The Housewarming: A completely unputdownable psychological thriller with a shocking twist

by S. E. Lynes

  The Housewarming

  A completely unputdownable psychological thriller with a shocking twist

  S.E. Lynes

  Books by S.E. Lynes

  The Housewarming

  Can You See Her?

  The Lies We Hide

  The Women

  Valentina

  The Proposal

  The Pact

  Mother

  Available in audio

  Can You See Her? (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Lies We Hide (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Women (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Proposal (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Pact (Available in the UK and the US)

  Mother (Available in the UK and the US)

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Mother

  Hear More from S.E. Lynes

  Books by S.E. Lynes

  A Letter from S.E. Lynes

  Can You See Her?

  The Lies We Hide

  The Women

  Valentina

  The Proposal

  The Pact

  Acknowledgements

  For Jackie West, with decades of love.

  One

  Ava

  When I think about that morning, it is beat by beat, like a heart – my own heart, my daughter’s, at the time so enmeshed it seemed she was part of me: my body, my tissue, my bones. She is part of me. She will always be part of me.

  When I think about that morning, I watch myself, over and over, as if from above. I watch myself like you watch your children in a school play or a sports match, silently willing them to succeed, to shine, to not get hurt. I watch myself bleeding on the sidelines of slowly unfolding disaster, alive with the pain I know is coming but she, the me of that moment, does not.

  I do this every minute of every hour of every day. And I have done this for almost a year.

  I watch myself: there I am, making my way down the stairs with an armful of laundry. I can’t see over the top. I take it slowly, both feet on one step before I lower myself to the next. Another step down, another. I am always so careful these days. I used to be carefree, but now I see danger everywhere: an electric socket is a hazard, a glass left too near the edge of a tabletop risky, a staircase perilous.

  Another step. I call her name. Abi.

  ‘Mummy’s coming,’ I say.

  I say, ‘Mummy’s just going to pop a wash on and then we’ll go and feed the ducks.’

  I say, ‘You’ve been such a good girl, waiting nicely like that.’

  I’ve always chatted away to her – from the moment she was born. At two, she loves the sound of me prattling on.

  Loves. Loved.

  ‘Mummy,’ she would say. She would hold my face in her tiny hands.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My love you.’

  ‘I love you too, little monkey.’

  I would push the end of her nose, make a honking sound. She would throw back her head, helpless with giggles.

  ‘Again,’ she would say. ‘Again, Mummy.’

  Never again. Or maybe, maybe one day… She might still be out there, after all. There’s a chance, isn’t there? The tiniest chance? In faces of other little girls I search for her every day, but even now, her features fade from me, her smell, her warmth, the sharp arc of her paper-thin nails on my cheeks, the weight of her on my hip, the strange swing of us both when I leant forward to stir the spaghetti sauce, the anticipation on her face, waiting while I blew on the end of the spoon, her little body fraught with anticipation, knowing that in seconds she would be allowed to taste the sauce, to tell me if it was good.

  That morning.

  I watch myself: face full of dirty linen. I can’t see my own feet.

  ‘Abi?’ I say, as yet no presentiment of disaster. ‘What’s the matter? Aren’t you speaking, missy?’

  The curved bar of her pushchair. The mesh back. Her head is not there. Her soft curling ringlets, thickening now from baby to child hair, are not there.

  She is not there.

  Ava, don’t be a lunatic, she’s leaning forward.

  No, she isn’t. She’s not there. She’s not in the buggy.

  Abi is not there.

  Second by second, beat by beat. A clock. The metronome that sits on my piano top, keeping time. The washing drops from my arms. I stumble, fall down the last few steps.

  ‘Abi?’ I call out, righting myself, rubbing at the pain in my hands. ‘Abi?’

  Another second. The prickling rise of the hairs on my arms.

  ‘Abi? Love?’

  I can see the house opposite.

  I can see the house opposite.

  The house opposite—

  The front door is open. Oh God, I have left the front door open.

  ‘Oh my God. Abi!’

  I am on the street, scanning right, left, right again. I am calling her name, my ribcage tightening around my lungs. ‘Abi? Abi? Abi!’

  My heart fattens in my chest. I left Abi in the hallway and I popped upstairs.

  ‘Wait there, darling,’ I said. ‘Won’t be a tick.’

  I did not, can’t have, closed the front door. Abi was fastened into her buggy. She doesn’t know how to undo the clasp. She didn’t know. Yesterday she didn’t know how to undo the clasp. She wasn’t making any noise so I… I…

  A few paces. She is nowhere on the pavement, in either direction. I have no idea which way to head. One way precludes the other, and what if she’s still inside…

  I dash back into the house, hearing the watery tremble of her name as it falls from my mouth. The house is held in an electric stasis. I make myself stand completely still. My ears prick. Eyes wide. The house sounds empty. It looks empty. It feels empty.

  ‘Abi?’ I call up the stairs. ‘Abi, love? Are you in the house? Where are you? Where are you, darling?’ I fight to keep the hysteria out of my voice but I, I can hear it.

  I stride into the kitchen. The patio doors are closed. The air presses in.

  ‘Abi?’

  Silence.

  I run back into the hall, open the little door under the stairs to the downstairs loo. She isn’t there.

  ‘Abi?’

  Silence.

 
; Into the living room. The piano, the metronome. The sofas, the TV, the fireplace. The coffee table.

  ‘Abi? Are you in here?’ I sweep back the curtain. ‘Abi, love?’

  The hard push of the window ledge against the palms of my hands. My own shuddering breath.

  Silence.

  I am outside again. Rain dots lead grey on the stone front path. Our house has a small patch of lawn, a rosemary hedge. There is nowhere she could hide there. She is not in front of the house. She is not on the pavement. She isn’t anywhere on our side of the road, as far as I can see. Across the street, the houses are closed, impassive. Next door, on both sides, shut up and still. There is no one, no one about. Not one person.

  ‘Abi? Abi? Aaabiii!’

  I look left to the near end of the street, right to the far end. Which way? I have to go somewhere. I have to move. I jog halfway down towards the far end, towards the busier of the two larger connecting roads.

  ‘Abi? Abi?’

  I’m running back, back towards our house, aware of seconds passing, accumulating, becoming minutes. Where would she go? How long was I upstairs? I only meant to grab the laundry and come down. Abi was quiet, she was quiet so I stripped the beds – thought I may as well while she was… when I left her, she was in her buggy talking to Mr Sloth, the plush Jellycat toy that Neil and Bella gave her when she was born. She was quiet so I emptied the washing basket. You do that, every parent does – you do stuff like that while you can when you have a little one. When they’re quiet. When they’re not asking you for attention or food or water or…

  The street is a faceless row of white arrows, roofs pointing to the sky. My heart is a blockage in my throat. I run back towards the far end, ducking my head to see under side gates, craning my neck around hedges, looking back every few seconds, back towards the house. She is not there. But she might still be in the house, behind a curtain, giggling inside a wardrobe. She might come out at any moment. If she can’t hear me, she will panic. She will not know where I am.

  Second by second, beat by beat… the quickening rhythm of rising panic. There’s no need to panic. She’ll be somewhere.

  ‘Abi? Abi, lovey? Abi, where are you?’

  My mouth dries.

  Gone half past eight. When did I go upstairs? When did she leave the house? Has she left the house?

  She wasn’t making a fuss. She was contented. She was quiet. If she’d wanted me, she would have called out.

  ‘Mummy!’ she would have called. ‘Mummy! My waiting!’

  But she didn’t. She was quiet. I was only on Facebook for a few minutes. I needed the loo, so I did a quick wee – you do, when your little one is quiet, everyone does. I sat on the loo and scrolled through Facebook, but not for long, not for that long. I only commented on a couple of threads. I only stripped the beds, emptied the washing basket. Every mum does a few quick jobs when their baby is settled and quiet, in front of the TV or in the playpen with a few toys or in the high chair with a rusk to suck on. Abi was in the hallway. She was clipped into her buggy. She had Mr Sloth to talk to. She’d had enough to eat. She was comfortable. She was fastened in. She did not know how to undo the clasp. Yesterday, she did not know.

  Second by second. Beat by beat.

  How unbearable it is to watch myself from today, caught in this quickening rhythm, to watch my growing despair, over and over, like an ink-black blossoming rose caught on a time-lapse film: replayed, replayed, replayed. Myself, that woman in chaos; myself, not thinking straight. But I do watch. I watch her all the time. Sometimes I admit to that moment on the toilet seat, scrolling through social media, sometimes I don’t. Today I do. Today I admit that I sat there and thought: oh good, she’s quiet. I’ll just sit here a second. My eyes were sore. Abi wasn’t a great sleeper and she could be difficult, headstrong, argumentative, even with her limited vocabulary. Tiredness weighed in my bones and I thought, she’s quiet, I’ll just sit here. I’ll sit here until she starts making a fuss. I’ll take this break. I need this break.

  Today I can look that in the eye.

  But not always. Not always.

  A loop. A beat. A building, building dread. I watch myself. There I am, half running a little further down our street now, head turning left, right, looking behind, in front, no clue, no clue at all which way to go for the best, mindful of the fact that my front door is open, that if Abi is hiding in the house she is now alone in there, she can now escape, and if she does, she might wander into the road looking for me. She’s two. She doesn’t know how to cross a road safely.

  The thought of calling the police comes to me, of course it does. But no, I think. No. Be logical. It’s probably only a few minutes since she actually left the house. She’s round here somewhere. She escaped from the church hall toddler group once; I nearly lost my mind. Twenty minutes she was missing. Twenty. I felt every second. She’d walked all the way to Carluccio’s at the far end of the high street before someone stopped her and asked where her mummy was. Children don’t just disappear. They wander off, distracted, oblivious to the annihilating terror they cause. You see them sometimes: blank-faced toddlers bobbing placidly in the tight wrap of their mothers’ arms, their mothers’ faces still etched with the slow-fading lines of marrow-melting dread.

  Logic nudges in. She might have toddled along to see Uncle NeeNee and Auntie Bel. She knows not to but she’s a little tyke. In the best way. The best, best way. And my God, for such a tot, she can move fast when she wants to.

  I run towards Neil and Bella’s house.

  ‘Abi?’ I peer under their side gate. ‘Abi! Are you there?’

  Nothing. No little feet. She’s wearing her red lace-up ankle boots. Kickers, ridiculously expensive for a fast-growing girl, but another gift from Neil and Bella. She loves those boots. But there’s no sign of them. No sign of her little cream woolly bobble hat, her pale-blue Puffa coat.

  I knock on Neil and Bella’s door, ring the doorbell. Neil’s van is on the street but there’s no one home, of course there isn’t. They’ll both have left for work.

  A silver Prius drifts past. I try not to wail in despair at how silent it is, how silent electric cars are. She’d never hear it. She wouldn’t turn around until it was too late. The Prius turns left into the busy road. Cars are on the move. A few more minutes and the traffic will be heavier – local commuters, the school run. About a third of the cars have gone already. Many of them are big, too big – great suburban safari trucks designed to keep precious children safe inside. But what of the children on the outside? What of unthinking little ones dawdling into the road?

  My breath quickens. I run back. The new neighbours will be long gone, their progeny spirited away – one to nursery, one to some private school elsewhere. At least that’s what Matt and I have assumed. They only moved in a month or two ago. Their younger daughter looks to be about Abi’s age. The older one, I’ve no idea – don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl.

  Adrenaline sends bitter saliva to my mouth. I cross over. I am on the pavement directly opposite our house now. That’s a risk. If Abi is still inside, if she wanders out now, she might see me, she might see me and run across the road – Mummy! One of those safari trucks might come speeding round the corner. One of those silent electric cars. A motorbike. She wouldn’t see it until it was too late. I run as far as I dare down this side of the street, calling her name.

  ‘Abi! Abi?’

  Hedges, front patios, side gates. No sign. Nothing. Where is everyone? Gone to work. The sweet spot between city commuters and the school run. Nausea churns in my gut, rises in my throat. I cross back to our side of the street, head towards home. I’m going round in circles. I’m wasting precious time. Seconds are becoming minutes, are already minutes, minutes are becoming… I think I need to call the police.

  My hairline is wet with sweat, my armpits, my back. Abi will be somewhere – that’s what’s happened here. She’s a wanderer. That’s why I always clip her into the buggy. I thought I’d closed the front door.
I’m sure I did. But I’m so tired; my brain is fog, more so these last couple of weeks. It must have banged against the catch. It does that sometimes. But I am careful. I am very careful. Even when she walks, I make her hold on to the buggy with one hand. Abi can walk all the way along Thameside Lane, all the way over the footbridge to Ham and all the way back, jabbering away, little legs going nineteen to the dozen. Cute little knees my mother has already claimed for our side of the family. Strong knees, my mum says. The Woods are excellent walkers. Can walk for days, like camels. Abi loves to walk. But she wouldn’t go to the ducks on her own; there’s no way she would…

  ‘Abi?’ I shout, hands a loudhailer around my mouth, turning a slow circle. ‘A-a-abi-i-i-i!’

  I picture the local geography in my mind’s eye. Float above it. The riverside roads, parallels connected by the main artery that links my small town to the larger commercial centre of Kingston upon Thames, and the quieter Thameside Lane, a lesser road that passes the tennis courts on the way to the river, to Teddington Lock. That’s the way we always walk, to the shallow slope between the chandlery and the path up to the footbridge, where the river laps and climbs when the tide is high, where ducks gather in the hope of titbits. It takes five minutes to get there, ten at most. Sometimes we head over the bridge to Ham, to the little park there, sometimes calling at the German bakery for apple cake, a big treat.