Obsession: A shocking psychological thriller where love affairs turn deadly Page 2

  The shadow is no lighter when I finish at the surgery and am on my way to meet you, Jenni. You are waiting for me after work at the coffee shop, by the bus stop in the centre of town. I see you through the window as I move past the bus queue – sending a text from your iPhone, your glossy hair tumbling across your face. As soon as I enter the coffee shop you look up and beam at me, as if seeing me is the most important part of your day. Jenni, you always try to make people feel like that. As if they are important. It is one of your tricks. I know that now. When we first met, I fell for it.

  We knew each other at nursing college, didn’t we, Jenni? But only from a distance. You weren’t really my type. Christian Union. No make-up. Didn’t look men in the eye. Rumour had it you didn’t go out on Saturday nights, stayed in to prepare your mind for the Lord on Sunday. Jenni. What were you like?

  Our paths crossed again on a couples’ night nearly six years ago at our local NCT co-ordinator’s house, stranded together like beached whales on a low-slung sofa, so heavily pregnant that we could hardly change positions. Mark and John incubating inside us, almost ready to be born. I was the expert because I already had Pippa. You were stick thin except for your bump, which overwhelmed you, looking so worried as the NCT co-ordinator droned on about Braxton Hicks contractions and TENS machines and whether they worked. I looked at you as you listened, chocolate brown eyes closed in fear, and wanted to protect you. To hold you against me and tell you it’s not as bad as it sounds. (Even though with Pippa it was far worse.)

  At the end of the meeting we went to the pub, I can’t remember which one of the four of us suggested it, but we all thought it was a good idea. We went to the White Swan, down by the river at the end of our road. A cold October night, sitting by the fire drinking orange juice and tonic water whilst the men cradled their pints. We were so engrossed in our own conversation, we didn’t talk to them much. It took me so long to find you, Jenni, the first female friend I really cared about. All through school and university, men had been my companions. Women can be so bitchy, don’t you think? So temperamental. Men are kinder. Simpler. I had up to this point socialised with them more as a rule. But then came the female-dominated world of pregnancy and early childhood that led me to you.

  Today, with Mark and John at school, and another birth behind each of us, we hug clumsily across a small wooden table in the coffee shop opposite the surgery. Across the coffee you are already halfway through drinking. Across the crumbs of someone else’s cake. I sit down on an uncomfortable wooden stool, which scrapes across the floor as I position it.

  ‘How was your holiday?’ you ask.

  ‘Awful.’

  ‘That wasn’t what Rob said.’

  Your words punch into me.

  ‘When did you see Rob?’ I ask.

  ‘I didn’t. He texted me.’

  ‘Texted you?’

  ‘Because he was worried about you.’

  You wave and smile at the waitress, who starts to weave towards our table.

  We order fresh coffee for you, and chocolate cake and cappuccino for me. The waitress presses our order into a small handheld machine and disappears to the next table.

  ‘Why is Rob so worried about me?’

  ‘He said you weren’t yourself on holiday. You didn’t seem to enjoy spending time with the children, apparently.’

  ‘Well, did you when you were on holiday?’

  Your toffee brown eyes widen as you look at me.

  ‘Yes.’

  Yes?

  Jenni. You sanctimonious, husband-stealing bitch.

  When I arrive home, chicken nuggets and chips are beginning to sizzle in the oven as my mother listens to Pippa read. The boys are making strange shapes with Play Doh. From the moment I open the door I feel superfluous. A feeling I do not like. A feeling I frequently have to live with these days.

  ‘Hello, Mummy,’ the boys say without turning from their Play Doh shapes.

  ‘Good day?’ Heather asks me, without lifting her eyes from Pippa’s reading book. Pippa continues reading in a strange monotone, high-pitched and proud. Two monkeys are stuck in a tree. Who is going to help them down? The monkeys’ mother, apparently. Uninterested in the antics of the monkeys, I go upstairs to my bedroom to change. As I unbutton my nurse’s uniform to throw it in the laundry basket (which is full again), my mobile phone rings. I pick up.

  ‘Hi Carly. It’s Craig.’

  Craig. Jenni’s husband. Craig. Handsome. Too handsome. The sort of good looks that I have difficulty trusting. He can have whatever he wants too easily, with too many of the opposite sex. Or so it seems to me. But you don’t think like that, do you, Jenni? You love him. You trust him. I mustn’t judge him by his looks. Just because he can, doesn’t mean he does. Or does it?

  ‘I’m planning a surprise birthday party at the pub for Jenni on Friday night. Can you and Rob make it?’ Craig asks.

  ‘That sounds great.’

  Dancing to please Jenni. Great, Craig, great. We all dance to please bitch-whore Jenni.

  Friday night. Walking to the pub, arm in arm with Rob, carrying the lilies I bought for Jenni. A chilly summer evening, the pavement still wet from earlier rain, making my world look grey – grey upon grey. The lilies make me think of my father’s funeral, of the curved petals crawling across his casket – soon to be destroyed by the heat of the furnace. My mother standing next to the casket, trying not to cry. Mother, still so bereft without my father, seven years since his death just before Pippa was born. Seven years of centring her life on us.

  As soon as I enter the pub, I push death away. We are wrapped in noise and warmth. Jenni moves towards me, smiling. So pleased to see me. Trying to make me feel warm. Trying to make me feel special.

  I hand her the lilies, and the card I have chosen, and she shrieks with delight. A small shriek from the back of her throat.

  Jenni. They are only lilies.

  A few minutes later we can’t get near Jenni and Craig; so many well-wishers have turned up. I sit at a small rickety table by the log fire, which the landlord has lit even though it’s summer, while Rob heads for the bar. Jenni is surrounded by people, her head is thrown back. She’s laughing. I stare at her: Jenni looking so good, chestnut hair falling in waves across her shoulders, a simple dress extenuating her slimness, her fragility. The fragility which makes people want to protect her.

  ‘I thought it was just Craig and me, coming for a quick drink,’ I overhear her explaining to yet another person I don’t recognise.

  Rob returns from the bar with a glass of red wine and a pint of Doombar.

  ‘She knows so many people,’ Rob says, his eyes following mine as I watch.

  ‘It’s the choir thing.’

  ‘It’s the church thing.’

  ‘Maybe it’s because she’s nice,’ Rob says.

  ‘Nice is such an ordinary word.’

  ‘There is nothing ordinary about Jenni.’

  ‘Don’t start that again.’

  ‘I didn’t start it in the first place.’

  Saturday morning. I’m in the car with John and Matt. Pippa is out for the day at a friend’s house, doubtless being drowned in pink. Pink-walled bedroom, pink ballet dresses, a selection of dolls all dressed in pink. Suffocation by candyfloss.

  ‘Where are we going, Mummy?’ Matt asks.

  ‘Snakes and Ladders.’

  ‘Why isn’t Daddy coming with us?’

  ‘His turn for a lie-in.’

  ‘What about Jenni and the other Gospels?’ John suggests hopefully.

  Wincing at the use of the word Gospels, the cheesy nickname Jenni has coined for our children – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the conjoined products of our NCT friendship.

  ‘I thought we could enjoy some time on our own,’ I reply.

  ‘Please, Mummy. Phone Jenni. You can talk to her while we all play on the slides,’ Matt begs.

  Jenni. Holding my hand and laughing. Jenni. Before she started making cow eyes at Rob. I push the memory away.


  ‘You’ll have to make do with Mummy,’ I snap.

  I signal to pull off the main road, and turn into the car park of the state-of-the-art climbing facility. Brightly coloured plastic slides and climbing nets, all hidden from parental sight by giant yellow plastic walls. It’s simple, and expensive. You pay for your children to go in. They take their shoes off, leave them with you and disappear. You sit and drink coffee. You read a book or a newspaper. They reappear several hours later, hot, sweaty and requiring drinks, but too tired to give you any more trouble for the rest of the day. A perfect way to keep children amused on a Saturday morning. Maximum expense. Minimum effort. My favourite treat for them.

  After I have flashed my credit card, my sons disappear through the yellow and blue plastic doorway that leads to the gargantuan play frame. I buy a large cup of coffee and a shortbread biscuit from the café and set myself up at a table. I plug my earplugs in (small foam ones that I bought at Boots yesterday), spread my newspaper out on the table, and home in on the magazine supplement.

  I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I know, I open my eyes to find John shaking my arm. He is red-faced, blond curls plastered to his head with sweat.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’ I say dutifully.

  ‘When we’ve found Matt.’

  ‘Found him? I thought he was with you.’

  ‘He was, Mummy, but when I went down the wiggly slide, I thought he was behind me but he never arrived.’

  ‘He’s probably just in another part of the slide complex. Let’s go and ask the staff.’

  Holding John’s hand, I venture through a yellow and blue doorway, into a world where toddlers tumble and twist through nets and tubes, thundering towards me at frightening velocities. But it’s only me that is intimidated, not the toddlers. They are laughing and smiling as their chubby bodies slide and bounce. At the bottom of every tube or net there is a substantial amount of blue matting and a Snakes and Ladders guard; a young adult wearing a canary yellow sweat shirt. I approach the nearest guard, clinging tightly to John’s hand to keep him with me.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I say to him, a boy of about sixteen. A boy with a pulpy face, a rash of spots on his right cheek. ‘I can’t find my other son.’

  ‘What’s he wearing? I’ll look out for him.’

  I hesitate.

  ‘Black jeans and a T-shirt,’ John replies before I can remember.

  ‘And his name?’

  ‘Matthew Burton. Matt for short,’ I reply.

  ‘Tell me a bit more about what he looks like.’

  ‘He looks about five – but he’s only three and a half. And his hair is blond, like his brother’s.’

  ‘That’s me,’ John proudly informs the pimply youth.

  ‘Wait in the café, I’ll go looking for him and bring him to you as soon as possible,’ he replies, a little sharply. He is looking at me critically, but I ignore him.

  By the time he has finished his sentence John has freed himself from my hand and is climbing up a purple net. Before I have returned through the plastic door to the café for another cup of coffee, John is already halfway up the giant play frame.

  Half an hour later, a man wearing a suit and an earpiece is standing in front of me holding John’s hand. Attached to his shirt is a plastic badge telling me that he is the manager of Snakes and Ladders. Only his badge and his earpiece prevent him from looking like a funeral director, so low are his eyes, so dark his grimace.

  ‘I’m sorry to say we can’t find your son Matt on the main play frame,’ he announces.

  My stomach tightens in annoyance.

  ‘He went in. He must be there,’ I reply.

  ‘We’ve checked every camera for twenty-five minutes.’ There is a pause. ‘Is it possible he ran past you and went outside?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought he would have done that.’

  ‘Is it possible?’

  ‘I fell asleep. So it’s possible. Unlikely, but possible.’

  ‘We have another play complex outside. Maybe he went there.’

  ‘Why would he do that without telling anyone? He’s never been there before.’

  John starts to cry. ‘I want my baby brother.’

  I lift him into my arms.

  ‘We’ll find him. He can’t have gone far,’ I tell him.

  We follow the manager out of the Snakes and Ladders indoor arena, across the car park towards a large wooden climbing frame built in the shape of a fortress with boardwalk walls. The castle teems with children racing around the walls. I stand next to the manager, clinging on to John who is still crying, and a fist of panic suddenly squeezes me inside. Where is my son? Where has he gone? What’s happened to him? Then almost as soon as I start to panic, in the edge of my vision, like a speck of dust irritating me, something makes me turn to the corner of the climbing frame, and for a split second I think I see a boy of about Matt’s size, with blond curly hair.

  ‘What is it?’ the manager asks. ‘Did you see something?’

  ‘I thought I saw him.’ I shake my head. ‘But maybe I didn’t.’

  And then I see him again. Matt. Matt’s hair. Matt’s red face. Matt’s black jeans and new flashing trainers running down the steps of the castle towards me. I manage to keep calm in front of the manager – who no longer looks funereal – the swarming children, and their over-vigilant parents who are hovering anxiously by the play frame. But as soon as I strap him into his car seat to drive him home I smack him, hard on his cheek. He cries. John starts to cry in sympathy. I drive home with two crying boys who are howling and bellowing, wishing I knew where I’d put my earplugs. As soon as I have pulled the car into the drive and switched off the engine, I lean into the back of the car and smack Matt again. Hard, on the opposite cheek.

  ~ Jenni ~

  ‘Why have you invited them midweek?’ Craig asks as he loads the dishwasher. ‘It’s my early shift. I’ll be exhausted.’

  ‘I’m worried about Carly. I need to talk to her.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘She’s always been edgy – in a fun sort of way. But the balance has tipped. Now she’s just edgy.’

  ‘Well, it must be hard work being married to the local GP who works every hour that God sends, working herself, and bringing up three small children. So I do sympathise but’ – he shrugs his shoulders – ‘can’t you talk to her by yourself?’

  ‘I wanted to show her some hospitality. Hospitality at home. A deeper sort of friendship. You know how much she means to me. I can make dinner.’

  I kiss him and he pulls me towards him, wrapping me in his arms and holding me against him.

  ‘Can’t you put it off until next week? Give us a bit of time on our own when the children are in bed?’

  ‘I told you, next week I’m going to see my mother.’

  ‘Not again,’ he complains gently.

  I shrug my shoulders.

  ‘I don’t have a choice. You know that.’

  Our dinner-party menu. Beetroot salad, followed by spinach and ricotta lasagne – which took too long to make as I had to cut all the stalks off the spinach. The kitchen looks as if it has exploded; there are pans and cutlery across every surface, as I didn’t have time to wash up before Carly and Rob arrived. I’m not sure why I’ve bothered to go to all this effort as so far I’ve had no meaningful conversation with Carly. She is behaving in a way I’ve never seen before, spending her time weighing up Craig, her eyes all over him when she hasn’t noticed me watching. Carly. Wearing a low-cut top and too much make-up. She has gone for the smoky-eyes look. Carly. Laughing too loud at Craig’s blokey jokes, and every time she does so Rob looks embarrassed. Rob, clean-cut and sensible in his stonewashed jeans and carefully ironed shirt. Even Craig looks surprised at the depth of Carly’s laughter.

  I excuse myself and leave the room, walking back to our small galley kitchen to fetch dessert and put the kettle on for coffee. As I wait for it to boil, I look around at the culinary debris and sit on the low windows
ill looking at the mess. Craig was right, entertaining like this is too much in the week. And he has to be up at five o’clock in the morning to start his shift at the fire station. He was recently promoted to leading fireman. I am so pleased for him. Craig, the only man I have ever loved. Unlike Carly, I haven’t had much experience with men. Craig is the only man I have slept with. I know that seems strange in this day and age of openness and overt sexuality, but it’s because of my religious convictions. My relationship with God. A relationship I am proud of. I don’t feel constrained or repressed because of it. God opens my life out.

  Craig and I met late, and so the time we have had together was almost immediately shared with the children, which is why we have to guard our relationship so preciously. It can be such a struggle to try and find each other between sleepless nights and children’s tantrums. So far at least, I think we are managing.

  But things are going to become more difficult.

  My mother has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Too late. As is all too frequently the case. When the consultant told her last week, I was there, holding her hand, looking into my father’s eyes.

  The kettle boils and I pour water on top of the freshly ground coffee beans waiting in the cafetière. I reach for the Eton mess I messed up earlier, and return to the party – followed by the fear of suffering and loneliness. Followed by my father’s eyes.

  Carly’s cheeks are slightly red and the tip of her nose is glowing.

  ‘Craig tells me you have to go on hospital duty next week without the kids. Can I be of any help?’ she asks as I serve her a generous portion of dessert. Perhaps a bit more food will sober her up.

  Rob stirs in his seat uncomfortably.

  ‘Have you run that by your mother, Carly?’ he says.

  She turns to him, eyes glazed.

  ‘Whatever do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing. Let’s talk about it later.’

  ‘I have other things in mind for later,’ Carly says, giggling and stabbing her fork towards a strawberry. She misses and bangs her fork onto her plate. Metal scrapes against china.