rose said. ‘Look, I want you to ask Simone not to call this Marc fellow while she’s staying here, okay? Not from the house phone.’

  ‘She won’t, believe me. Listen, you were out yesterday afternoon, right? So Julia was alone in the house?’

  ‘No, Julia went out, too. What’s with sniffing the air like a dog?’

  ‘Maybe she sneaked back while you were out. Why am I smelling male deodorant from her room? Has she had a boy here?’

  ‘Not that I know of. No. Come on.’

  They started down the stairs, Chris leading in case Rose fell. In the kitchen, she asked if he’d made up with ‘her’.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Simone. You had that spat at that party.’

  He nearly dropped the kettle. ‘Christ, that was her? The leprechaun hat?’

  ‘Yes. I’m surprised you said she could stay if you hadn’t made up. You ruined that party.’

  ‘Well, she was abusive.’

  ‘I heard that you got offended by some drunken joke she made. You were snippy with her.’

  How could he forget? He’d dropped Julia at a flat party, but had peeked inside to make sure it wasn’t a bunch of college idiots snorting drugs. Drunk, a girl in a silly leprechaun hat – Simone – had made some crack about him being too old for parties.

  ‘I responded, that’s all. Things got out of hand. Some of the boys there tried to act macho by sticking their oars in.’

  ‘You were embarrassing, I heard. Julia refused to bring friends to the house for weeks afterwards. You remember that?’

  He did, unfortunately. He grabbed teacups. ‘She can’t stay here, then. We’ll have to tell her no.’

  ‘No, we’ve promised Julia now. You can pick Simone up and see how she is with you. Maybe she’s forgotten. You can apologise.’

  He slinked into the living room and checked his phone. Goddamn leprechaun hat, coming here. To stay!

  But he got his mind onto things more important. No return text from the girl. He half hoped there never would be. Rose had been right: he was worried about scorpions in the closet, as Julia had so beautifully misused the term only a few months ago. And a murdered father was a big scorpion that Eve’s daughter would carry around for ever. Chris didn’t like to deal with other people’s problems, and a grieving brand-new daughter could become one big enough to for ever upset the balance he so craved. And he knew almost nothing about the girl, which meant…

  …There could be other scorpions.

  Eight

  Eight times according to his call log. A number dialled, but a call terminated before the other end could be picked up. He was worried what the girl would think if the text hadn’t arrived. How would it look? Like he didn’t give a shit? But he didn’t complete a single call. Of eight. He wanted to vent his frustration with fists against a wall.

  Two had been made by the time he set off for work. He drove in a daze and barely remembered the journey. But he got there in one piece somehow. After call three, made en route, his phone rang and his heart leaped. But it was just Rose.

  ‘The police finally turned up. What was that, thirteen hours to respond? They said it was a busy night and we didn’t sound that distressed. Anyway, I gave a basic description of the car and the men. And that our purses were taken. They took my statement but you’ll have to go give yours at the station. They won’t come back.’

  ‘I will,’ he said, but it was a lie. The capture of a couple of lowlifes was the last thing he cared about right now.

  Chris had cancelled another call to the girl by the time he got to the hospital. He walked fast to the lab because he didn’t want time to let his mind run wild. Once he was inside, though, he regretted not having taken a pause to wind himself in. He doubted he was in a fit state for work. He’d made some gruesome errors so far this week, and today his head was even less focussed. And so:

  Redfern, get your head in gear.

  Redfern, concentrate.

  Redfern, you’re in trouble if this happens again.

  Three mistakes in an hour, none really costly, but all indicative of a mind in turmoil.

  The girl called.

  No, she didn’t. He thought he’d felt his phone vibrate, but no. Ringxiety, or Phantom Phone Vibration, or whatever it was called. Seemingly every minute his brain read the movement of clothing or a faint muscle contraction as a call. While it was in his hand, he made call eight and this time waited five rings before hanging up.

  ‘Hey, did I mention that fool I got in my room a few days ago, Missus Chiclets? About her second set of teeth? Christ. Full-grown woman, in she comes…’

  Chris listened as the radiographer moaned to the gastroenterologist about a woman who’d come in for an X-ray because she thought she had a second full set of teeth growing in her gums. Normally he found these overheard lunchtime conversations fascinating, but not today. Maybe never again. Just as the radiographer got heated about his freaky patient, Chris swallowed his last piece of sausage roll and headed out of the Pitstop, an open-plan café in the hospital foyer. On his way to the lift, he pulled his phone to perform a brand-new aborted call to the girl. But he didn’t get the
chance, and the option was about to become obsolete.

  It rang as he was about to dial. Rose.

  ‘Hello, Ro—’

  ‘Chris?’ she cut in. ‘Can you come back? Eve’s daughter… she’s here.’

  At the house? She was at his home, with Rose?

  She started to say more, but he killed the call. Heads turned to watch as he bolted down the corridor.

  * * *

  The journey was as much a misty haze as three hours earlier, but again he somehow avoided tying his car in a bow around a tree. The driveway ran alongside the house to a garage in the backyard that was full of junk. Sitting before the garage was a motorbike. And standing by it were Julia and someone nobody could mistake for a man this time. She wore jeans and a long-sleeved black polo neck which was fitted to her feminine form. No beanie cap this time, so the blonde hair was pulled back into a bun. The contrast between this image and his last of her was mammoth, but that scar upon her porcelain cheek was undeniable. It was the same girl. Chris tried to swallow but his throat was a desert.

  They were just chatting, though. Everything fine there. Broad daylight, urban environment, and a pair of teenagers talking about a motorbike. Julia had always wanted one, he remembered, so of course she would ask about the bike when it turned up. Nothing suspicious there. She didn’t have the demeanour of someone who’d just learned she might have a sister.

  Calmer now, he felt silly for rushing back, for his wild and illogical assumption that there was danger to thwart. He slipped towards the front door before he got spotted, unsure why he was trying to avoid the girl. Even so, he crept in like a burglar and found Rose in the kitchen, with her back to him. She was watching the young pair through the window. There was a satchel on the kitchen table. The girl’s, surely. For a moment, he remembered how she had ticked. Strange.

  When he appeared by Rose’s side, she jumped.

  ‘How come she’s here? What’s she doing with Julia? And why are you hiding?’

  ‘She just knocked on the door, Chris. She’s found our stuff. I wasn’t hiding. I’m watching how she acts. We never saw how pretty she was last night. But she’s stunning.’

  He had to admit that was true, especially in daylight, and even with that scar. He wondered why she didn’t use her long hair to hide it; in fact, the tight bun seemed to parade it, like a piece of jewellery or a badge. As he watched, she rubbed that centimetre-wide valley between ear and nose. He got the impression Julia had asked about it. He also noted that she stood a good five inches taller than his daughter. His other daughter.

  ‘What stuff? What do you mean?’

  ‘Calm down. I’ll explain.’

  Rose pulled out a chair at the table and he sat. The satchel was right there, and it wasn’t ticking. He fought a compulsion to root through it. His jaw started to ache from half an hour of solid tension.

  ‘She found our stuff? Is that why she’s here?’

  Rose put the kettle on and explained. The girl had spotted Chris’s wallet and Rose’s purse close to where they’d been snatched. Just lying in the road. She had planned to post them, but then Chris had sent a text about popping round for a cup of tea. So here she was. Rose pointed out the wallet and purse on top of the microwave oven. Chris grabbed both and got no surprises.

  ‘Cash is gone.’

  ‘Not the cards, though. That saves a headache.’ Rose hesitated. ‘She told me she sent the note. And she told me why she sent it.’

  Chris sat again. Rose continued, ‘She knows it was a mistake now. Just before she overdosed, Eve told her that her dad… wasn’t her real dad. Just as I assumed. Ron Hugill had been in Katherine’s life from such an early age, she just assumed he was her father. For all those years. It was a big shock to hear otherwise. Eve gave Katherine your name—’

  ‘Wait, Katherine?’ Chris asked, mouth agape in shock.

  ‘Yes,’ Rose said with a reassuring smile. ‘That’s her name. Just like your mother.’

  And suddenly it was all beginning to feel more real. Not just that there was a girl, some stranger trying to worm her way into his life. A daughter. Young, beautiful Katherine.

  ‘Wait, but how did she know my name? Eve, I mean?’ Chris continued. ‘I used a fake. Both times.’

  ‘Both times?’

  He lifted the satchel an inch off the table, just to check the weight. ‘Yeah, she asked me twice. I had a chance to come clean the second time. I didn’t. She never knew my real name.’

  ‘I don’t know how she knew, but she found out somehow. So Katherine looked you up. It was easy. Your Facebook told her where you worked.’

  ‘So she could have popped by and said, “Hey, I’m your daughter.” That doesn’t explain the stupid threatening note.’

  Rose pulled out a chair and sat in front of him. His eyes kept jumping to the kitchen window every time he heard a sound outside, so she grabbed his chin and made him look at her.

  ‘Eyes front, soldier. Listen to me. In the same week, the man she thought was her father was murdered, then she found out there was a real dad out there somewhere, and then her mother died. Give the girl a break for not doing a PowerPoint presentation to work out the pros and cons of various ways of contacting you. She wasn’t thinking straight, as I always said. So, are we going to give her a chance after what she’s been through?’

  He nodded. He wasn’t sure he meant it, though.

  ‘She wanted you to have time to get used to Eve’s death before she hit you with shock number two. A mad idea, sure, but we can understand that, can’t we?’

  He nodded again. More sincere this time.

  ‘I’m not siding with her, Chris. But we don’t know what it’s like to go through what she’s suffered. She told me she was planning to send a letter of explanation to the house, and that envelope with the necklace chain in it. But then some weird quirk of fate put us all on that road.’

  A third nod. Accepted. Somewhat. But as one worry mellowed, another reared up. ‘What’s she doing out there with Julia? She hasn’t told—’

  ‘No, Chris, Julia doesn’t know. They’re just talking. Our daughter is chatting to a young woman who found our lost property and returned it, that’s all. She likes the bike. Your only worry should be that she’s probably going to start begging us again to buy her one. And she told Katherine that it’s our anniversary on Saturday. Oh, and she asked if she’s got kids.’

  He felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. That was something he hadn’t even considered: that he could have become not just a dad again but also—

  ‘Calm down, you’re not a grandfather yet,’ she said, the curl of her mouth proving she was having a lark.

  He didn’t laugh. ‘We’ll have to tell her who Katherine is at some point, you know?’

  ‘We don’t know who she is yet, do we? We still need to do a paternity test. She might just be some girl who returned our stuff, mightn’t she?’ She grabbed Chris’s hand. ‘Come on, let’s go outside.’

  He yanked that hand right back. ‘What am I supposed to say to her? I don’t know what to say. This is very awkward. We can’t mention who she might be in front of Julia. But it’ll hang over us like some toxic cloud.’

  She shook her head. ‘You came back for this. What’s the problem?’

  ‘This is easy for you. How would you feel if you suddenly found out you had a long-lost daughter you never knew about?’

  It took her baffled laughter to make him fathom the nonsense of his question.

  There was a knock at the back door. It opened and Katherine stood there. ‘Can I come in?’

  Again he noted the husky voice, somewhat… he mentally slapped himself before the word sexy could enter his head. Rose got to her feet, but Chris remained seated. Rose waved her in and she crossed the kitchen with enough confidence to wear at his. When he stood to greet her, he was unnerved by something in her features. Was it the lips – so much like Julia’s? Those big brown eyes – akin to his own? His hand nervously shook as he clasped the one s
he offered him. She gripped tight and shook hard, like one of his good buddies.

  ‘My name’s Katie. Katherine, but I always go by Katie. I’ll just come out and say what I’m sure you already know,’ she said. ‘I think you might be my father.’

  Nine

  The words were still ringing in Chris’s ears.

  I think you might be my father.

  He had to look away from Katie’s probing eyes, at Rose, who sensed his shock – or figured he was about to say something daft – and put out her own hand in greeting. As the two women shook hands and Rose reintroduced herself, he took a moment, unwatched, to suck in a lungful of air. His head felt light.

  When Katie returned those probing eyes to him, he tried to take a step backwards, away, but he was already hard up against the kitchen table. He felt spotlighted, like a kid called upon to speak in class. The first thing that entered his head was: ‘You’ll have to excuse how I act in the next few minutes. This has come as a very big shock.’

  She gave a slow nod, and a warm smile. ‘I understand. You need time. That’s why I won’t stay long. I want to make this easy for you.’

  She leaned towards him and for a horrible moment he thought she was going to snatch him into a hug. But her arm snaked past him and then she withdrew, and in her hand was the satchel from the table.

  Captivated, he watched her extract a small box from inside. He noticed her nails were long but unpainted, and real, unlike Julia’s or Rose’s. ‘I understand how awkward this is for you, Mr Redfern. My turning up here, like this. But I wanted to get this part out of the way immediately.’

  The box had a picture of a smiling man with a grinning kid on his shoulders. Gene Genie – ‘fast and accurate home DNA test kit’. As usual when confronted with a surprising blow, Chris’s brain sought to joke.