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

by Jake Cross

  The code was the same, so in they went without trouble. The going was bumpy because tyre tracks made in rain-softened mud had frozen hard over the last few days. Two years ago, the route had been lit with patterned tinplate lanterns hanging in the trees, but today those were gone, and cat’s eyes ran down the centre of the track. It was like following a trail of stars in space. They wound to the right, then straight, then left, ever downward. Three hundred metres in, the track widened into a clearing. On the left was a wooden house, with a wooden sign calling it ECLIPSE and an ornate streetlamp by each front corner. Very quaint, and a little spooky at night, like something that might be on a Christmas card if there was snow. The track continued ahead, beyond a sign with an arrow and two names: SAVANNAH and WOODERLAND. Chris remembered that the original sign had listed four cottages. Another change was a large boulder blocking progress.

  ‘What’s this?’ Rose said. ‘Is the cottage out of bounds?’

  ‘Maybe he moves it when people come. It’ll be fine.’

  ‘I don’t see a bulldozer.’

  An old man came out of the house, already shaking his head. Chris got out to talk to him. A minute later he was back. ‘Place is rented from Tuesday, so we can have it until early that morning,’ he said. ‘Big Ray died.’

  ‘Who’s Big Ray?’ Julia asked.

  Rose answered. ‘Big Ray is Mr Jernigan’s boyfriend. Was. That’s a shame.’

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Julia pointed.

  Mr Jernigan squatted beside the boulder and dug his fingers under one end. It was twice his size.

  ‘He’s had spinach today,’ Chris said.

  Amazingly, the old guy stood up and one end of the boulder rose with him. A hundred times his weight, but he flipped it over and it rolled into the undergrowth. Rose and Julia started howling with humorous disbelief, of the sort you might do if you saw a monkey riding a bike. It was obvious from the way it didn’t crush plants that the boulder was a foam prop. Obvious to everyone, surely.

  ‘I want spinach, Mum,’ Julia said.

  Wooderland was so-called because it was in the woodland and was a wonderland retreat, according to its entry in Treat Retreats magazine. It was a two-storey wooden cottage hugged by tall trees about a hundred metres down a track jutting off the main route, a mile from Mr Jernigan’s house and half a mile past Savannah. The two names missing from the sign, Moonlight and Ocean, belonged to houses now gone. Both on the left side of the main track, their dead pathways were blocked by corrugated iron fences. Chris had read online that Mr Jernigan had sold two of his properties to an amusement park that was planning to build rides nearby.

  A few hundred metres in, they passed Moonlight on the left, whose track was barred in preparation for demolition of the cottage. They drove on into the black void. The next offshoot track came on the right: Savannah. Unbarred, and tonight home to a family of eight called the Sandersons, according to Mr Jernigan.

  Deep in the trees they caught the flicker of light from the cottage.

  Half a minute later, Ocean’s no-go track slipped by on the left. For a short period after that the trees on the left thinned and allowed glimpses of a high wooden fence deep inside. Next up, on the right, the sign for Wooderland.

  Mr Jernigan seemed to have misjudged how much land to clear for Wooderland because the trees were so close their branches touched the walls and roof. Or maybe nature had clawed some space back. Or maybe the builders had simply dropped the building into the woods using a crane.

  They parked and Chris got their bags. Julia still looked glum. Just inside the front door, above a mirror, was a key rack and an old laminated A4 sheet with the house’s address and ‘House Rules’. Number one: ‘All damages must be paid for.’ Chris tried to hang the keys on one of the hooks and the whole rack came right off the wall, nails with it. Everything clattered to the floor.

  ‘No wonder he put that rule first,’ Julia said.

  Chris picked up the keys and the rack. ‘Like playing Buckaroo,’ he said as he slammed the rack’s nails back into their holes in the wall and then carefully hung the keys.

  ‘You two, living room now, please,’ Rose said.

  It was time, he knew.

  Time for questions to be answered.

  Forty-Three

  They sat Julia down on the dusty sofa. Chris stood facing her. Having already got the story in the car, Rose stepped back. The floor was all his. He didn’t want time to think, to back out, so launched straight into it. Julia listened with growing horror as he told of a man called Dominic Everton, a lowlife scumbag who was on the run for a gruesome murder. His victim had died. And his victim was Katie’s dad, her first one. And the cops had found Katie’s abandoned bike and suspected foul play.

  Rose, unimpressed with Chris’s jerky telling, knelt before her only daughter and grabbed her hands. ‘The police came to see your father about this. They have evidence – and your father says they wouldn’t tell him what – that this man, this Dominic Everton, might be after us. After your father. The police don’t know where he is, but they have proof that he knows where we live and might do something. So we’ve had to sort of go on the run, too.’ She flicked a glance round at Chris as she added, ‘Also like criminals.’

  ‘Wait a minute.’ Julia was shaking her head. ‘You said Katie was planning to meet us here. You said you talked on the phone. Was that a lie? Is Katie in some kind of danger from this man?’

  Rose stepped forward. ‘We don’t know where Katie is,’ she said, careful not to use the word missing. ‘Yes, the police are considering that Katie might be in danger. There’s a chance he could have hurt her. So we came here because your father didn’t want to take the risk with us. But we might be overreacting. Katie did say she had errands today and maybe she crashed her bike and couldn’t ride it. It’s a little strange that she’d leave her mobile behind, but that’s not proof she’s hurt. She might be fine. The police have no evidence she’s been hurt. And this man, this Everton, he can’t stay on the run for ever. Everyone knows his face. He’ll be captured soon. Meanwhile, we just wait here and see if Katie calls us.’

  ‘But how did Everton find out about you and Katie, Dad? We only found out the truth today.’

  Rose said, ‘Eve, her mother, has known a long time. Everton is from the same city, so it’s possible that he heard a rumour somehow.’

  Julia said, ‘Does Katie owe this man money or something? Did she do something to him? Why does he want to hurt her? And us, just to get Katie?’

  ‘The police didn’t say,’ Rose answered. ‘According to your father.’

  Julia got up and went to the window, to stare out at the darkness. But the room light showed her only her own reflection. ‘Wow. I remember the story you told me about when you two met, Mum. How my granddad interrogated Dad and phoned the police to find out about him. See if he had a criminal record, or any other scorpions in the closet. And Dad, you told me about how you worried that Mum’s ex-boyfriend might be a wild man and still have a thing for her. Baggage, that’s what people call it. Well, Katie, she’s certainly come into this family with some baggage. A weirdo out to hurt her. That’s the baggage she brought when she moved into our lives.’

  ‘Julia, I’m so sorry about this, truly. But it’s important we try not to think about this right now. We do the best we can to try to pretend this is actually a holiday. It won’t be easy. Can you do that, Julia? Until the winds change.’

  Julia nodded. The glass reflected the face of a girl twisted by tension and she yanked the curtains to shut her away. ‘Are the police protecting us? Why aren’t they here?’

  Rose stepped up and put her hands on Julia’s shoulders from behind. ‘You father had the bright idea of not telling the police we were run—’

  ‘I said I was going to call them tonight,’ Chris cut in.

  ‘Be quiet, Chris. Julia, they know all about Everton and his plans, and they’re going to watch the house in case he shows up there. All will be fine. And Katie, I’m sure s
he’ll be fine when she calls us. It’s just awkward we can’t call her. But there’s one more thing. Chris?’

  She’d told him he had to do this part. Take Julia’s phone and block all incoming calls from any numbers not listed in their contacts, just for tonight. Chris and Rose had already amended their mobiles. As expected, Julia clearly didn’t like the idea. ‘It probably won’t happen, but it’s just in case this Everton criminal gets our numbers. We don’t want him calling us. If he got our numbers somehow.’

  ‘You mean off Katie. If he hurt Katie and got our phone numbers.’

  ‘That hasn’t happened,’ Chris said. ‘I’m sorry I lied about Katie having a new mobile, about saying I talked to her. But when she does get hold of a new one, she’ll call us—’

  ‘How will she call us if unrecognised numbers are blocked?’

  Both women turned to look at him. His mind raced. ‘Facebook. When she can’t call us, she’ll contact us through social media, and then we can bring her here. We just need patience for that. And for a few days until Everton is captured. I’ll be telling the police everything I know when I call them later.’

  Julia shrugged her mother’s hands away and pulled out her phone. ‘Fine, I’ll do it. I’ll block calls. Whatever. But what are you leaving out? There’s something. You haven’t told me everything.’

  ‘That’s everything your father told me,’ Rose said, her piercing stare locked on Chris. A careful line that said the unsaid.

  The vibe soon mellowed. After all, they were safe here in this woodland retreat, by definition a place designed to excise worry. Julia got help in that department from Simone, who texted to say she was to be freed from the hospital tomorrow; she would stay with her parents in Sheffield for the next week and hoped Julia could drop by for a chat.

  They unpacked and then tried to settle into their stopgap home. But Julia was restless because her father had neglected to pack any of her underwear or toiletries, and her complaints were quickly followed by Rose’s discovery that the cupboards were empty of food. A shopping trip meant leaving the house, going out of the light and into those dark woods. But they quickly got over this irrational fear. If the man called Everton hadn’t attacked their home yet, he was unlikely to have tracked them here. And if he had, he wouldn’t just lurk behind a tree and wait for someone to step out. Besides, Julia needed some new personal items.

  Rose remembered a small supermarket they’d passed a mile away and they hopped into the car. Irrational fear, yes, but still they watched the woods carefully and ran between the house and the car. Mr Jernigan was on the porch of Eclipse when they arrived at the foam boulder, back in place to deter the unwanted. As Chris was sliding it aside, Rose wound down her window and asked the old chap what time the supermarket shut.

  ‘Food yer after? Surprised ye didn’t bring any. It’s only a mile and a bit, but you can raid the guest house if ya like.’

  ‘He won’t have what I need,’ Julia moaned.

  ‘I’ll share,’ her mother replied. She called to Mr Jernigan. ‘That would be so kind of you. Where’s the guesthouse?’

  He led them down a pitted concrete path between a chain-link fence and the side of his house. His backyard was a long oval cut into the trees. The chain-link fence ran off in a jerky line deep into the woods, but he’d erected a small one along the treeline. The uneven, grassy ground rippled like a green sea. The only real garden feature was a rockery. On one side was a kids’ playground, the equipment in good nick but clearly made of old materials.

  Twenty years ago, when they bought the land, Mr Jernigan and Big Ray had wanted to adopt a son. The playground had been part of their sales pitch for why this pair of middle-aged men would make good parents. Never happened. Two years ago, when the Redfern family was here last, Mr Jernigan and Big Ray still held the dream, and they’d kept that playground equipment painted and oiled and wiped just in case. Earlier, Mr Jernigan had told Chris that bowel ‘hammer-on’ cancer had taken Big Ray away, but a fear of upsetting Mr Jernigan had prevented him from asking how the old chap was faring alone. Now, he saw another chance to inspire answers without appearing insincere.

  ‘You’ve kept the playground.’

  ‘Just in case I get guests wi’ kids,’ was the reply. Somewhat sharp. But not biting. More like a practised answer. But of the invented sort. Chris suspected that the playground was a reminder of Big Ray, since they’d built it together. Maybe that explained the upkeep: letting it slide would be akin to losing a grip on his dead lover, of letting pieces of his memory of the man peel away as paintwork peeled away.

  ‘There’s the guesthouse, as you can see.’

  It was nestled in the corner of the oval. A two-storey wooden erection with a sloping roof. He led the way. ‘Looks good from ’ere, eh? Like Big Ray.’

  Inside, the guesthouse was bare walls, no carpets, all wood that was beginning to warp. Wall cupboards had no doors, nor the doorframes. No plug sockets, no skirting boards. An incomplete shell left to rot. The living room had a hole in the wall for a missing fireplace, and an actual fire sometime in the past had painted a big black spot in a corner of the dining room. It struck Chris as the perfect setting for a haunted house movie, highlighted by the fact that in each room was hung one of the old tinplate lanterns that had once lit the road into the property. Mr Jernigan ignited them with a kitchen gas lighter, after filling each from a bottle of Bartoline lamp oil as they moved through the old wreck.

  ‘Inside, though, a diff story, eh?’ Mr Jernigan said. ‘Like Big Ray.’

  It wasn’t all rotten. The broken kitchen had a row of three modern freezers plugged into a generator. And there was one piece of carpeting here, which was a blue rug. The Artexed ceiling was cracked and bulged downwards as if under a great weight of water.

  ‘Big Ray reckoned the guy who built this place hid an antique eighteenth-century sword under one of the floors. Well, it wasn’t antique back then.’ Mr Jernigan raised one end of the blue rug. It didn’t curve or bend, but lifted like a door. Solid. ‘Wooden inserts. Got matching rugs in all three houses. Ray’s idea. They hide the cellar doors and they’re sturdy. Ray was so big he worried he’d crash right on through if he stepped on the cellar door in the night. You need to wash your rug, take the inserts out first, eh? Look in the freezers, then, and take what you want.’

  They loaded the car and thanked the old guy, but he insisted on showing them the top floor of the guesthouse before they left. No one doubted he missed company. Upstairs, a bathroom and two bedrooms. The main bedroom had a metal baby’s crib built right into the wall and the back bedroom, above the kitchen, had a mammoth pull-down wall bed. Contrary to the kitchen ceiling, the floor was flat, but it was missing floorboards and those that remained were badly warped and broken, and in a neat, foot-long line, eight feet from the raised wall bed, some were snapped and blistered. The ceiling was covered in damp. Here, though, was the only window frame that actually had a window with glass, not a sheet of opaque Perspex jammed into the hole. The last room to see, so Mr Jernigan lit the lantern and put the oil bottle and lighter on the windowsill.

  They went to the window, stepping carefully, every footstep seeming to sink a shrieking floorboard two inches. Mr Jernigan proudly pointed out Big Ray’s old house, way across the fields and woods where there was a scattering of building shapes and pinprick lights. There was no way to determine which building he was pointing at, but Chris and Rose both nodded.

  ‘How does this open?’ Julia said from behind.

  They turned. ‘Don’t touch that!’ Mr Jernigan suddenly yelled. She had her hands on the king-size wall bed, running them about, looking for a way to open it. She started to step back and he grabbed her to yank her out of range.

  ‘No dampers, an’ an iron frame. Heavy as heck, girl. Push-latch, but it’s flimsy. Walk into this hard enough and it’ll free fall and crush ya like something out of an ol’ silent comedy fillum. Big Ray used to use it for weight training. He dropped it once from about waist-high
, and look where it smashed the floorboards.’

  That explained the line of damage: right where the bed’s legs would have repeatedly hammered the wood as Big Ray exercised. Mr Jernigan walked carefully but fast across the smashed wood and put a hand on the bed. He ushered Julia away and shook the frame to make sure the bed was locked in place.

  ‘Has it got a mattress?’ she asked.

  ‘It has, yay, but we keep away from this. Big Ray needed my help to slot it back usually. Now let me show you something.’

  Back at the window, Mr Jernigan pointed into the backyard, at a barbecue pit. ‘Having a dear acquaintance over tonight with her grandkids. Sausages an’ stuff. Ya welcome to join us. About seven? Gives ya an hour to get the grub into ya freezer and get changed. If you want, that is.’

  He looked like he’d tried hard not to beg – besides, they had nothing planned. After a nod from Chris, Rose said they’d be happy to attend.

  Julia barely heard. She was still looking at the wall bed.

  Rose and Julia got a chance to dress up, but Chris wore a tracksuit because Mr Jernigan wanted him to chop wood for the barbecue. Except the old guy’s dear acquaintance brought kindling, so there he was looking like a car thief who’d crashed a grand ball. Even Mr Jernigan had put on a suit in order to impress.

  His new lover, Sally, was a woman in her fifties with a lithe body from years of running, and her grandkids had inherited her action gene. Julia got run ragged playing tag with the small dynamos. Rose and Sally drank wine and chatted about the art of writing, because Sally had self-published two detective fiction e-books on Amazon. Chris and Mr Jernigan supped his sugar-loaded homebrew and discussed the benefits of country living. Chris totally agreed that the peace and quiet out here outweighed any single yield from urban existence, but tonight the solitude only reminded him how far they were from help… if someone got hurt.