The Doll House: A gripping debut psychological thriller with a killer twist!

When they reach Sevenoaks, Ashley hugs her mother tightly. She can feel Mathilde’s bones through her top, is shocked by how skinny she has become. Ashley worries that her mum spends too much time alone. Even though the house is small it still seems too big for one person; Ashley is taken aback by the emptiness of it each time they come. And the gap her dad has left in the family looms larger whenever the three of them are together.

‘It’s so good to see you, Mum.’ It is; she smiles at her mother, breathes in her familiar scent of cleaning products and freesias. Mathilde reaches for Holly, buries her face in her neck.

‘How is our little one? Oh, your grandad would have loved you so much.’

Ashley feels a twist of sadness. When Holly was born, a part of her had wanted her to be a boy, another Richard. The letters of her father’s name had hovered around her head in the terrible weeks between his death and Holly’s birth, as though waiting to latch on to something else, to reassign themselves. But Holly is Holly. And her father is gone. He would have loved her to distraction. Ashley knows he would.

Benji runs forward into the house, screaming excitedly for Dominic. Lucy follows, the white buds of her earphones trailing after her, her mobile buzzing in her hands.

Corinne is curled up like a cat on the living room sofa, her dark hair tied back from her face, fiddling with the gold bracelet on her wrist. She’s wearing jeans and a pale blue jumper, she looks somehow younger than her thirty-four years. Dominic is by her side. He grins at Ashley.

‘Great to see you, Ash!’ He pulls her into a hug and she embraces him warmly. She has always liked Dominic, he is so down-to-earth, good for her sister. Ashley leans down to kiss Corinne, cupping her face in both her hands affectionately. Her sister looks thin; as Ashley hugs her, she feels Corinne’s body jerk slightly, as though she is nervous.

‘Hi, Ash. Where’s James?’ Corinne asks.

Ashley’s face flushes slightly, she feels suddenly alone in the crowded room. ‘He’s working, coming down tomorrow,’ she says, keeping her voice light. ‘We drove all the way. Well, I did, no “we” about it. I’ve had more takeaway coffees than I care to think about and the car’s covered in Minstrels.’

Dominic laughs and is interrupted by a small body hitting his knees.

‘Benji, my little man!’ He swings him upwards; Benji giggles delightedly and launches into a description of the book he is reading at school, which is all about space. Ashley has heard more talk about the solar system in the last two weeks than she has about anything else.

‘There are loads and loads of planets, and stars, and even things called black holes that suck things up!’ Benji announces proudly.

‘I’m not sure they actually suck things up, Ben,’ Dominic says.

Ashley smiles wryly at him and sits down next to Corinne, who is pulling at a stray thread on the sofa, worrying the cotton until it snaps.

‘How are you, Cor?’

‘Yeah, I’m OK,’ Corinne says. She circles her gold bracelet around her wrist. ‘Where’s the baby?’

‘With Mum. She’s changing her nappy for me, bless her.’

There is a pause. Ashley clears her throat. ‘Work good?’

Corinne hesitates. ‘I wanted to talk to you,’ she says. She glances around the room. The expression on her face is odd. Ashley nods, surprised at the sudden tension.

‘Do you remember I told you about the little chimney pot? That looked like it came from the doll house?’

Ashley nods, frowns. ‘Yes. Did you hang on to it?’

‘Yes,’ Corinne says. ‘But . . . but I also found something else, the other day.’ She takes a breath and looks over at Dominic, lowering her voice. ‘Ashley, I found the little door, the front door of the house. It was on my desk at work.’

There is a silence. Ashley reaches up, rubs her own shoulder blades, feeling how tight the muscles are. She’d love a massage. James used to massage her shoulders when he got home from work, sit her down at the kitchen table and knead her shoulders gently, trace words across her back that she had to try to guess. That hasn’t happened in a while.

Benji crashes into the sides of her legs and Ashley puts out a hand to him absent-mindedly. She shouldn’t have let him have sweets in the car, he will be buzzing for hours.

‘Ash?’ Corinne is looking at her.

‘Sorry, sorry. You found a door?’ She repeats her sister’s words, stalling for time. ‘What did it look like?’

Corinne reaches down, rummages in the brown handbag sitting by her feet. Ashley stares as she pulls a small piece of wood from her bag. It is painted blue, with a little gold piece sticking out of it, what looks like the remainder of an old nail. Corinne holds it in her palm, flat against her skin. Ashley blinks.

‘What do you think? It’s exactly the same as the door that Dad made. Don’t you remember it?’

Ashley stares at the object for a few seconds. Is she missing something? It looks like a piece of wood that is probably full of splinters; best not let Benji near it. Corinne is still staring at her expectantly; she closes her eyes, tries to think. If she is honest, the details of their doll house have long slipped away from her, overtaken by the hundreds of toys she has bought her own children over the years, hours and hours spent in hellish department stores every Christmas.

‘I mean . . . I don’t really think it looks familiar, Cor, to be truthful,’ Ashley says. Her sister pauses.

‘You don’t?’

‘Well . . . it looks to me like a piece of wood. Why would it be from our doll house? Neither of us have seen that in years. I mean, I suppose it might look similar? I can’t properly remember. Benji! Will you stop!’

Her son is tugging on the sleeve of her cardigan, anxious for attention. His little face crumples when she snaps at him and she instantly feels terrible. Corinne doesn’t say anything, closes her hand around the object and puts it back into her handbag. Ashley wishes for the fiftieth time that James were here.

She tries to change the subject.

‘How did you get on at the hospital? What did they say? That’s what I want to know!’

Corinne lights up. ‘It went well! God, I can’t thank you enough. We will pay you back, you know that right?’

Ashley waves a hand. ‘Stop, please. I’m more than happy to give it to you. We aren’t using it for anything.’ She grips her sister’s hand. ‘I’m keeping everything crossed for you. It’s going to work this time, I know it is.’

‘Mummmm.’ Benji is back, hopping from foot to foot in impatience.

‘Come on,’ Ashley says to her sister. ‘Come find Lucy, she’s been dying to see you.’ She stands, grabs Benji by the hand and gestures to Corinne to come into the kitchen, where Lucy is sitting at the table with her grandmother, their heads huddled together. Beside them, Holly is happily blowing bubbles, the saliva forming domes around her rosebud mouth. Ashley smiles at the sight of them.

‘I can’t understand this, my dear,’ Mathilde is saying, bent forward over Lucy’s iPhone. ‘What does this mean? How did you do that?’ Lucy is laughing, explaining something to her and Mathilde is shaking her head in bemusement.

‘These gadgets! I don’t know, it all seems very odd to me. Why don’t you just talk to people in real life? What’s wrong with that?’

‘I do, Grandma!’ Lucy rolls her eyes. ‘This is different, it’s more fun. Look—’

They both glance up as Ashley and Corinne enter the room and Lucy grins at her auntie. Ashley feels a pang as Corinne greets her daughter. They have none of the tension that exists whenever Ashley tries to connect with Lucy. Corinne is wonderful with her.

‘What you looking at, Luce?’ she asks.

‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ her daughter says, immediately flicking her eyes back down to her phone. Ashley tries to ignore the hurt that blooms in her chest.

‘Instagram?’ Corinne asks. Ashley blinks. She wouldn’t know Instagram if it slapped her in the face. Her sister has pulled up a chair next to Lucy and is peering over her shoulder, swiping the little touch screen and giggling at something on the phone. Ashley sighs. Even though there is only four years between her and Corinne, she suddenly feels very old.

Her mother shrugs her shoulders at her.

‘They’ve lost me. Come on.’ She puts a hand on Ashley’s shoulder. ‘Help me start the dinner. Where’s that husband of yours? Not working again?’

8

Kent

Corinne

Maybe Ashley is right. Perhaps it’s nothing to do with the doll house at all. I keep telling myself that as we eat our dinner, spooning great chunks of meaty lasagne into our mouths. Benji has spilled his orange squash; I can see tears forming in his eyes, his cheeks puffing out with the delicious fat of small children. They’ve put Holly down upstairs, in the little cot at the end of the double bed. She looks like she’s grown again; every time I see her she is more and more alive, more and more of a person. It’s amazing to watch. Amazing and heart-breaking all at the same time. I don’t see the children as much as I ought to; I know I could make the hour and a bit journey to Barnes more often than I do, but seeing them is always so bittersweet for me, even though I love them all to bits. It hurts that they aren’t mine.

Mum’s fussing around us all; she is constantly reaching for a J-cloth, her yellow rubber gloves, mopping up imaginary dirt. She doesn’t know what to do with herself any more, without Dad. The sight of her fussing makes me want to cry. I squeeze her arm.

‘Sit down, Mum,’ I say. ‘This is really delicious. Enjoy it with us.’ She looks at me and I smile encouragingly. In the last year, she has looked older every time I’ve seen her, has shrunken into herself like a creature retreating to its shell. Gone is the woman Dad used to call his princess, replaced by a fading shadow. I remember the way he used to look at her; like she wasn’t real, like he couldn’t believe his luck. Whenever he used to get back from an evening in the city she would light up at the sound of his key in the door and the minute he saw her he would circle his arms around her waist and nuzzle his face into her hair. It made Ashley and I giggle and blush behind our hands. ‘All I’ve wanted to do all night is be home with my princess,’ he’d say, and Mum would roll her eyes, tap him on the arm. (‘Your father loves being centre of attention,’ she told me once. ‘He needs it, it’s his fuel.’ Secretly I always thought she was wrong – what Dad needed the most was us.)

Mum smiles back at me, the lines around her eyes deepening. Her hands twist a tea towel back and forth, the cotton catching on her dry hands. The only thing she seems to love now is seeing the children; her face lights up whenever Lucy and Benji are around, and she cuddles Holly so tightly sometimes I’m scared she might break.

‘Mum,’ I say when she’s finally sat down, the tea towel to one side. ‘I wanted to ask you something.’

She looks at me, her brown eyes slightly rheumy over the rim of her glass. I’m not drinking, but Ashley and Mum are sharing a bottle of white. Lucy has been angling for a glass for a while but Ashley hasn’t given in yet. Lucy keeps taking pictures of our meal, adding retro filters, zooming in on the flowers on the table to take a close-up. She holds up her iPhone proudly, shows me the photos each time; it makes me laugh as she tries to make Mum’s lasagne look arty.

‘I wanted to ask about Dad’s things,’ I say to Mum, ‘I’ve been wondering what happened to them all.’ I can feel Ashley and Dom looking at me but I push on, ignoring them. ‘And I’ve been thinking a lot about the doll house we had, you know, the one he made for us. Do you know where it might be?’

There’s a pause. I hear the scrape of cutlery on plates, but apart from that the room seems to take on a strange kind of silence which I could be imagining.

‘They’re all in the loft, my love,’ Mum says then, and she smiles at me, a quick, nervous smile. ‘The doll house is upstairs. It’s packed away, though, so it’s tricky to get to. You didn’t need it for something, did you?’

‘No, no,’ I say, because she looks panicked, her face is sort of blotchy and I don’t want to make her worry. She seems so frail; although she’s only pushing sixty-five, her hair is completely grey now and her hands are wrinkled, dotted with brown liver spots. Dad’s death has aged her; I know it has. I suppose it’s aged us all in way.

‘Did you know that one day we’re all going to be sucked into a black hole?’ Benji has stopped crying and is holding a piece of lasagne aloft, speared on his fork in front of his face. He zooms the pasta around, dances it in front of Dominic’s eyes.

‘Black hole, black holeeee,’ he cries, and obediently Dom opens his mouth and eats the forkful, his cheeks bulging slightly with the effort. Benji laughs, and everybody’s attention is focused on him, but I look over at my mother, who is looking down at her plate, picking at her fingers, pulling at the skin of a hangnail so that the flesh around her nails shines red in the overhead lamp. She’s lost in a world of her own, and I can’t help but feel that there’s something she isn’t saying.

*

The house is quiet. Holly has been crying but she is silent now, her wails extinguished by Ashley’s gentle voice. Dominic is sleeping beside me, his mouth partially open. The sound of him snoring fills the room. Carefully, I ease myself away, lift up the corner of the duvet. I’m going up to the loft. I’ve got to find out, I’ve got to just check.

There is a thin sliver of light emanating from Lucy’s bedroom. I pause on the landing, catch sight of myself in the mirror, dressed in my old navy pyjamas that Dom bought me last year. My hair is standing on end. Dad used to call me his little scrubbing brush, he’d put his hand on my head and rub my hair until it puffed up like bristles.

The loft is at the end of the corridor. I walk carefully and quietly, trying not to wake Holly up, my feet tightening against the cold wooden boards. At the little stairway that leads up to the loft, I clamber upwards to the door, my mobile clutched in my hand, ready to activate the flashlight function.

The first thing that strikes me is how much junk my mother keeps up here; piles and piles of our old things, schoolbooks belonging to Ashley, boxes of clothes bursting at the sides. I can see the purple trail of my old tie-dye trousers poking out from behind a ream of Sellotape, catch sight of a box containing what looks like our old art work. Misshapen clay lumps gleam in the dark.

My eyes begin to adjust to the darkness, and I make out more and more of my things, stacks upon stacks of boxes with my name on, boxes with Ashley’s name on. I reach for one of mine; pull off the masking tape and open it up. Just my old shoes, small pairs of trainers that wouldn’t even fit Benji. I start to open more boxes, another and another. Books, clothes. My old ballet things, a little plastic box full of sparkly nail polish. I was terrible at ballet, pretty good at manicures. There’s a collapsing old art project I made in year four, I don’t know why Mum’s kept it.

I want to find the dolls. Beatrice was my favourite; she wore a red velvet dress and had long brown ringlets. She was beautiful. She must be here somewhere. There is a sudden sound, a scrabbling noise behind the walls, that makes me jump and catch my breath, pressing my hand to my heart. It must be an animal, a rodent hidden in the walls.

As I stare around, something starts to become clear to me. At first I think I must be wrong and I begin to lift things up, push things aside. I find Ashley’s crumpled Brownies outfit, all our Christmas decorations. The red and green baubles glint in the flashlight. Something dislodges itself and a stack of old magazines starts to topple; I peer at them, expecting Dad’s back issues of Architecture Today, but they all look like Mum’s, fading copies of Women and Home. I’m trying to be quiet but my heart is beating a little too fast, my movements becoming quicker, frustrated. I don’t understand it. I must be wrong. Nothing of my father’s is up here.

There are no boxes, none of his clothes. And after a further twenty minutes of searching, there is no doll house anywhere. It is as though it never existed.

9

Kent

Ashley

Ashley’s mouth feels dry, fogged with wine. Holly has been surprisingly quiet in the night; she was up at two and again at four, but apart from that she has slept. The silence feels dreamlike, unreal. Ashley reaches across the bed for her mobile. Seven a.m. The numbers stare back at her. There are no missed calls and she feels something inside her loosen, relax a little. She dials the Barnes house. The phone rings and rings.

James doesn’t pick up; she ends the call, lies staring at the blank face of her mobile. Yuck. She needs to brush her teeth.

The bedroom door creaks open and she lifts her head. Her sister enters the room and Ashley immediately scoots over, bunching up the covers under her chin, making room for Corinne. She looks worried, as though she hasn’t slept much.

‘Budge over, will you?’ She glances into the cot. ‘Hol asleep?’

Ashley nods, moves further along the bed, pulling back the duvet to let Corinne in. Her hair tickles Ashley’s shoulder as she wriggles in next to her and they turn towards each other, lying face to face like they used to when they were girls.

‘You all right? It’s really early. I thought you were Benji wanting juice.’

Corinne frowns. ‘It’s the hormones. My schedule’s messed up; I can’t sleep, and when I do, I have nightmares. And I can never get comfortable.’ She sighs, shifts so that her back is to Ashley.

‘Oh, poor you.’ Ashley reaches out and rubs her sister’s back, feeling the proximity of the bones through the skin. When they were small she used to run her palm up and down Corinne’s little spine, count the humps as her sister slept beside her. It was fun sleeping in the same bed, cuddling up like sardines in a tin and drifting off to the sound of their parents chatting downstairs.

‘How’s the gallery going now? Did you get that new commission?’

Corinne rolls over, spreading her arms out until she is flat on her back, staring at the ceiling. She reminds Ashley of a snow angel, the type they used to make in the Hampstead garden when they were children. Their dad had shown them how to throw themselves backwards, spread their arms wide, enjoy the cold thud of the ground beneath them.

‘No. Not yet, anyway. I mean, I hope I do.’

‘Has Marjorie mentioned it?’

Corinne shrugs. ‘On and off. She’s not my biggest fan at the moment. I need to pull my socks up.’ She says the last phrase in a forced matronly voice and they both laugh.

‘There’s a new woman moved into our building,’ Corinne says. ‘Gilly something. Quite young, younger than me. She’s got a little boy, a toddler, she’s on her own.’

Ashley waits.

‘I’m going to try to be friendly to her,’ Corinne says. ‘I have to, don’t I? I can’t be rude to people just because they’ve got what I haven’t.’ She looks as Ashley as though for approval, and Ashley feels a rush of love for her sister.

‘Oh, Cor. Yes, of course you need to try. But don’t beat yourself up. It’s normal that you feel this way, really, it is.’

Corinne nods. ‘I know. But I can’t give into it, I’ve got to keep trying.’

‘You can do it,’ Ashley says. ‘You always were a determined person. Remember when we were little? You wouldn’t take no for an answer.’ She smiles. ‘Dad used to call you his little dictator.’

Corinne laughs. ‘God, I’d forgotten that.’

The alcohol from the night before is making Ashley’s heartbeat fast and irregular.

‘I can’t get hold of James,’ she tells Corinne. ‘I tried him just now and he’s not answering.’ She tries to keep her voice light.

‘Probably asleep. Or already on the way? I thought you said he was coming down anyway?’

‘I did. He’s meant to be. Said he had to work.’

‘Well, then, he’s working! Don’t worry, silly billy.’

Ashley feels a bite of irritation. She swallows down her feelings, picks up her mobile and dials again. The line takes a while to connect and when it does it clicks on to their automatic answering machine.

‘James, Ashley and the children are unavailable to take your call right now. Please leave a message and we’ll call you straight back!’ Her own voice shrills out at her. God, she’s chirpy. She pulls back the covers, swings her legs out of the bed.

‘I should go and check on Benji. Want some tea?’

‘Just hot water, please.’

Ashley stands up. She is gasping for a cup of Earl Grey. At thirty-nine, she can’t drink wine like she used to in her twenties. Not without consequences, anyway. As she leaves the room, Corinne says her name.

‘Ashley?’

Corinne’s voice is high, as though she is unsure of what she is about to say.

‘What’s the matter?’

She turns back towards the bed. Corinne sits up, pulls the quilt tight across her knees. There are bags under her eyes, purple in the dimmed light of the bedroom.

Corinne stares at her for a few seconds as though about to say something, then seems to change her mind.

‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘Nothing. I’ll see you downstairs.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure. Sorry.’

‘OK. Let me know if Hol wakes up, will you? Watch her for me.’

Ashley pulls the door to and goes down the corridor, pausing at the doorway to Benji’s room. She has done this ever since he was born: stop outside his door and listen to the rise and fall of his breathing. She holds her own breath as she listens. God knows what would happen if she couldn’t actually hear him.

Ashley retrieves the tea bags from her mother’s cupboard. She hopes Corinne is all right; her sister is prone to getting things out of proportion, seeing significance in everything even when there is none. She panics easily, always has. The doll house is a typical example. Their dad’s death hit Corinne particularly hard, Ashley knows it did. Perhaps the fertility treatment has brought the feelings to the surface.

She goes over to her mother’s landline and dials her husband again. The phone rings and she is about to give up when James answers, his voice sounding gruff.

‘James? Are you OK?’ A spurt of worry grips her heart and she presses the phone to her ear, listening for another voice in the background. Is there someone there, is there somebody with him?

She waits, counts to three. Perhaps she is imagining it. The phone can distort. She takes a big gulp of tea.

‘Are you coming down today? Everyone wants to see you. We’ll probably go for lunch.’ Ashley can feel herself holding her breath.

James clears his throat and when he speaks his voice sounds more like himself. The energy leaves her suddenly and she has to lean against the counter. What is the matter with her?

‘I’ll be on the next train.’

Ashley remains in the kitchen after they hang up, holding the phone to her chest. Her friend Megan’s voice filters through her ears, Are you worried, Ashley? Ashley, are you worried?

Then

I don’t tell anyone what we do any more. I did once, when I was younger, when I was just little, I wrote about it for my school project. The title was ‘What I Did at the Weekend’. It was in art and design class and the teacher asked us to draw a picture of what we did on our Saturday and Sunday. But it wasn’t just a normal drawing, we were allowed to use all different materials. That means paint and glue and felt tip pen. Mrs Sanderson said I could do whatever I liked and so I picked up all the shoeboxes from the corner of the classroom, the spare ones from when we made bug boxes, and I started to build a house.

I used Sellotape and Pritt Stick (although that didn’t work very well) and I put the boxes one on top of the other, because the house we go to is quite big. Then I added in windows for us to look through and a door, although we aren’t allowed to go through that yet but Mummy says we will one day.