Two Doors Down: A twisted psychological thriller Page 2

  But I ignore the beginning of the grand, sweeping staircase, my feet instead instinctively carrying me to the largest room on this second floor – the room which Mark uses as a studio.

  Large bay windows are situated at both ends of the room, one side of which overlooks the main road and the ocean. He says that he likes this knocked-through room for painting in because it offers the best natural light in the house.

  I think I like being in Mark’s studio even more than I like being in Mark’s bedroom. I feel like there is more of him in here. Okay, so he hasn’t been in here for ten months now, but the large, whitewashed space is still crammed with his paintings. They are oils, mostly, unframed and stacked up against the walls. I love the messy workbenches and paint-splattered easels, the plastic containers crammed with tubes of paints and the vast array of coffee jars stuffed full of paintbrushes of various sizes.

  The majority of his work is in his main studio in London, but there are still one-hundred-and-seven paintings in this room, most of them large. Yes, I have counted them. The bulk of these paintings are of his now trademark scenes, consisting of mostly abandoned and disused buildings – factories and warehouses and the like. He has become known as the Urban Wasteland Guy, and his work fetches five figures.

  I flick on the overhead, fluorescent strip-lighting and wander over to the largest stack of paintings by the bay window – a window whose transparent white curtains are drawn against the darkening sky. I peel back one of the curtains and gaze out over the Atlantic.

  It is a clear evening, and not a single cloud or breath of wind stirs the sky. Despite it only being eight o’clock, the stars are bright – much brighter than usual. My gaze is drawn to the thin slither of moon hanging low over the calm ocean. In fact, I don’t think that I have ever seen Broadgate sea so calm. It is positively eerie, the way the ocean is so flat and motionless, and I feel as if I am looking at one of Mark’s paintings, or a photograph.

  It is then that I hear the strangest noise and I spin around guiltily on the spot, deeply startled, even though I have every right to be here. I concede, perhaps I shouldn’t be here in quite this capacity, as in, just aimlessly wandering around and daydreaming about the only man I have ever loved, but technically I am airing the place.

  I stand stock still, straining my ears, but that weird clunking noise doesn’t come again.

  It’s just the heating, I tell myself. Mark pays me to come into his home to keep an eye on things. This involves a spot of hoovering, dusting, airing – which I am doing now – washing soft furnishings if they start to smell fusty, and putting the heat on, as necessary. This I have been doing a lot the past few weeks as the days are growing significantly chillier with winter approaching. And that clanking noise had to be the heating – just the pipes readjusting to being on again after the summer hiatus…

  I tell myself this, but a chill has settled over me. There’s no getting away from it – I’ve gone and thoroughly spooked myself.

  I shrug off the strange feeling and decide that it’s probably time I went home.

  THREE

  Third Quarter or Last Quarter

  On the day of the Third Quarter Phase, the moon will rise around midnight on the eastern horizon and set in the west around noon the next day. In the days following the Third Quarter Phase, the Moon’s illumination will decrease each day until the New Moon.

  8th October

  It’s six p.m. and there’s still no sign of him. He said in our brief exchange of messages this morning that he intends to arrive in Broadgate around early evening today, rather than tomorrow. Also, he has invited me to dinner tomorrow night to meet Holly. He is unlikely to knock on my door tonight, I do know this, but I’ve still made a monumental effort with my appearance, just in case.

  In fact, I feel like Miss bloody Havisham, eternally – and fruitlessly – waiting at the window for the love of my life, dressed in my finery.

  Not that what I’m wearing is exactly finery, but it’s smart, for me. I have on my favourite, knee-length, red and black flowery skirt, flared at the hemline in the manner of a 1950s skirt, as all my skirts and dresses are because I’m conscious of my sturdy hips and bottom. I’m not fat by any means – I’m a svelte, size six to eight up top with a nicely-shaped, B cup chest that I’m secretly quite happy with, but I’m a good size twelve from the hips down. Because of this most annoying, stereotypical, English pear shape, I like to wear tight tops to show off my small waist, and wide skirts to disguise my hips – it’s how you’ll usually find me dressed.

  “Come on Mark,” I mutter. “Where are you?”

  Bertie, who is curled up on his bone-patterned blanket on the blue cloth sofa opposite makes a funny, woofing grunting sound that sounds more like a grumbling old man talking to himself than a dog.

  “I know, he’s late.”

  Sighing heavily, I let the slat of the pale, beechwood blind snap back into place, and flop into the comfortable, faded, Laura Ashley armchair in the bay window. Seeing as it feels like I spend half my life staring out this window to keep an eye on my ever-ringing doorbell, especially in the summer months, I figured that I may as well make my little spying corner comfortable.

  As soon as my backside connects with the seat, I hear a car pull up and I spring to my feet, heart hammering against my sternum.

  But it isn’t him; it’s just a random, parking car. I don’t recognise the older woman who emerges from the blue Fiat – Grange Road is a long street, and lots of people come and go. In total, there are one-hundred-and-fifty, large, Edwardian houses on this main road into Broadgate overlooking the ocean.

  Broadgate isn’t exactly a thriving metropolis, and this is the beginning of winter, but a car still whooshes by every few seconds in the rain on this damp, dark evening.

  Feeling distinctly jittery, I sit back down again, ready to spring into action should I hear a car parking…

  I gaze forlornly around my living-room – or bedsit, as I like to think of it. Technically, at this time of the year, I could spread out into one of the six guest bedrooms arranged over the top two floors of this three-storied house. But I never do. I am settled in here, and it would be too much hassle to move. When I was growing up, my mum had done what I’m doing now, sleeping in the living-room while I had taken one of the bedrooms on the top floor.

  Anyway, it looks okay in here, and I happen to like it. The simple, pale-blue sofa is my pull-out bed, and on the far wall opposite the window in which I sit are two doors – one for the en-suite bathroom, and the other a large cupboard that has been converted into a walk-in wardrobe, which is also where I stash my bedding. I guess it looks pleasant in here because there is no attached kitchenette – I always eat in the kitchen, even when I have guests.

  Like the rest of the house, the room is bright and cheerful. I love bright colours and simplicity. The floorboards throughout the house are the palest beechwood, and I have a thing for plain, but brightly-coloured walls. In here, the walls are sunshine yellow. On these yellow walls are sunny, bright, abstract oils, most of which have been painted by Mark especially for the B and B, free of charge. Now that he’s such a raging success, I guess I can always sell them if I fall on hard times. Not that I ever would sell them, for these paintings mean the word to me. They are all bright, abstract oils depicting the ocean, some with jolly little, white-sailed boats in the distance on the waves.

  A swirling, yellow and blue rug draws the room nicely together, or so I think anyway. I fancy that the place has a beachy, almost Scandinavian vibe to it, partly because every piece of furniture I own is painted white. The décor is a far cry from when my mum, Felicity, was alive and everything about The Atlantic View was a lot darker, old-fashioned and dowdier.

  My ears prick up when I hear the purr of an engine beyond the window, and the wet crunch of the wheels slowing on the rain-soaked road.

  Someone is parking.

  Instantly, my heart is hammering afresh, and my mouth is sucked dry of all moisture. I jump t
o my feet, circling around the white-painted, little round table in the window next to the armchair, so I can peer out of the righthand pane of the bay window.

  To my left, in just over half a mile, the town of Broadgate begins, in that, the ratio of shops to houses becomes more shop and less house. The gently sloping cliff that Grange Road is built upon flattens out and Broadgate Sands appears, behind which is the typically sleazy – or eclectic perhaps – selection of British seafront shops and arcades.

  Mark is arriving from the right.

  I watch the car parking on the street, two doors down from me. I am not immediately sure if it’s him, for the car’s headlights are on, shining in my window and throwing the details of the car’s body into shadows. Plus, the vehicles parked in front are obscuring my view.

  But it sure looks like him, as the car has a slightly higher roof than the other cars. It feels like the damn car is just parking there for an eternity, engine running, windscreen wipers going, headlights on. After an age, the engine is killed and the lights go black and sure enough, it is most definitely Mark’s light-blue Citroen Berlingo.

  The driver’s door opens during a break in the traffic, and my heart is slamming painfully hard in my chest. Out climbs the unmistakable form of Mark, and I stare in rapt attention through the tiniest chink in the blinds, drinking in the sight of his familiar, gangly body as he hurries around the front of the car to the pavement.

  He has the hood of his plain, black hoody pulled up against the rain, and the fact I am unable to catch a glimpse of his most cherished face after so long is a physical pain in my chest.

  So enraptured am I by the sight of my love, I hadn’t noticed the passenger door opening. But now it is open, and Mark is standing on the pavement, gripping the upper portion of the door as a figure exits the car.

  Mark’s back blocks my view, but I see the person get out.

  I see her.

  They speak on the pavement, standing close together as only lovers do, Mark still blocking my view of this woman. A few moments later, he is hurrying around to the boot and pulling it open.

  Now I see her, standing there alone on the pavement, looking around herself as if getting her bearings. Even though it is dark out, I can see that she is beautiful and my heart twists into a tight knot of jealousy. She is tall – way taller than my measly five-feet-five – she has to be five-nine, at least. She is wearing skinny jeans of indeterminable colour in the dark evening, and a thick pullover that appears to be woolly and is entirely unsuitable for a rainy night such as this. She is thin, but in the way that models are thin, with their jutting backsides and tiny waists curving gently out to their tight hips – her thick pullover cannot disguise the fact she clearly has a knock-out figure.

  I can’t quite make out the colour of her hair – it appears to be dark, tied at the nape of her neck and scraped off her face. It’s either scrunched up in a bun, or short, I can’t tell which.

  The boot of the car slams shut – I hear it from my living-room – and Mark is by her side once more, a large holdall in each hand.

  I strain my ears, trying to catch what they’re saying. I fancy that I can hear the low hum of their voices, but it could just be the rain, and every car that passes completely drowns them out with their tyres whooshing past on the wet tarmac.

  Together, Mark and his lover ascend the four, stone steps that lead up to the front door.

  Feeling sick, I let the blind snap back into place, alarmed to discover that I am violently trembling.

  FOUR

  I don’t normally take Bertie out for a walk this time of night. Broadgate isn’t exactly the safest place of an evening, even in this supposedly well-to-to end. Normally, I'd let him out the kitchen door for a pee in the back garden.

  But not tonight. Tonight, I feel compelled to walk him a little way along the prom.

  At just gone eleven at night, Bertie is sniffing enthusiastically at lampposts and the shoulder-high, concrete wall that runs along the edge of the cliff.

  We pause under one such old-fashioned streetlamp while Bertie does his business. It’s not my fault that this streetlamp just happens to be opposite Mark’s place. And of course I’m only stopping because Bertie is so determined to wee in this particular spot.

  Now that the nights are drawing in, I have been popping into Mark’s house more often in the evenings, so that I can switch on the lights for a few hours in random rooms, making it look as if someone is home. I vary the rooms and the length of time the lights stay on, sometimes even leaving a light on all night. But it feels strange standing here, knowing that it isn’t me who has switched on the lights.

  And usually, if Mark is home, I am invariably invited round, seeing as I am his best friend. But not tonight. Because tonight, and for every night after, she is with him. I have been replaced. Not that I was ever with him, in the truest sense of the word, but I still feel thoroughly shut out, abandoned like the unloved buildings Mark is so fond of painting. Now I am the one literally on the outside, looking in.

  At least it isn’t raining so hard anymore, even if a light drizzle still permeates the air, a feather-light mist that settle on the outermost fibres of the green parka jacket I have thrown on, like glittering specks of dust.

  I stare at his house, the hood of my parka pulled up against the drizzle while Bertie snuffles around the lamppost. Unlike my house, where every window is adorned with blinds, his house has curtains. They are all thick, expensive velvet, apart from the voile material of his studio curtains, which he says he likes because they diffuse the light when it streams in at peak times in the mornings and evenings when the sun is low, as his studio is one of the knocked-through bedrooms, and is both east and west facing.

  Skinny chinks of light are visible around the edges of the curtains in the downstairs living-room and the upstairs bedroom on the second floor – in Mark’s childhood bedroom, which is adjacent to the studio. His studio, the two uppermost bedrooms and the dining-room downstairs which was knocked through into the kitchen years ago, are in darkness.

  I am surprised to see that light on in Mark’s bedroom. It is the smallest bedroom in the house. I can understand him not wanting to sleep in his parents’ old room, but the guest bedroom on the uppermost floor is far more suitable. It is beautifully done out, and has a four-poster, queen-sized bed, as opposed to Mark’s small double.

  Or maybe it isn’t strange at all, and I am merely insanely jealous of another woman sleeping in Mark’s real bed. Just the thought of it leaves me feeling sick and shaky and makes me want to weep.

  I stare up at his window, lost in my own jealous misery, when the crimson curtains twitch. I let out a little gasp, rooted to the spot, unable to tear my gaze away. Just when I think I had imagined the movement, the curtains part slightly down the middle.

  I should look away, I know that I should, but I can’t. I am staring up at his damn window like a stalker, like a pervert. Like a dirty, peeping Tom. The curtains pull further apart, and I see a figure standing there. A nude, female figure, silhouetted against the light of the room.

  I gasp, paralysed in shock. I feel dreamlike and strange, dirty and voyeuristic, yet at the same time I feel like this is happening to someone else.

  Because this isn’t me. It can’t be me.

  But it doesn’t stop me staring. The woman extends her arms at right angles to her body, holding the curtains far apart, her head twisted to the side, like she is looking at something else in the room. Or someone else.

  Is Mark there? I wonder.

  A fresh stab of jealousy twists in my guts, despite the absolute strangeness of this. It only then strikes me that it looks as if she is striking a pose. The way she holds herself, resting her weight on one hip and bending the opposite knee.

  That actress from the series, Twin Peaks slams into my mind – the goddess emerging through the red velvet drapes...

  Her body is perfect, from what I can see; skinny, yet curved in the way of a centrefold. Because of the light
behind her, and because of the considerable distance, I can’t make out too much detail, but I get the impression her vagina is fully waxed, and what looks like a large tattoo of a snake is curled around her right hipbone. I could be wrong, it could just be a shadow, but I don’t think so. The light behind her illuminates her, as if she were an angel descended from heaven. There is a golden halo around her profile, and I can make out a small nose and a strong jawline on a swanlike neck, her hair still scraped off her face.

  And then she twists her head forward and appears to be looking right at me.

  I swear under my breath, my heart pounding in my chest as the adrenalin courses through me.

  “Come on, Bertie,” I mutter, tugging on his lead, my paralysis breaking at last.

  She can’t be looking at me, I tell myself. She’s just looking out at the ocean, that’s all.

  I don’t look up and hurry back along the prom, back the way I came.

  She knew you were there all along, a cynical little voice whispers in my mind. She was posing in the window, just for you.

  But that’s impossible, I tell myself quickly. How could she possibly have known that I was there? She isn’t bloody psychic.

  I scurry a good way along the wide pavement on the ocean side, way past my house so that she doesn’t see me go home. But then it occurs to me, if she did see me, she’s going to know that it was me who was looking through the window when we do officially meet because she’ll recognise my dog.