The Housewarming

by S.E. Lynes

Genres: Literary Fiction; Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

 

Everyone is going to the housewarming party. All the same people who lived on the street the day Abi vanished… Will her mother finally learn the truth?

Ava only left her daughter in the pushchair for five minutes. The buckle was fastened, and she was sure it was safe. But when she came downstairs, the door was open and Abi was gone – she walked down the road, past the Lovegoods’ house, and was never seen again.

A year later, the Lovegoods are planning their long-anticipated housewarming party. Ava doesn’t want to go. She can’t bear to look down that end of the road, to see the place where Abi vanished, and she doesn’t want to spend time with people who don’t share her grief. Her husband Matt persuades her: he’s worried about her. A night out might do her good.

But as her friends and neighbours chat, and the drink and gossip flows, Ava learns something new about the day she has re-lived a thousand times. A throwaway comment which could change everything.

Ava thought she knew every last detail of that day.

She’s about to find out she was wrong…

Brilliantly dark and moving suspense fiction for fans of Gillian Flynn, Claire McGowan and Lisa Jewell, The Housewarming will have your pulse racing and your heart in your mouth from start to finish.

 

Release date: October 23, 2020

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

When I think about that morning, it is beat by beat, like a heart – my own heart, my daughter’s, at the time so enmeshed it seemed she was part of me: my body, my tissue, my bones. She is part of me. She will always be part of me.

When I think about that morning, I watch myself, over and over, as if from above. I watch myself like you watch your children in a school play or a sports match, silently willing them to succeed, to shine, to not get hurt. I watch myself bleeding on the sidelines of slowly unfolding disaster, alive with the pain I know is coming but she, the me of that moment, does not.

I do this every minute of every hour of every day. And I have done this for almost a year.

I watch myself: there I am, making my way down the stairs with an armful of laundry. I can’t see over the top. I take it slowly, both feet on one step before I lower myself to the next. Another step down, another. I am always so careful these days. I used to be carefree, but now I see danger everywhere: an electric socket is a hazard, a glass left too near the edge of a tabletop risky, a staircase perilous.

Another step. I call her name. Abi.

‘Mummy’s coming,’ I say.

I say, ‘Mummy’s just going to pop a wash on and then we’ll go and feed the ducks.’

I say, ‘You’ve been such a good girl, waiting nicely like that.’

I’ve always chatted away to her – from the moment she was born. At two, she loves the sound of me prattling on.

Loves. Loved.

‘Mummy,’ she would say. She would hold my face in her tiny hands.

‘What?’

‘My love you.’

‘I love you too, little monkey.’

I would push the end of her nose, make a honking sound. She would throw back her head, helpless with giggles.

‘Again,’ she would say. ‘Again, Mummy.’

Never again. Or maybe, maybe one day… She might still be out there, after all. There’s a chance, isn’t there? The tiniest chance? In faces of other little girls I search for her every day, but even now, her features fade from me, her smell, her warmth, the sharp arc of her paper-thin nails on my cheeks, the weight of her on my hip, the strange swing of us both when I leant forward to stir the spaghetti sauce, the anticipation on her face, waiting while I blew on the end of the spoon, her little body fraught with anticipation, knowing that in seconds she would be allowed to taste the sauce, to tell me if it was good.

That morning.

I watch myself: face full of dirty linen. I can’t see my own feet.

‘Abi?’ I say, as yet no presentiment of disaster. ‘What’s the matter? Aren’t you speaking, missy?’

The curved bar of her pushchair. The mesh back. Her head is not there. Her soft curling ringlets, thickening now from baby to child hair, are not there.

She is not there.

Ava, don’t be a lunatic, she’s leaning forward.

No, she isn’t. She’s not there. She’s not in the buggy.

Abi is not there.

Second by second, beat by beat. A clock. The metronome that sits on my piano top, keeping time. The washing drops from my arms. I stumble, fall down the last few steps.

‘Abi?’ I call out, righting myself, rubbing at the pain in my hands. ‘Abi?’

Another second. The prickling rise of the hairs on my arms.

‘Abi? Love?’

I can see the house opposite.

I can see the house opposite.

The house opposite—

The front door is open. Oh God, I have left the front door open.

‘Oh my God. Abi!’

I am on the street, scanning right, left, right again. I am calling her name, my ribcage tightening around my lungs. ‘Abi? Abi? Abi!’

My heart fattens in my chest. I left Abi in the hallway and I popped upstairs.

‘Wait there, darling,’ I said. ‘Won’t be a tick.’

I did not, can’t have, closed the front door. Abi was fastened into her buggy. She doesn’t know how to undo the clasp. She didn’t know. Yesterday she didn’t know how to undo the clasp. She wasn’t making any noise so I… I…

A few paces. She is nowhere on the pavement, in either direction. I have no idea which way to head. One way precludes the other, and what if she’s still inside…

I dash back into the house, hearing the watery tremble of her name as it falls from my mouth. The house is held in an electric stasis. I make myself stand completely still. My ears prick. Eyes wide. The house sounds empty. It looks empty. It feels empty.

‘Abi?’ I call up the stairs. ‘Abi, love? Are you in the house? Where are you? Where are you, darling?’ I fight to keep the hysteria out of my voice but I, I can hear it.

I stride into the kitchen. The patio doors are closed. The air presses in.

‘Abi?’

Silence.

I run back into the hall, open the little door under the stairs to the downstairs loo. She isn’t there.

‘Abi?’

Silence.

Into the living room. The piano, the metronome. The sofas, the TV, the fireplace. The coffee table.

‘Abi? Are you in here?’ I sweep back the curtain. ‘Abi, love?’

The hard push of the window ledge against the palms of my hands. My own shuddering breath.

Silence.

I am outside again. Rain dots lead grey on the stone front path. Our house has a small patch of lawn, a rosemary hedge. There is nowhere she could hide there. She is not in front of the house. She is not on the pavement. She isn’t anywhere on our side of the road, as far as I can see. Across the street, the houses are closed, impassive. Next door, on both sides, shut up and still. There is no one, no one about. Not one person.

‘Abi? Abi? Aaabiii!’

I look left to the near end of the street, right to the far end. Which way? I have to go somewhere. I have to move. I jog halfway down towards the far end, towards the busier of the two larger connecting roads.

‘Abi? Abi?’

I’m running back, back towards our house, aware of seconds passing, accumulating, becoming minutes. Where would she go? How long was I upstairs? I only meant to grab the laundry and come down. Abi was quiet, she was quiet so I stripped the beds – thought I may as well while she was… when I left her, she was in her buggy talking to Mr Sloth, the plush Jellycat toy that Neil and Bella gave her when she was born. She was quiet so I emptied the washing basket. You do that, every parent does – you do stuff like that while you can when you have a little one. When they’re quiet. When they’re not asking you for attention or food or water or…

The street is a faceless row of white arrows, roofs pointing to the sky. My heart is a blockage in my throat. I run back towards the far end, ducking my head to see under side gates, craning my neck around hedges, looking back every few seconds, back towards the house. She is not there. But she might still be in the house, behind a curtain, giggling inside a wardrobe. She might come out at any moment. If she can’t hear me, she will panic. She will not know where I am.

Second by second, beat by beat… the quickening rhythm of rising panic. There’s no need to panic. She’ll be somewhere.

‘Abi? Abi, lovey? Abi, where are you?’

My mouth dries.

Gone half past eight. When did I go upstairs? When did she leave the house? Has she left the house?

She wasn’t making a fuss. She was contented. She was quiet. If she’d wanted me, she would have called out.

‘Mummy!’ she would have called. ‘Mummy! My waiting!’

But she didn’t. She was quiet. I was only on Facebook for a few minutes. I needed the loo, so I did a quick wee – you do, when your little one is quiet, everyone does. I sat on the loo and scrolled through Facebook, but not for long, not for that long. I only commented on a couple of threads. I only stripped the beds, emptied the washing basket. Every mum does a few quick jobs when their baby is settled and quiet, in front of the TV or in the playpen with a few toys or in the high chair with a rusk to suck on. Abi was in the hallway. She was clipped into her buggy. She had Mr Sloth to talk to. She’d had enough to eat. She was comfortable. She was fastened in. She did not know how to undo the clasp. Yesterday, she did not know.

Second by second. Beat by beat.

How unbearable it is to watch myself from today, caught in this quickening rhythm, to watch my growing despair, over and over, like an ink-black blossoming rose caught on a time-lapse film: replayed, replayed, replayed. Myself, that woman in chaos; myself, not thinking straight. But I do watch. I watch her all the time. Sometimes I admit to that moment on the toilet seat, scrolling through social media, sometimes I don’t. Today I do. Today I admit that I sat there and thought: oh good, she’s quiet. I’ll just sit here a second. My eyes were sore. Abi wasn’t a great sleeper and she could be difficult, headstrong, argumentative, even with her limited vocabulary. Tiredness weighed in my bones and I thought, she’s quiet, I’ll just sit here. I’ll sit here until she starts making a fuss. I’ll take this break. I need this break.

Today I can look that in the eye.

But not always. Not always.

A loop. A beat. A building, building dread. I watch myself. There I am, half running a little further down our street now, head turning left, right, looking behind, in front, no clue, no clue at all which way to go for the best, mindful of the fact that my front door is open, that if Abi is hiding in the house she is now alone in there, she can now escape, and if she does, she might wander into the road looking for me. She’s two. She doesn’t know how to cross a road safely.

The thought of calling the police comes to me, of course it does. But no, I think. No. Be logical. It’s probably only a few minutes since she actually left the house. She’s round here somewhere. She escaped from the church hall toddler group once; I nearly lost my mind. Twenty minutes she was missing. Twenty. I felt every second. She’d walked all the way to Carluccio’s at the far end of the high street before someone stopped her and asked where her mummy was. Children don’t just disappear. They wander off, distracted, oblivious to the annihilating terror they cause. You see them sometimes: blank-faced toddlers bobbing placidly in the tight wrap of their mothers’ arms, their mothers’ faces still etched with the slow-fading lines of marrow-melting dread.

Logic nudges in. She might have toddled along to see Uncle NeeNee and Auntie Bel. She knows not to but she’s a little tyke. In the best way. The best, best way. And my God, for such a tot, she can move fast when she wants to.

I run towards Neil and Bella’s house.

‘Abi?’ I peer under their side gate. ‘Abi! Are you there?’

Nothing. No little feet. She’s wearing her red lace-up ankle boots. Kickers, ridiculously expensive for a fast-growing girl, but another gift from Neil and Bella. She loves those boots. But there’s no sign of them. No sign of her little cream woolly bobble hat, her pale-blue Puffa coat.

I knock on Neil and Bella’s door, ring the doorbell. Neil’s van is on the street but there’s no one home, of course there isn’t. They’ll both have left for work.

A silver Prius drifts past. I try not to wail in despair at how silent it is, how silent electric cars are. She’d never hear it. She wouldn’t turn around until it was too late. The Prius turns left into the busy road. Cars are on the move. A few more minutes and the traffic will be heavier – local commuters, the school run. About a third of the cars have gone already. Many of them are big, too big – great suburban safari trucks designed to keep precious children safe inside. But what of the children on the outside? What of unthinking little ones dawdling into the road?

My breath quickens. I run back. The new neighbours will be long gone, their progeny spirited away – one to nursery, one to some private school elsewhere. At least that’s what Matt and I have assumed. They only moved in a month or two ago. Their younger daughter looks to be about Abi’s age. The older one, I’ve no idea – don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl.

Adrenaline sends bitter saliva to my mouth. I cross over. I am on the pavement directly opposite our house now. That’s a risk. If Abi is still inside, if she wanders out now, she might see me, she might see me and run across the road – Mummy! One of those safari trucks might come speeding round the corner. One of those silent electric cars. A motorbike. She wouldn’t see it until it was too late. I run as far as I dare down this side of the street, calling her name.

‘Abi! Abi?’

Hedges, front patios, side gates. No sign. Nothing. Where is everyone? Gone to work. The sweet spot between city commuters and the school run. Nausea churns in my gut, rises in my throat. I cross back to our side of the street, head towards home. I’m going round in circles. I’m wasting precious time. Seconds are becoming minutes, are already minutes, minutes are becoming… I think I need to call the police.

My hairline is wet with sweat, my armpits, my back. Abi will be somewhere – that’s what’s happened here. She’s a wanderer. That’s why I always clip her into the buggy. I thought I’d closed the front door. I’m sure I did. But I’m so tired; my brain is fog, more so these last couple of weeks. It must have banged against the catch. It does that sometimes. But I am careful. I am very careful. Even when she walks, I make her hold on to the buggy with one hand. Abi can walk all the way along Thameside Lane, all the way over the footbridge to Ham and all the way back, jabbering away, little legs going nineteen to the dozen. Cute little knees my mother has already claimed for our side of the family. Strong knees, my mum says. The Woods are excellent walkers. Can walk for days, like camels. Abi loves to walk. But she wouldn’t go to the ducks on her own; there’s no way she would…

‘Abi?’ I shout, hands a loudhailer around my mouth, turning a slow circle. ‘A-a-abi-i-i-i!’

I picture the local geography in my mind’s eye. Float above it. The riverside roads, parallels connected by the main artery that links my small town to the larger commercial centre of Kingston upon Thames, and the quieter Thameside Lane, a lesser road that passes the tennis courts on the way to the river, to Teddington Lock. That’s the way we always walk, to the shallow slope between the chandlery and the path up to the footbridge, where the river laps and climbs when the tide is high, where ducks gather in the hope of titbits. It takes five minutes to get there, ten at most. Sometimes we head over the bridge to Ham, to the little park there, sometimes calling at the German bakery for apple cake, a big treat.

I grab my key and close the front door. If she’s inside, she can’t now get out.

And I’m running, calling, calling, calling her name. Flailing around, caught in the white heat of my own burgeoning panic.

At the same time, here I am, watching myself from the present, watching myself over and over, screaming at that woman, myself: Run to the river, Ava; run to the damn river, I am begging you.

But I don’t hear my own voice. I don’t hear it shouting at me from my desolate, devastated future. I don’t hear it.

‘Abi!’ is all I hear: my own blind and desperate cry.

I run. The metallic taste of blood fills the dry cave of my mouth. Past the Parkers and the Smiths. The chap with the camper van has left. Outside my own house yet again, I stand with my hands on my hips, panting, trying to think. Next door’s Mercedes has gone. She works in Surbiton, leaves early; he works in town, takes the train. The other-side neighbours’ Porsche has gone; they leave together, kids in the back. Lovegood, I think their name is. I think of our own rusty Volkswagen and Neil’s big white van: Johnson’s Quality Builds written in green on the side, and I think of how Neil, Bella and Matt are more a part of this town than anyone here, though they seem like the outsiders now – their cars, their voices don’t match, and I think: why am I thinking about that now?

And here, in this tortured present, what I’m thinking is: why aren’t you running to the river, Ava? Why, when you were going to feed the ducks? Why haven’t you thought of that?

But I do not run to the river. I am for the moment rooted to the spot. Abi will be somewhere, is what I’m thinking. She’ll be in the front garden or in the house. Playing a trick. Boo! she will say. You didn’t see me, did you, Mummy?

‘Abi!’

Too many minutes have evaporated now into the steam of my boiling panic. Too long, too long. She should have appeared by now. I am running again. Up to the end, back again, the sense that I have done this too many times now, that I’m repeating the same action with the hope of a different outcome. Past number 76, 78, 80. Second by second. Beat by beat. The beats get louder, a pounding, drumming rhythm. My heart. My little girl’s heart. Hearts beating. Clocks ticking. A metronome keeping time, a melody accelerating. Sand slipping, slipping away.

Sweat pricks on my forehead. She must be around here somewhere. She couldn’t have walked as far as the main road. There’s no way she’d have made it, no way she would have dared to go as far as the river.

No way.

I’m outside our house again. When did I go upstairs? Let’s be logical. Let’s slow this down. Eight? Five to? I clipped her into her buggy and I went upstairs. She won’t have made a bolt for it immediately. If she became bored and unfastened that clasp, it would have been ten, fifteen minutes later. So she’s probably been missing for maybe twenty-five minutes, maybe longer…

Crying fat rolling tears, I call Matt. Second by second, beat by beat. The long discordant ringtone. The silence. The ringtone. The silence. My own sobs bang against my ribs. The ringtone. He won’t hear it. He’ll be at work by now. He had a meeting at 9.30. A new project, a factory conversion somewhere in the East End. He won’t hear his—

‘Ava?’

‘Matt!’ My voice is high and shaky, my breath short. I am gasping for air, marching through the house, pulling open the kitchen cupboard doors.

‘Ava? Are you OK?’

The broom cupboard is empty, the store cupboard empty.

‘Matt! I can’t find Abi!’

She’s not under the kitchen bar. She’s not under one of the stools pretending to be a lion in a cage.

‘What d’you mean, you can’t find her?’

‘She’s not under the couch!’

‘Not under the couch? What?’

‘She undid her buggy clasp.’

‘What? OK. Ava? Ava, can you just—’

‘I left the front door open. I left the door open, Matt, and she’s… Oh God, the oven is empty, oh thank God.’

‘Ava, slow down. Just tell me what’s going on.’

‘Abi’s gone. She’s just… disappeared. She must’ve wandered out. I only popped upstairs. Literally. I just went to get my phone. There’s no sign of her. There’s no sign of her, Matt.’ I try the back door. Locked. I unlock it. I am in the garden.

‘Abi?’ I press my nose to the window of the shed. ‘Abi?’

This is mad. There’s no way she can access the back. But still I scrutinise the border plants, the chaotic mass of ivy that foams over the entire left-hand fence. Rain speckles the sliding patio doors.

‘She’s probably hiding.’ Matt’s voice is calm, the voice of reason. ‘You know what she’s like. Have you tried upstairs?’

‘Not yet.’ I’m back inside. My trainers pound up the stairs. ‘I don’t know where to look first, Matt. I don’t know where to look for the best. Should I be outside? Do you think she’d walk as far as the main road?’

‘Have you been outside?’

‘Yes. She was nowhere. She’s not in our bedroom.’

‘Have you looked by the bins?’

‘Not yet. I’m in the house. Abi! Love? She’s not in our room… she’s not in her room. She’s not under the bed. Oh God, oh my God, it’s been ages. Do you think I should call the police?’

‘God, no, she’ll be somewhere. Have you checked the garden?’

‘Yes, but the back door was locked. She’s not in the bathroom. Abi, love? She’s not in the washing basket. She’s not here. She’s nowhere, just nowhere, like she’s vanished.’

‘She won’t be far.’

The phone is hot at my ear. I run back downstairs, back out of the front door. Sweat trickles down my forehead, down the sides of my body. No sign. There is no sign of her. There is no one on the street.

‘Oh God, Matt. I feel sick. I’m going to be sick.’

‘Ava?’

‘I’m outside.’ I can barely get the words out. ‘I can’t see her. I can’t see her.’ A pain in my sternum like the end of a broom. The rain is falling more heavily now. I shield my eyes with my hand. ‘There’s no sign of her. She’s vanished. She’s disappeared into thin air. I think I should call the police.’

‘She’ll be somewhere. Has she gone to Neil and Bella’s, do you think?’

‘She wouldn’t do that. Well, she might, but I knocked and there was no one in. And if she was there, one of them would’ve rung me by now or brought her back. I just don’t think she’d wander off like this, not for this long.’

‘What about that time she wandered out of toddler group? She went miles.’

‘I know, but she wouldn’t do that again, would she? I was so cross with her. I shouted at her. She was really upset. I think… I mean, I don’t think—’

‘Look, I’m coming home,’ Matt says. ‘I’m not far. I got a puncture on the towpath so I’m this side of Richmond. Just keep looking, yeah? I’m turning round, OK? I’m heading back.’

Second by second. Beat by beat. A metronome keeps time for the frantic melody of my life’s unravelling. I watch myself from above. I shout out the things I should have done, places I should have looked, the order in which I should have done it all. Really, I can be very abusive towards myself, that stupid cow there, that idiot woman who can’t hear me, who is blind, blind, blind to logic, deaf to reason, numb with fear. That morning. Look at her. Look at me. Rain soaks my hair, my clothes. My dumb feet thudding on the paving stones, running to nowhere, on a wheel. I have been getting my fitness up, leaving the house with Matt when he goes to work so that I can go for long walks with Abi. Stale bread in a bag, feed the ducks, across the lock to Ham, to the little park. The German bakery, pretzels as big as her head. Fresh air makes you feel better, no matter what.

‘Why don’t you tell Mr Sloth what we’re going to do today?’ I say, clipping her into her buggy. Yes, I clip her in. I know I do because I can see us, there in the hall. I am crouched in front of her. I’m smiling at her. I’m putting Mr Sloth in her lap and I’m thinking that the silver name bracelet Neil and Bella bought her is getting a little snug around her wrist.

‘Tell him we’ll feed the ducks. Don’t let Mr Sloth eat the bread, OK?’

She giggles. That’s the last thing she does.

I only pop upstairs.

Things I would do differently. The door I would have checked before going upstairs. The two and two I would have put together. The ducks. The river. The obviousness of it all. I would have run in the right direction immediately. I would have found her hurrying towards the river, chin out, full of her own mischief, the little minx. I would have closed the damn door. I would not have scrolled through Facebook. Had I known, I would not even have looked at my phone – of course I wouldn’t. God knows, I have to look at myself every day and see in my haunted reflection the ghost of my ignorant self. That morning. Almost a year ago. I see so plainly that I didn’t know what was about to happen, what was happening, what had already happened. I didn’t have the smallest clue and yet a prescient dread flooded my every vein. I watch myself, from here. I watch that woman sit on the loo and scroll through her phone and I shout at her, at me: ‘Do not do that! Run, Ava! Run to the river! You were going to feed the ducks – why can’t you think of that?’

‘You need to stop shouting at yourself, Ava.’ That’s what my counsellor, Barbara, says. ‘Try not to punish yourself. Try to forgive yourself as you would someone you love.’

Barbara is helping me limit how many times I check the front door when I get in. She tells me I didn’t do what I should have done that morning because I am not psychic.

‘But I should have checked the door,’ I tell her.

‘Sod should.’

Sod should, that’s what Barbara says. There is no should. I went on my phone because since Abi was born and I cut my hours to part-time, my phone is my lifeline. My phone made me feel like I still belonged to the world. My friends were on it. My social life. My clients – the parents of the kids I teach piano to. I didn’t, I don’t, spend my days interacting with other professionals in a funky office space; I am no longer in a staffroom with other teachers, exchanging stories about kids in our classes or arranging to go for a drink on Friday. I don’t kick off my shoes at night and sigh with the relief of not having to talk to anyone for the rest of the evening. I am often stuck at home. And yes, there are times when I have felt trapped.

So yes, I would go on Facebook or Instagram and guarantee myself a few laughs, a bit of banter, God forbid, an interesting news article, a well-articulated opinion piece.

I got lonely. I got bored. There – there’s the dirty truth. I get – used to get – bored, sometimes, while I was with Abi. I would crave adult contact. While Abi was having a snack or her dinner, instead of talking to her, I would chat to my mum, too far away to pop over for a cup of tea. At the park, I got bored. I got bored with baby talk and endless domesticity and children’s programmes. I got bored with nursery rhyme CDs blaring out of the car stereo. There were times when I longed to put on Chopin or Springsteen or Björk and turn the music up, up, up to drown out Abi’s whingeing.

‘Yes. All of that,’ Barbara tells me. ‘But that doesn’t mean you didn’t, or don’t, love your little girl. It doesn’t mean you couldn’t, or can’t, look after her.’ She includes both tenses. She knows that if she talks about Abi in the past tense, I lose it. She knows I’m not ready for the past tense.

‘The problem is,’ I reply, ‘I didn’t shut the door, did I? It all comes back to that and that feels pretty insurmountable.’

‘Leaving the door open or not checking it wa. . .