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

by Jake Cross

  ‘You think she might be trying to hook up with him? This whole thing is just a lie to get close to him? But he’s not a film star or anything. He’s not a sexy hunk. And she could have anyone with her looks. And Julia? That’s just daft. Katie was at the college to look for a computer course.’

  ‘There you go, then, like I said, just me being silly. Do you wish she’d turned up earlier, as a child, so you could have taken care of her and bonded that way?’

  Aware that Carol was desperate to change angles and eager to do so herself, Rose digested this theory. And quickly jettisoned it.

  ‘No. I simply meant that she’s grown-up. Got her own life. She won’t need to live with us. Won’t need taking care of. Won’t impact my life in a major way. May even barely change it. If I get to like her, she’ll visit a lot. If I don’t, then if Chris needs to see her, he can just leave the house to do it. I don’t even need to see her again. I suppose in a way it’ll be like you and John and Carter.’

  The father of Carol’s five-year-old saw his son, Carter, a few times a week. He collected and deposited the boy and the former couple barely exchanged a word during the handover. No two people blew further apart than those once locked together as tightly as possible.

  ‘That mate of your Julia’s, who got her hands cut off, your Chris treated her for AIDS, didn’t he?’

  That shout from Wendy, the gossip hound. Sometimes the big news corporations talked to experts, to those in the thick of the action, and peeled away bullshit to expose the truth. Wendy, though, liked gloss and attitude and fireworks, so got her stories from remote corners of the Internet where the unrestrained roamed.

  ‘She didn’t have her hands cut off,’ Rose said. She realised she hadn’t told anyone but Carol about Simone. Carol had been sworn to secrecy. ‘And no to the AIDS.’

  All separate conversations merged into a group discussion about the woman being called Meadow Moll, until the last cigarette was crushed underfoot and the girls trekked back to the bowling.

  But Rose couldn’t get Carol’s words out of her head: what if Katie knew she wasn’t Chris’s daughter, yet had a dark and secretive reason for claiming to be? Rose had wondered about the possibility of Katie seeking money – or Chris – but like Carol had said, it was silly. And that idea about Julia being her focus – preposterous. All of it! Of course it was. Of course.

  Twenty-Three

  While Julia undressed in her parents’ room to use the shower, Katie ran her hand around inside Julia’s underwear drawer, stirring the items. When a bright blue bra surfaced, she pulled it out and held it up. She dipped in again, this time removing a pair of white knickers. She tossed them onto her bed.

  While Julia soaped her hair, Katie ran her hands along tops that hung in the wardrobe, slowly. She stopped at a red tank top and pulled it out. It had a blue bow on each collar and low sides, which would show off the bra. On the front it said ‘NOW’S YOUR CHANCE’ and on the back ‘TOO LATE’, which she figured she understood.

  While Julia wrapped herself in towels, Katie rifled through a drawer containing her legwear: three rows of four, folded and stacked three high. She was intrigued by a pair of blue denim jeans with pink seams which turned out not to be denim at all but some kind of stretchy material. The waistband was frilly pink.

  When Julia entered her bedroom still wrapped in towels, she stopped in shock. Katie had laid out some of her clothing on the bed. A top above her jeggings, knickers and bra lying alongside. Katie’s back was to her as she reached high up onto a top shelf.

  Julia couldn’t contain a gasp and a step back, and her swinging arm caught the computer table, which jolted the mouse and killed the screensaver. Katie spun around.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Julia asked.

  Katie stepped forward. She glanced at the computer monitor and saw a Google results page for: ‘KATIE LEVINE FACE SCAR’. Eight or so results visible within the screen, all dealing with a musician called ‘Karly Katie Levine’ who had heavy facial make-up to cover the violent result of a failed guitar swing. So, Julia had tried and failed to find out about her injury. If the story was told online, it was buried deep after so many years.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Julia clutched her towel tightly around her.

  Katie pulled a lipstick from her pocket and showed her. ‘I have a deal for you. And then we’re going to talk about first times.’

  * * *

  Inhibitions eroded by alcohol, Chris couldn’t fight the urge any longer and scuttled away from the bowling lane with a claim of needing the toilet. But he slipped past the restrooms and outside, where he circled around the smoking area to a small yard for storing used beer barrels and roll cages of empty boxes and cartons. There was a young female employee outside an open fire exit, smoking. She gave him a funny look so he lurked just outside the yard entrance until she left, then he stepped inside and made the call.

  ‘Sunshine Massages,’ a female voice said. Either fresh from sleep or deep into an alcohol binge. But he thought he recognised it: at least, he knew the accent wasn’t southern. Behind it was dance music and the hubbub of other voices. A party?

  ‘I must have the wrong number. I was looking for my sister, Lindsay.’

  He didn’t suspect the wrong number at all, but wanted to give the caller an easy out. Or himself an easy out, if he was honest.

  ‘Chris? Is that you? I’m Lindsay. Wow, where are you? Are you still in Sheffield?’

  ‘No, Bradford now. I lost hours at work and had to relocate.’ The lie might come back to bite. But he didn’t edit it.

  ‘You heard from Grandma and Granddad recently? I ain’t got a number for them.’

  No lie here as he said he hadn’t spoken to them for at least four months.

  ‘So what else is new with you? Jane become a supermodel yet?’

  It took him a moment to work that out. Last he’d spoken to Lindsay – what, five years ago? – Julia had wanted a career strutting on catwalks. ‘It’s Julia, not Jane. She wants to be a stand-up comic now.’

  ‘Oh wow. How’s that going? Doing well?’

  ‘So-so.’

  She asked a few more small-talk questions, and Chris tried his best to surreptitiously make out that he had no spare money, even though the subject didn’t arise. He felt bad assuming she was angling that way, but he was only working off their last conversation. Something warned him against projecting success and happiness when he didn’t yet know her situation.

  ‘So what are you up to down there?’ he asked.

  ‘Where did you get my number, anyway? Was it from Facebook? I was going to call you with it.’

  Sure you were. He told her he had his ways, but no, not Facebook. After that, she told him she was working caring for the elderly, something she’d always wanted to do. He didn’t remember any such calling and wondered if she’d delayed her answer until certain he hadn’t seen the ‘masseuse’ part of her Facebook profile name.

  ‘So what’s up? Why the call, big bro?’

  In the background, someone yelled, demanding to know who she was talking to. He heard the word rozzer, which meant police. She covered the phone when she answered the yeller. Chris couldn’t shake the image of a crack den full of pimps and girls and seedy men who’d booked a massage they knew was going to be no such thing. Again he felt low entertaining such thoughts.

  When she came back on and apologised and said she had to go because a ‘housemate’ was awaiting an important call, he blurted: ‘I just found out I’ve got a daughter.’

  ‘What? Oh, well done. Congratulations. To your wife, too.’

  He understood she didn’t understand. ‘No, from years ago. She’s a grown-up. She found me. I never knew about her.’

  A commotion behind her. The yeller became the bellower.

  ‘Lindsay, I was thinking about trying to contact our dad. Have you heard anything from him?’

  The racket behind Lindsay increased. In a clearly panicked voice, she said, ‘Chris, I’ve got to go. I’
ll call you later to—’

  The connection ended.

  Chris stood in the dark and tried to make sense of his feelings. Disappointment was there, because he’d made that call to Lindsay only to gauge how his big secret would be received, but she hadn’t had time to provide that answer. Shame had a spot because deep down he knew he’d picked her because she was a black sheep, her opinion probably easy to dismiss if not to his liking. And both were wrapped in a big blanket of self-loathing. A real man would already be driving to Chigwell with a baseball bat to help a sister who had once yanked him, like a real superhero, out of the path of a bus. But not stress- and responsibility-shirking Chris, because that might just upset the sweet balance of his neat little life. Far easier to just let his head stay buried in the sand, as Rose had so often said.

  Angry, he kicked the fire exit with a gong-like boom, and got out of there before someone opened it.

  * * *

  The entrance to the strip club was just a blank door in a brick wall down a nondescript street of closed commercial joints. A secretive place, although a queue of ten, all men, and a girl made of neon lights above the door gave the game away. The woman with bright red lipstick and bright red bob joined the queue, but was immediately waved forward. The bouncer gave her a quick look up and down, decided her sparkly white jeans and mock-neck purple sweater contained no weapons or drugs, and opened the door. She had to walk a dark corridor to get into the club proper.

  Inside, there was no throbbing music, no heaving crowd. Maybe thirty people, low on women. Most were either draped over the bar on the left or were seated before the stage on the right, where three dancers dressed as cavegirls capered. A guy in his fifties, clearly drunk, made a crack about her appearance as he wobbled past. The redhead didn’t react. She found a spare table and watched the cavegirls.

  Being one of only a handful of females in the room, she wasn’t left alone long. A young guy approached. The moment he entered her orbit, and before he could speak, she held up a hand. He wasn’t drunk enough to ignore it. Soon after that, the cavegirls wound up their act and left the stage. A voice through the speakers introduced tonight’s second special act.

  She’s funny, she’s crude, she is, of course, Rude Jude.

  No one really gave a damn. No applause, no extra heads turned to the stage and nobody moved closer. Rude Jude strolled on and immediately gave the crowd the middle finger. Those men who’d been at the front to watch the cavegirls booed. She grabbed the microphone.

  ‘Now the true test is to see if I can make you laugh now that you all hate me,’ she said. ‘We’ll start with a knock-knock joke, which is about all you pussy perverts can understand.’

  The redhead stood up.

  Rude Jude looked her way and her jaw dropped.

  When Rude Jude’s piece was over, she scuttled offstage and the disembodied compere announced the return of the strippers. Jude watched the dancers, now in combat fatigues with foam machine guns, pass her and head out through the curtain. One of them slapped her shoulder.

  ‘Took some balls to go out there and do that,’ the dancer said.

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ Jude replied, and checked out the girl’s butt as she walked past.

  She found a door into the club and made her way to the redhead. As she sat, a guy approached and tried to talk to her about one of her jokes. Both women told him to scarper.

  ‘How the hell did you know I was here?’ Julia asked.

  Katie replied, ‘I saw it scribbled in your jotter. I didn’t think a children’s birthday party would be held at The White Dungeon, and certainly not this late. Couldn’t let you miss it because of a silly package delivery. The package came, by the way, and it’s safely indoors. So I thought I’d pop along and see the show.’

  ‘I should have figured you knew when you picked out such provocative clothing for me. Hardly right for a kiddie birthday party. I bought that wig for a joke. It suits you, but why have you put it on? Your hair is so pretty, and that natural blonde. I’d kill for that.’

  Katie grabbed a handful of the fake hair and looked at it. ‘I fancied trying it. I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed your jeans and sweater.’

  ‘Not only do I not mind but you can keep them. But I’m surprised you put make-up on. I mean going for the sexy look, as someone with no interest in sex. Have you had to beat men away with a stick coming here?’

  ‘This puts them off, I think,’ Katie said, touching her scar.

  Julia checked her watch. ‘Anyway, we’d better get home before Mum, or she will crush our heads with one of her bowling balls.’

  ‘Of course. I allowed you to go to your gig. Now you owe me.’

  ‘Oh yes. First times. Ask away.’

  A woman in blue approached and put her hand on Julia’s shoulder. She leaned close to give a compliment. Or the like. Julia couldn’t help but glance at big breasts hanging inches from her face. Then at Katie, who was grinning. The woman took Julia’s hand and scribbled a phone number, then departed with a wave. And a sly wink at Katie. Julia spat on her hand and erased the number.

  ‘Not your type?’ Katie said.

  ‘I’m taken as of today.’ She showed Katie her phone. Her dating app and messages from a girl called Donna, who was slim, mixed-race, model-like. Katie leaned close to read the messages. Donna, Julia explained, had texted after seeing her profile on a ‘You Might Like’ list. ‘We’ve only been talking for the last three hours, but I already feel like I’ve known her for ever.’

  Katie nodded her approval. ‘That’s a good sign. Might be fake, though. Be careful. Could be a guy in his sixties. What’s a pretty girl like that doing with online dating?’

  Julia shook a fist. ‘Am I not a pretty girl using online dating? Mixed-race people are all beautiful to me. It’s a biology-evolution thing. Helps prevent inbreeding.’

  ‘You’ve lost me.’

  ‘You’ll study philosophy in the college refectory if you get that computer course. Come on, let’s bounce.’

  Katie apologised for her online dating remark, which made Julia laugh. ‘Anyway, a sixty-year-old man would be asking sexy questions. Donna seems more interested in my family.’

  ‘Well, they’ll be her family if she moves in.’

  ‘No chance.’

  On the way out, the same guy who’d made a remark about Katie’s scar repeated himself and then claimed Julia was about as funny as syphilis. Julia told the bouncers he was dealing drugs and laughed as they thundered towards him.

  Katie had brought her bike, parked around back. She took a second helmet from the pannier, ripped off the wig and put it inside. Two girls in heels stumbling past made a crack about her scar, but Katie didn’t bat an eyelid.

  ‘You haven’t had a drink, have you?’ Julia asked.

  ‘I don’t drink.’

  ‘No alcohol, no meat and no sex? What do you do for fun?’

  ‘This,’ Katie said as she climbed on the bike.

  Julia took the helmet and got on the back, wrapped her arms tightly around the slimmer girl. The closeness, combined with the buffer of the helmet, allowed her to voice something she’d been eager to broach. As Katie turned the bike into the main road and roared off, Julia held her tightly and touched helmets.

  ‘I saw your skin when you were reaching up in my wardrobe. I figure it’s why you wore my sweater. You got burned. Your body.’

  No answer for a few seconds, which made Julia think the noise of the bike had smothered her words. She didn’t ask again. But a few seconds later the bike halted at a red light.

  ‘It was a bonfire. I fell in a bonfire as a kid.’

  ‘Is it your whole…’ Julia searched for the word.

  ‘Midsection?’ Katie prompted. ‘My belly and back, yes. There’s your answer for why I don’t want to have sex with people. Does it put you off?’

  ‘No, but I feel bad for you. It must be hard to maybe be attracted to someone and be, like, too scared to approach out of fear of what they’ll say.�
��

  ‘It doesn’t bother me. I show my facial scar off, don’t I? But look, I don’t want your mum and dad to know, okay? Don’t tell them, please. I don’t want them to worry and I don’t want to have to answer questions.’

  ‘No problem. But that scar on your face – that’s not from a piece of wood on a bonfire.’

  ‘No deal. That will remain a secret.’ The light turned green. Katie gunned the engine, and Julia clutched her hard once more. The cold wind made her regret her outfit. She had to shout her next words.

  ‘We’ll see.’

  Twenty-Four

  ‘It’s not something I ever thought about,’ Julia said. ‘Why these questions?’

  ‘These questions’ had been about what it felt like to have a father with her for every ‘first’ in her life – riding a bike, learning to speak, going to school. Katie had brought it up once they pulled up outside the house.

  ‘I ask only because I never knew my father. He left before I was born. So I never had those firsts. I wonder if, when I finally meet my father again, what if he’s got another adult child? Someone he’s already experienced all those firsts with. I won’t be first to bring a lover home, or get a first wage packet. Or make him a grandfather. Or a father of the bride. I won’t see the joy on his face as we experience these things for the first time, together.’

  Julia waited until they were in the house before she answered. ‘I never thought about it. Dad was always there, so it was normal and I never considered people who didn’t have that. I need to get changed.’

  Katie followed her upstairs, but remained outside her room as she stripped off. ‘So, is he the best dad in the world?’

  ‘I guess. I bought him a “Best Dad in the World” T-shirt last year, but how silly is that? I mean, those are made in bunches. Hundreds of dads have them. Can they all be the best?’