Little Whispers

by K.L. Slater

Genres: Thrillers; Crime Fiction; Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

You shared a secret with the wrong person. Janey Markham is thrilled to be moving with her family to Buckingham Crescent, the smartest address in a desirable suburban town. Worried she’ll be excluded by the glossy local mothers, Janey is thrilled when she meets Tanya, the kind of woman she has always looked up to. Tanya takes Janey under her wing and her teenage daughter, Angel, is amazing with Janey’s little boy. As Janey and Tanya grow closer, Janey feels she can finally leave her troubled past behind. But then everything changes.... In a weak moment over a bottle of wine, Janey finds herself telling Tanya her most shocking secret. Why wouldn’t she trust her new friend? The following day, Janey sees Angel, with a man old enough to be her father, pushing someone into a car. The next day a body is found, and police appeal for witnesses - and share a picture of the same car.... When Janey tells Tanya she is going to the police, Tanya turns threatening. She’ll stop at nothing to defend Angel, even if her daughter is guilty. If Janey says anything, Tanya will make sure that her dark secret gets out. Janey faces an impossible choice. Stay quiet about what she saw that terrible day or speak up and destroy the family she has worked so hard to protect.... From million-copy best seller K.L. Slater comes this twisty and absolutely gripping roller-coaster ride of a listen. Fans of The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl will be totally hooked on Little Whispers.

Release date: May 21, 2020

Publisher: Audible Studios

Print pages: 350

Sample

When I’m stressed, worried or upset, I clean. Needless to say, with everything that’s been happening over the last few months, my house looks more immaculate than usual. Even though it feels like our lives are falling apart in other ways.

I’ve been cleaning the kitchen for the last hour. Not just a cursory wiping-down of the worktops and mopping the floor; I mean proper grafting. Bottoming out the cupboards, disinfecting the shelves, sorting through the out-of-date jars and throwing half of them away before putting stuff back.

I look at the clock again. Eleven thirty, four minutes later than when I last looked. Rowan will be in his last lesson before lunch, and my husband, Isaac, will probably just have taken his seat in the interview room at the smart glass-fronted offices he texted me a snap of earlier: the regional headquarters of Abacus, an innovative technology firm that reached the Sunday Times Hot New Company Top 100 list last year. A company that has very recently headhunted Isaac and wooed him for interview with a stunning remuneration package.

I scrub harder at a stubborn rusty stain in the cupboard under the sink. I don’t know whether to hope Isaac gets the job or not, and it feels like being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

On the one hand, I want life to get back on an even keel after dealing with Mum’s death just four months ago. The thought of Isaac getting a dynamic new job and us moving to a new house in another area, with everything that entails… Well, my heart sinks just thinking about it.

Mum’s death changed me in ways I can’t even put into words. I’ve only told my husband the bare bones of it so far, although I’ve promised to tell him everything in time, when I feel ready to go through the stuff she left. He’s offered to sit with me, look through it together, but although I’ve tried, I can’t bring myself to do it. I just… can’t. The mere thought of watching the horror settle over his face is all too much, even though he’s reassured me it will change nothing about his feelings for me.

And that’s why another part of me longs for the fresh start Isaac says this new job might offer.

‘Relocation expenses fully paid, double my current salary, and even a mortgage subsidy for the first twelve months,’ he read from the emailed information pack.

Plus on top of all that, it could gift us with a relationship boost we’re in desperate need of.

It’s not that we’re constantly arguing or particularly want different things in life. In some ways that would be easier to bear, because at least it would indicate that there’s still some energy, some passion there. But the emotional rot is way more pervasive than that.

Over the past year, we’ve seemed to slowly fade away from each other. Nothing dramatic and measurable; it feels more like we’re drifting off in separate hot air balloons. As if we’re mere acquaintances now instead of the best friends and passionate lovers we used to be.

At first, when we sensed things were going wrong, we made countless efforts to reconnect. We scheduled date nights when Rowan would stay over at Mum’s and spent quality time together without television or phones. Sometimes we’d just talk, making a conscious effort to look at each other rather than Isaac keeping one eye on his emails.

Nowadays, we don’t bother with any of that. Without even discussing it, we seem to have somehow both decided it’s hopeless to even try any more. We’ve come to a dull acceptance that this is how it is between us.

After maxing out three credit cards to the limit eighteen months ago, we took out a ten-year loan and paid them off. The bank would only sanction the deal if we agreed to secure the debt on the house. So we did.

The day we used the loan to pay off the cards, it felt so liberating to cut them into little pieces. Three little bits of plastic that had held so much power over us. Isaac gathered them up and threw them in the air. We laughed as the tiny, sharp chips showered down on us in the kitchen like celebratory confetti.

But within months, the toll of the loan payment swiftly dampened down our optimism. When the head gasket blew on Isaac’s car, essential to him doing his job, he was forced to ask the bank for a replacement credit card to enable us to carry out the necessary repairs.

I stopped suggesting modest improvements to our three-bed semi a long time ago. Ideas like refreshing the kitchen cupboards or finally getting rid of the peach bathroom suite in favour of a modern white one. The family holiday abroad we’d hoped to take soon became just a pipe dream.

A year ago, I gave up my job as a teaching assistant at Rowan’s primary school to become Mum’s carer and we’ve just about scraped by each month with barely a penny to spare. She lived in a little council flat just around the corner from us and, apart from some meagre savings she’d put by, Mum lived on her state pension. Cobbling together her funeral costs using her own little bit of money made me feel hollow inside.

In our early years together, that flush of new love, a scarcity of available funds never seemed to matter. But ten years down the road, it’s pretty hard to get fired up about a rosy future when there are no holidays, no social life and hardly a week passing without another bill landing on the mat.

It’s just life, I suppose. One that plenty of people will recognise. The shiny newness of each other is bound to wear off over time, isn’t it? It’s the same for most married couples, I think. I read about it often enough online and in magazines.

The only trouble is, we haven’t been married for twenty-plus years. We wed in Cyprus ten years ago and enjoyed a couple of years of early married life just the two of us, before having our much-wanted son, Rowan, who is now eight.

Finally triumphing over the rusty mark, I stand up with slightly stiff knees and mop my brow with the back of my hand as I look around at the sparkling surfaces and smear-free cupboard doors. Yes, this effort would meet even Mum’s high standards, I think, and that’s saying something. While I was growing up, she always seemed to be scrubbing or ironing or cleaning the windows… it was as if she couldn’t keep still or rest at all.

Now I realise she was probably terrified of giving herself any time to think.

I throw the cloth in the sink, wash my hands and make a coffee. I’m sitting on a stool at the breakfast bar when my phone rings, making me jump.

Isaac’s name flashes up on the screen and I snatch it up. ‘Hello?’

‘Janey, I got it,’ he blurts out excitedly. ‘Bob, the CEO, offered me the job on the spot!’

Later, when Rowan is in bed, Isaac shuffles closer to me on the sofa so I can see his laptop screen. ‘Look at this house. Bob put me on to it; he reckons it’ll attract a buyer almost immediately.’

The warmth of his body, so close to mine, should be the most natural thing in the world, but it feels a bit strange. We usually sit separately at night, going for the comfort of stretching out on our own sofas rather than snuggling up together like we used to do.

‘I thought the properties in a place like that were way out of our league,’ I remark, glancing at my husband’s bright, animated face. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him like this, upbeat and full of hope. My heart lightens a touch.

He clicks on the main picture of the house, and I admit I’m surprised at the low asking price, even though it’s still way up on the steep side for us.

It’s a modern four-bedroom detached with a square bay window on the ground floor and a smart red-brick front. It’s set back from the road with a generous front garden and enough block paved area to park a car. The imposing glossy green door with a big shiny chrome knocker is fitting of the estate agent’s description of ‘this ultra-smart executive property’. He clicks on other photographs that show a substantial rear garden bordered with mature trees and shrubs.

Rowan could actually play in a garden like that, rather than the postage stamp of mossy grass we have here in our shabby Victorian semi, overlooked by several of our neighbours. I have a flash-forward of me sitting on the neatly flagged patio at Buckingham Crescent, reading a book with a cool drink to hand, while Rowan practises his football skills on the grass with one of his new friends.

Buckingham Crescent is one of the poshest streets in the whole of West Bridgford. The town sits on the River Trent, south of Nottingham, and is about a fifty-minute drive from our current house in Mansfield. I remember reading about the street’s status in our local newspaper and wondering how it must feel to live there.

‘I wonder why it’s so cheap,’ I murmur.

‘Well it’s not exactly cheap,’ Isaac laughs. ‘It’s what they call “keenly priced”. Bob says it was only added to Rightmove yesterday.’

He points out a shortlist on the right-hand side of the screen that gives details of similar houses sold in the area over the last twelve months. There are only two in Buckingham Crescent – people seem to stay put there – but one of them is the house we’re looking at right now.

‘The owners have only been there a year,’ he remarks. ‘They’ve put it on at nearly ten grand less than they bought it for, so maybe it’s a marriage break-up or something and they need a quick sale.’

He clicks lazily through the remaining photographs in the property’s gallery, and I take in the glossy black-and-white kitchen, the pristine family bathroom with its free-standing tub and separate rainforest shower, and the master bedroom complete with en suite and small dressing area.

I can’t imagine living somewhere like that, even if we had money to spare from Isaac’s new salary. The thought of asking new friends around for drinks and nibbles at the weekend is part of a lifestyle I daren’t even dream about.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re friendly with our neighbours here. We’ll stop to pass the time of day on the school run and often bump into them at after-school football matches, but that’s about it. Once the front doors on our street close at the end of the day, people keep themselves to themselves. Folks around here don’t hold dinner parties or invite each other around for Pimm’s on the patio. It’s enough just trying to put a decent meal on the table for our kids each night without feeding everyone else.

Yet I can’t help dreaming a little, either.

Rowan’s such a bright, friendly boy, he’d easily make friends if we moved to a different town. The new postcode would mean we could enrol him at one of the small, OFSTED-ranked ‘outstanding’ schools, instead of the sprawling academy on the outskirts of Mansfield he currently attends. With its oversized classes and profusion of supply teachers due to a high rate of staff absence, Isaac and I both worry that Rowan isn’t getting the attention he deserves.

I’m a qualified teaching assistant, so maybe I could even get a part-time position at one of the primary schools, now that my responsibility for looking after Mum is over. I’ve not really considered going back to work yet, but a highly rated school in a middle-class catchment area would be so much less stressful than my last job, which was at a failing primary school in an ex-mining village, a government targeted ‘area of deprivation’. Despite the challenges, it’s a job I used to really love doing. It was more than just my work with the kids in class; I felt useful in other ways, too.

If they had a problem, parents often felt they could approach me more easily than the class teacher because they saw me as one of their own. I miss the feeling that I’m helping to make a difference to people’s lives and helping shape their children’s future.

There would also be a lot less physical strain than I had caring for Mum and it would help to take my mind off the obvious.

Confusion twists and turns inside my body. I make a tremendous effort to push the thought of my mum’s pale, wasted face away. She’d looked blotchy with nerves before she died. Then her face cleared like a weight had been lifted at the exact moment I felt the burden of her secret passing to me. It felt as real as if she’d handed me a baton in a relay race. I swear I felt the weight of the responsibility leaving Mum and becoming my own.

That was her final legacy to me, imprisoning me for the rest of my life. I could never do that to my boy. Never.

I swallow down the festering ball of fury in my throat, battling as ever the raw burn in my chest that feels just like a brand new hatred for a woman I’ve loved all my life. Since Mum died I’ve alternated between this fury and an aching grief so deep and bottomless, I feel as if I am drowning with each and every breath I take. In the days following her death, it felt as if I was slowly dying too.

‘I could ring the estate agent before they close to arrange a viewing for tomorrow, if you like?’ Isaac fixes me with a look that snaps me out of my stupor.

This all feels like it’s moving a bit too fast. This morning, life was dragging along as normal; now, suddenly, Isaac has his fancy new job and everything is about to change. I don’t know where the resistance I feel is coming from. I want to change our lives just as much as he does; in fact, I’ve hoped for little else recently.

‘OK, if you can get the time off.’ I don’t want to spoil his upbeat mood. ‘It’s only a viewing, isn’t it? We don’t have to make any decisions right away.’

‘Of course, but with our moving expenses paid and a house like this going for a song, we don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth either.’

‘No,’ I murmur, taking a breath to ease the sudden tightness in my chest. ‘I suppose we don’t.’

When I arrive at the new house with Rowan, I’m forced to park a little way down Buckingham Crescent from the halfway point where our house is located. Two wheels of the removal lorry are on the kerb, but the vehicle is still blocking the road, and judging by the amount of furniture still stacked in the back, they’re only about halfway through unloading.

‘Come on.’ I chivvy Rowan out of the car. ‘Let’s go and see our new home.’

I take his hand-held gaming device from him and slip it in my handbag, and for once, he doesn’t complain. Instead, he grabs his football from the back seat and stares with bright eyes at the house we’re parked directly outside.

‘Wow, it’s big!’ he exclaims, his eyes travelling from the front door up three storeys to the roof.

He hasn’t been inside the new place yet, but we’ve driven past a couple of times to show him the exterior.

‘It’s not this one, silly billy. Come on, let’s go.’

Rowan bounces the ball as he walks. ‘What number is our house?’ he asks, checking out the shining numbers on the doors.

‘It’s number—’

‘Excuse me!’ a sharp female voice interrupts me. ‘You can’t leave your car there.’

I turn to see a wiry middle-aged woman with no-nonsense short grey hair standing halfway down the path of the house we’re parked outside. She pulls the edges of an oversized mauve cardigan together across her front and folds her arms.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I won’t be long. I’m just waiting for the lorry to move so I can park outside my own house.’ I glance left and right. There are no double yellow lines outside her property, no ‘Permit Holder Only’ signs. ‘I didn’t realise there were designated parking spots on the road.’

She stalks to the gate and looks up the road at the lorry, and her frown disappears.

‘Oh, are you… are you moving in?’

‘That’s right.’ I nod. ‘Number fifty-four.’

Her eyes widen slightly, and I wonder if it’s because the house has only just gone up for sale, and here we are, the new people, already moving in.

‘It’s the one with the green door,’ Rowan adds helpfully.

‘I know the exact one you mean,’ she says. ‘In that case, don’t worry about your car, if we’re to be neighbours. I’m Polly Finch.’ She holds out a small, pale hand.

‘Thank you.’ I shake her hand. ‘I’m Janey Markham, and this is my son, Rowan.’

Polly leans forward at the gate to look up the road at the lorry again.

‘Your husband’s at the house already, is he?’

‘Yes, he picked up the keys first thing and came over with the removals men to get things started.’

‘I get to choose which bedroom I want out of the three that are left,’ Rowan says.

‘How exciting.’ Polly watches as he bounces his ball up to the next gate.

The move happened so fast, there was no time to bring Rowan over to see the house before we moved in. We sold our house to a young couple, first-time buyers, in record time, due to its proximity to a main bus route into the city. We viewed the new house twice while Rowan was at school, and as it was vacant possession, it seemed to take no time at all to complete.

‘Lovely to meet you, Janey.’ Polly’s voice breaks into my thoughts and her eyes flick from my feet to my face in the blink of an eye, but I notice all the same. ‘When you’re settled in, pop down and have a cup of tea. There’ll be a piece of home-made lemon drizzle cake here with your name on it.’

‘Thank you.’ I smile, touched by her friendly gesture. ‘I’ll take you up on that.’

We wave goodbye to Polly and carry on walking up the road, squeezing past the removals lorry.

‘This one’s ours!’ Rowan declares when he sees the wide-open green front door. He presses his finger to the polished wooden plaque on the gatepost. ‘Number fifty-four.’

‘This is it,’ I agree. ‘What do you think?’

‘Cool!’ Rowan bounds up the path and into the house. ‘Dad?’

‘In here.’ Isaac’s faint voice echoes beyond the hallway.

Heading for the living room, I pass two harassed-looking removals men.

I walk in to find that Isaac has already recruited Rowan to help him gather up a scattering of small black screws from the plain biscuit-coloured carpet.

‘You look busy already,’ I say, taking in Isaac’s scowl, the scattered IKEA boxes and the numerous pieces of wood that are propped up against the sofa and the wall.

‘“Easy assembly”, it said on the box. I’ve been trying to figure out how the thing fits together, and I’ve just realised there’s a key piece missing, so it’ll have to go back. Can you believe it? No hall table today, I’m afraid.’ Isaac’s cheeks look hot and flushed.

‘Have they brought the kitchen box in yet?’ I say, digging the carton of milk I stopped off to buy earlier out of my bag. ‘If I can find the kettle and a couple of mugs, I’ll make us a cuppa.’

‘Music to my ears, love,’ one of the removals men says cheekily from the doorway, holding out in front of him the box I’m referring to. ‘Milk and two sugars for my mate, and just milk for me. I’m sweet enough, see.’ The other man pops his head round and winks at me before disappearing outside again.

Isaac laughs at my irked expression. ‘Don’t worry, they’ll be gone soon – love.’ He laughs and dodges my pretend slap.

I give him a thin smile. ‘Tell you what, you can make the cavemen’s tea. Looks like you need a break anyway, before you start throwing the flat-pack furniture around.’

Isaac pulls a face, but to give him his due, he gets to his feet and heads for the kitchen.

Once all the furniture and boxes are inside and the removals men have left, the day flies by. I make us countless cups of tea and unpack more boxes, while Isaac assembles the beds. Rowan helps by fetching and carrying bits and bobs in between his frequent kickabouts in the lovely big back garden.

It feels so weird, pottering around together in our new house. In the end, I couldn’t wait to leave our old place behind, but now that we’re actually here, I’m surprised to feel the uncertainty sloshing around in the pit of my stomach.

It’s not as if I’ve left a lot of friends behind. I let that side of things slip as caring for Mum took priority. Still, I might miss my Saturday morning aerobics class at the local leisure centre. Sometimes I’d stay afterwards for a coffee and chat with the women there, although Mum always hated the fact that I was gone for longer than I’d told her. I suppose I could carry on going there, but part of me thinks the time would be better spent putting my efforts into making new friends here.

Rowan, on the other hand, has been quiet about leaving his friends at the academy behind. I’ve tried to talk to him about his feelings, but he won’t be pinned down. I know he must be gutted about having to leave the football team he worked so hard to win a place in, and Isaac has promised to take him back soon for a friendly training session at the weekend.

At six o’clock, Isaac pops out to the chippy a few streets away that I spotted driving over here. We eat straight from the paper, savouring the gloriously crisp batter and proper hand-cut chips drenched in vinegar.

With our lower backs griping from the physical work, Isaac and I agree that we’ve done enough in the house for one day. But when Rowan begs his dad to connect up the television, to my amazement, Isaac obliges without complaining. Rowan settles on an ancient episode of Family Guy, and we’ve all just got comfy together on the sofa – a big improvement already on sitting in different rooms at our old house – when the doorbell rings.

I sit bolt upright, startled.

‘Typical!’ Isaac grumbles, getting to his feet. ‘Seems as if we’re not meant to get any rest at all today.’

‘Who is it, Mum?’ Rowan asks, looking worried and muting the television.

‘I don’t know, I haven’t unpacked my crystal ball yet!’ I joke, tickling his belly. As he gets older, he seems to be developing into a bit of a nervous child. He spent a lot of time with Mum before she became really poorly, and she hated unplanned visitors, so maybe that’s the reason.

When Isaac doesn’t return right away, Rowan picks up his Nintendo Switch to fill the space, and I flick idly through the television channels, keeping the sound off. I heard the front door open, but I didn’t hear Isaac say anything. Then the door closed again and now his footsteps thump up the stairs.

He’s up there for about five minutes, and I’m just about to go up and find him when he returns. His face looks pale and he quickly masks a strange expression with a smile that’s just a little too bright and breezy.

‘Sorry. Just popped upstairs for my slippers.’

‘Who was it?’ I ask.

He looks at me, puzzled.

‘At the door?’ I add.

‘Oh, no one. I mean, there was nobody there. Must’ve been kids messing about.’

I frown, but Isaac claps his hands. ‘Right then. Back to Family Guy?’

He takes the remote control from me and changes channels again. I hope this sort of thing isn’t going to happen a lot. Bored kids playing knock-a-door-run. Maybe that’s one of the reasons the last people here got fed up; it’s the sort of thing that can wear you down after a while.

Rowan and I both fall asleep watching television, and an hour later, Isaac wakes us so we can all troop up to bed. When he picks up his phone, face down on the coffee table, I see the screen is full of text notifications.

‘It’s just the football scores,’ he explains, noticing me looking. He slides the phone into his pocket without opening the messages.

Finally in bed, and under the covers, his arm snakes around me and I relax into the warmth of him. He traces his finger down from my shoulder and slides his hand round my waist. Goosebumps prickle the tops of my arms, sending looping shivers down my spine. I can’t remember the last time we held each other this close, skin to skin.

I close my eyes as he shifts closer until I feel the weight of his leg on mine. ‘It’s been a lovely first day in our new home.’

‘Let’s make sure it’s the first lovely day of many,’ he murmurs, nuzzling into my neck. ‘Once I get settled into the job, I’ll have the option to work from home a bit more. I’m aiming to organise my work around our family life. Not the other way around like before.’

The thought of Isaac being around more so we can prioritise our family time is music to my ears. In this moment, I feel so safe and secure in my husband’s arms. I’m relieved and excited that our life together has finally turned a corner. Right now, it feels like it’s truly in my power to leave the past behind.

I allow my heavy eyelids to close, and wonder what Mum would make of our fresh start. Would she find it in her heart to be pleased for us? Would she think I deserved it? I’m not sure about that. She’d no doubt disapprove of something, perhaps how quickly we made the decision to move. That was just the way she was, looking for signs, exaggerating in her head the slightest indication that something was wrong. She passed the curse of it on to me and it resulted in the feeling I’ve always had, of never quite fitting in. It has followed me all through school, and even work.

I think it was selfish of her and I often wonder now if she’d planned that final blow to ensure I end up a sad, bitter old woman like her.

But it’s Isaac’s wise words, spoken on the day Mum died, that echo in my ears: You’ve got to learn to let go of stuff that doesn’t matter. Whatever happened, it’s all in the past. It has no bearing on your own happiness today.

That’s where my focus has to lie. That’s what I have to remind myself of every day to negate Mum’s final bid to destroy any chance I have of living peacefully.

Tomorrow, the three of us will wake up to our new life on Buckingham Crescent, and nobody can take that away from us. Not even her.

The entire weekend is filled with all the usual house-moving tasks, and there hardly seems to be a minute to spare.

I’m immersed in unpacking boxes and allocating the contents to various cupboards, in between washing crockery and glasses. Isaac keeps himself busy putting up curtain rails and fitting blinds upstairs and down.

Rowan is an absolute star, unpacking his boxes of toys without being asked and organising his bedroom. He chose the one overlooking the crescent. ‘So I can see my new friends when they walk by,’ he says.

His ‘new friends’ include a boy around his age he’s seen zooming up and down the street on what Rowan informs me is ‘a top-of-the-range stunt scooter’, and a girl who apparently walked by with her mum an. . .