The Child Across the Street: An unputdownable and absolutely gripping psychological thriller Read online

‘Elwood’s not that sort of place,’ Tina replies.

  I suppose I’ve not lived here recently enough to know – but I can’t imagine it’s like a city, where there are CCTV cameras on every corner, and where every shop has another of their own.

  ‘Is there anything else you might want to add?’ Tina asks.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  She turns to Sergeant Davidson. ‘I think we might be done, then…?’

  He eyes me with something that’s probably annoyance, before he stands. ‘Sounds like it.’

  After we’ve tidied off a couple more formalities, Tina ends up walking me out of the station. She waits until we’re standing together outside before saying anything other than the odd word.

  ‘Don’t worry about him,’ she says, nodding back towards the building we’ve just left. ‘There’s already a lot of pressure coming down on us to find the driver.’

  ‘I can’t help it if I don’t know the colour of the car.’

  ‘I know. He knows that, too.’

  ‘I think it was a dark car, but it’s not clear.’ I tap my head, wanting the memory to be there.

  ‘We’d rather you were unsure about something than outright wrong.’ She rests a hand on my arm in the same way she did yesterday. ‘I’ll give you my mobile number. If you think of anything else, call me directly. Also, you don’t have to stay in Elwood, in case you had that idea. If you want to leave, you can leave.’

  ‘I might do that…’

  We say our goodbyes and then Tina heads inside as I continue along the pavement. I have to check Google Maps to figure out precisely where I am. There was a time in which I knew all of Elwood’s cut-throughs, when the town was a playground for me and my friends. I had a mental map of all the hedges that could be pushed through and the fences that weren’t completely secure. The ways that five minutes could be shaved off a journey by taking an illicit shortcut along the back of someone’s garden.

  I think about calling Jo but figure that, even if she isn’t at the hospital, she will have more important things to be thinking about. Besides, I’ve got a funeral director to talk to, but I’m not sure I can face that now, perhaps not even today.

  I stick to the main roads as I walk back across Elwood. It was never the most welcoming of places, but, in the time I’ve been gone, the town centre has transformed from largely independent stores into a grubby row of betting shops and takeaways that haven’t yet opened for the day. Aside from a bank or two, there’s almost nothing I recognise about the town where I used to spend most of my Saturdays. My friends and I spent so much time in the HMV, browsing through tapes and CDs, that the manager would ask us to leave after we’d not bought anything for an hour. That store has gone now, replaced by one of those smaller Tesco’s, which never have the things in stock that people actually want.

  There’s a new Wetherspoon’s at the end of the centre nearest the park and I stop outside the front door, thinking about going inside. It’s late on a Wednesday morning and they’ve probably not long opened their doors. I wonder about the type of people inside, the ones who are banging on the door each morning, wanting their cheap pints and microwaved breakfasts. There was a time, perhaps recently, when my dad might have been among them.

  I continue on, even though the bigger part of me wants to stop, moving past the entrance to the park to where there’s a large blackened circle of scorch marks close to the fountain. A mound of charcoaled sticks has been abandoned in the middle, with a series of empty firework tubes scattered around the flower beds. I guess the town’s Britain In Bloom nomination won’t be coming this year.

  Instead of following the path, I cut across the grass until I’m on the side closest to my dad’s house. To my house. I follow the path around the row of trees and hedges until I’m back on the street and, eventually, the intersection with Beverly Close. Word has obviously gone around about what happened because the verge has become a carpet of colour. A rainbow of flowers has been spread up and down the bank where I found Ethan, with four more bunches attached to the nearest lamp post. There are footballs interspersed among the flowers, with a red shirt tied to a tree close to the bench where Jo and I sat last night. I crouch and look at one of the tickets attached to a bunch of flowers.

  Love you, little man. X

  There’s a card that’s been made from a folded sheet of printer paper. Someone, presumably a child, has drawn a shaky felt-tip picture on the front of a boy with a football. The card has been tucked in next to a ball.

  It’s strange, but it’s only now that it feels like there’s a significant weight to what I saw and what actually went on. That this wasn’t just something terrible that happened to one family; it feels like something that happened to the community. Everyone will know that the person who left Ethan in the ditch is one of them.

  One of us.

  It’s an awful thought, but there’s all this and he’s not even dead. I wonder if there is some confusion, which led to this outpouring – or if it’s simply because this is such a small community. Or, perhaps, I’m out of the loop and things have taken a turn for the worst without me knowing.

  I shiver when I stand, that sixth sense that tells a person they are being watched. It is almost impossible to explain, even though everybody knows what it is.

  It’s not obvious at first, but, in among the row of parked cars on Beverly Close, there is a vehicle that’s idling. The exhaust fumes chunter into the air until, with a start, the car shoots out of the space. There’s a long scratch across the back door, a missing hubcap, and the scuff on the front bumper. The distance and glare means I can’t see the driver, but I’d be almost certain it was Chris who was watching me.

  I don’t get a chance to think on it further because someone else has appeared on the path next to the park. A woman reaches into a bag and removes a red and white football scarf, which she ties to the lamp post. She bows her head for a moment and then shoots me a narrow smile before turning to leave. I start to do the same before we stop at the same time and turn to face one another.

  ‘Abi…?’ she says.

  I don’t get a chance to acknowledge this because she’s already certain. She hurries across the few steps between us until she’s directly in front of me, where she looks me up and down.

  ‘Oh my God, I thought you were abroad, or dead, or something.’

  ‘Bit of a difference between those two.’

  She laughs: ‘Yeah…’

  ‘I’m not dead.’

  ‘It’s Holly,’ she adds, needlessly. ‘Remember?’

  ‘Of course,’ I reply. ‘How could I forget my first kiss?’

  Seven

  Holly frowns, her plucked and crafted eyebrows almost meeting in the middle before her cheeks crinkle and she starts to laugh.

  ‘I’d forgotten that,’ she says. ‘That was your first kiss? How old were we? Thirteen?’

  I shrug. ‘Something like that. I had no idea what I was doing.’

  She nods in slightly perplexed agreement. ‘I don’t know why someone daring you to do something makes you feel as if you have to do it.’

  ‘Probably the vodka.’

  That gets a laugh, but it doesn’t last long as the weight of the flowers and footballs draws our attentions back to the verge.

  ‘Did you hear?’ Holly asks.

  ‘I found him.’

  She turns to look at me and there’s another moment in which it’s like I’ve fallen through time. This could have been twenty-five years ago, with us in school uniform, wearing skirts that were too short, as we laughed and joked our way to class.

  Holly has aged better than Jo, probably better than me. She’s in flattering, expensive-looking yoga gear and could be on the way to the gym. The sort of thing worn by those yummy-mummy types who charge around in 4x4s for no particular reason. The ones who post long online missives about having to love yourself before you can love anyone else.

  She weighs me up, wondering if I’m making some sort of weird joke. She s
hifts awkwardly from one foot to the other before apparently deciding this isn’t a prank.

  ‘Did you see the car?’ she asks.

  ‘No… not really.’ I nod in the direction of Dad’s house… my house. ‘A car disappeared down there, but I didn’t notice much about it. I saw Ethan in the ditch and then called the ambulance.’

  We both look down towards the ditch, but I can’t manage it for too long because it feels like Ethan’s still there, his crumpled body lying at my feet. I blink it away and turn towards the bench.

  ‘Are you still friends with Jo?’ I ask.

  ‘Of course. We were talking about you the other week, wondering where you were. We’d looked you up on Facebook, but you’re not on there…’

  She lets it hang, a question that’s not a question, before continuing.

  ‘We were talking about the old days. Remember that time when we used to pretend we were All Saints? I was Nicole – but then she got to marry Liam Gallagher and I… didn’t.’

  We share a smirk, but, regardless of whether this is the time, it’s definitely not the place.

  I motion towards the flowers, while trying not to look at them directly. ‘Have you heard anything?’

  ‘Jo texted me earlier. She’s at the hospital, but that’s all I know. I asked how Ethan’s getting on, but there was no reply. Can’t blame her, really.’

  There’s a long pause. I’m not sure who instigates it, but we start walking side by side, across the road and away from the verge. We’re moving in the direction of the bus stop.

  ‘Are you back?’ Holly asks, with something of a forced cheeriness.

  ‘I don’t know. Dad died and there are things to sort out.’

  There’s a short pause and I get the sense that she already knew. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. I’m back for now, either way.’

  ‘You should come over to mine for a proper catch-up. We could—’

  She stops talking so abruptly that I glance sideways to make sure she’s all right. It’s like she interrupted herself. She misses half a step and then quickly recovers.

  ‘Sorry,’ she adds needlessly. ‘Rob’s probably home. He’s my son and, um…’ Another pause. ‘No, don’t worry about it. Come over now, if you’re free. We’ll have a brew and a chat. I want to hear what you’ve been doing all these years.’

  That last part sounds about as appealing as an anaesthetic-free tooth extraction, but the alternative is either contacting the funeral director, cleaning up the house, or wasting a day at Wetherspoon’s.

  ‘It’s not far,’ Holly adds. ‘We can walk.’

  ‘Okay,’ I tell her.

  ‘Brilliant,’ she replies.

  ‘I just need to grab something from the house,’ I tell her.

  ‘Let’s go, then. We’ve got so much catching up to do.’

  That’s what worries me, I don’t say.

  Eight

  After backtracking to retrieve my bottle from the house, Holly leads me off the estate and into an area that was once a series of fields. There’s a sprawling mass of red-brick houses now, although every other place seems to be up for sale. Cars are parked on the road, even though everybody seemingly has a driveway.

  ‘Do you remember when it flooded here?’ Holly asks as we walk.

  I didn’t until she mentioned it, but, now she has, the memory feels unleashed. It was before the houses were built, when heavy rain would make the river swell and burst across the grass. One year, it felt as if the rain would never stop and the water went higher and higher.

  ‘We bobbed around on those rubber rings,’ I say.

  ‘You remember! Jo says it never happened, but I knew it did. We got the rings from that car wash place that used to be in town, then we played down here on the field. The boys came over from the big school and we had a water fight.’

  ‘Jo went home,’ I say. ‘I think one of the lads dunked her and she swallowed a bit of water.’

  Holly’s pace slows a tiny amount. ‘I don’t remember that…’ She takes a breath and then motions towards the furthest end of the estate. ‘Ever since I moved here, I’ve been trying to figure out where everything used to be. The river’s still there, but it’s all so different.’

  We follow the street, weaving around everyone’s wheelie bins that are scattered across the kerb from where the binmen have been. We are almost off the estate when we get to a small rank of houses that are surrounded by a flank of swaying trees. There’s the vaguest memory that these houses started being built when I left. That must’ve been a few years before the rest of the estate was built, but none of it is clear.

  Holly takes me along an empty driveway and then unlocks the front door before leading the way inside. Her hall is filled with boxes that take up half the space. I follow as she slides past them sideways without explanation. Opposite the boxes are a series of framed photographs on the wall. It’s halfway along the wall that I spot a small, square picture almost hidden among the number of photos taken in front of various landmarks. It’s the type of point-and-click shot that everyone took before the days of camera phones. It isn’t quite in focus, as if there was Vaseline on the lens. It’s still easy enough to make out the three people featured.

  Holly’s hair is separated into high bunches and she’s wearing baggy blue sweatpants with an orange crop top.

  ‘Sporty Spice,’ she says, when she notices I’ve stopped.

  Jo has red streaks in her hair and is wearing a short dress with knee boots for Ginger Spice. I am Baby, in a short pink dress that I found in the vintage section of Elwood’s Oxfam store.

  ‘Wasn’t this someone’s birthday?’ I ask.

  ‘That Esther girl. Her dad used to work abroad all the time and then he’d bring back expensive things. She got a real Prada bag out of it one time – and that silver dress she wore to town once. Everyone else was in jeans. Remember?’

  Memories swirl, of faces and names, but Esther doesn’t appear – and neither does her bag or dress. It’s strange the way some things stick so firmly in one person’s mind but can disappear completely from another’s.

  ‘We all got trashed and then the neighbours complained,’ Holly continues. ‘Esther was grounded for the whole summer.’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ I say. ‘Not that bit, anyway. I know we were the Spice Girls.’

  We stop and stare at the photo for a moment and I wonder how many of our teenage escapades begin or end with ‘we all got trashed’. That’s the thing when you grow up in a place like Elwood, especially in our day. It’s not like there were loads of places to go in the evenings. Even as an adult, there were only a handful of pubs from which to choose. One of them might have stayed open late, but that usually ended in a ruck on the pavement. If someone was too young to get in somewhere like that, or, worse, if the guy on the door knew precisely how old we all were, then we’d always end up back in someone’s garage, shed or attic with a bottle of cheap cider. If someone’s parents were away and there was an entire house empty, we’d go a bit crazy.

  Holly slips around another stack of boxes, past a door that’s built under the stairs, and into the room at the end of the hall. I follow into a kitchen, where there are more boxes pressed against a side wall. Holly clicks on the kettle and slots into a wooden chair next to a table. I sit opposite her, though it feels like the mounds of clutter between us muddy my thoughts. It’s mainly letters, opened and not, but there’s also an open cereal packet, three unwashed mugs, an oats-encrusted bowl and a pair of lever-arch files.

  Before either of us can say anything, there’s a bang from the hall and the sound of a box hitting the ground.

  ‘Rob…?’ Holly calls and, a moment later, a gawky young man appears. He’s all elbows and knees, and cracks his elbow on the door frame as he comes through.

  ‘Knocked a box over,’ he says, rubbing his arm.

  ‘We heard,’ Holly replies.

  ‘I picked it up.’

  ‘This is Abi,’ Holly says, nod
ding at me. ‘She’s an old school friend of mine who’s back in town. She found Ethan yesterday.’

  He stops rubbing his elbow and stoops a little, looking at me over his glasses. ‘Hi,’ he says, before turning back to his mum. ‘Can we, um…?’ He nods away from the kitchen and Holly gets the unsubtle hint.

  ‘I’ll be right back,’ she says, before following her son out of the kitchen and through to another part of the house.

  I stand and take a couple of paces around the small space, though it’s hard to resist the urge to open one of the boxes. There are probably thirty or forty through the hall and in the kitchen, each a tidy square, with no labels on the sides. The only markings are various felt-tip letters. ‘F’, ‘K’ and ‘M’ are visible in the kitchen. I pick one up, though the weight gives little away. It’s not light, though not overly heavy, either.

  The fridge is covered with various notes that say things like ‘Thurs, 7, Angie’, though there doesn’t appear to be much order. It’s like someone tore out all the pages of a diary and then guessed the sequence blind.

  I find myself looking at a photo pinned to the fridge door with Blu Tack. Holly was bigger then, chubbier in the face, with what looks like a blotchy red rash across one of her cheeks. She’s next to Rob, who was even ganglier whenever it was taken. He was probably fourteen or fifteen and, grinning, he’s showing off a horror-movie mouthful of wire braces. On the other side is a man I don’t know. He’s tanned orange, relaxed, with his shirt almost entirely unbuttoned. I look closer, wondering if it’s someone with whom we went to school. That’s when Holly’s voice makes me jump.

  ‘That’s Tom,’ she says, joining me at the fridge and pressing a finger to the man’s face. ‘He walked out three years ago. That pic’s only there because he’s Rob’s dad and Rob wanted to keep one on display.’

  We stare at it together for a moment, though it’s hard to know why Rob might have chosen this picture in particular. He doesn’t come out of it looking well.

  ‘Was he okay?’ I ask, turning back towards the hall as there’s a bump from the stairs.