S is for Stranger: the gripping psychological thriller you don’t want to miss!. Louise Stone

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СКАЧАТЬ took a long time getting the tea. It was as if I were on trial but I wasn’t sure why. Was I guilty? Any guilt I felt was because I had been cross with Amy when she had spoken to the woman. Instead of being angry, why hadn’t I asked her about it gently? Perhaps the incident with the stranger had been coincidental but how did this person know my number? Why was Paul lying? That thought made my stomach turn: Paul, the man I had wed and lived with for eight years, would put his daughter – our daughter – at risk. He must have known something, I was sure of it. But by this late stage in the day, my body and mind felt weary, the tingling by my temples had returned: the events less than three hours ago were becoming increasingly hazy. I gripped the edge of the table as if to hold onto reality, what I felt to be true, for a moment longer.

      I couldn’t warm up; I pulled my coat more tightly around me and tapped the edge of the table three times, then six, then nine. My body had become a cold, lifeless shell. What was the point of living when my daughter was out there? Alone. Despite my body’s inability to move, my mind conversely ran at high speed, running through the events of the day: spotting Amy and Paul on the corner of Acton Green, the woman in the black coat, the lolly, the way Paul had held my arm, Amy’s innocent face staring up at me, candyfloss, the empty space where Amy had just been standing.

      The woman. The woman, had she been there that night Bethany died? Had I seen more than I thought? I hadn’t told anyone I was there, except the doctors at the Priory, but every time I told them, they gave me more pills, talked to me more until I eventually shut down. I mean how could I have been at a murder that doesn’t exist on record?

      I thought to myself: if DI Ward walks in on the twenty-first tap, it would be OK. I flicked my finger against the side. Twenty. DI Ward entered the room before my finger hit the side of the table again.

      ‘I thought you could do with it,’ DI Ward said as she returned and placed a mug in front of me. ‘Sugary tea.’

      I took a small sip and the sweet syrup burnt the back of my throat.

      ‘Good for shock,’ she explained, her eyes never leaving mine as she sat down.

      My gaze flitted between the detective’s mouth and the scuff-marked wall behind her; I wondered if the scuffs were the result of a high-pressure interview. I’m not sure why but I thought the suspect might be male: short-fused, not entirely dissimilar to Paul, who was undoubtedly giving them hell next door.

      ‘Can I ask why I’m here?’ I said numbly.

      ‘Because, Sophie, I need to ask you some more questions that might help us find your daughter. But you must cooperate,’ she added.

      ‘Of course I’ll cooperate. I’m just wondering if it’s wasting time, that’s all.’

      ‘Well, until we clear up the misunderstanding between you and your ex-husband, I don’t think it is wasting time.’ She stuck her tongue into the side of her cheek.

      ‘Is this normal treatment for a mother whose daughter has gone missing?’ I indicated the room with a nod of my head. ‘In films, this doesn’t happen.’

      ‘It’s normal treatment for parents who appear to have communication problems and a missing child.’

      I put the mug down and allowed the uncomfortable silence to settle before speaking. Silence offered me what little control I was able to muster in this situation.

      ‘Detective, I know it’s hard to believe but Paul was there today. He was there with me.’ But even as I said it, my certainty dissipated like a wave on a beach.

      She eyed me cagily, any expression of sympathy quickly fading. ‘Please, tell me again why he’s denying it.’

      ‘I don’t know.’ I ran my hand through my hair once, twice, three times. ‘We have our court case coming up.’ A tear ran down my cheek. ‘I mean no child should have to choose, I do see that. But, anyway, Paul’s pulled every card so far to make out I’m the world’s worst mother.’ I thought back to my tone, the way I had talked to her on the green, then a spinning wheel of images of me drinking to block out what everyone called delusions, drinking to stop seeing Bethany’s face when I slept. ‘Maybe I am.’

      The DI softened. ‘You love Amy very much, that’s the most honest thing going on here. And I’m here to figure out what’s going on.’

      I nodded. ‘Where’s Paul?’

      ‘Next door with my colleague, DS Franklin.’

      I picked up the chipped white mug once again and took a mouthful of tea.

      ‘Sophie, I need you to convince me of what you’re saying. That Paul was there.’ She hesitated. ‘Tell me about your marriage.’

      I let out a long sigh and placed the mug back on the table. ‘I met Paul at university, he wasn’t at the university. He was a bit older than me. He just sort of turned up one day. I fell for his intensity. He seemed a man of the world, you know what I mean? We split up after a while but we met up again in my early thirties. I fell pregnant and he asked me to marry him.’ I bit my lip. ‘I’m not sure he ever wanted it.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Any of it. Me or having a child. Not really. Or, at least, that’s what I felt.’ I gave a weary smile. ‘But you know I can’t deny he’s always been there for Amy. Me, no. But Amy, he adores.’

      ‘And yet you still feel he’s lying about today?’ DI Ward sat back. ‘Paul wants to prove a point?’

      I wiped my eyes. ‘I don’t know. Like I keep telling you, we were on the green in Chiswick together and when I phoned him, he said he didn’t know anything about a fairground.’ I shuddered. ‘I feel like I can’t be awake.’

      ‘You mentioned being present at your friend’s murder.’ She shifted under my gaze. ‘We’ve searched all our records, Sophie. There’s nothing there. I mean there isn’t a witness statement from you. I know you went to Aberystwyth University, you studied English. There is a record of a suicide. Bethany Saunders. Is that your friend?’

      I nodded.

      ‘You were there when she committed suicide? That would be traumatic.’

      ‘Murdered. She was shot and I think I was there.’

      ‘It states here that she was never found, presumed to have committed suicide because of her “state of mind”.’ DI Ward cleared her throat. ‘Hang on, you think you were there?’

      ‘I’m not sure of anything any more,’ I admitted. ‘I mean Bethany existed, she was my friend, she was the only person who understood me. Ever. When I woke up one morning, I remembered Bethany had been killed.’ I hung my head. ‘Only, my housemates at the time said I came back with Paul and then, later, Paul told me I can’t have been with Bethany because I was with him at some club.’ I nibbled my lip. ‘Only I don’t remember a bar. I only remember this house, with Bethany where she died. My therapist at the time told me that sometimes, if people we love die in a traumatic way, that we make things up; we almost want to be with them when they died. It kind of comforts the person left behind.’ I felt my wet cheek. ‘Does that make sense?’

      The DI shifted uncomfortably, wrote something down. ‘OK, let’s focus on Amy once more, Sophie. First of all, the one thing we all agree on, СКАЧАТЬ