The Girl Next Door: a gripping and twisty psychological thriller you don’t want to miss!. Phoebe Morgan

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      ‘I’ve been in the shop,’ I say, nodding my head in the direction of it. Everything in this town is so close together; it’s a claustrophobic’s nightmare.

      ‘Tricia says they’re sending DS Shaw round,’ Sandra says, ‘you know, going door to door. To see if anyone saw anything. And they’ve questioned Nathan Warren – well you’d have to, wouldn’t you? I still think there’s something not right about him. I mean, what was he doing, out walking at that time?’ She sniffs and exhales, her breath misty in the cold air. ‘They’ve already searched the Edwards’ house apparently, one of the mums saw them coming out yesterday. Did you? You didn’t say.’ She goes on without waiting for an answer. ‘Imagine someone riffling through all your things like that.’ She makes a face. ‘I wonder if they found anything. Rachel’s so beautiful, of course, but you just never know, do you? I wonder what DS Shaw makes of her. Chalk and cheese, those two.’

      DS Madeline Shaw – Ashdon’s resident detective. She’s lived here for the past couple of years, in a little house just up the hill, past the schools. We don’t have much to do with each other – she’s not exactly the book club and wine type. How strange it must be for her, having this kind of crime happen right on her doorstep. Or fortuitous, I suppose.

      Ahead of me, Sophie’s backpack bounces. Her hair glows in the sunlight and I feel a wave of sickness. Sandra must see the look on my face because she sighs, makes a tutting noise. I look down at the floor, my eyes scanning the pavement, the tap, tap, tap of our feet. Sandra’s wearing those hideous Birkenstock boots; I’ve got my little black ones on, Russell and Bromley, last year.

      ‘I know,’ she says, ‘the thought of it happening again… of it being one of our girls this time. It doesn’t bear thinking about, does it? I can’t abide violence.’

      The shudder moves up my spine. Yellow flowers glisten behind my eyelids. The memory of the stairs in our old house, the way he pushed me, the pain in my ribs.

      ‘No,’ I tell her, ‘neither can I.’

Chapter Nine

      DS Madeline Shaw

       Wednesday 6th February

      ‘Madeline?’

      The DCI is in front of her, his eyebrows raised. He’s impatient; the story has been picked up by the tabloids, and the calls are beginning to come in thick and fast. Some journalist has dug out an old picture of Clare from her Facebook page: her posing on a beach in Barbados. The inset is Rachel and Ian, him in an England football shirt, grinning at the camera. The grieving parents? the caption says. And so it begins, he thinks.

      ‘Have you got the pathology report in yet?’

      ‘Yep. Fast-tracked it,’ Madeline says, handing him the email that has just finished printing, ‘just in from Christina.’

      He scans it, his eyes moving so fast that he could be skim-reading.

      ‘Cause of death identified as internal bleeding on the brain following a wound to the back of the head,’ Madeline says, ‘just what we thought at the time. Bruising to the shoulders, which makes sense if someone grabbed her. No signs of sexual assault. They’ve tested.’ It was the first thing they’d looked at; without it, one obvious motivation is gone.

      The DCI sighs. ‘Well, at least that’s something. Though we’d have stood more of a chance of getting the perpetrator’s DNA if he’d fiddled with her. No obvious motivation, if you rule out rape.’ He runs a hand through his hair, wincing as the phone begins to ring again. This always happens when there is a crime of this nature – people coming forward with false leads, psychics, nutters wanting their five minutes of fame. The media make things worse; he wishes they didn’t need them so much.

      ‘We’re testing her clothing for DNA; should be in in a few days. The only thing I’m sure of at the moment is that this wasn’t an accident.’ Madeline stands up, looks over Rob’s shoulder and points to the pictures of the body, scanned in by Christina, the pathologist. ‘Look at this. Someone had a hold of her – my bet is they slammed her head against the floor, or hit her from behind and then flipped her round onto her front. It wasn’t done by an expert.’

      ‘No,’ he says, ‘not exactly methodical.’ The pair of them stare at the photos. There’s another bruise too, further down Clare’s arm, blossoming purple, edged with green.

      ‘Where does the name come from?’ Rob says suddenly, ‘Sorrow’s Meadow. Unusual.’

      Madeline shakes her head. ‘No one knows really. Ruby Walker the newsagent always insists it’s to do with the river. The sorrow collects in one place and then the water flows it away, some rubbish like that.’

      Rob grunts, stares back down at Clare’s bruises. ‘Right. And where are we with the door to doors? The neighbours?’

      ‘I’m about to get going now with Lorna.’

      ‘Make sure you speak to everyone,’ he tells her, ‘anyone who saw anything that night at all. Unusual cars, out-of-towners, anyone else out “walking”.’ He snorts derisively as he says this, still annoyed that he can’t get more out of Nathan Warren. ‘And Madeline,’ he says, ‘find out what people think of the parents.’

      ‘Their alibis checked out to a point, sir,’ she tells him. ‘We’ve CCTV of Ian leaving Liverpool Street Station on the early train, and arriving into Audley End a little later, but we don’t have anything placing him back home. In Rachel’s case, the estate agency confirmed her viewing in Little Chesterford, but again, no way of telling exactly what she did afterwards.’

      ‘So there’s a pocket of time?’ the DCI asks, frowning at her.

      ‘Well, technically,’ Madeline says, nodding. ‘The time during which they say they were waiting for Clare to come home, leading into the time when Ian was supposedly out looking for her.’ She shrugs. ‘We’ve no reason to suspect that that’s not true, though, have we?’

      Rob is still staring at the photographs of Clare, his face unreadable. ‘Get a sense from the neighbours anyway,’ he says. ‘Find out what they – Rachel and Ian – are really like. Little town like this, people might talk.’

      DS Lorna Campbell keeps up a steady stream of chatter as she and Madeline drive towards Ashdon, telling Madeline about how she’s just moved in with her boyfriend, how he worries about her working in the police.

      ‘He thinks I’ll get shot or something,’ she tells her, laughing nervously. She can only be in her late twenties, must be at least ten years younger than her superior. She’s got a slight overbite and the movement is awkward, unattractive.

      ‘You won’t get shot in Ashdon,’ Madeline says to Lorna, trying to reassure her, but then again none of them ever thought they’d find a dead body in Ashdon either, did they? They cannot be sure of anything at this stage. The DCI’s words ring in her head as they drive. So there’s a pocket of time, she thinks.

Chapter Ten

      Jane

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