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

by S. E. Lynes

  Had he?

  No idea. Matt knows only that they searched until midnight. Abi’s jacket was found the next morning.

  But Bella told Ava that Neil was out all night, which means he didn’t go home, not then.

  Once the jacket was found, there were no further household searches. The divers went into the Thames, found nothing. Neil and Bella, Ava and himself all gave their statements. Other leads ran to nothing – the BMW, the witness who wasn’t sure, mobile-phone data, CCTV. The investigation was scaled back, put under review. DI Farnham left her direct line: call me if any new information comes to light.

  There is no new information.

  On its own, the tool bag is not information.

  On its own, Jasmine’s recognition of Mr Sloth is not information.

  On its own, Neil’s being out all night is not information.

  Every detail, on its own, is not information.

  But together…

  He calls Ava.

  Thirty-Seven

  Ava

  I am alone, alone with my boy and with something rushing in, something taking shape. I am watching the street wake up, watching front doors open, my neighbours walking in the direction of the station, cars drifting away to local jobs. I am watching them and thinking about Sunday morning, talking to Jen on the street. The garage door opening behind her. Johnnie emerging in his car.

  I am thinking about that beat-by-beat morning, about Matt returning home for his raincoat just before 8 a.m.

  Eight-ish, Jen said she and Johnnie left for work.

  His car wasn’t on the drive.

  But Johnnie keeps his car in the garage.

  If their car was in the garage, it was not visible.

  If their car was not visible, their house would have seemed closed, empty.

  If they left at eight, and if Matt grabbed his coat just before, it’s possible the Lovegoods were still home.

  Which means it’s possible that they were still there when he left the door open.

  If Abi left moments later, carrying Mr Sloth, it’s possible they saw her and that she told them his name.

  Jasmine would have seized upon the name, put it together with Neil in her mind because Neil had a game going with her cuddly toys.

  Neil wasn’t there; he was at home. Which means the Lovegoods, not Neil, were there that morning.

  They must have spoken to her.

  They must have seen her.

  Seen her and said nothing.

  My mobile is ringing. I find it in the kitchen drawer and see what I already know – Matt calling, doubtless all hand-wringing and apologies after the fact. I have no desire to speak to him; I need to process all that I’m now thinking and am frankly appalled that he can’t just leave me alone. But if I don’t answer, he will ring again and again. So I pick up.

  ‘Matt.’

  ‘Ava. Ava, don’t hang up. It’s not… I’m not calling about us.’

  Something stirs within me, something that is not quite premonition.

  ‘It’s about Abi,’ Matt says, his tone wretched. ‘It’s about Neil.’

  Instinctively I wander into the living room to check on Fred. He is sitting in a sling chair and cooing at the archway of plastic toys that dangle over him.

  ‘Go on.’ I am looking out at the street, which is waking up at this time as it did that day, minutes too late.

  ‘I don’t know what to think.’ He sounds fraught.

  ‘What? What do you mean? Have you found out something else?’

  He sighs. ‘It’s probably nothing. But maybe it’s like you said. All the little things, you know?’

  ‘Matt, I can hear you’re upset, but if you’ve called me for a game of charades, I’m afraid I—’

  ‘Stop!’ His breath staggers down the line. ‘Stop… let me…’

  I nod, even though he is not here to see me.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he says, still out of breath. ‘I’ve been thinking about Neil and how he’s always been my adviser in life, you know? What I mean is, I always knew he was shooting from the hip; he never had any ulterior motive. And because of that, his was always good advice. No agenda, you know?’

  ‘What has this got to—’ I interrupt but make myself shut up.

  ‘But that night,’ Matt ploughs on, ‘he told me not to tell you about the door. It was the wrong advice. I’m not blaming him. It was my fault I didn’t tell you. I didn’t have to take his advice, even though I always have. I should have told you. I should have had the strength to ignore him and do the right thing.’

  ‘Matt—’

  ‘No, wait. Let me finish. What I’m trying to say is that it’s the first time he’s given me bad advice. And it’s the first… no, it’s the only time he’s told me to be dishonest. About anything.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He insisted we keep it between us. It was like some sort of pact. But… any pact we’ve had, we’ve had since we were kids. It’s an unspoken thing. And that night, he made us shake on it, Ave. It’s not that he acted suspiciously or weirdly, he just didn’t act like himself, that’s all. So I was wondering if it suited him for me to lie – but I can’t figure out why that would be, and all this on top of Mr Sloth.’ He sighs. ‘And then this morning, I saw he had a new tool bag.’

  ‘What do you mean? What’s a new tool bag got to do with anything?’

  Another heavy sigh. I can see him, see the angle of his head, the sorrowful set of his dark eyes. ‘That morning. When Abi… disappeared. I looked in at the work site – next door’s extension – while he was upstairs. And his tool bag was there and it was black. And it was new. And I remembered just now it was really expensive. Only it was the size of it.’

  ‘The size.’ I feel sick. ‘What do you mean, the size?’

  ‘It was big, you know? Big enough.’

  A sob leaves me. I sit down on the sofa, my hand across my eyes.

  ‘And this morning,’ Matt goes on, ‘he had a red bag. A new red bag. And I don’t even know what it means. If it means anything. I’m being paranoid. His black one is probably in the shed. I’m paranoid. Sorry… Ava? Are you still there?’

  ‘I’m here.’ I’m here and I am trembling.

  ‘I… Look, I’m just going to say this, OK? It’s going to sound really woo-woo, but you know at that party? I can’t explain it, but I felt like she was there. I was leaning against the steel and I felt her pulse. Like it was beating through the house. I mean, I realised it was the clock, and I was drunk, but for those few seconds, it was like I felt her. Her heart. The beat of it.’

  I am aware of myself breathing – regularly, heavily, as if I’m pretending to myself that I’m asleep. But I am not asleep.

  ‘Are we being mad?’ he asks.

  I hear the catch in his voice.

  ‘Maybe,’ I reply, remembering the unbearable sight of Cosima in Johnnie’s arms, how I couldn’t get Abi out of my mind. ‘It was a tough night, hard to shake off. Look, come over tonight and we’ll talk. I’m not saying stay, OK? But I’ve had some thoughts too. My mind’s a mess.’

  ‘OK,’ he says. ‘But, Ava?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mostly what I want to say is that I believe you, all right? I didn’t, and I’m sorry I didn’t, but I do now. I don’t know what it is, but you’re right, it’s something. Something’s off.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  An hour later, I’m about to put Fred in the pram when a text comes in. Bella.

  Can you talk?

  Like oil under a lit match, my body fills with burning dread. I ring her immediately.

  ‘Bella?’

  All I can hear is background noise: a radio, talking, the hum of a hairdryer.

  ‘Bella?’

  The noise fades. I hear the clunk of a door closing.

  ‘Ava?’ She says. ‘Hi, it’s me.’

  ‘I know. Are you at work?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve come into the loo.’

  I wait. A second passes, two. I h
ear a sniff.

  ‘Bella? Are you OK?’

  A sob. I stay silent – it is all I can do to not speak.

  ‘I’m only going to say this once,’ she whispers. ‘And I’ll never say it again, do you hear me?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And I’m not saying it means anything, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And you can’t tell anyone I told you.’

  ‘All right.’

  She sighs. I wait, my breath held in my chest.

  ‘OK,’ she says after a long moment. Another deep sigh. ‘When I got back from the salon the morning Abi… that morning, I went home to change into my trainers so I could help look.’

  I nod, realise I’m holding my breath.

  ‘And… Neil’s clothes were in the washing machine. His overalls and that. I didn’t think anything of it, I just put them in the dryer and went to get changed. But the next morning, there was another set of clothes in there that he’d washed in the night. And I didn’t think anything of that either. I knew he’d been out and thought he must have got muddy, that’s all. I didn’t think anything of anything, I swear to God I didn’t.’ Another sniff.

  ‘Bella?’ I whisper, desperate to comfort her but scared of interrupting in case I frighten her back into silence.

  ‘OK,’ she says, her voice trembling. ‘I didn’t think anything, only a bit of surprise maybe that he’d washed his gear himself, like. But you said anything, no matter how small, and now… I mean, this year he’s not been himself at all. He never used to shout at me or anything, he was always sweet. He never used to drink during the week. I mean, I just thought it was the stress of the IVF…’

  I listen, floating, unable to believe the fact of her telling me this, less than an hour after Matt. It isn’t coincidence – of course it isn’t. It is simply that the party has pulled the plug on the weird, stagnant pond of our lives, has drained the water from details half submerged, which lie now in the shallows, exposed.

  ‘He’s not been himself,’ Bella repeats, the words fraught with meaning. ‘It was understandable, but now…’ Her voice is little more than a squeak; the rest follows in a tearful rush. ‘Thing is, that morning, before I went to work, there were no dirty clothes in the washing basket. None. I did them at the weekend, I always do. And even if there were, Neil never washes his clothes. Never. I do them. I’m not saying he did anything, all right? But if I don’t tell you what I know and it turns out he knew something, well, I’ll never forgive myself. Never.’

  ‘Bella?’

  The line dies. I sit back, winded, thoughts racing. I had believed, or thought it was possible to believe, that Neil had nothing to do with it. I had even got as far as the Lovegoods. But even as I think of them, the sense that I was clutching at straws grows. It was a wild hypothesis wrought from desperation, desperation not to accept a much more horrible, unthinkable possibility. Neil.

  I call Matt.

  ‘Ava?’

  ‘Bella just called. You need to come home now. I’m calling Sharon Farnham. I’m calling the police.’

  Thirty-Eight

  Ava

  Matt taps everything into his phone while I drive to the police station, trying not to rant at the wheel. We start low, make a sensible list: the sloth toy, the odd behaviours, Neil’s washing in the machine, the tool bag. But hysteria rises exponentially, up and away to febrile theories worthy of later seasons of television dramas fresh out of ideas. In one, Abi is being looked after by a contact of Bella’s in a country far away, Neil and Bella waiting until the dust settles, when they will collect their visas and fly to live under aliases with her as their own child. In this theory, their kitchen extension is being put on hold not because of spiralling fertility fees but because they’re saving money for this midnight flit into obscurity.

  ‘Unless,’ I say.

  ‘Unless what?’

  ‘Do you know the monkey experiment?’

  He shakes his head. I pass through the lights, take a left.

  ‘I read about it once. They put a monkey and her baby in a cage and slowly turn up the heat on the cage floor. The mother picks up her baby to protect it from the heat. She holds her baby up, keeping it off the floor while the heat increases, burning her feet. She hops from foot to foot until at last—’

  ‘She lies down?’

  ‘No. That’s the thing. She puts the baby on the floor and stands on it.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake.’ Matt looks appalled. ‘What the hell did you tell me that for?’

  ‘Bella.’ I glance at him.

  ‘Bella?’

  ‘Think about it. Bella is the only other person who knew the name of the toy. And when Abi went missing, she was nowhere to be seen. What if… what if she did something terrible in a jealous rage and Neil covered for her? And what if, now the heat has been turned up too high, she’s thrown him on the floor to protect herself?’

  He shakes his head. ‘No. Stop. We need to stop.’

  I nod. We’re being mad. Suspicion has driven us both mad.

  ‘The fact is,’ I say, ‘we don’t know anything at all.’

  ‘We do. Just nothing that, alone, is worth mentioning. But it’s not about one piece of information, is it?’

  ‘Right. But we don’t want to appear mad. So, no conspiracy theories, just the facts. And maybe not mention that we felt her presence at the housewarming party?’

  Incredibly, this makes us laugh – a dark spark of grim connection, muscle memory long forgotten.

  Detective Inspector Sharon Farnham leads us into an interview room made to look like a living room and asks us to sit down on a firm beige sofa. On the phone, she offered to come to us, but I said no, that we preferred to come here. I didn’t want Neil or Bella to see a police car outside our house.

  Matt lets me do the talking, which I do whilst feeding Fred and with a nasty, creeping sense of treachery. Matt takes over and I listen with a terrible stillness, a block in my guts. If we are wrong, what remains of our life is lost; we deserve to be excommunicated from our closest friends and anyone who ever loved us.

  If we are right, it is worse.

  DI Farnham listens, the device on the table recording every word.

  ‘And then I saw the bag,’ Matt is saying now. ‘And I remembered I hardly saw him that day. I mean, that’s the thing when everyone’s concentrating on a common task… the focus is elsewhere. I thought he was with other neighbours. Ava thought he was with me. I didn’t even think about where Bella might be.’ He looks at me. ‘We didn’t think about any of that, did we? We had no reason to suspect either of them.’

  I glance at Farnham, whose expression gives nothing away. She must think we are insane. Or rats, betraying our closest friends like this with no more than scraps to go on. Whatever she feels, she is staying quiet. Perhaps she is indulging us, nothing more. Perhaps she is trained simply to listen in the hope that, sooner or later, someone will say something that leads to a solution, to an arrest, to a conviction. Perhaps it’s us she’s waiting for: a fatal slip of the tongue that will allow her to click the cuffs around our wrists.

  ‘The thing is,’ Matt continues, ‘the dogs never went inside the Lovegoods’ kitchen, did they? So if she was in that bag…’ He covers his mouth; his eyes close.

  ‘There was no reason for them to take the dogs in,’ Farnham says. ‘We don’t treat people like criminals until we have reason to do so. The site and garden were checked on the day and there was no evidence to suggest Abi had been inside, no access points to the property. Mr Johnson was at home, as witnessed by yourself, and the Lovegoods had already left. As it is, it’s still difficult to see how Abi could’ve accessed the house. Mr Johnson’s data still places him at home until much later, when you called for him…’ She passes her hand across her chin before glancing first at Matt, then at me. ‘Do either of you remember seeing the Lovegoods when you left for work that first time? Is it possible they could have been in the house?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say.
<
br />   ‘I’m pretty sure they left around eight.’ Farnham looks at her notes, passes her hand once, twice, three times across her chin. ‘They would have been gone by the time Abi left the house between five past and quarter past eight…’

  ‘Thing is,’ Matt says, glancing at me, back at Farnham. ‘It could have been earlier. That Abi left. I didn’t say this on the day and I should have done. But I went back to the house that morning to pick up my jacket.’

  Farnham stares at him as if he’s lost his mind.

  ‘I should’ve said and I’m sorry. I didn’t think it was relevant and everything was going so fast and Abi was still there in the hall when I went back and she was there when I left the house.’ He breathes in deeply, exhales. His eyes are wet and my heart constricts at what this is costing him. ‘But it was me who left the door open. Not Ava. Me.’ He gasps, his hand flying to his mouth. ‘Oh God, now I’m thinking it’s possible that seeing me, seeing the door open, was what made her run out. She would’ve wanted to follow me. I never thought about that. Oh God, she ran out after me.’ He pushes his face into his hands and sobs.

  I rest my hand on his back. If there is anyone who knows how he feels, it is me.

  Impassive, Farnham writes everything down. ‘So, this will have been before eight?’

  Matt pulls his hands away from his face and nods. ‘A little before, yes.’

  ‘And were the Lovegoods home at that time?’

  ‘No, they’d gone.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ I say.

  Matt looks at me; his brow furrows.

  Farnham transfers her attention to me.

  ‘I was thinking about this earlier,’ I say. ‘But I dismissed it after Bella called. The thing is, the Lovegoods could still have been at home. Matt thought they’d gone because there was no car on the drive, but it could have been in the garage. They keep it in there. And if Matt’s appearance prompted Abi to follow him, she would have followed him immediately, so it’s possible she left our house before the Lovegoods left theirs.’