In Spite: A terrifying psychological thriller with a shocking twist you won't see coming

by Collette Heather

  God, how long have I slept, anyway? I don’t think I woke up once. I am now busting for a pee and have a raging thirst.

  I reach out towards the bedside table, fumbling for the near-empty glass of water that I spilled most of yesterday when I scared myself looking in the mirror. I down it in two gulps – it doesn’t take the edge off my thirst at all.

  Next up, I reach for my smartphone in the darkened room, and I squint at the brightly-lit screen in the gloom; the time says 15.03.. I’ve been up here for twenty-four hours, and I am still tired.

  No matter. I can’t lie here for a second longer; I’ll get bedsores, for God’s sake.

  I whip back the duvet, scrunching up my nose. There is a distinct aroma about me – a musty, stale smell, mixed with stale sweat. I must have been sweating like a pig last night, for I am exceptionally sticky and smelly.

  Real nice, I think, swinging my legs out of the bed. Definitely shower-time for me.

  I stand up on shaky legs, making my way over to the wardrobe, pausing before the very same mirror that had given me such a fright yesterday afternoon. My reflection in all its naked glory stares back at me. I stare at my small breasts on my slender frame, wondering if I’m attractive to Shane. If he wishes I had more curves. If he wishes I had bigger breasts.

  Bigger breasts, like Alice…

  “Enough,” I tell myself sternly. “Don’t go there.”

  I mean, I don’t know for sure that Shane is cheating on me. I have no proof of anything. That text I found could easily be nothing.

  That Alice could easily be a lying psychopath…

  I yank open the wardrobe door, severing the sight of my reflection and my runaway thoughts. I don’t want to spiral into a bout of endless angst and naval gazing, for it won’t do me any good whatsoever. I need to talk to my husband. I hate confrontation, but there is no other way around it. I need some answers.

  Alice, Alice, who the fuck is Alice? I sing grimly in my head.

  Sighing heavily, I pull out one of the neatly folded pullovers from a shelf inside the beautifully-restored, Victorian-style wardrobe, as well as some clean underwear and a pair of black leggings. I always keep a small selection of spare clothes in this wardrobe for occasions such as this one, when I retreat here if I get struck down by a migraine from Hell.

  Fresh clothes collected, I head for the bathroom door, wanting nothing more than to wash away the past twenty-four hours.

  *

  Six glasses of water, one shower, a good teeth-clean, and a change of clothes later, I go downstairs in search of a husband and coffee, but not necessarily in that order.

  Instead of a husband, I find a yellow post-it note stuck to the coffee machine. With a suddenly – quite inexplicably – trembling hand, I peel its sticky strip off the smooth chrome surface and read Shane’s scrawling handwriting:

  Had to go to the shops, I’ll be home by six. I’ll bring back a takeaway. So if you’re up, don’t think about cooking xxx

  I have to reread it several times before I can properly make sense of the words. I don’t know why I’m suddenly so shaky, so alarmed.

  He had to pop to the shops? I think. Shane never pops to the shops. Maybe he’s meeting a woman. That Isla woman from work, perhaps – the one who had texted him a few weeks back, saying that yesterday at work had been fun. The message that had been followed by that solitary ’x’, that could have meant nothing or everything.

  Or maybe he is meeting the girl called Alice…

  Stop. Just stop.

  I’m being paranoid and ridiculous, I know I am. But still, the worst feeling curls around me – one of impending doom, of disassociation, wrapping me in its silent, chilly embrace.

  Where are you, Shane? Are you really shopping?

  I want to believe that he’s out Christmas shopping, I want to so badly. Maybe, if I keep telling myself that’s what he’s doing, I’ll end up believing it.

  I am startled out of my reverie by the doorbell ringing and I jerk in shock, the post-it note slipping from my fingers and fluttering to the slate tiles.

  Maybe Shane has forgotten his keys… But somehow, I know it isn’t that. I know that it won’t be him.

  My heart races in my chest and I grip the countertop, my breath coming in shallow little gasps. I don’t understand why I should suddenly be so distressed – there is no reason for it. I mean, it could be anyone at the door, not least my husband.

  The doorbell sounds again, and a small whimper escapes my lips. I realise that I have been standing there, gripping the edge of the countertop as surely as if rigor mortis has set in.

  The door isn’t going to answer itself, that voice taunts in my mind.

  I seriously consider ignoring it. I could just go scurrying back to bed, pretend I never came downstairs at all. Do not pass go. Do not collect one-hundred pounds. Do not acknowledge Shane’s post-it note, and, above all, do not answer the door.

  But I can’t. what if it is Shane, coming back for his keys? What if he’s standing there, growing more and more irritated, just waiting for me to let him in?

  I have to answer it; as surely as I must draw my next breath, I must open the door.

  Succumbing to the inevitability of it all, I unfurl my fingers, straighten my back, and head down the long and wide hallway towards the front door.

  *

  It is the woman who I know only as Alice ringing the doorbell – the very same woman who I had hallucinated in my back garden. I am not that surprised to see her. In fact, I think I knew it would be her all along, hence my reluctance to perform the simple task of opening the front door.

  “Hey, babe,” she says by way of greeting. “You look rough as shit. Good night, was it?”

  Incredulously, I take in the smirking woman on my doorstep, not believing that she is actually here, at my home. It feels like the ensuing seconds stretch on for an eternity while I fumble for the right words. The brain fog I am suffering from is near overwhelming.

  “Are you insane?” I ask her.

  The woman throws back her head and laughs.

  “Am I insane?” she says when she has sufficiently composed herself. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I ask in a small voice.

  She pins me in place with her steely blue gaze. “You know exactly what I mean, Terresa. Tell me, does your husband know what a fuck up you really are?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I manage to get out, alarmed to discover how violently I am shaking. Because I do know what she means.

  But the question is, how does she know?

  “Yeah, you do know,” she replies, smirking at me, her full, red-painted mouth tilting sexily upwards at one corner.

  She is even more beautiful than I remembered, like a fully made-up film star of yesteryear. Her pale blue eyes gleam beneath the heavy cat’s eyeliner painted on her upper lids.

  She’s also had a thick fringe cut in since the last time I saw her. It falls to the middle of her forehead in a style reminiscent of Bettie Page. Weirdly, I notice how her hair also appears to be an inch or so longer, almost skimming the tips of her shoulders, whereas two days ago in had fallen slightly below her jawline.

  “What do you want?” I ask. I am trying to sound stern, but I suspect that I am failing miserably.

  “I just want to talk.”

  To my disbelief, she barges past me into the hallway. She is wearing a knee-length, black, belted trench-coat. The way in which she wears the collar turned up gives her a femme-fatale vibe, further heightened by the sheer, seamed stockings and shiny red stilettos she wears.

  “You can’t just barge into my home,” I gasp, hurrying down the hallway after her, then scurrying in the opposite direction again because I forgot to shut the front door.

  By the time I join her in the kitchen at the end of the long hallway, she is resting her rump against the white, designer table, undoing the belt of her coat and shrugging out of it.

  “Are
you making coffee, or not?” she asks, gesturing to the currently silent coffee machine with the faintest flick of her head.

  This can’t be happening I think, watching her as she smooths the trench coat over one arm, before draping it neatly over the back of the nearest plastic chair.

  I can’t take my eyes off her phenomenal figure. She is wearing a black, knee-length, bodycon dress with a deep, square neckline and cute, capped sleeves, perfectly showcasing her ample, snow-white bosom. The pencil-style skirt compliments her endless legs, gently flared hips and tiny waist, around which is a thin, black belt in the same wool-cotton mix material of her dress. She wears leather gloves in the same shade of red as her shoes and lipstick. These gloves stop halfway up her forearms, and she proceeds to peel them off, starting with the tips of her fingers on one hand, gently tugging at each digit in turn until they’re sufficiently loosened to gracefully pull off completely. The way she removes her gloves is so elegant, putting me in mind of a stripper in some high-end burlesque show, I realise in that moment who she reminds me of – Dita Von Teese. Except Alice is taller, her face more conventionally pretty.

  “Take a picture, why don’t you?” she tells me. “It’ll last longer.”

  She removes the second glove with the same flair which she drops on top of the other one on the kitchen table.

  Legs crossed at her slender ankles, her rump still perched on the table, she regards me thoughtfully, beautiful face tilted to one side, her hands planted either side of her hips and curled around the table edge. I notice that her nails are as perfect and polished as the rest of her, the same blood-red as her lips, with a neat halfmoon at the nailbed. She looks like a magazine cover brought to life, and once again I am struck by the unreality of this situation. I also feel like a complete frump next to her, dressed as I am in leggings and a loose pullover.

  “Tess? Earth to Tess? Are you still with us? Are you going to make that coffee sometime this century?”

  Her blasé, comfortable rudeness, like we are age-old friends, distresses me as much as anything, only serving to heighten the whole dreamlike quality of this encounter.

  I head on over to the coffee machine as what else am I supposed to do? Call the police? And say what, exactly? It’s not like this woman is exhibiting any threatening behaviour.

  But she did yesterday, didn’t she? that little voice whispers in my ear. Spying on you from your own back garden is pretty threatening, I should say…

  “What do you want from me?” I ask without turning around, busy as I am with the coffee machine. “You knew Shane was out, didn’t you? That you could get me alone today. Because you’ve been stalking me, just like you were yesterday, when you were watching me from my own garden.”

  “Oh, please. Watching you from the garden? Do I look like the type who lurks in bushes? Clearly, you’re seeing things.”

  “What games are you playing, Alice?” I say, not believing her for a second.

  “I’m not playing anything. I’m on your side. And, for the record, your husband is out Christmas shopping. He’s not meeting any woman, if that’s what you think.”

  There is something approaching kindness in her tone and it gives me pause. I spin around on the spot, dumping the small bag of expensive coffee on the countertop before I do so. What the hell am I doing anyway, making this bitch coffee? Honestly, I need my head read sometimes. I’m the type who would apologise to a serial killer for getting blood on his knife.

  “But that isn’t to say that he’s never done such a thing.” She giggles, flicking her hair away from her neck with the back of one slender, long-fingered hand. “Because he has. And you’re looking at one of his many indiscretions. I take it you haven’t been through his laptop and phone, yet?”

  “No, I haven’t. Not that it’s any of your damn business.”

  I don’t want to tell her about that text I found from the girl called Isla because it truly is nothing to do with her, and probably meant nothing, anyway.

  “Well you should. First chance you get.”

  “How did you meet my husband? How many times were you with him? What’s your surname? And what do you want with me?”

  My voice turns shrill to my own ears at that last part, and I make a concerted effort to keep myself under control.

  “All I want is for you to help me,” she says, ignoring all my other questions.

  I gawp at her incredulously, not even knowing where to start. “Help you? You want me to help you?”

  “You really don’t know who I am, do you?”

  Now I’m really stymied. “What? No, of course I bloody don’t. I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

  Was that true? I wonder. Because I remember that brief tug of familiarity I felt when I saw her yesterday. She does look familiar, but for the life of me I don’t know how, or why.

  “Fine. That doesn’t matter for now. All that matters is we both want the same thing. We can help each other.”

  “The same thing? What are you talking about?”

  Alice slides off the table, making me think of a crocodile gliding into a glass-like swamp, barely causing a ripple with her entry. This woman is dangerous, I can clearly sense how much of a predator she is.

  “It’s such a beautiful home you have here, it would be shame to lose it all. Which is why you can’t leave him in the conventional way because he’ll only twist your past onto you, make out that you’re crazy. He’ll do you out of everything that you’re owed. You would leave the marriage with nothing.”

  “But I don’t want to leave Shane.”

  “Yes, you’re absolutely right, that would be foolish – no one is suggesting that you should leave him. If you get into a messy lawyer battle with him, he’ll drag up everything from your past.”

  “I’ve got nothing to hide,” I reply, all the while screaming in my head, how did you know about my past?

  “Really? What about that six months you spent in a mental institute when you were nineteen? He doesn’t know about that, does he? Look, Tess, just because you’re a fuck up, it doesn’t mean that you have to be screwed over by him.”

  “But how do you know that?” I find myself whining, figuring that there is no point in denying it. This girl has clearly done her homework on me.

  It’s also very much true; when I was nineteen, I had a brief stint in a mental institute, something which I’ve kept secret from Shane. My formative years were hard; my parents died when I was little, and I was put into care. I was shunted from one foster home to the next, and had a breakdown of sorts when I was nineteen. It wasn’t like anything that bad happened to me – it wasn’t like I was sexually abused or anything, but I guess stuff just caught up with me and my mind buckled under the pressure. I’m okay now, though. From the age of twenty, to where I am now at thirty-four, I really got myself together.

  “But why?” I ask her. “Why are you stalking me?”

  “Stalking is such a harsh word. Let’s just say that I’ve done my research on you.”

  “You don’t say,” I snap at her. “But please, just why? Why are you so interested in my past? And what did you mean just now, when you said you don’t know who I am?”

  “I meant that you don’t recognise me. But that’s okay, it’ll come to you, when you’re ready. But you have to ask yourself this, Tess – you can’t have children, so what’s the point in staying with him? Maybe you’ll meet some other more fertile guy. And a more faithful guy to boot. I think you know, deep down, that you don’t trust him, otherwise you would have told him everything about your past, wouldn’t you?”

  Now this really is just getting too much. How can she possibly know about our IVF dramas? It’s only Kirsty that knows, and therefore Jack by default – I don’t think Shane’s even told anyone at work, yet alone his parents.

  “I don’t believe this,” I say so softly it comes out as a whisper. “Who are you?”

  “Let’s face it, Tess, the chances of you falling pregnant by Shane are slim to none, even w
ith intervention. You have poor quality eggs, and Shane has lazy sperm. It would almost be funny if it weren’t so tragic.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because I can’t kill him without your help.”

  I flush ice cold, then red hot. The kitchen tilts around me, and I can’t seem to catch my breath.

  “Who are you?” I manage to get out, the words emerging as a breathy gasp.

  “A friend. We want the same thing, Tess. Revenge. That lying, cheating scumbag husband of yours needs to die. That way, you’ll inherit everything and get to play the part of the sad, grieving widow.”

  “Get out of my house,” I say in a dangerously low voice. Indignation mixed in with a healthy dose of fear bubbles away beneath my calm surface.

  “We must do it soon. If you’re not careful, he’ll leave you for another woman before you get the chance to leave him. He’ll go off with someone younger, prettier, more fertile.”

  “You need to leave. I’m calling the police, right now.”

  “No, you’re not.” She grins smugly at me, completely sure of herself. “You’re not going to call the police any more than you’re going to tell Shane I was even here. Because you know that if you tell Shane he’ll deny knowing me. Not only that, he’ll start the process of dumping your sorry arse and digging the up the dirt on you so he can say you’re crazy.”

  “Stop,” I gasp. “Please, just stop.”

  “Look, I understand that you need of proof of Shane’s infidelity for your own peace of mind, and you should absolutely get that. Then, after that, we’ll start figuring out how best to kill him.”

  I am incredulous, just, completely bamboozled. I can’t cope with any of this.

  “Just go. Shane will be back soon.”

  I expect her to stand there and argue the toss, but she doesn’t. Instead she scoops up her coat and gracefully shrugs it back on.

  “He won’t be back soon, but whatever. I understand that this is a lot for you to take in. I’ll be in touch.”