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

by Jake Cross

  He moved his king out of check. ‘And no you or Julia.’

  ‘So a broken toe made our daughter?’

  Rose’s phone pinged and she picked it up to make her next move.

  He said, ‘I just mean there’s no point in planning until you know. It’s like buying girls’ and boys’ clothing for a baby when you don’t know the sex. We found out and then we bought the clothing.’

  ‘The one time I didn’t get my way. I wanted to wait for the birth. But before we knew, we still talked about what it would be like if the baby was a boy, and if it was a girl. We didn’t plan but we considered these things. You haven’t done that? You really haven’t even considered what a future with Katie in our lives will be like?’

  ‘No point. It makes sense to wait for the result.’

  ‘That’s not your reasoning at all.’ His phone dinged, meaning it was his move, but he just stared at Rose. ‘This isn’t about mistakenly buying male clothing for a baby that turns out to be a girl. This is more like not going to the doctor about a lump on your balls.’

  ‘You think I’m scared about the result? Yes, I am. A positive is going to be a shock to the system. Who wouldn’t be worried about that?’

  ‘Everyone would, and so I understand. I just don’t know if you’re admitting this problem to yourself. You don’t want a new path to open up. You don’t want to change from the path you’re on.’

  ‘You’ve said that before. Is it really such a big deal? Everyone has a comfort zone.’

  ‘But when the comfort zone is under threat, you prepare. That’s all I’m saying. You need to get your head out of the sand.’

  He tossed down his phone and lay back. ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘You don’t want her to be your daughter.’

  ‘Rose, just stop. I didn’t say that, because I don’t know.’ He turned off his bedside lamp. She extinguished hers.

  ‘You don’t want Katie to be your daughter so you can avoid self-pity and guilt. You want Katie to be wrong and to not know who her father is.’

  ‘Rose, stop it.’

  ‘You want that test to say it’s not you and to leave Katie empty and longing. That way, you’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve brought up every child you’ve ever had, you’ve been there for all your babies. Look at you, father of the year.’

  He said nothing. He dug his fingers into his thighs, to lock his arms in place in case anger chose to lash out.

  ‘I won’t judge you badly because of that, Chris. Because I also hope she’s not your daughter.’

  He hadn’t expected that. Her attitude around Katie always suggested she welcomed the idea of a new addition to the family, even a fully grown one. In the dark, he turned to her and hugged her from behind. All anger was gone. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she’s not mine.’

  Chris awoke with a start and Rose’s hand on his face. He swiped it off. Pain in his cheek told him she must have whipped her arm into him like a sling. The room was dark. His phone said it was twenty past three in the morning. The witching hour. He immediately thought of Katie. Still downstairs? Or gone with the family silver?

  He got up, unable to beat the desire to see if she was still asleep. He hoped she had left already for a friend’s house. Until an official document said they were father and daughter, Katie was a free-roaming stranger in the house. Making scary little noises downstairs in the dead of night.

  He grabbed his phone and went slowly downstairs. The living room light was on. He peeked around the doorframe. There was Katie, lying back in her sleeping bag, playing on her phone. Awake. He tried to slink away.

  But too late. ‘Sir. Have a look at this.’

  He went in. Katie sat up. She was still in Rose’s T-shirt. She pulled the neck up and the arms down, and then tossed her phone onto the sleeping bag, down by her feet. ‘Watch that, please. And take a seat.’

  He didn’t really want to do either, but he’d promised himself more time alone with Katie in order to make scenes like this less uncomfortable. So he took the phone and a seat.

  The screen showed a paused YouTube news video.

  ‘What am I about to see, Katie?’

  ‘Press play. Please.’

  Mobile phone footage: a mess of images as the person holding the device moves, then everything settles as the camera points at a window, somewhere inside a house. The camera jerks closer, everything blurs as the lens tries to forget the glass in the window and focus on what’s outside. On what made the unseen person grab his or her phone and rush to the window.

  Elevated view of a basic urban street. It’s dark and the streetlights don’t do much. A car is crashed against the back of another, and a police car pulls up behind it, roof lights pulsing. A clean-shaven man in a baseball cap gets out of the crashed car and two uniformed cops exit to meet him. But he’s got a machete. The cops rethink their idea to rush him, but he swipes and catches one in the arm. Then he turns and flees as the second cop bends to help his bleeding partner. There’s a lot of shouting. Adrenaline is making the cameraman’s arm shiver.

  It’s mobile phone footage that’s made its way onto YouTube, but via TV news. There’s a news channel logo in the corner and for those who might have misunderstood what they just saw, a caption at the bottom says:

  WANTED FUGITIVE HACKS POLICE WITH MACHETE

  A disembodied reporter tells the story. ‘A man wanted for murder was earlier this evening spotted driving a stolen car in Netherthorpe, Sheffield, and when the police tried to stop him, he slashed one with a machete before making his escape.’

  For those who didn’t understand what they were seeing and couldn’t read.

  ‘What’s this got to do with you or me?’ Chris said, but in response Katie only tapped her eye. Keep watching. They were staring at each other when the reporter finished with:

  ‘The fugitive is believed to be Dominic Everton, prime suspect in the murder of Bradford local man Ron Hugill, who was murdered in cold blood a week ago.’

  Seventeen

  ‘I think Dominic Everton is in Sheffield because of me. I think he’s after me.’

  Sheffield. That part hadn’t registered. Netherthorpe was only three miles from Chris’s damn front door. Where had Everton been going? Here? Chris jumped to his feet. The phone thumped to the floor. Katie put both hands up, almost defensively.

  ‘Does this Everton guy know where you are? Does he know you’re here?’

  ‘I don’t know… I don’t see how.’

  ‘Does Everton know the story? Does he know you think I might be your dad?’

  Katie seemed to shrink back, and Chris realised he had raised his voice.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what Eve told Ron. So I don’t know what Ron might have told Everton on the night he was… was killed.’

  Chris sat again. If Everton had seen Katie arrive here, then a fugitive murderer had this house, had Chris and his family in his crosshairs. He peeled back growing anger, because it didn’t seem right to blame Katie. But he needed a target. And he had to say something. ‘This is bad, Katie.’

  ‘I’m sorry to show you that, really I am. I just wanted all cards on the table. I don’t want anyone to worry.’

  Worry would come later, but for now Chris felt only that anger. ‘You think the guy might come here? To get you? That he might come to my house?’

  ‘I think Ron might have done something to upset people. The wrong people. I had a feeling Ron had got on the wrong side of the wrong guy. And now he’s dead and the man the police think killed him is in Sheffield.’

  Chris leaped upon that, desperate. ‘Just because he’s in the same city as you, that doesn’t mean anything. Is there more you’re not telling me?’

  Katie rubbed her face. ‘I know, I know, it’s weak. It’s paranoid. I just can’t help wondering; Everton’s on the run, so why not travel far away? He’s supposed to have contacts in London. Why hang around Yorkshire? Why not go lose yourself down south?’

  He felt a need to calm he
r – something paternal waking from slumber? ‘Sheffield is big also and it’s close to Bradford. Maybe it’s not easy to travel when the police want you. Everton’s probably holing up somewhere where he feels comfortable. He might not know any other cities that well. Now that the police know he’s in Sheffield, they’re on the lookout for him, so he’ll know it’s dangerous to stay here. My bet is he’ll now run somewhere else.’

  Katie nodded again. ‘You’re probably right. I’m sorry. This is a headache for you all. My worries and fears, me on your sofa. I apologise. I shouldn’t have even contacted you. I should have left you and your family in peace. I don’t want to bring you any trouble.’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  Katie’s meekness gave him the confidence to broach a subject he’d increasingly wanted to tackle.

  ‘Katie, I want to talk to you about your mother’s suicide.’

  Katie got up. She was wearing tracksuit bottoms. At first Chris thought she was going to storm off, angry, but Katie took two steps and flopped on the other sofa. Their legs touched. But she didn’t look at him. It made their closeness easier for Chris to handle.

  ‘On the day she told me about you,’ she began, ‘I went out on my bike. For a ride. I just rode. I tried to picture what you looked like, even though all I had was a name. But when I went home again, to ask my mother for more information, that was when she dropped the second bombshell. She wanted to kill herself. She was in her final days and wanted to end it. And she did it, she did it, and I was in the house when she did it. I let it happen.’

  Chris felt the words like a smack. He got up and stumbled to the window. The curtains were pulled, but he could see the dots of streetlights through the thin material. He stared at one.

  ‘She begged me. “Make me comfortable,” she said. I was in shock, but her face… she looked… certain. Resigned, maybe. I got the feeling it wasn’t a rash decision. That she had thought about this for a long time. She said that she had taken care of her affairs, as they say. Made sure bills were paid, letters were written, you know? I knew she was serious, and I knew I couldn’t talk her out of it. I could only hope that the next few days would change her mind. But then she showed me the Amitriptyline. Right there in her hands.’

  To give his own hands something to do, Chris was running his fingers over his phone. Now, after making sure Katie was still staring at the ceiling, or deep space beyond, he turned his eyes upon that device.

  ‘I wonder constantly: what if? What if she hadn’t taken those tablets and somehow her cancer wouldn’t have killed her? How might we have spent the next few months? She might have got happier. She might have won the lottery. She might have been able to go out at peace, as God intended. And I would have had time to think about what I said.’

  He found a website, and now he knew: ‘Amitriptyline: a tricyclic antidepressant for chemical rebalance in the nervous system’. Maybe Eve Levine had been feeling depressed for a long time. Maybe doctors prescribed antidepressants to everyone diagnosed as terminal. He wasn’t sure, but for certain her doctor hadn’t counted on Eve attempting to un-blacken her mood by removing all moods. For ever.

  ‘You understand what I mean? You can say all you can think of to someone before they go, but there’s always going to be something else when it’s too late. Something you missed, or something you could have said better, or something you once said that you should have apologised for. Hindsight. Hindsight is twenty-twenty vision. If governments could rewind time by a day whenever they wanted, and do it over, there would be no catastrophes, no wars, no genocide, no starvation in the world.’

  Amitriptyline: also used for painkilling, which had been her final use for it. The end of all pain, for ever. He wondered if doctors had to face an inquiry board each time a patient died by overdose of prescribed drugs. In the post-Harold Shipman world, probably.

  ‘She showed me the tablets, as if to say she had it all worked out. I knew there was nothing I could do to stop her. I mean, I’d seen the pain and depression first-hand, hadn’t I? So I wasn’t shocked about that. Not really. But it was kind of out of the blue, you know? She hadn’t mentioned it before, and then, when she did, it was like, bang, we had to do it immediately. Like an alarm had gone off. Everything suddenly had to be dropped, and she wanted to do this. And she had this idea about filming it…’

  Average manufacturing cost of a penny and a half for 25 mg tablets, and the minimum lethal dose was set at 120 tablets. It was £400 a night for a hospital bed, but Eve Levine’s death had cost the government only £1.80. Actually, they’d profited by £6.80 because of the £8.60 NHS prescription charge. Given her illness, though, she probably had an exception card that allowed her to die for free—

  ‘Film it?’ Chris turned.

  Katie was lying back, face towards the ceiling, eyes wide open.

  ‘So I waited,’ Katie said, as if she hadn’t heard Chris’s shocked response. ‘She was upstairs, I was down. I washed pots and I dithered about and I watered the plants, just doing a bit of housework as normal, and while I did this my mother was killing herself ten feet above me.’

  ‘Did you say she filmed her suicide? Katie?’

  She closed her eyes. ‘No more for tonight. Please. Overloading you is not what I ever wanted. Please, don’t say anything. Just go. We’ll talk tomorrow.’

  Her eyes closed. He thought about trying to comfort her, but reminded himself that he had no idea of the methods she employed to do that herself. Maybe she needed solitude and prompting her to talk could do more damage than good. That, he told himself, was the reason he walked out. But he knew the truth was rooted in selfishness. He just didn’t want any more of this witching hour confessional. He wanted oblivion until the daylight hours, and a return to the placid routine of life.

  But he didn’t go to bed. When he made a floorboard creak in the bedroom, Rose stirred and said, ‘Hide bank statements from Katie.’ He stared at her, wondering if she was worried that Katie would want money. But her eyes were closed. Just a sleep-mumble, then. He made sure Julia was also asleep, and then he dragged himself through the attic trap, into the Manor.

  He swallowed a mouthful of whiskey even before he’d sat down and tried to make sense of the last twenty minutes. But his phone beeped. A text from Katie. It was a shaking hand that opened the message, because he knew that whatever Katie wanted to say, it was something she hadn’t been able to voice face-to-face. Even after the other terrible revelations. He didn’t look at the screen until after another large swallow of whiskey.

  I lied about the letter I sent you. I didn’t send it to avoid overloading you with her death and who I was all at the same time. I sent it for selfish reasons.

  He was tempted to ignore the message, and deal with this on a fresh day. But his fingers typed. Faceless, it was easier to talk.

  Tell me. It’s okay.

  * * *

  I didn’t want you to split your feelings between both of us. I wanted you to be over shock of her death when I told you who I was. I wanted all your attention.

  The response came quickly. Again, he splashed whiskey across his teeth before he replied. He stared at the lightbulb as he waited.

  I understand. I would have done the same thing.

  * * *

  It was wrong. Tell me if you want me to be gone when you wake in the morning. I understand if you hope you’re not my father.

  * * *

  I do not know yet, if I am honest. It’s early into this whole thing. But I know you believe I am.

  * * *

  I’m not sure yet, either. Like you say, it’s early. We deal with this after the test result.

  * * *

  Okay. And don’t go. Stay.

  THURSDAY

  Eighteen

  At the breakfast table, Julia was writing comedy material in a jotter and Rose was reading a book about gymnastics. Chris took a seat behind his bowl of cereal, sugarless, of course. A lunch of something fresh and healthy, which meant cold and tasteless, was sit
ting there wrapped in foil. As always, he’d secretly sell it to a colleague for enough to buy Pitstop cake.

  ‘Where’s Katie?’

  If there was any hope that she’d left in the night, Rose ended it when she pointed out the kitchen window. He got up to look. Katie was in the garden, trying to unearth an old tree root beside the shed with a spade. She was wearing Chris’s old North Face gardening jacket, her own beanie cap and a pair of Rose’s jeans ruined by bleach spots.

  ‘I said I’d get around to that tree root. What did you say to her?’

  Julia made a crack about past broken housework promises. Katie looked over, saw him, and gave a thumbs up. He returned it then sat again behind his breakfast. Now he could hear heavy thuds from outside.

  Rose tapped his cereal bowl as a prompt to eat. ‘Leave her to it. Besides, you’ve got a speech to write.’

  ‘I’ve never been to a funeral,’ Julia said. ‘Are you sorry about her being dead, Dad?’

  Rose saw his shocked face and scuttled from the kitchen.

  He met her in the living room. ‘What did you tell Julia about Eve?’

  ‘Not what you look so terrified about. She thinks you knew her as a friend from college.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Isn’t that better than the truth? I had to make something up for now. And how daft would it look if a stranger finds our belongings after the robbery and then invites us to her mother’s funeral? So now Julia believes it was a strange coincidence that you just happen to know Katie’s mother from way back.’

  He didn’t like it, but it was done and there was no way to rewind time. As long as Julia didn’t ask any more questions about Eve Levine, there wouldn’t be a problem. That aside, he focussed on something else.