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

  I stare into his eyes to see if he’s joking. He isn’t, apparently.

  ‘Their little one’s turning three next week,’ I say. ‘Cosima.’

  He runs his hand down the length of my arm. ‘I know.’

  ‘Abi would’ve been three by now.’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘They would have walked to school together. Eventually.’ Tears run hot down my face. A great bottomless well bubbling up, overflowing.

  ‘The party doesn’t have to be about Abi,’ he almost whispers. ‘It could be about us going forward, trying to make that step. And their kitchen will be spectacular, I guarantee it. Like something out of Hello! magazine.’

  I feel so heavy. So tired. I don’t care. I don’t care about anything he’s just said.

  ‘I can’t,’ I say eventually. ‘I can’t go to any party. It’s too soon. I’m sorry.’ I press my forehead against his chest and feel his arms close around me.

  ‘Shh.’ He presses his lips to my hair. ‘Don’t cry. We don’t have to go if you don’t want to. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.’

  I stay in his arms, but the walls of me are thickening, hardening. Don’t have to do anything I don’t want to? I have to do what I don’t want to every single minute of every single day of my life. I don’t want to relive the beats of that morning, but I do. I don’t want to have to watch over and over the flashing film reel of it all, the constant, replaying torture. I don’t want to have to put my new baby boy in his sister’s pram, here in this surreal not-quite-present, knowing that he once had a sister, that he might still have a sister, somewhere out there, but that I, I lost her. That I left the front door open and let her wander out to who knows where. I don’t want to walk out of that same front door every day, stop myself from triple-, quadruple-checking that it’s locked behind me when I get home. I don’t want to have to stop on the street and pass the time of day with people who know what happened, who read those horrible stories in the news, who offer kind words laced with intangible hints that plume like dark smoke around my questionable standards, my slow reactions, my fitness as a mother. I don’t want to stand there trying not to listen to all that they’re not saying, trying not to hear the creak of their necks as they cock their heads in sympathy that may or may not be genuine. I don’t want to have to put one foot in front of the other. I don’t want to have to breathe in and breathe out. I don’t want to stay clean, eat, live. I don’t want to wash my fucking hair.

  What I want is to say all of that, now, to Matt. But I don’t. It’s not fair. It’s me that left the door open, not him. And he has never once, in all the tears and the rage and the confusion that followed, blamed me for it.

  Four

  Ava

  I’m taking the laundry out of the washing basket. Armfuls of sheets, shirts, pillowcases. Focusing on finding the steps one by one. The handles of the pushchair come into view, the mesh back. No Abi. I fall. Land on the bundle of dirty linen. Right myself, rub my hands. Stumble into the hall, calling her name. The house opposite. The lamp post. I can see the lamp post.

  The front door. The front door is wide open.

  ‘If only I’d shut the front door,’ I sob, hours later, to Matt.

  He holds me tight. We rock each other softly. ‘Ava, you can’t do that to yourself. Don’t think about it. Come on, Ava, you’ll drive yourself crazy.’

  Beat by beat. Sometimes the seconds jump around. Sometimes the minutes mix themselves up. Matt stands thin and silhouetted in the doorway, making the call. He turns, slides the phone back into the hidden breast pocket of his jacket, his body slumped against the wall, his head bowed.

  ‘They’re sending someone now.’

  I can see him. I see him, constantly, over and over. Second by second, lowering the phone from his ear. They’re sending someone now. Face set in shock. Body a question mark. His expression my own. Endlessly.

  ‘I thought you had to wait for someone to be considered officially missing?’

  He shakes his head and replies only, ‘They’re on their way.’

  Later, there were bite marks on my fist. Perhaps I bit my knuckles as I ran out again onto the street. Can I remember it? I’m not sure. Can I see myself running down our street, biting my own hand? I can, but maybe it’s a mental image made by the marks – a deduction. What I know is that as soon as Matt called the police, I ran back to Neil and Bella’s. What I can see is myself battering once again on their door, weeping frantically, full of bitter justifications for why this cannot be happening, cannot be happening to me. I have done my best, I really have. I have tried so hard to get everything right, read all the pamphlets, trained in first aid. I know how to do the Heimlich manoeuvre, how to give mouth-to-mouth, how to put someone in the recovery position.

  But I didn’t close the front door and no amount of safety literature can reverse that.

  I bang on Neil and Bella’s door again, lower my mouth to the letter box and push it open with my fingertips. ‘Neil? Bel? It’s Ava. Help. I need help.’

  Ear to the door, I bang it with my fist. The discordant wail of a siren. Another second. I realise that sound is for me. The door opens. Neil’s hair is wet. He is pulling up one strap of his white overalls, his face etched in concern.

  ‘Ava?’

  ‘Have you got Abi?’

  He shakes his head a fraction. ‘No, why? Has something happened?’

  I’m backing away, stumbling a little. ‘Abi’s missing. I thought she might have… I’ve got to go. The police are here.’

  ‘Missing?’ Neil’s features crowd, an expression between confusion and panic. ‘Police? Christ.’

  He’s running with me. I can hear him panting.

  ‘Is Matt there?’ he says breathlessly.

  ‘Yes, yes, he’s come back. I knocked for you before.’

  ‘Did you? Sorry, babe, I was in the shower.’

  More neighbours have come out onto the road. Concern fills their bodies, informs their movements: arms fold, hands shield eyes from the weak sun, heads bend together, ask each other what’s going on. A patrol car is parking outside my house. The blue light flashes, and stops.

  ‘Have you seen Abi?’ I ask my neighbours as we run past. ‘My little girl? She’s wandered off.’

  ‘No, sorry.’

  ‘Have you seen my little girl?’

  ‘No, sorry.’

  What do I know about that morning? Nothing. Only dread obliterating all coherent thought. Morphing time. Blurring edges. I was I am blind. I was I am deaf. I was I am senseless. Matt was Matt is talking to two police officers on our front path, the blaze of black and fluorescent yellow. The spark of radios, a blue-and-yellow-chequered car was, is parked in our road. Neil was, is with me. He has his arm around me. He is telling me to stay calm, that we’ll find her.

  ‘Don’t worry, babe,’ he says. ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘This is my wife, Ava,’ Matt is saying now, yesterday, today, a year ago, over and over again. The uniformed police officers on my front path are one woman, one man. Their radios cough and crackle. Black and white. Fluorescent yellow. The air has thinned, shrunk my skin tight.

  ‘Hello.’ My voice is small and near, strange and far.

  ‘And this is Neil,’ Matt says. ‘Our close friend. He’s Abi’s godfather.’

  Neil holds out his hand, shakes theirs. ‘All right,’ he says. ‘Hi.’

  And then we’re in the kitchen: me, Matt and the two police officers. We have had to come through the side gate because the front door has been taped off, the hallway now a potential crime scene. My hallway. Our home. The officers have radioed for more units but I don’t know if I know this yet. Later, I will find out that they have called for search dogs, and for a duty officer, whose name is Bill Simmonds.

  But not yet.

  Now, we’re sitting at the breakfast bar. I want to scream at them not to sit down, how can anyone sit down – my daughter is out there somewhere and we have no time. We have already lost so m
uch time. The man, whose name is PC Simon Peak, has taken out a notepad. He rests it on his knee. The woman is still standing. Her radio barks with static. She takes it and wanders out through the patio doors into the back garden, around the side of the house.

  ‘Mrs Atkins,’ PC Peak says. ‘If you can tell me exactly what happened.’

  I begin, as best I can, but I haven’t got far before Neil appears at the back door, holding out his hand. His eyes are wet, his face flushed. ‘This was outside on the road.’

  Lifeless in his hand slumps my daughter’s plush toy. Mr Sloth.

  ‘Oh my God.’ The words leave me in a rising squeal. I cover my mouth.

  Matt is on his feet. ‘Where?’

  ‘Just… at the edge of the pavement. Behind your car – out front.’ Neil’s brow knits. His eyes are pale blue pools of sorrow. He hands me the cuddly sloth. It is wet. I pick two mulched leaves from its fur and press the toy to my forehead, then to my nose. I inhale it but it smells cold, mossy. It doesn’t smell like Abi.

  ‘I’ll need to take that,’ Peak says.

  I can’t see. ‘What’s happened to her?’

  ‘Looks like she definitely headed out,’ Matt says.

  ‘Mrs Atkins? Mrs Atkins?’ Peak is looking at me. I know he has a camera on his lapel because he told me so, though when this was, I’m not sure.

  ‘Sorry, what?’ I say, thinking that Neil must have gone out again, because he isn’t here anymore.

  ‘I was asking what time she went missing – can you remember?’

  ‘I went upstairs a little before eight. But she was perfectly happy so it would have taken her a while to become restless… she was completely settled, so let’s see, I came down at about quarter past eight? I can’t say exactly, not to the minute, but I’d guess the earliest she could have left would be five, ten past, but she would have called me. I would have heard her if she was getting impatient, you know? But she was definitely clipped into her pushchair. I thought I’d closed the front door but it must have banged open when I shut it.’

  ‘Can you tell me briefly what happened?’

  ‘I came downstairs. Her buggy was empty. The front door was open.’

  He scribbles. I try not to be distracted by another siren in the street. I think I can hear Neil outside, talking to someone: businesslike, proactive, his voice sails through the open window above the sink.

  ‘And then?’ The police officer is still looking at me. Peak, his name is. ‘I’m not taking a statement, Mrs Atkins, I just need to gather as much information as I can, as quickly as I can. You’re doing really well.’

  Sometimes the beats are episodic. Seconds go missing. Sometimes minutes get jumbled up. Matt remembers things differently. We argue as to what happened when.

  It’s DS Bill Simmonds now. Mid-morning. His hair is dirty blonde. We are still in the kitchen and I am aware of repeating myself. Simmonds is telling me they’re conducting a door-to-door. He is explaining how they will organise the search, how it will spread progressively outwards, our home the nucleus.

  ‘Sarge.’ The woman interrupts, the one from earlier. I have forgotten her name. She is standing at the back door. Her hair is brown and tied back in a messy bun. ‘The PolSA’ll be half an hour.’

  I look from one to the other. ‘What’s a PolSA?’

  ‘It’s the specialist search unit,’ Simmonds tells me.

  ‘And the dogs are on the way,’ the woman adds.

  ‘Dogs?’ I say. ‘Dogs, oh my God.’

  This is escalating; it’s escalating too quickly.

  DS Simmonds shifts position. ‘Try not to be alarmed, Mrs Atkins. In cases of missing children, it’s procedure to make use of these resources the moment we get the call. The dogs are trained to trace your little girl, and the specialist unit are here to help find her too.’

  A sob escapes me. My head pulses, hot and white. ‘Oh my God. Oh my God.’

  Matt is rubbing my back. He has been out on his bike, but now he is sitting on the stool next to mine. ‘Shh, shh, shh, come on.’ He is trying to be brave but he sounds like a boy.

  DS Simmonds speaks to the female officer, low and brisk. ‘Check the gardens, yeah? Garages, sheds, as well as the houses. Ask if they’ve seen anyone driving too fast, any cars they didn’t recognise, anyone they thought looked suspicious, out of place, anyone seen a little girl, blue coat, cream bobble hat. Let’s get a photo sorted. Let me know if anyone won’t cooperate.’

  ‘I think a photo’s sorted, Sarge. I’ll check.’

  ‘Mrs Atkins.’ He has turned back to me. I know because his voice is louder. When I glance up from my lap, he is looking at me. ‘I know this is hard, but if you can try to talk us through it in as much detail as you can. We just want to make the search as effective as possible.’

  I tell him, like I told PC Peak. I tell him as best I can. He scribbles, tips his head and talks into his radio.

  ‘Wolfy,’ he says, ‘check for CCTV; I repeat, check for CCTV.’

  ‘There’s no CCTV,’ I say. ‘I don’t think there is. Not on this street anyway. There might be on Thameside. It’s not that kind of…’ I look at Matt. There are pink tracks down his cheeks where the dust from the cycle ride has been washed away. The tense set of his shoulders makes me aware of my own. It’s like we’ve both been dropped from a height; it’s taking a conscious effort of will just to hold our bones in place.

  DS Simmonds stands up, addresses himself to Matt. ‘And you came back?’

  ‘Yeah. Ava called me and I came back.’

  ‘You saw you daughter when you left for work?’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah. Of course.’

  ‘And where were you when you got the call?’

  ‘At Richmond Bridge? On the towpath. I got a puncture, otherwise I’d have been at work by then.’

  He nods. ‘All right, well I suggest you both stay here, in case little Abi returns or anyone tries to contact you.’

  Matt takes a step forward. ‘Can’t I help search?’

  I stand up too. ‘I want to search. I need to find her. Please.’

  Matt grips my arm. He’s about to say something – something about me being pregnant, I’m sure – when another woman appears in the back garden, crossing in front of the glass sliding doors. She is not in uniform. She is big and tall and she is in my kitchen, but I have no idea who she is.

  ‘Ava Atkins?’ She holds out her hand when I nod. ‘I’m Detective Constable Lorraine Stephens. I’m your family liaison officer.’ Her hand is warm and dry. She has large dark-green eyes and short grey hair. ‘I’ll be here with you, all right? I’ll be here with you while the police do their job and we’ll keep you updated with any developments.’

  Matt is following Simmonds out of the house. I hear footsteps, someone running back up the side path. Matt reappears at the back door.

  ‘Bella’s got a photo of Abi from yesterday, they’re going to print it off.’ His glance rests on my belly. ‘Will you be OK?’

  I nod, my eyes clouding over once again. ‘Go.’

  Five

  Matt

  The patrol car is parked out front. At the end of the street, the sight of blue-and-white tape winds him. There are cones on the tarmac. Three police vans have parked on Thameside Lane, their back doors open, a clutch of police officers in conference, glancing about.

  Neil is with them, pointing towards the near end of the street. Another siren announces yet another police van, which parks on the double yellows a little further down, hazards flashing. Two guys in naval combats and waterproof jackets jump out of the front and make their way to the back. One of them opens the door to two German shepherds, tongues pink and lolling, eyes brown and quick.

  Matt bends double, clutching at his stomach. ‘Oh God.’

  Neil claps him on the back. ‘Come on, mate. We’ll find her.’

  Matt makes himself breathe. Sweat prickles all over his scalp, his face. When he’s sure he’s not actually going to vomit, he rises slowly.

 
‘Sir?’ One of the dog handlers is at his side. ‘My name’s Ian Mitchell, all right? I’m going to have to ask you for an item of your daughter’s clothing. Something recently worn?’

  Matt stares at him a moment. Realisation dawns. Another lurch of nausea.

  ‘Of course,’ he says.

  Neil squeezes his shoulder. ‘I’m going to help search, all right?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Neil jogs back into Riverside Drive. Matt follows, leading the dog handlers back to the house. He leaves them on the pavement, telling them he won’t be a moment. A policewoman stands sentry beside the taped-off front door. He heads round the side, across the back of the house, to where Ava is sitting with her back to him, opposite the family liaison officer on one of the two small sofas by the patio doors.

  ‘Matt?’ His name is loaded with tears. She has turned to look at him and her face and eyes are red.

  He gestures towards the interior of the house. ‘I’ve just got to grab something.’

  She nods. He runs upstairs. At the sight of Abi’s room, nausea rises again, so strong it seems impossible he won’t be sick. He pulls the covers from Abi’s cot bed and pushes his face into the soft folds. They smell of her, though he can’t say in words what that smell is. He grabs her pyjamas. Ava has folded them neatly on the mattress. Abi doesn’t have a pillow; she threw it out with a scowl the first time she tried it – me no like! The pyjamas are pink with little grey cartoon elephants. The smell of her is more intense – her skin, her baby soap, sweat from her sleeping body, oh God.

  He carries them downstairs. Ava is facing away from him, but still he hurries past, the pyjamas behind his back. She can’t see this. No mother should have to see this. Even he has to look away while the dogs take turns to sniff at his daughter’s pyjamas. It is an invasion. A violation. It can’t be real. It cannot.

  Ian, the dog handler, hands him back the pyjamas and thanks him.