The Child Across the Street: An unputdownable and absolutely gripping psychological thriller

by Kerry Wilkinson

Whoever left Ethan in that ditch is someone from around here.

  Jo yawns and it quickly turns into a second and third before she settles again. ‘He was on his way back from Petey’s house,’ she says.

  ‘Is Petey one of Ethan’s friends?’

  A nod. ‘He was on his bike. He probably comes down this way three or four times every day. He cycles to school when it’s not the holidays.’

  ‘How old is he?’

  The reply is a snapped: ‘Eight.’

  It takes a moment for me to realise why her tone changed so dramatically. She will have been getting those sideways looks ever since Ethan was found. In our day, an eight-year-old walking or cycling to school, or getting around during the holidays, would be no big deal. Everyone did it. Now, in the days of helicopter parenting and Facebook scare stories, I suspect that’s not the case.

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ I say, though she doesn’t reply.

  I have another sip from my bottle and Jo eyes it before another firework booms. Then, without the hint of a siren, spinning blue lights flare through the trees on the other side of the park. This will probably make the local paper, although I suppose it won’t be the front page. Not now, anyway.

  ‘Mum…?’

  I jump at the sound of a man’s voice. Jo and I turn to see the tall, thin shape of a young man in a large padded coat that’s surely too warm for this weather. He glances momentarily to me, then the bunches of flowers in the ditch, and then focuses back on Jo.

  ‘Owen,’ Jo says, almost to herself.

  ‘I’ll take you home,’ he adds.

  Jo stands, as if ready to move, but then her body goes rigid. Her tone is harsh as she jabs a finger towards him. ‘Where were you earlier?’

  Owen stiffens, too, and he takes half a step back: ‘When?’

  ‘When I needed you. Where were you? Your brother had been rushed to hospital and you weren’t answering your phone.’

  ‘I was with Beth.’

  Jo shakes her head in annoyance. ‘Ethan was on his way back from there.’ She turns to involve me in the conversation. ‘Petey and Beth are brother and sister.’

  Ethan’s journey seems like news to Owen. He shares the same frown as his mother. ‘We were out. Beth wanted to—’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it.’ Jo cuts herself off and then sighs, before throwing up her hands. She takes a step towards her son and then turns back to me. ‘Have you got your phone?’

  I suppose it’s a fair enough assumption that everyone has a phone nowadays. I take mine out and she starts to tell me her number unprompted. She has to say it twice because I wasn’t ready.

  ‘Call me now,’ she says, making it sound like a command. I do and the phone in her hand lights up. She doesn’t answer, though she holds it up. ‘I’ve got your number now,’ she says.

  ‘Good.’

  It feels like the correct sort of reply.

  She takes another step away, Owen at her side, before she turns and holds up the phone again. ‘Imagine if we’d had these in our day. Would’ve saved a lot of hanging around the park, wondering where each other was.’

  She laughs humourlessly as I give a slim smile in return. Then she turns and continues along the street with her son, before disappearing into the night.

  Five

  WEDNESDAY

  There’s a strange moment when I wake up in which I feel like two people. There is the me as I am now, with the neck that aches all too often and the sluggish time it sometimes takes to remember a person’s name. Then there’s the me that used to awaken underneath these same posters. The me of half a lifetime ago.

  I hadn’t necessarily begun the day yesterday with the intention of sleeping here, but I suppose my critical thinking wasn’t that strong. I was always going to visit this house, but it’s not as if the area is blessed with a range of B&Bs or hotels. I certainly hadn’t thought this old bedroom would be more or less as I’d left it. There’s something both comforting and unsettling about it.

  The curtains are pulled shut, with only a dusky murk peeping around the edges. The Garfield duvet cover is on the floor and I move it to the side until I find my bottle buried underneath. I already have the bottle to my lips when I realise it’s empty. My throat is dry and lips probably cracked. I can smell my own breath and it’s nothing good.

  The hallway is similarly dim and I continue past the door to the spare room and Dad’s old room, before pushing into the bathroom, washbag in hand. There are no curtains in here, only rippled glass, and the morning sun blasts inside, making me groan and wince at the same time. Last night, with light from the dim bulb overhead, I’d not realised the extent of how grim this bathroom is. The once-white sink is covered in a browning-greeny crust of something that might be limescale.

  I cup my hands and drink from the tap, before cleaning my teeth and using the toilet. That done, I have to consider whether to brave the shower. The bath is in an even worse state than the sink and I’m not sure I want to know what the coating truly is. There’s no specific shower unit, only a botchy-looking set of tubes connected to the bath taps, with a grimy plastic head that is dangling close to a plughole almost completely clogged with wiry grey hairs.

  It’s nearly too much, but my own sense of needing a wash overcomes that of the bath’s.

  After I’m done, I wrap a rough, patchy towel around myself and head back onto the landing. I pause for a moment outside my father’s bedroom door. There’s so much to do around here, but I feel unable to face much of it quite yet.

  When I get downstairs, the accusatory empty vodka bottle sits on the kitchen counter. Another cheap supermarket knock-off brand. I don’t think Dad bought anything else because price was always more important than taste or quality.

  I’m in the process of burying it at the bottom of the bin when a warbling, tinny version of ‘Greensleeves’ starts to play. It takes me a moment to realise what’s happening. The doorbell on my old flat was a satisfying and traditional ding-dong. This is more of an all-out assault on the ears.

  At the front door is someone else who is easy to recognise. Her hair is shorter and greyer, while the wrinkles that were always there have grown into one another, leaving her eyes sunken into her pallid, grey skin.

  ‘Hello, love,’ she says, unsurprised at seeing me for the first time in twenty years.

  ‘It’s been a while, Helena,’ I reply.

  ‘It sure has.’

  She smiles, but it doesn’t seem to come easily to her. Like a right-hander trying to write with their left. Helena lived next door for the entire time I was growing up. For all I know, she’s lived in the house her whole life. She has to be in her seventies now and stands with a slight stoop.

  ‘I wanted to call when I heard about your dad, but I didn’t know your number.’

  ‘I heard from the solicitor.’

  Helena purses her lips. ‘Oh… that’s no way for someone to hear about…’ She tails off and I offer a slim smile to tell her it’s fine. In the end, except for a hospital or the police, it was the most likely way I’d hear about my father’s death.

  Helena shifts her weight, angling towards her own house before looking back to me.

  ‘Are you back for good?’

  I start to reply but stop myself. She ends up apologising.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘I don’t know how long I’m here for.’

  ‘Is it yours now?’

  I don’t get what she means straight away and she must see my confusion because she nods towards the house.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘That’s why the solicitor contacted me.’

  Helena bites her lip and I suddenly realise we’re not having the conversation I thought we were.

  ‘You’re not selling, are you…?’

  I glance backwards, as if to confirm the house is actually there.

  ‘Your dad was very quiet,’ she adds. ‘Very security-conscious. Always keeping an eye out. You don’t know who might move in…’ She lets that hang for a mome
nt.

  ‘Like who?’ I ask, innocently enough.

  It could be that she doesn’t want to live next door to a family that might cause problems, but it doesn’t feel like that.

  ‘You know…’ she replies, lowering her voice, even though there’s nobody to overhear us.

  ‘I don’t,’ I say.

  Helena glances around and then leans in closely, speaking even more quietly. ‘Foreigners…’

  She angles away a little and then checks behind again. There’s still nobody else on the street, though I’m not that surprised she said it out loud. People do in places like this. My dad used to talk about ‘brown people’ plenty enough, although he’d often use far more offensive terms. It’s almost refreshing that people are honest with their reasons, rather than spewing a long list of nonsense that anyone with half a brain knows is being used to cover the truth.

  Almost refreshing.

  ‘I’ve not decided what I’m doing yet,’ I reply. ‘I only arrived back yesterday.’

  Helena nods shortly, unconvinced. I wonder if she might return to her house, but she isn’t done yet.

  ‘Did you hear about that poor boy?’ she says, indicating around the corner, towards the park. ‘Still, I see them all the time on their bikes, weaving in and out. Was always going to happen one of these days, wasn’t it? Surprised it didn’t happen before.’

  I don’t reply because I don’t want to get into this with an old woman who, presumably, has nothing better to do. She’s one step away from telling me how, in her day, she walked to school and back uphill in eight-foot snow. All that and she never complained about it. That is except for bringing it up literally every day since. I suspect Helena and my father had far more in common than they would ever admit to one another.

  Thankfully, I’m saved by the sound of crunching gravel as a black car reverses onto Helena’s drive. We both watch as a man gets out of the driver’s seat and squints across towards us – or, more specifically, me.

  He scratches his head and then comes closer. He’s brawny across his top half, like a wheelie bin on legs. He’s bald at the front, with an abandoned island of tufty hair somewhere in the middle.

  There’s no fence to separate the two properties, so he steps from the gravel of Helena’s drive across onto the weed-infested paving slabs on this side.

  ‘Abi…?’ he says, unsure of himself.

  ‘Hi, Chris,’ I reply.

  It’s hard to read his face. His arms are crossed and there’s a degree of bemusement, even though he has the same suppressed fart of a smile as his mother.

  He keeps moving until he’s stood next to his mum. ‘I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,’ he adds, turning between me and Helena. There’s a moment in which I think he’s going to lean in and try to hug me, but, instead, he puts an arm around his mum’s shoulders, squeezes her, and then steps away. In the gap between them, I see there’s another woman and at least two children in his car. The sun’s glare makes it hard to know for sure, or to make out anything other than general shapes.

  Perhaps because she noticed me looking, the car door opens and a woman emerges. She takes a tentative step before striding across to join us. Behind her, two girls are pressed against the back window of the car.

  ‘This is Kirsty,’ Chris says abruptly, as the woman joins us. ‘She was in the year below us at school.’

  ‘I’m his wife,’ Kirsty adds, with all the grace of hammering in a nail.

  There’s an awkward gap and then Chris quickly motions between us. ‘This is Abi,’ he says.

  I give a meek ‘hi’ but otherwise say nothing. I want to get inside and away from this part of my past.

  Kirsty is looking at me in the same way someone on the street looks at the dog mess they just stepped in. She seemingly knows that Chris and I went out with one another at school. He was my first boyfriend during a time when my hormone-ravaged self thought that meant we’d be together forever.

  ‘Sorry to hear about your old man,’ Chris says.

  ‘Thanks…’

  ‘Is there a funeral, or, um…?’

  ‘That’s what I’m back for.’

  ‘Right.’

  The four of us stand awkwardly until there’s a bump from the car. The girls scramble back into their seats as Chris, Kirsty and Helena turn to see the source of the sound.

  ‘We’ve got to get off,’ Kirsty says. She reaches into her bag and removes an envelope that she passes to Helena. ‘We only came round to drop that off.’

  Helena checks the back of the envelope but doesn’t open it. She looks up to her son, grabbing his gaze before he can leave.

  ‘Where were you yesterday evening?’ she asks. ‘I thought you were coming over for tea with the girls, then you weren’t answering your phone.’

  Chris glances sideways towards his wife, but she’s already taken a step towards the car. ‘Are you sure we said Tuesday?’ he replies.

  ‘I thought so.’

  ‘Maybe we can do something later? I’ll text you.’

  ‘You know I don’t like those things.’

  Chris spins and starts to trail Kirsty back to the car. ‘I have to go, Mum.’ He scans back to me and risks a ‘Nice seeing you’ before hurrying into the driver’s seat. It’s only when the exhaust flares that I realise how battered the car is. There’s a long scratch across the back door, one of the hubcaps is missing and there’s a grey scuff on the front wing bumper.

  Helena has already taken a step back towards her house when my phone starts to ring with an unknown number. I would usually ignore these but press to answer, hoping it will finally give me an excuse to get away from my neighbour.

  ‘Hello?’ I say.

  ‘Is that Abi?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘It’s Tina from the police. From yesterday. I was wondering if we could have a word…?’

  Six

  Sergeant Davidson is the type of police officer a child might draw. He’s tall, broad-chested, and stands rigidly on his heels. It’s as if he’s desperately holding off on a trip to the toilet. Even when he’s sitting, it’s as though he’s not quite figured out how a chair works. He’s kept his straight back but is perched on the front of the seat, not using the rest. It’s all a bit odd.

  Tina is at his side but has barely spoken since leading me to one of the police interview rooms. She apologised for the formality, got me a bottle of water and a Twix – which I’ve already eaten – and here we are.

  Davidson nods towards Tina. ‘When Constable Kennedy spoke to you yesterday, you said you thought it was a dark car that you saw in the middle of the road.’

  It’s more a statement than a question, though he looks at me as if expecting an answer.

  ‘I wish I’d paid better attention,’ I say. ‘I heard the squeal and then got to the corner a few seconds afterwards.’

  ‘Can you be any more specific on the colour?’

  ‘It might have been black… maybe grey? I’m not sure. I suppose…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m not sure it was a dark car. It was just a car. I didn’t think anything of it until I got down to the junction.’

  Davidson does a terrible job of suppressing a wince. I know it’s not what he wanted to hear.

  Tina wouldn’t have been able to see his expression from the side, but she must have felt it.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she says. ‘Nobody could have expected to find what you did.’

  She gives me a slim smile and there’s a moment in which I wonder if we know each other somehow. Whether she has an older sister I know.

  Davidson acts as if she hasn’t spoken. ‘What did you see when you got to the junction?’ he asks.

  ‘Nothing at first.’

  ‘Anything on the road?’

  ‘I saw the skid mark later, but that was after you got there. I didn’t notice it at first. It was the bike wheel I saw.’

  ‘Where was that?’

  ‘In the verge. I went over to it – and that
’s when I saw Ethan at the bottom.’

  ‘Do you know Ethan?’

  I open my mouth to reply and then stop, realising how odd it is that I used the name of a boy I didn’t recognise and have never met.

  ‘No…’ I say.

  ‘But you know his mother…?’

  Davidson is staring at me with such intensity that it feels like I’ve done something wrong. The fact I know Ethan’s mum – that I know Jo – is hardly a startling revelation, though I’m surprised they know.

  ‘We were friends at school,’ I say. ‘It was a long time ago.’

  ‘Are you friends now?’

  ‘Yesterday was the first time I’ve been back to Elwood in twenty-odd years. I’d not been in contact with any of my old friends until I saw Jo yesterday.’

  ‘That’s some really bad timing…’

  I’m not sure if Davidson means it as a joke, but it doesn’t sound like one. I suppose he’s right – the timing of my arrival couldn’t have been much worse, given what happened.

  ‘My dad died,’ I say. ‘I’m back to sort out his affairs.’

  Davidson squirms ever so slightly, shifting until he is a little further back in his seat. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he replies, although he doesn’t sound it.

  Tina picks up on the awkwardness. ‘Are you staying in Elwood?’ she asks.

  ‘I was living in London until Monday. I let my lease run out and was at my dad’s house last night. I’m not sure. I haven’t thought that far ahead.’

  She nods and makes a note on the pad in front of her, then adds: ‘We might have to talk to you again.’

  ‘I don’t know if there’s much more I can say.’

  She smiles again, probably trying to be reassuring. ‘You never know. Sometimes things you won’t expect can jog a memory.’

  I nod along, although I’m not convinced. When I think about what I saw, it feels strange to admit that it was only ‘a car’. That the colour and any other features just aren’t in my mind.

  There are a few seconds of silence, which I find myself breaking: ‘Are there cameras anywhere?’