The Perfect Neighbors: A gripping psychological thriller with an ending you won’t see coming. Rachel Sargeant
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was carrying. A teeny bit of her ego wondered if the visit was to do with the swim club. John must have reported back how well the newcomer had done and Louisa was calling to offer her more classes. She answered the door.
“I hear you intend to teach English. Are you qualified?” Louisa said, stepping inside without a greeting.
“I was head of PE at my last school,” Helen said and savoured the surprise on Louisa’s face.
But it didn’t last. “The Niers School is clamping down on people who set up businesses for which they aren’t trained.”
“It’s hardly a business; I’m helping a neighbour.” Helen balled her fists. If Louisa thought she was the job police, she could think again.
“Well, I’ve brought some brochures about TESOL courses anyway,” Louisa said. “And while I’m here I can collect your balance.”
“Balance?”
“The skiing trip payment. Surely Gary mentioned it? I organize a trip to Austria. It’s an annual event during half-term.”
The leaflets shook in Helen’s hand. Half-term. Another prison door slammed shut behind her. But who the hell went skiing in May? Didn’t people need snow or was one look from Louisa enough to freeze rain?
“First I’ve heard of it, and I don’t remember Gary mentioning it last year so I don’t think—”
“He excused himself last year to visit you.”
Helen felt annoyed and proud at the same time. Annoyed with Louisa’s insinuation that Gary needed permission to drop out, but proud that he had the balls to stand up to the Dickensweg mafia.
“In that case, I can’t see him fancying it this year either,” she said.
“Oh dear, have I ruined the surprise? He’s already paid the deposit.”
***
She knew she was thrashing, using far more energy than her progress through the water warranted, but there was rage in her limbs and she wanted it out. How could he think of booking a holiday without consulting her? Is that the way their marriage would roll: he made the decisions and she did as she was told? Well, he could forget it. She’d show him and start by returning to this pool despite her promise.
Half a dozen other swimmers were there, word having got round that the pool had opened for the season. Disapproving eyes bored into her as she caused the water to splash and chop. She smashed her wrist against the side, having misjudged her finish. She stood up as the pain throbbed through her arm, adding more fuel to her fury. She pushed off again, narrowly missing a woman who drifted over on her back. She managed a lopsided arm pull with her throbbing hand and speared the water with her good one.
It hadn’t only been the ruddy ski trip that made her mad. Top honours had gone to the tiny white business card that slipped out of the teaching leaflets when she flung them across her hall. Louisa Howard, RELATE Counsellor and on the back she’d written: Call me if you need to talk.
She cleared her goggles but they were misted with tears. That poisonous woman, who tried to tell her what to wear, when to exercise, how to teach, was now saying her marriage was in trouble. How dare she when her own husband was unfaithful?
What could Louisa have seen to make her think it? The sleepless nights? The arguments? Louisa couldn’t know about them. They were nothing. She and Gary were solid. She gripped the goggles with both hands and twisted them. The action hurt because of her bruised wrist but she kept on twisting, squeezing, wringing. If it meant losing the deposit, so what? No way were they spending half-term with Louisa as she scrutinized their marriage.
A figure dived in beside her, making her drop the goggles. Sascha. How dare he come near her? Another one she couldn’t trust.
“Why did you lie to me?” she demanded when he resurfaced. “Why are you hounding my neighbours?” She rubbed her throbbing hand and fought off the urge to slap it against his face.
He ducked under to retrieve her goggles. When he came up she shouted, “Give me those.”
The elderly swimmer glared at her and paddled away.
Sascha hooked the goggles round his finger. “Louisa Howard is a hard woman, isn’t she?” He offered them to her but, as she took them, he snatched them back. “And her husband – what do you know about him?”
She tugged at the strap on the goggles with her good hand.
He tightened his grip and said: “He’s dangerous.” His wet eyelashes had clumped in peaks making his expression deranged.
The menace in his voice made her shudder. She tugged at her goggles, but he yanked them harder and pulled her towards him. She felt his breath on her shoulder. “You know what he’s like, don’t you?” he hissed.
He gave one last pull on the strap. She put out her hand as she fell forward. He put out his. They met palm to palm. The connection tingled through her arm, across her skin. The pain in her wrist intensified and she had to break away.
“Don’t tell me what to think,” she gasped. “Everyone here tells me what to think.”
His eyes were everywhere except on her. Had he felt it too? Eventually he said: “But all people must control their thoughts and actions, all people, Helen.”
She tried to summon the emotions that she knew she should feel – anger, indignation, even fear – but her head echoed with the sound of her name on his lips. She tingled again, not just her arm, all of her felt it. Palm to Palm. What should she do now? To leave would be sensible but why should she? She was fed up with being sensible. Sensible meant sitting through Ordeal by Coffee Morning, watching Louisa dismantle Mel bit by bit. Sensible meant letting the vile woman cross her threshold with her poisoned business card. Sensible meant listening to her instead of making up her own mind about Sascha.
“Would you like to train some lengths?” she heard herself ask.
He handed back her goggles and nodded.
The face staring back in the mirror had clown lips that bled into the surrounding flesh. Mel didn’t know how long it had been since she’d last applied lipstick but it had been a while.
Chris had come into the bedroom while she was dozing after her heavy meal – an extra egg tonight, and the portion of chips seemed big. She was tired after picking up Murdo from school. It was nice to spend time with the youngest Howard boy while Toby and Leo were at their music lessons and their mother had a governors’ meeting. She once heard another mother telling her child: “Murdo doesn’t speak because he doesn’t understand.” But the woman was wrong. Murdo understood things very well.
When Louisa had returned home, she was still tense about the man in her front garden. Was it the same man who’d accosted her by Chris’s car? Thank God he ran off. She never told Chris, although she knew she should have done. What if he was dangerous? At least three times he’d been loitering in the close. What if he broke into a house next or approached a child?
“Come on,” Chris had said when he interrupted her nap. “It’s time you and me made a night of it. There are some clothes on the chair, and I’ve seen the lovely Helen wearing this shade of lipstick so let’s see what it does for you. The table’s booked for eight.”
Her heart pounded at the thought of going out. It was hard enough going to swim club every week. She could tell him she was a bit off colour. He’d believe her because she so often was ill: headaches, wheezing, palpitations, every cough and cold Louisa’s boys brought home. But he’d already changed. The silk shirt looked new and expensive. She didn’t want to let him down.
She slipped on the kaftan he’d left for her. The coarse cloth chafed her nipples. She would get sore