Two Doors Down: A twisted psychological thriller Page 6

  And I’m in no mood for it whatsoever.

  I’m saved from having to answer when Mark makes an appearance, a tray held aloft.

  ELEVEN

  Mark’s tray is piled high with a stack of cheese, three small plates, a cheese knife, three cut-glass tumblers and a bottle of Port.

  He sets it down on the glass-top coffee-table, then takes his place next to Holly on the sofa.

  “Dig in,” he says, grabbing the bottle of port and unscrewing the lid with the cork base.

  Holly picks up the knife, and for some reason, a shiver runs through me, like someone has walked over my grave. I watch her cut a sizable slab of Cornish Yarg, but I don’t make a move to attack the cheese; I have lost my appetite and I am still full from dinner.

  “I was just telling Claire how I can’t wait to get settled into the groove of things here and get some serious writing done.”

  “The sea air really agrees with you, doesn’t it?” Mark says lightly.

  “Oh, you have no idea,” she says in mock seriousness. “I dream in colours borrowed from the sea. The waves of the ocean help me get back to me.”

  “Who wrote that?” Mark asks.

  “I have no idea,” she laughs.

  I get up from the armchair, the room lurching slightly around me as I place my empty wine glass on the coffee table next to the tray.

  It is time for a port. I grab one of the tumblers that Mark has just poured and sit back down.

  “So, what are you plans for the week before Mark goes to Germany for his exhibition?” I ask them both. Or perhaps slur would be more apt.

  “Well, Holly’s going back to London the day after tomorrow to pack.”

  “Oh? Aren’t you both going?”

  “No, not this time,” Holly says. “It’ll only take me a couple of days to sort through the things I want to keep, and the things I need to get rid of for good. Then a removal van will be coming a few days later to take down a few bits and pieces of furniture to Broadgate. I also intend to put the house on the market. It’s just something that I feel I need to do alone, you know, draw a line under the past.”

  And there goes another surprise. I wasn’t expecting that, but it does make perfect sense. Living in her dead husband’s house is entirely logical.

  “Where is your house?” I ask.

  “Belgravia.”

  “Wow. That’s posh.”

  “My ex was a banker, and he came from old money.” She lets out a shaky little laugh. “That sounds so bad, doesn’t it? Like, I married an older man just for his money. But believe me, nothing could be further from the truth. I loved him so much, my heart broke when he died.” She turns to face Mark. “Broke, past tense. I’ve been lucky enough to find true love twice in my life.”

  The worst feeling squirms in my guts, my imagination momentarily running away with me. I mean, what if she is a gold-digging murderess? What if she killed the ex just to get her hands on his fancy house in Belgravia? What if she plans to do the same thing to Mark?

  How much older was he? How did he die? I want to ask but manage to bite the questions back.

  Stop being so bloody stupid, I chide myself. What is wrong with you?

  “I love you too, baby,” he says, before turning to face me. “And I did want to go with her, but this is something that Holly needs to do alone. She hasn’t spent much time in the house since she met me, and I completely understand. She’ll be back in a couple of days and then we can get settled here before I have to go to Germany.”

  “And you said that you wanted to do some painting while I’m gone,” Holly reminds him.

  “Yes, I need to do some work, if I can. It won’t hurt to produce another painting or two to take to Berlin with me.”

  Mark goes on to explain their itinerary in greater detail – he will spend the next few days here painting while Holly is in London packing. When she comes back with the van of stuff, they will be together here for a few days before Mark drives up to London, hopefully with an extra painting or two. He will meet up with his own man with a van at his studio in London, who will load up the lorry with his paintings destined for Berlin. Mark will then fly out to Germany the next day.

  “Why don’t you go with him to Berlin?” I ask Holly.

  “Oh, I just hate flying. Besides, when Mark is gone, I’m going to redecorate Mark’s old bedroom and use it as my office.”

  “You’re doing house renovations?” I ask incredulously, horrified that she could even think of touching Mark’s childhood bedroom. Christ, talk about getting your feet under the table. These are surely the actions of a heartless gold digger.

  “Not renovating, just redecorating,” Mark informs me. “Holly wants to put her own stamp on the place, and I happen to think that’s a jolly good idea.” I could be wrong, but it sounds to me like he is justifying her actions a little too much. “I don’t want my parents’ bedroom touched, but I think it’s a nice idea to see some of Holly’s personality here. She needs a private space to write, and it makes sense to use my old bedroom. It’s the smallest room in the house, and it has the best view of the sea. It’s time for a change, to look to the future, together. It’s a good time to move on. For both of us.”

  “Right.” I look at Holly. “Are you going to throw out all of Mark’s childhood stuff?”

  “I don’t have any childhood stuff, you know this,” Mark corrects me. And it also sounds like he’s beginning to lose patience with me.

  “I’m not going to do anything too drastic, I just want a cosy spot to write. I’d like my favourite desk up there, and a few girly cushions and throws on the bed and stuff when I fancy a break from the desk.”

  “Yes,” I mumble. “It makes sense.” And it does, I just wish that she wouldn’t touch that room.

  It’s none of your business, I remind myself.

  “Also, Claire, I meant to say earlier – we’re going to be throwing a housewarming party with our friends from London at the end of the month. And you are invited too, of course. Just, you know, keep the last Saturday in October free.”

  “Sure,” I say, feeling quite bamboozled by her. Maybe the port has something to do with that as well. But mostly, I’m still fixated on the idea of her redecorating Mark’s house.

  “So, you’re going to put your stamp on the rest of the house while Mark’s in Germany?” I ask. “Don’t you want to redecorate together?”

  A look passes over Mark’s face, something that might be hesitation. But just as quick, it is gone again.

  “We will, but Holly is keen to settle in.”

  “I’ve already promised I won’t do anything too outlandish,” she laughs, swivelling her head towards Mark. “I have classical tastes, you have nothing to worry about. It’s just, I’m bringing down a few bits from London that I’d like to find a home for, here. They must be assimilated,” she says with mock gravity.

  “I know, I trust you, baby.” He smiles at me, and my heart flutters in jealousy and longing. “She’s not chucking any of my furniture on the skip, or anything, this is purely a cosmetic operation, a minor reshuffle of our combined stuff.”

  “Sure. What’s a fresh lick of paint between lovers?” That comes out a lot more sarcastic than I had intended. “I guess you guys really are DFLs now, huh?” I say lightly, in an attempt to gloss over my rudeness. The last thing I want to do is offend Mark in front of her.

  “DFLs? What’s that?” Holly asks.

  “The Down From Londons,” Mark says. “We’ve officially become the DFL Hipsters. Artists and writers down from London, pushing up house prices on the coastline.”

  “Right. I’ve never heard that before.”

  “Don’t you want any cheese?” Mark asks me.

  He and Holly have been making lightwork of the cheese.

  They’re both so skinny, I think. Where do they put it all?

  “I’m fine, thanks,” I say. “Cheese gives me nightmares.”

  Involuntarily, I think of last night’s horrendous drea
m, where Mark had been a skeleton, and I shudder. I could really do without a replay of that.

  Mark puts down his plate and makes a show of looking at his watch. “God, is that the time?” he says with a big yawn.

  I am insulted – he couldn’t be any less subtle.

  “Is the heat on in the top bedroom?” Holly asks. “That room is so big, and it gets so cold up there.”

  Instantly, I am on edge.

  “But…” you’re not sleeping in that top room, I almost say, only just stopping myself in time.

  Because now it’s even weirder that Holly was naked in Mark’s room, flashing me…

  She wasn’t flashing you, I have to remind myself.

  “But what, Claire?” she asks sweetly.

  I’m not buying her act of coy innocence for a second. When I look into her eyes, I feel as if she is mocking me.

  She knows full well that it was me watching her last night, I think in a surge of paranoia.

  “But it’s still only October. It’s not even winter yet.”

  It sounds lame, even to my own ears.

  “Yes, the heating’s on, don’t worry,” Mark says. “You’re right, it was chilly last night.”

  “Oh, poor baby,” Holly coos, snuggling closer to him on the sofa. “I’ll keep you warm.”

  Mark wraps an arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer, and I feel like an intruder.

  It is time for me to go.

  “Well, thank you both for a lovely night, and dinner was fantastic, Mark,” I say, getting to my feet, albeit unsteadily.

  “Are you sure you won’t stay for another port?” Holly asks.

  There is no way that she’d ask if she thought I’d actually say yes.

  “No, thank you. I should go. I don’t like leaving Bertie too long.”

  “Want me to call you a taxi?” Mark asks from the sofa, making no effort to move.

  They both look so comfortable together, at peace and in love.

  I paste on a bright smile. “That never gets old, does it Mark?”

  “Never,” he solemnly agrees.

  He doesn’t even walk me to the living-room door when we say our goodbyes.

  Out in the hallway, I can hear the soft murmur of their voices, hushed and giggly.

  I know that I’m drunk, and I know that I’m being stupid, but I have the distinct impression that they are laughing at me.

  I leave them to it, and step into the chilly October air, onwards to my home, two doors down.

  TWELVE

  It goes without saying that the first thing I do when I walk through the door – after I have made a fuss of Bertie and let him out the backdoor for a pee – is lift up the lid of my laptop and go straight onto Google.

  I need to check up on Holly’s various aliases, even if I am having problems focussing my vision right now.

  I sprawl ungainly on my pale-blue sofa, squinting at the computer screen.

  “Which name first, Bertie?”

  He is sitting upright, next to me on the sofa. It looks as if the dopey little bugger is grinning at me and I ruffle his head. His skinny tail thumps appreciatively on the sofa cushion.

  My fingertips hover over the keys – what to type in first? Jasper Butler, Anabelle Turner or Sam West? It is a no-brainer, jealousy having completely gotten the best of me.

  I type Anabelle Turner into the search bar, going straight onto Google images.

  I gasp in shock at the selection of thumbnails, my heart hammering hard and my stomach flipping.

  “Jesus,” I mutter to Bertie.

  I know that she had said she had been a glamour model, but I wasn’t prepared for the reality of seeing it. Glamour model is clearly a euphemism for pornographic model.

  With a trembling hand, I navigate through the minefield of semi-naked and fully-naked Hollys. Most of the pictures are thoroughly glossy and airbrushed half to death, but there is no mistaking who I’m looking at.

  There is the cleaner stuff – she has been a cover girl and done various spreads for FHM and a few other relatively tame lad mags.

  And then there is the smut.

  She has posed for the type of magazine that I have never heard of. Even though she is fully nude, in most of them she has her legs closed.

  And in a few of them, she doesn’t.

  The former photoshoots seem to be on the lower end of the smut spectrum. They are more a celebration of the perfect female form, with her perky breasts, washboard abs, shapely backside and general air of glowing health. Her tiny landing-strip of pubic hair is visible, but nothing more.

  The other pictures have a different flavour. They aren’t as glossy, and look as if they are stills from a porn film. I’m pretty sure that they aren’t, as most of them are tagged with names of magazines.

  There are a handful of articles on her – articles in the loosest sense of the word. Buzzfeed, and the like, with salubrious titles such as, The Hottest, Most Underrated Glamour Models.

  There are a lot of images that I don’t dare click on – they are tagged with long lines of obscure HTML, the type of which looks positively virus infecting. I’m not sure that I trust Avast to compete with any of them.

  I’ve seen enough… For now. I’m sure I’ll be back for more of this torment before I’m much older, but for now, it’s more than I can bear.

  Holly’s vagina, in all its pink, puffy, bald glory is making me feel quite out of sorts. I don’t want any more nightmares. It is time to search for her ex, and her other nom de plume.

  The next name I google is Jasper Butler. I am also keen to look at her self-published, horror writing efforts, but somehow, Jasper Butler seems more pressing, more pertinent to my current line of enquiry…

  This search doesn’t yield anything anywhere near as shocking as the previous one. There are a lot of thumbnails of middle-aged men in suits, and other, random stuff. There are some twitter profiles of adolescent boys under that name, along with a handful of links to social media posts. There is a picture of a retirement community, a photographer’s website, something called ‘Find A Grave’, whatever that is, and familytee.com. After this, the search results start to dilute, the connections to that name becoming more tenuous and obscure, such as ‘Butler Team of Richardson Employment’ and two adolescents called Mary Butler and Jasper Morgan, acting in a school play.

  I’ve gone too far, and I scroll back up. A snippet from an article from a website called ‘newspaperarchive.com’ catches my eye, just where the search turns weird. The paper in question is called ‘The London Experience’ and the article itself is dated November 17th, 2018. I click on the link and begin to read:

  Man plunges to death under bus.

  Running headfirst into a bus on Oxford Street, Friday afternoon, Jasper Butler, 57, an investment banker, fell beneath the wheels and was instantly killed.

  The man was hurrying to avoid the sudden rainstorm, and he was hurled beneath the bus. Both legs were severed, and the man’s head was crushed.

  Jasper Butler is survived by his widow, Holly, and his son, William Butler, 36, a musician.

  Funeral rites will be held at St Patrick’s at 2 o’clock, Saturday afternoon. Rev E G Anderson of the First Methodist Church will officiate, and burial will be in this city.

  The body is at the funeral home.

  “That has to him,” I say to Bertie, who has curled up next to me on the sofa. “God. What a way to go.”

  Bertie huffs through his nose, as if to express how little he cares.

  I take a quick look around for anymore articles along the same lines, but this is the only one. I scratch my head thoughtfully. It certainly fits – the timeframe, the location, his job and wealth.

  It has to be him. Next time I see Mark, I would have to ask him a few questions about Holly’s ex. Subtly, mind; I don’t want him to think that I’m stalking his new girlfriend.

  And being hit by a bus is most definitely not murder. Unless she – or someone else – pushed him.

  I groa
n softly, pinching the bridge of my nose between thumb and forefinger. My head is beginning to throb. I know I should get up and drink a pint of water to alleviate tomorrow’s inevitable hangover, but I can’t bring myself to tear myself away from the computer.

  Fifty-seven, I think. That’s no age to die. I also think how, at the time of his death, Holly would’ve been twenty-nine or thirty. That put her at twenty-eight years younger than her husband. That was some age gap. The rich banker and the glamour model, almost thirty years his junior. It was every cliché going. I simply can’t imagine Holly wanting him for anything other than his vast wealth. It can’t have been a genuine love match.

  Next up is Sam West. I go straight to her amazon page, scrolling through her list of forty-odd titles. She has hundreds of glowing reviews from diehard horror fans, as well as plenty of one stars, calling her work filth, trash, disgusting, illiterate, you name it. Other reviewers get personal, saying that she is a disgusting pervert for writing such sick trash. One even calls her a woman-hating, men’s right activist, which I find faintly amusing. Clearly, this poor, uptight, deeply-offended individual hasn’t read her author bio, where she refers to herself as a she.

  I may not like Holly, and I certainly don’t trust her, but surely people should be able to differentiate between the art and the artist? It’s only fiction, for God’s sake.

  Or maybe not. Maybe she really is those things. Maybe she is perverted evil personified.

  I look at her list of titles. The one called Flesh Factory appears to have caused the most outrage. I start reading a few of the book descriptions with greater attention – it would seem that a lot of her novels and novellas are set here in Broadgate.

  I find that odd.

  I read the blurb of one called Writers’ Retreat, and a chill creeps down my spine. The names have been changed, the facts slightly altered, but I fundamentally recognise the bare bones of the story. She has called the reclusive writer in the story Cillian Smith, but I know him as Simon Langdon. Langdon – now dead – was a famous horror writer in the seventies and eighties, with quite a number of his books turned into big-budget feature films, most notably the slasher flick, Dead Lake. He was a notorious recluse, and a pig of a man, by all accounts. This book she has written is a fictionalised – but still blatant – account of his life.