The Silent Friend, page 1
THE SILENT FRIEND
ALISON STOCKHAM
To Malcolm, for your unending support, patience and encouragement.
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
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
More from Alison Stockham
About the Author
The Murder List
About Boldwood Books
1
PRESENT DAY
She was alone. The water was warm and comforting as Louise lay in the bath. She adjusted position, shifting her weight to create ripples in its surface, moving its warmth over her skin in waves. She breathed in.
She listened.
Nothing.
The flat was silent. She breathed out and pushed herself completely under the surface. The sound of her own heartbeat pulsing in her ears reminded her that she was still alive. She might always be alone, but she was still here, albeit out of her depth. Suddenly a spark of terror flickered inside her without warning. She tried so hard to push the anxiety away – that constant creeping sense that something was about to go badly wrong; or had already done so but you have yet to learn exactly what. It was always there, but Louise tried to push it to the very edges of her thoughts.
Everything around you goes wrong, doesn’t it?
She squeezed her closed eyes tighter and hummed to make the voice go away. No. She was not going to let it back in. Not today. Today was going to be a good day. She pushed herself further up until her face was above the water, bobbing around her jawline like a gentle lapping tide. She rested her toes on the still-warm bath tap and sighed. The pale blue shower curtain clung to the side of the bath like a chilled second skin. The whiteness of the tiles reflected the sunshine that was streaming in through the mottled window of the bathroom and the bright blue walls made Louise feel that she was somewhere in Greece – all whites, blues and sunshine. If she thought about it, it was sort of like she was on holiday. Not that she would know. She’d never been on one.
She repositioned herself in the water, moving the not-quite-dissolved bath salt grit away from her. Whoever had lived here before had left the rose-scented bath salts in the cupboard and Louise now wondered how long they’d been there. She lay back and closed her eyes, trying to empty her mind and enjoy the peace, when, at the edges of her hearing, Louise heard a commotion. Shouting. Raised voices – some angry, some strained – shattering her peace. Her eyes snapped open and she sat up, pushing herself out of the water. The coolness of the air hit her shoulders where it met the water droplets on her skin, making her shiver. She reached for the cup of tea she had left steaming on the windowsill, and as she did so, her eyes caught a glimpse of flashing blue lights and her breath stuttered as her pulse raced. Tea forgotten, she grabbed her towel, and quickly stepped out of the bath, trying not to slip on the now wet floor. Wrapping the towel around her, she rushed from the bathroom to the bedroom next door and carefully placed herself at an angle to the window where she could see but not be seen.
At a house just across the street was a police squad car, its lights still flashing despite it being stationary, the doors on the street-side flung wide open. Two uniformed officers stood on the pavement outside the house. Louise’s heart rate settled a little as she watched the scene unfold across the road.
On the doorstep was a petite woman, with long blonde hair tied up in a bun. She was talking in an agitated manner to the policewoman, who was obviously trying to calm her down. The policewoman put her hand on the woman’s shoulder only to have it shrugged away roughly. The woman looked behind her as a man, tall and muscular in that all-shoulders-and-no-neck way, was bundled out of the house by another officer, who looked as though he was struggling with this man’s bulk. The man seemed calm, as though he was cooperating with the arresting officer and reassuring the distraught woman, and yet his feet also seemed glued to the ground, making it difficult to steer him towards the waiting car.
The blonde woman looked around her, her head flicking from side to side as if expecting someone to intervene but Louise saw the curtains move at the house next door and the outline of a person step back from the bay window. If this woman was expecting her neighbours to come to her aid, it was not looking likely. Whoever lived next door was clearly interested in what was happening but not interested in getting involved.
Suddenly aware that she had stepped closer towards her own window than she intended, Louise jumped backwards and the movement must have caught the woman’s eye as her face snapped upwards and she looked what felt like directly at her. Louise froze momentarily and then stepped back into the relative darkness of the room.
Not wanting to risk being seen again, Louise walked back to the bathroom instead and surveyed the action through the frosted glass of the window there. It was just clear enough to be able to see the outline of the woman being briefly held by the outline of the man, before they were broken apart by the officers. They bundled the man into the car, placing a hand on his head to guide him into the rear seat, before closing the door, encasing him inside. The woman officer handed something, maybe paperwork or leaflets, to the woman left behind before joining her colleague in the car. They turned off the blue lights and drove away. There was a slight screech as the acceleration of the wheels grabbed at the tarmacked road and then they were gone.
Once the police had left, Louise opened the top window just enough to see better, hoping that in her distress the woman would not notice. Balancing precariously on the edge of the bath, so as to be able to get a good view but keep herself tucked out of sight, she watched as the woman stood, shocked into stillness, on her doorstep. She wrapped her arms around herself, looked up and down the street again but no one came. She looked up again at Louise’s bedroom window but finding no one there, turned and went back into her house. The street fell silent again, only the faint sounds of traffic somewhere nearby, the odd bark of a dog and the tweeting of birds in the trees. It was as if the spectacle had not happened at all.
Louise had intended to try and keep a little distance; her new flat supposed to be a space where she could regroup. She needed to know where to go from here, what to do with her life.
But. What had just happened over the road?
Mind your own business, she told herself. But at the same time, she knew that she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She had to know.
2
Telling herself that she should let the dust settle and keep away, it had been days since Louise had left the house and it showed. She’d done her unpacking, though there hadn’t been much to unpack, and the flat was slowly beginning to look like someone lived there. It didn’t matter though, no one else would see it. It had felt extravagant to buy a set of six matching cups as a house-warming gift to herself, she only needed one at a time. But now, being able to leave a cup wherever, and still have a fresh one ready for her next cuppa felt like freedom to her. She hadn’t noticed the absence of such small things before.
When, unexpectedly, the doorbell rang, Louise, still in the jogging bottoms and T-shirt that she had slept in, hair scrunched into a messy ponytail and with as yet un-cleaned teeth, froze to the spot.
Who? she thought. I don’t know anyone. Or rather no one knows me. Her mind flickered in panic as to who it could be before she realised that she had told no one where she was. The only person who knew was the letting agent and they had to give her notice if they were coming round. She felt her heart rate steady as she realised it’d likely be someone trying to sell her something she had no inclination to buy, whether that be windows or religion, and she could just ignore it until they went away. She turned to pick up last night’s socks, which were still scrunched up on the sofa where she had taken them off while watching some terrible film, when the doorbell rang again. Realising that she’d have to shoo them away, Louise tried to pull herself together. She straightened out her T-shirt, redid her ponytail – hoping it would miraculously make it looked more washed than it was – and went to answer the door.
As she walked down the cheaply carpeted stairs, her feet making the hollow space beneath echo with the reverberations of her stride, she could see the outline of her visitor through the frosted glass of the half-glazed door. It was the woman from across the street. The one whose partner had been hauled off by the police the other day. Louise’s throat went dry. Was she here to tear a strip off her for being nosy? Was she going to ask questions that Louise did not want to answer?
She was holding something that she was shifting in her hands. What was it? Aware that she’d been standing in clear sight of this woman and yet not opening the door, Louise stumbled forward and fumbled with the latch. She swung the door open too enthusiastically, its uPVC door weighing far less than her old home’s heavy wooden one and the effect was as if she had said ‘ta-da!’ as she greeted her guest. The woman smiled a little at this and it put Louise immediately at ease. The smile on her face suggested that she was not here for a fight, and if she had been, her choice of what looked like a tin of biscuits suggested that she did not choose weapons well.
‘Hi,’ the woman said, smiling and holding her gift out to Louise. Despite the smile, you could see how tired and drained she was; her skin had a greyish tone to it. She was well groomed otherwise. You could tell that she took care over her appearance and that, in normal circumstances, she would be stunning. Louise reached out to take the present, not sure of what to do, of how she was supposed to react. As she took it, she noticed the slight curve to this woman’s abdomen and Louise realised that she was pregnant.
‘Hi… thank you,’ Louise said before realising she needed to step up a gear. She was being weird. Something in her brain shifted and the little switch she turned on when she needed to be the other her clicked in her mind.
‘Thank you! This is really kind of you. I’m Louise, I just moved in.’ Why did she use her real name? That wasn’t wise.
‘I know,’ the woman said, still smiling, ‘I saw you the other day when…’ A blush rose on her cheeks, editing out the grey and giving a glimpse of how beautiful she would normally be. ‘Anyway, I’m Isabelle. Welcome. I like to welcome newcomers to the street, as it took me a while to meet our neighbours when we moved in.’ Her mouth hardened into a line, which Louise took as resentment. She sniffed away tears that were clearly trying to spill out of her eyes.
Louise didn’t know what she should say or do. She’d moved here intending to keep her head down for a while, but Isabelle was on the doorstep, pregnant and upset, and Louise was suddenly overcome with loneliness. She’d not spoken to another human being in… How long had it been? She realised she couldn’t say and so she found herself opening her mouth and asking, ‘Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?’
Before she could undo it or talk Isabelle out of it, the woman replied, ‘I’d love to, thanks,’ and stepped over the doorstep.
Louise skirted in front of her, making sure not to brush by too close. She wasn’t sure if she smelled as bad as she feared she might and she suddenly realised that her embracing the freedom to slob had left her flat looking in an utter state and one that she did not want Isabelle to see. She raced to the top of the stairs and called back behind her, ‘Just give me a minute? I wasn’t expecting guests and it’s a mess in here,’ as she dashed into the living room and, grateful for not having got rid of all the cardboard boxes from moving, threw socks, unfolded clothes, old magazines, a half-empty pizza box and some empty wine bottles into one, then kicked it to one side of the room to appear as though she had not yet unpacked it. She then gathered all the mugs and glasses and dumped them into the sink and ran the tap on full, hiding them under a layer of bubbles from the dollop of washing-up liquid she drizzled over them.
She ran to the bathroom and rubbed toothpaste over her gums – where was her toothbrush? – sprayed deodorant all over herself, some dry shampoo into her hair then walked back into the hallway to invite Isabelle into the living room, hoping that the fug of scented aerosols that now surrounded her didn’t make her gag. Pregnant women had an overly sensitive sense of smell, didn’t they? She didn’t want to make her first guest sick. Especially one as thoughtful as Isabelle, who had walked upstairs slowly enough to have given Louise the time to prepare.
‘Come on in. Sorry about the mess, I am still unpacking,’ Louise said, startled by how much she sounded like her mother, who had always been uncomfortable with strangers in the house.
‘Sure, it’s fine. We’ve not been here all that long either so I remember the chaos of moving house,’ Isabelle said, though the smile that she had displayed when Louise had opened the door had dropped from her eyes and now her mouth was strained, the corners trying to pull themselves upwards but failing. She looked around her, unsure where to sit. Louise plumped up the cushions on the sofa, which had seen better days, and gestured Isabelle towards it.
‘Tea? Coffee? No, wait, I haven’t got coffee. Tea?’ Louise stammered.
‘Do you have any decaf?’ Isabelle asked, in a voice that sounded as though she already knew the answer.
Louise shook her head. As a host she knew she was not making a good impression. She began reprimanding herself but then reminded herself that she didn’t necessarily want to. She didn’t want to make friends, she didn’t need anyone checking up on her. She let the issue of a drink pass and a silence settled over the room. Louise was practised at silence. She knew how to handle it and how to use it as needed. She could make a silence feel comfortable, amiable, like nothing needed to be said, or she could make it uncomfortable, threatening, upsetting. It all depended on how you used your body language. Isabelle was twisting her wedding ring on her finger and looking around her but at a speed that suggested she wasn’t actually looking.
What do I want? Louise asked herself. The answer came as it always did – information. Information gave you power and power was what Louise had grown up lacking, forever searching for it ever since. Power and control. And so she asked the one question that she knew Isabelle would not want to answer.
‘So. What was going on with the police the other day? I saw them take… your husband away.’ Louise’s voice was light, innocent.
Isabelle swallowed and cleared her throat.
‘You did see? I thought you did.’ She looked at Louise a little accusingly, which Louise thought was unfair.
‘Yes, I was just out of the bath. I didn’t want to interfere.’
Isabelle straightened her back coolly but soon enough her eyes filled with tears, though she did not let them fall, she swallowed them down.
‘Bit emotional, sorry. Carl always tells me to stop being so sensitive but I can’t help it. It’s even worse now I’m pregnant.’ She patted her stomach, which made her smile, briefly.
‘Carl…?’
‘My husband. He’s the man the police took away. It’s all a mistake. I’m sure of that. He called his solicitor and she’s sorting it all out for him.’
‘So is he back home then?’
‘Oh,’ Isabelle said, her previous certainty deflating like a balloon with a leak. ‘No. No, they’ve kept him for questioning.’
‘Must be serious then?’ She paused to allow Isabelle time to share what it was that Carl had been arrested for. She didn’t. Louise let the question hang for as long as it took to make it clear that Isabelle wasn’t going to provide more information without further questions. Louise wanted to know but she was going to have to ask.
‘What have they accused him of?’ Louise was keeping it as light as possible, as though Carl had been questioned for something minor, despite his still being held suggesting it was far from that.
‘He… um… they said that he…’ Isabelle choked and then burst into tears.
Louise looked around the flat in horror, wondering if she had any tissues anywhere. She jumped up from her chair and left the room, returning with a roll of toilet paper which she handed to Isabelle with an apologetic shrug.
‘Sorry, all I have.’
Isabelle sniffed and took it, pulling a section from the roll, blowing her nose on it and tucking it away in a pocket. Louise noticed she was a pretty crier. Her face had flushed but in all the right places, not at all blotchy, more like someone had applied highlighter. Somehow her upset had made Isabelle more attractive. Is that why some women attract men who want to rescue them? Because at their most vulnerable they are also their most transcendent?
