The Girl Next Door: a gripping and twisty psychological thriller you don’t want to miss!

Inside our house, I press my back against the door, force myself to take deep breaths. Harry is home tonight; his huge black trainers are discarded inside the front hallway. I bend to pick them up, stack them neatly on the shoe rack, wanting to create a sense of order to ease my jumbled mind. I hope he’s feeling better. It’s horribly unsettling, having this happen so close to home. I know it’s awful, I know I should be focused on our neighbours and their grief, but selfishly, I don’t want the police sniffing around my family, prising apart the cracks in my marriage. Things can still change, any day now. He is usually sorry. So, so sorry. And the bruises fade fast, after all. There’s never been any point getting anyone else involved. Not at this stage.

Jack is sitting up in our living room, just as I pictured him, his legs stretched out on the large grey sofa that cost us over three grand. Three grand, I wanted to say to him, three grand would’ve sent Sophie to the private school in Saffron Walden. The 52-inch television screen is flickering in front of him, the volume down low. He puts a finger to his lips as he sees me. My stomach clenches.

‘The kids are asleep. Well, Harry’s on the Xbox, I think, in his room. But Sophie and Finn went down over an hour ago.’ He’s staring at me. Unblinking.

‘Thank you,’ I say robotically, moving through the room to the kitchen, the spaces joined together by the dark beamed archway. I stand at the sink, run a glass of cold water. The basin is deep, the gold tap high above it. Modern. Trendy. The kitchen faces the Edwards’ house. I wonder if Jack has been watching too.

‘Were the children alright?’ I ask.

‘Fine,’ he says, ‘Sophie wanted a story, Finn wanted more juice. Harry grunted at me. Nothing too strenuous.’

I can’t work out what mood he’s in. Words hang between us, all the things we’re not saying.

He gestures to me and I wobble towards him, fingers clamped around the water glass. He smiles up at me, puckers his mouth into the kissy shape that used to mean he wanted sex, and I grip the glass even tighter and purse my lips back at him, trying for a moment to recreate the old magic.

Later. I’ve swept up the broken glass, keeping a sliver wrapped in kitchen paper, up where the matches are kept so the kids don’t get hold of it. Just in case. I have these little weapons hidden around the house – break in case of emergency. The knife slipped between the top row of paperbacks in our room, third from the left, next to Wolf Hall. The envelope of twenties nestled in with the cookbooks. My escape routes, such as they are. He doesn’t know, I don’t think.

In bed, we turn towards each other; I’ve brushed my teeth, he hasn’t. I can still taste the slight fug of alcohol on my tongue, feel the beat of my heart in my ears. I picture Rachel and Ian lying in bed next door; I can’t imagine they’re asleep either. Maybe they’re not even in, maybe they’re down at the police station already. Perhaps the police are searching the house. I think of them thumbing through Clare’s things, their eyes taking in every little detail. I’ve watched too much CSI.

‘How were the PTA girls?’ Jack asks, and I half smile in spite of myself. Girls. We’re forty-five.

‘Lindsay’s divorce papers came through,’ I tell him, ‘Tricia spilled her wine. Sandra says her heart hurts.’

‘That’s impossible,’ he says, and I roll my eyes in the darkness. Always the doctor. ‘Why’s she getting a divorce?’

I shift onto my back. The white curtain brushes my arm, ghostly in the darkness. We’re trying so hard to be normal that it hurts. ‘I didn’t get to find out.’

I can almost feel the twist of his smirk, although his lips are barely an outline.

‘Lucky her.’

There’s a pause.

‘Jane,’ he says then, ‘about last night…’

I wait. I suppose I’m waiting for an apology, but this time, one doesn’t come.

I wish I could barricade the downy pillows between us, protect myself in my sleep. I want to talk more about Clare but I can’t; instead I stare at the wall and think of my children, of their sweet, chubby little faces, their sweeping dark eyelashes, the soft inhale and exhale of their breath in the next room. I think of Harry, his teenage body sprawled out underneath the duvet, the smattering of newly acquired stubble on his jawline. My babies.

I don’t fall asleep until Jack does. I’m too frightened.

Chapter Six

DS Madeline Shaw

Tuesday 5th February

Ashdon is a small town, population 3,193. The town sign sits in the centre, opposite the primary and secondary schools and beside the River Bourne. On it are three farmers, a sheep, and a strangely oversized ear of corn. The town has a doctor’s surgery, a pub and a church, a newsagent, a ceramics place and a lot of middle-class mums. It is not the kind of town where bad things happen, and the death of Clare Edwards comes as a horrible shock.

Madeline has lived in the town for just over eighteen months. When the DCI formally assigns her to work underneath him on the Clare Edwards case, she is drinking coffee at her desk, black for the calories, and playing back the recording of Nathan Warren’s phone call, made to Lorna after he came across Clare’s body. She knows about the allegation made against him a few years ago, the report of him following a girl home from school, and has already asked Ben Moore about it. DS Moore had shrugged, waved a hand in the air.

‘If you want my honest opinion, it was all nonsense,’ he said. ‘The people of Ashdon, well, the impression I get is that they don’t like anyone who’s not like them. The woman whose daughter it was never pressed charges; some people said she was making it up because she was pissed off at the school about something. They moved not long after, over to Saffron Walden.’

Madeline had nodded, noted it all down just in case.

‘I want you on this, Shaw,’ the DCI says now, ‘you know the town, you know the people. You’ve got the edge.’ He looks at her, eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t let me down, Madeline.’

She grits her teeth; not likely. She’s spent the night thinking about the look on Rachel’s face when they told them the news; the sound of the woman’s knees hitting the floor, the way her husband’s arms wrapped around her tiny waist. In her experience, the family is never quite as innocent as they look, but these two are doing a good job so far of convincing her otherwise.

‘I’m so very sorry for your loss,’ she told them both, the words sounding wooden in her mouth. She handed them the list of Clare’s personal items, the ones they have had to take in for evidence. Clare’s watch, the hair tie from around her wrist, her school things and her purse.

‘We are still looking for Clare’s phone,’ Madeline told the parents. ‘We’re working on the assumption that whoever attacked Clare took it with them.’

‘Can’t you trace it?’ Rachel asked, her breath ragged, snotty.

‘My team are working on that,’ the DCI said, ‘and we’ll be looking at the phone records too – finding out who Clare had been speaking to recently, eliminating people from our enquiries.’

Both of them looked back down at the list.

‘And her necklace?’ Rachel had asked, touching a hand to her own throat, grasping at her neck as though she’d like to snap it in two. Ian reached up, clasped her hand in his and pulled it gently back towards the table.

The police exchanged glances. ‘Necklace?’

‘For her sixteenth,’ Ian said. ‘We gave it to her as a birthday present. It was only two weeks ago, 14th of January. A gold one, a locket with her name on.’

Madeline thought back to the sight of their daughter on the ground, her blonde hair shining in the light of the torch. Feeling for a pulse at Clare’s neck. There was no necklace.

‘Is there any chance your guys could have missed it?’ Ian said, looking between them, colour rising a little in his face.

‘No,’ Madeline said, ‘that’s extremely unlikely. Everything that was recovered from the scene is on this list.’

‘But we’ll double check,’ Rob added, just as Rachel began to sob again, the sound echoing around the kitchen.

‘She’s a good girl,’ her stepdad kept saying, over and over again as the police stood to leave, the breakfast things still piled up by the kitchen sink, a stack of Clare’s clothing freshly washed on one of the chairs. ‘She’s a good girl, our Clare.’

‘We’ll be in touch,’ Madeline had said, ‘as soon as we can be, Mr and Mrs Edwards. We’ll be back first thing tomorrow.’

But she’d checked the list this morning, rang the pathologist to check there was nothing else with the body. No necklace. No phone.

The two of them spend the morning searching the Edwards’ house from top to bottom. The parents don’t look any better than they did yesterday – there’s a bottle of wine by the front door, empty, and another half full on the windowsill. Someone’s already left a bunch of bedraggled-looking flowers on the lawn outside, red roses, no note.

Rob and Madeline go upstairs, leaving Rachel and Ian sitting downstairs with Theresa, the family liaison officer who arrived just as they were leaving last night. She’s nice, is Theresa, Madeline likes her. Nice but new, good at making tea. Madeline has told her to let the police know how the Edwards are together, what they say in the privacy of their own home. Theresa looked at Madeline like she’d said something awful.

‘You don’t suspect them?’

‘Theresa,’ she’d said, ‘in a case like this, we can’t rule anyone out.’

Ian Edwards has told them that both he and his wife were home that afternoon, that he’d left work early with the plan of taking Rachel out for dinner. Rachel had confirmed that she’d been back from her job at Saffron Walden Estate Agency by four, following a viewing of a house in Little Chesterford, eight miles west of Ashdon. The couple had met back at home.

‘The family who viewed the house weren’t interested,’ she’d said between sobs. ‘They didn’t stay long, you can check.’

‘We will,’ the DCI said, his voice deliberately neutral.

Clare’s bedroom is tidy, everything in its place – pale pink duvet, wardrobe full of clothes. Madeline runs her hand through the hangers, her gloved fingers brushing over Clare’s dresses and cardis. Her eyes scan the bookshelves, the bedside table with its cluster of hair ties and roll-on deodorant. There’s a pile of jewellery, stud earrings and a silver charm bracelet, but no sign of the gold locket necklace. There’s a string of photos dangling from the mirror – black and white polaroids of two girls sticking their tongues out. One of them is Clare. Not recognising the other girl, Madeline gently tugs the strip of photos and holds it in her gloved hand. Two sets of bright eyes stare out at her.

‘She was just a child,’ Madeline says aloud. The DCI doesn’t reply.

‘No photos of her father,’ Madeline says, gesturing around the room. There are none downstairs either; Mark is absent from the house altogether. Instead, Ian’s face beams down at them, his arms around Rachel and Clare. The replacement.

‘Odd,’ Rob says, ‘to have none whatsoever.’

There’s nothing in Clare’s bedroom to suggest anything untoward, but they photograph the entire room just in case, bundle her still-winking silver laptop into an evidence bag. Back downstairs, Theresa hands out fresh mugs of tea.

Madeline shows the parents the photograph of Clare and the other girl.

‘Lauren,’ Rachel says immediately, ‘she’s Clare’s best friend.’

Madeline nods. ‘Thank you – we’ll need to speak to her, to find out if she knew any more about Clare’s movements on the fourth. Can I take a last name, please?’

‘Oldbury, Lauren Oldbury,’ the mother says, her voice cracking a little. Her face is very pale, her lips look almost bloodless.

‘Mind if I keep this?’ Madeline asks, the photograph of the girls between her fingers. Both parents shake their heads mutely, their eyes fixed on the static face of their daughter.

‘Mr and Mrs Edwards,’ the DCI says, ‘I’m sorry to ask this, but we’re going to need you to formally identify Clare’s body.’ He glances at Madeline. ‘One of my officers will accompany you this afternoon.’

Rachel lets out a little moan. Her hair is lank, hanging limply onto her collar; she’s wearing the same clothes she was in last night. Ian nods, sets his lips together in a hard, straight line. Ex-army; Lorna’s looking into the files. There is something about him that doesn’t fit with this house; he is the third wheel, the cuckoo in the nest, the second husband, no matter what story the photos try to tell. Madeline wonders how Clare felt about the marriage. Whether she had much of a choice.

‘Thank you,’ Ian says, and the DCI nods.

‘We’ll send a car.’

Madeline clears her throat.

‘Mr and Mrs Edwards, as you know, we have reason to believe that your daughter’s death was suspicious, and in light of this I have to ask you: do you know anyone, local or otherwise, who might have reason to cause harm to her? Or failing that, to you?’

Rachel’s face is anguished; tears begin to slip down her cheeks, sliding into the tracks that are already there, white against her day-old foundation. Madeline watches her. The mother without a child. Bereft.

‘No,’ she whispers, ‘there’s no one. She’s sixteen, she’s my baby, she’s never done anything wrong, never—’ She breaks off, and Ian puts an arm round her, the gesture protective. The police watch them both, noting the dynamic between them.

‘What about you, Mr Edwards?’ Madeline asks. ‘Is there anything that comes to mind? Anything about her actions in the last few days, any behaviour that was out of the ordinary?’

The glance between them is fast, but the DCI’s eyes narrow a little and Madeline tilts her head to one side.

‘No,’ Ian says, ‘no, nothing. She was a good girl, detective. Like I said last night. Everyone liked her.’

They wait a moment, but Rachel continues to cry, and Theresa comes forward, places a box of tissues on the table.

‘Alright,’ the DCI says, ‘thank you both for your time.’ They get to their feet, and Madeline feels in her pocket, hands Rachel her card.

‘If you think of anything that might help,’ she says, ‘you call me, anytime. Day or night. This is my direct line.’ Rachel’s eyes flash up at her, glassy with tears, but she swallows hard and nods. They watch as Ian closes his hand over his wife’s, Madeline’s card disappearing from sight.

As the police crunch back down their drive, Rob looks at Madeline.

‘What d’you think?’

She takes a deep breath. She doesn’t know the Edwards well – she tends to keep herself to herself in Ashdon, as much as she can, anyway. Rachel’s not part of the mum chums – Jane Goodwin and the like – but Madeline has seen her a few times with Ian, having a Chardonnay in the Rose and Crown pub of a Sunday afternoon. She sells glossy new homes to moderately wealthy clients in Saffron Walden by day, and she was bereaved a few years ago – Mark, lung cancer. They have an old coroner’s report on him somewhere. She remarried relatively fast.

‘I don’t know,’ she says at last, ‘but I want a background check on them both, and their alibis checked for that afternoon. And I want to talk to Lauren Oldbury. Clare was sixteen – at that age, you tell your friends much more than you tell your parents.’

The DCI glances at his watch. ‘Quick sandwich before we talk to Nathan Warren?’

Madeline makes a face. ‘Only sandwich you’ll get round here is from Walker’s corner shop, and trust me, you’d really rather not.’

Nathan Warren sits in interview room three at Chelmsford Station, his hands splayed on the table, his big brown eyes darting around the room like a trapped animal.

Madeline slides into the seat opposite him, hands him a cup of filter coffee and pours them all a glass of water. The DCI winces as Nathan’s hand grips the polystyrene cup too hard, splashing liquid onto the grey-coated table.

‘Sorry,’ he says immediately, stuttering slightly, and Madeline grabs a couple of paper towels from the corner of the room, dabs up the mess.

Nathan Warren has been standing on Ashdon High Street corner nearly every day for the past eighteen months. He’s been a part of the town for as long as anyone there can remember – he used to be the school caretaker, and before that he delivered the paper, the Essex Gazette, popping it through the inhabitants’ letterboxes (usually late, but no one ever complained). Most of the time now, no one knows what he does. Madeline has seen him wandering around on the green before, sometimes wearing a hi-vis jacket. There’s a traffic cone he moves around, left over from an old accident – the council turned a blind eye to it, figured it gave him something to do. Kept him out of trouble, and the police have never bothered to get involved. Until now, that is.

‘Thanks for coming in, Nathan,’ Madeline begins, smiling at him. The nastier women in this town say he’s ‘simple, not all there,’ but she is reserving judgement until they know the full story. People are capable of one hell of a performance when they want to be.

‘I know you already gave a statement to DS Campbell on Monday, Nathan, but we wanted to run through a few things with you, if that’s alright.’

He doesn’t speak, just stares at them both, one hand anxiously clenching and unclenching.

‘Where were you on the afternoon of Monday the 4th of February, Nathan?’ the DCI snaps, and Nathan visibly blanches.

‘I was at home,’ he mutters, ‘just at home.’

‘Can anyone verify that?’

The police already know that they can’t – Nathan lives alone, in the house his mother left him when she died five years ago. As far as they know, he has no other family.

‘Nathan,’ Madeline says gently, casting a look at Rob, ‘it would help us if you could walk us through that afternoon – what you did, up to and after finding Clare Edwards in Sorrow’s Meadow.’

He scratches behind one ear, the movement fast, sharp.

‘I was home,’ he says again, ‘and then I went for a walk.’

‘And what time was this?’

He looks panicked, and Madeline shifts her wrist slightly, allowing the watch face to point in his direction, wondering if he struggles with the time. The pathologist thinks Clare died some time between 5 and 7 p.m.

‘About seven,’ he says then, nodding as though pleased that he’s remembered, ‘after the news finished. I always walk around up there, I like the flowers.’

‘There are no flowers in February, Mr Warren,’ the DCI says, and Madeline presses her lips together, takes a deep breath. She can’t shake the feeling that she’d be handling this better on her own.

‘Okay Nathan,’ she says, ‘so you went for a walk. And did you see anyone else while you were walking?’

He shakes his head.

‘Just me.’

‘And you saw Clare lying on the ground?’

He nods, looks away from them, starts jiggling his left leg underneath the table. He’s a big man; his hands are like spades. They know that Clare weighed around eight stone – she’d have gone down like a feather if someone of his size was involved.

‘And what did you do when you saw her?’

He looks back at them, and his eyes look sad, huge in his face. His skin is very pale, but his lips are full, like those of a child.

‘Told her to wake up,’ he mumbles, ‘but she wouldn’t.’

‘And did you touch her?’

‘No, no, no,’ he says, and he starts shaking his head then, quickly from side to side, too fast.

‘There’s no need to be upset, Nathan,’ Madeline says firmly, ‘we’re just trying to establish the events in the run-up to Clare’s death. You’ve been very helpful.’

The DCI exhales.

‘Are you sure you didn’t touch her, Nathan?’ he asks, leaning forward slightly in his chair, lacing his hands together on the table. His wedding ring glints in the overhead lights and Madeline feels a bite of dislike. Just because Rob Sturgeon wants this case cut and dried as quickly as possible doesn’t mean they can go pinning it on Nathan.

He doesn’t answer.

‘I’ll tell you what I think, shall I Nathan?’ the DCI says softly. ‘I think you might’ve followed Clare Edwards when she came out of school. I think you tried to talk to her. I think that when she didn’t give you what you wanted, you didn’t like it. You pushed her. And then you panicked.’ A pause. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time you’d followed a girl home from school, would it?’

Madeline feels a flash of anger – the DCI has no right to bring up an old, and possibly false, allegation. They need to show Nathan Warren that they’re on his side. In her experience, people don’t tend to talk much otherwise.

He’s shaking his head even faster, putting his hands to his ears as if horrified by what they’re suggesting.

‘No,’ he says, ‘no! I didn’t touch her, I didn’t touch her.’ He looks frightened, murmurs something else under his breath.

Madeline leans forward. ‘What was that, Nathan?’

‘She was pretty,’ he says, without looking at them, and Madeline feels a jolt of unease.

The DCI is glowering. ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘she was a pretty girl, wasn’t she, Nathan? Did you like that about her?’

Nathan gives a little moan. He glances at Madeline as if for help, and she puts a hand on Rob’s arm, wanting him to calm down.

‘Is it possible you were in Sorrow’s Meadow a bit earlier than you thought, Nathan?’ she asks him. ‘If you tell us, we’ll be able to help you. If you don’t, things might get harder.’ A pause. He just keeps shaking his head, back and forth like one of those toys people put in the backseat of cars. Madeline resists the sudden urge to reach out, tap him on the top of the head with her pencil to see if his head will bob the other way. They are not getting anywhere today.

‘Let’s pick this up at another time, sir,’ Madeline says quietly.

Rob glares back at her, but she meets his gaze head-on. As they exit the room, she thinks once more of Ian, covering his wife’s hand, putting his arm around her waist. People can put on one hell of a performance. It is too soon to know who to trust.

Chapter Seven

Clare

Monday 4th February, 8.00 a.m.

Mum has made crumpets with butter for breakfast and I eat quickly, eager to get out of the cold house and let the day begin. I know I should tell Ian and Mum that I’ll be staying at Lauren’s or something tonight, but they’ll have a go at me and I just can’t face it today. Yesterday’s argument was bad enough. I’ll text Mum later on, when it’s too late for them to stop me.

‘Have a good day today, Clare,’ Mum says as I eat the last bit of my crumpet and swallow more tea, feeling it burn my tongue because I’ve drunk it too fast. I nod.

‘I’ve washed your blue coat and your black skirt,’ she says, pointing to the pile of washing on one of the kitchen chairs, ‘in case you wanted to wear that this week. I know it’s your favourite. And I got the stain off the coat.’

‘Thanks,’ I mutter. I can feel Mum watching me, feel her eyes burning into my face. She probably feels bad for yesterday, but that’s tough luck.

‘You have a good day too,’ I say, a bit reluctantly, and at that moment Ian comes in, whistling in that annoying way he does first thing in the morning, a repetitive, grating tune that now pops into my head at random times throughout the day. His hair is still a bit wet from the shower and little droplets of water glisten in his beard.

‘Morning, my two lovely girls!’ he says cheerfully, shoving a piece of toast in his mouth and pulling open the fridge. I stiffen, push my chair back and reach for my blue puffer coat from the pile of washing, shrugging it on.

‘I’ve got to get to school.’

Ian pauses at the fridge; I see Mum looking at him, her expression almost pleading. The fridge door swings shut and Ian clears his throat, swallows down a mouthful of peanut butter toast, and looks at me.