Spare Room: a twisty dark psychological thriller

by Dreda Say Mitchell

  There’s no need to ask too many questions. They can’t help you or me. I’m gone now. Leave me to rest.

  The man who’d taken his own life was so wrong. I have so many questions. They can help me. I’m not gone. I refuse to rest.

  If my parents won’t give me the answers I know who can.

  With determination I throw on a light jacket, grab my bag and open the door.

  I jump slightly back when I realise there’s someone blocking my path. My heart drops when I recognise who it is.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ my shocked voice asks Jack.

  He’s standing in the doorway of my house. Yes, my house. Not the one I share with him and Martha but the one I own in East London.

  His gaze narrows. I know what he’s thinking: if Lisa has her own home why is she renting the spare room in mine and Martha’s?

  Chapter 19

  As I stare at Jack I have the same feeling a child has climbing off a spinning roundabout: your eyes tell you the motion has stopped but your ears say it’s still going on and you feel sick. That’s how I feel. Sick. Literally sick.

  He folds his arms, looking really pleased with himself. I should slam the door but I just stand there.

  ‘Hello, Lisa.’

  I stutter. ‘J-Jack.’

  He looks the house up and down. ‘Nice place.’

  And it is. A Victorian semi in fashionable Dalston in East London. I managed to buy it before the East London line transport link came this way, making property prices shoot up. Now the area is full of cafés serving up pine nuts and quinoa to hipsters. Jack and his man bun would fit in here a treat.

  Ever since I moved into Jack and Martha’s, I’ve had a cover story ready if they should ever discover that I have my own home. It’s a good story and I’ve practised it in front of the mirror many times. Now I can’t remember how it goes.

  ‘No, it belongs to a friend. She’s on holiday and I’m checking on it for her, collecting the post, opening and closing the curtains. You know… burglars.’ I sound pathetic and I know it.

  His voice drips with sarcasm. ‘That’s very good of you. It’s nice to have friends who’ll look after your place while you’re away.’ He’s enjoying himself, the rat. ‘Only it’s the funniest thing – I knocked on the next-door neighbour’s and asked them if Lisa lives here and they said, yes she does. Although, according to them, Lisa hasn’t been around much lately. They thought she’d gone on holiday. Quite a coincidence your friend being called Lisa too…’

  He’s peering over my shoulder trying to see into my house. I pull my front door closer to me.

  ‘What are you doing here, Jack?’

  ‘Here’s another funny thing. I was in town today and who should I see on the street making her way home? That’s right, you! And I thought, maybe Lisa wants some company on her way back to our place but you were so quick I was having trouble keeping up. And then you were taking the wrong train and I thought, funny that, has she forgotten where she lives?’ He sounds like a sneering teacher or policeman who’s got someone bang to rights and is enjoying every last second of it.

  ‘And finally, I caught up with you here. But you seemed to have company, so I thought, I’ll wait until those people have gone before I knock and point out that you’ve come to the wrong house. Relatives are they? Parents maybe? Yeah, that’s right; they’re probably your mum and dad.’

  Nerves dig into me at the mention of my parents who had minutes before been sitting in my front room. I had only come back to my house so that they could visit me. There’s no way on this earth I can reveal to them that I’m really living in a spare room at the top of a grand, old house. They’d only start bombarding me with questions, wanting to know what the hell was going on.

  I tell Jack a half-truth. ‘Sure, this is my house. I’m renting it out to make some money. The couple you saw were coming to view the place with a view to moving in. Obviously, I need somewhere to live while I’m doing that so I took the room at yours and Martha’s. Is that a problem?’

  He ignores me. He looks my house up and down again and surveys my front garden. Then he turns back to me. The sarcasm is over. His voice is biting and menacing. ‘What are you playing at, Lisa? What’s your angle here?’

  I’ve recovered a little now. ‘I’m not playing at anything and I don’t have an angle. Nor do I appreciate being followed around by my landlord. I’m pretty sure that counts as harassment. Perhaps I’ll speak to a lawyer and see what he thinks.’

  He lifts his hand as if he wants to place it around my throat and squeeze. All my instincts are to rush back inside my house to protect myself. But I refuse to do it.

  His hand twists into a fist and falls by his side. ‘You think I don’t know what you’re up to? Do you think I’m stupid? I know exactly what your little game is and I’m warning you now if you don’t give it up, pack your bags and leave our house, I won’t be answerable for the consequences.’ He leans in close, his spit flying into my face. ‘Do you understand?’

  ‘What I understand is that I’ve got a lease that’s legally binding for six months. Renting out my own home does not breach any rules of my tenancy.’

  His lip curls, eyes livid, like I’m dirt on the street. ‘Is that so? Let me remind you that there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Did I say cat?’ He slaps the back of one hand with the other. ‘Oh, naughty me, that’s a bit tasteless, given what happened to that old crone who lives next door’s kitty.’ He points his finger in my face. ‘You’ve been warned.’

  ‘Are you threatening me?’

  He sends me one last expression of disdain before he turns on his heels and walks back down my path and slams the gate behind him. Despite my outward defiance I’m petrified. If I go back to Jack and Martha’s who knows what fun and games Jack will have in store for me. I can’t understand why he’s so angry. What does it matter to him if I have a home already? He’ll still be getting his rent. And he needs the money from what Martha has confided in me.

  The answer is obvious. Jack’s hiding something. Just like he’s hiding what happened to the tenant in the spare room before me.

  But he’s not the only one holding secrets.

  ‘Why did you pretend you didn’t help my family during the accident that happened to me when I was a young girl?’ I slap my damning question at Doctor Wilson as I sit on the edge of the chair in his consultancy room.

  I feel a measure of triumph when he stops writing in that bloody irritating notebook of his. I feel like snatching it from his hand and ripping it into tiny pieces. He hadn’t looked best pleased to see me, but I suppose professionalism didn’t allow him to turn me away. Probably thought I might do something nasty to myself if he didn’t allow me in, like I’d done four months ago.

  ‘Have you spoken to your parents as I advised?’ he calmly throws back.

  This man is a master of his craft. No matter what I chuck his way he always knows how to slip it back into his gear to ensure traffic is flowing in the direction he wants it to.

  I’m persistent, almost falling off the chair. ‘And the way my dad talks about you… you’re no casual acquaintance. You’ve been buddies for years.’

  He deflects my accusations with a mere arch of his brow. ‘Is that how you feel, Lisa? That people, all people, are lying to you?’

  Now he’s trying to turn my words against me, make me feel like I’m totally paranoid. ‘You know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about you lying to my face. Telling me you weren’t there during my accident and you know full well you were.’

  He makes notes in his book. His head comes back up. ‘Who told you this?’

  ‘My mother.’

  ‘Lisa, I have only met your mother on three separate occasions. Once was at your father’s golf club—’

  ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

  ‘Doing what?’ He actually writes that down.

  Gritting my teeth, ready to do some serious damage, I lean down and pull off one of my shoes and thro
w it across the room.

  He straightens. ‘I won’t have violent behaviour in here.’

  ‘Don’t worry, doctor, I won’t hurt a hair on that lying head of yours.’

  I pull off my second shoe and throw it across the room.

  ‘I don’t want to have to call the police but in this instance I may have no alternative.’

  I’m not hearing him as I jump up on the leather couch. I point the soles of my feet at him. Point at the one set of scars no one ever sees. His skin loses its colour.

  ‘They’re ugly, aren’t they? When I was young, I gave each of them a name in the tradition of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’ I place one leg across the other in order to touch my foot. ‘This one’s called Lumpy because it’s quite uneven, like something tried to bite a chunk out of me. Now, this one’s called Dumpy because it would get so painful in the winter when I was little it would make me fall. Dump me. Dumpy. Get it?’

  ‘Lisa—’

  I won’t let him slow me down as I switch to my other foot. ‘There’s only one of my close friends on this foot, as you can see. It’s called Forget Me. So small it’s almost not there. But I can never forget it. Forget any of them. So disgusting.’ My leg swings back down. ‘I need you to tell me what really happened. What kind of accident can give me scars like this on the soles of my feet?’

  He fetches my shoes and hands them to me. ‘You do see how irrational your behaviour is. Normal people don’t throw their shoes around.’

  ‘Normal? Why don’t you say what you mean, that I’m mad?’

  He steps back as I slip my shoes back on. ‘I don’t think we should continue today. I do want you to come back tomorrow. Let’s pick this up then.’

  I’m about to agree when I notice it. The photo on his desk. How have I missed it before? It’s the same photo that my dad has on his lounge wall, of him back in the day with two other medical student chums. This photo is slightly different; none of the guys are wearing jokey surgical masks. Their faces are plain for all to see. I notice Dad, looking handsome and ready for the world. I don’t recognise one man, the other I do. Doctor Wilson.

  He notices where my gaze rests. He moves across and coolly turns it down on its face. He stares defiantly at me. I could chip away at him about it, but there’s no point. He won’t reveal a thing, just spew out more of his blah-blah-blah shrink spiel. No matter. I don’t really need his confession anymore.

  At the front door, I tell him, ‘With my scarred feet, I would tramp the streets of London trying to find the house that’s in my memory. For years I did it. I couldn’t stop.’

  ‘What house?’ He shakes his head, frowning hard in confusion.

  ‘The house where I know the accident when I was five really happened.’

  ‘Lisa, there is no house.’ He looks at me with pity. ‘The accident occurred on a farm like your parents have told you.’

  ‘You’re so wrong.’

  He senses something different about my answer. His question is almost breathless. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I found it. The house.’

  ‘Lisa?’ He doesn’t look like a doctor anymore but a man sucker punched in the gut.

  ‘I’m living in the spare room in the house. The house in my nightmares.’

  Chapter 20

  Istare, deflated, at the plates of sushi rolls – spicy cucumber and tuna and teriyaki chicken – on my table in the café-style Japanese restaurant, knowing he won’t come. Hell, I’d probably be a no-show too if I wore his shoes.

  The door opens. My spirits lift; he’s here.

  I feel the need to stand up to greet him as if that will show him the ultimate respect.

  ‘What’s this about, Lisa?’ Alex is more than unhappy; he’s properly ticked off.

  ‘Will you sit down?’ I indicate the chair across from me. ‘I ordered some sushi rolls. Chicken teriyaki.’ Your favourite.

  He doesn’t take the unsaid bait and roughly takes a seat. ‘I’m not hungry. I thought—’

  ‘I used to live in that house. Martha and Jack’s house.’ There. Out of my mouth. Now Alex knows too.

  I’ve told him what I told Doctor Wilson a few hours ago and still can’t believe what I’ve done. That my secret is out. I was no random, would-be tenant like all the masses of others in London. I targeted the house, took the room so I could get inside.

  My mind zips back to the unforgettable moment I finally found the house that has haunted me for as long as I can remember. As I told Doctor Wilson, for years I had tramped the streets of London obsessed with finding the house that rears like a raging monster in my nightmares. After the incident cum suicide attempt, I decided the only way to rescue my sanity was to put the brakes on my hunt for the house. Giving up something that had become as natural as breathing hadn’t been easy. It had become as vital to me as another arm, another leg, a second brain. Gnawing away at me, never leaving me in peace, digging its teeth in until I discovered the truth. But the truth was that finding the house was tipping me over the edge. Yes, I’ll say it: sending me mad.

  It was a Tuesday full of summer showers when I came back to the office, after lunch, to find Cheryl and Debbie hunched over Cheryl’s iPad. I’d almost passed both women when Cheryl had beckoned me over.

  ‘Which of these spare rooms do you think Debbie should rent?’

  I’d hesitated. The last thing I needed was a chummy-chummy chat about their personal lives. I knew that Debbie had split up with her live-in fella and obviously she was looking to put down temporary roots somewhere else. Space to get back on track.

  I felt sorry for – and envious of – her; she’d managed to keep a relationship going for seven whole years. I couldn’t keep one going for four months. Still, it couldn’t have been easy to start life all over again. So I went over. Leaned down to check out the iPad screen.

  Cheryl said, ‘There’s this cosy little number in Camden.’

  It was a lovely ground-floor room, all white and light, with a French door leading to the garden and an impressive 1930s fireplace complete with mirror. The monthly rental was eye-watering.

  ‘Or this…’ Debbie tapped her finger against the screen and the photo of the outside of a house flicked up.

  There are moments in your life when you can’t talk, can’t breathe, become frozen in time. My heartbeat raced as I stared at something on the front of the house. Everything trembled inside me as I recognised it: the circle engraved in the stone with the key inside. It was as if it were my own special key, just for me to enter the house I’d hunted for for so many years.

  Neither of my colleagues noticed my strange reaction as Debbie brought up the photo of the spare room.

  I didn’t look at it, excitement mixed with disbelief and anticipation flowing through me as I straightened up and breathlessly informed Cheryl, ‘Take the room in Camden. It’s a touch pricey but Camden’s super trendy. It’s where all the stylish people are hanging out.’

  I had to butter her up; the last thing I wanted was for her to take that room in my house. And it was mine. I’d been searching the streets of London for what felt like all my life to find it. I couldn’t believe it. I could finally unravel the secrets of my past. Or what I thought was my past.

  I left them and headed for the loo with my phone in my hand. Once inside I registered quickly with the accommodation website and got the house up on screen. I organised a visit to view the room.

  I stared at the house in a daze. It was like finding an old friend. Or an enemy.

  Alex is staring at me now, lips slightly apart, the same way Doctor Wilson did when I revealed my secret. The good doctor, who prided himself on having a detached manner, had covered his astonishment quickly, insisting I talk more. But I couldn’t have talked more if I wanted to. I was drained, mashed, could barely think.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Alex finally says, with a tiny shake of his head. ‘What do you mean you lived in the house? The house next door to Aunty Pat’s?’

  ‘No, I mea
n the house next door to Santa Claus in the North Pole,’ I respond tartly. ‘Of course I mean the house where I’m renting a room.’

  ‘When did you live there?’ I’m pleased to see he picks up his favourite sushi.

  Now comes the hard part. ‘I don’t know.’

  The sushi roll hovers at his mouth as he levels me with a sceptical stare beneath his lashes. ‘I’ve been working with a very demanding client today, a real do-you-know-who-I-am wanker, haven’t had a lunch break and all I want to do is down a half pint and go to bed.’

  He does look tired. Dark circles are etched beneath his eyes and his skin looks like it could do with a shot of vitamin D.

  ‘Remember what happened that night we went back to yours?’ I say slowly.

  Who can forget?

  He reluctantly nods and pops the rice roll into his mouth.

  Nerves pinch away at me. ‘I have these nightmares. Sometimes sleepwalk. I’ve had them since I was a kid. They’re always the same. A woman screaming, children screaming, someone running after me with knives that turn into wicked-looking needles. There’s a mouse with the biggest dead eyes staring at me. It finishes with a man’s scream. A very different scream. Next thing I know I’m in this car being driven away from the house.’

  My tongue hurriedly wets my lips before I continue. ‘The one thing that sticks out about the outside of the house is a circle in the stone with a key inside. I’m sure you’ve seen it when you visit your Aunty Patsy.’

  His eyes narrow as he thinks. His eyebrows jump high in an ah-ha moment of recognition.

  ‘It’s a mason’s mark. Whoever built the house… this is their mark, a signature if you want, to tell the world they built the house. I researched mason’s marks and couldn’t find one like it. It’s unique. One of a kind. I figured if I could find it, bingo, I’d find the house, and I did.’

  Alex swallows the rest of the roll, his Adam’s apple bulging unevenly. ‘That’s some heavy stuff. Screaming and knives and needles. Mason’s marks.’