Don’t Turn Around: A heart-stopping gripping domestic suspense

Jen’s eyes widen. ‘Lewis?’ she asks.

‘I can’t help wonder if the put-down calls on Monday were from him. It seems a coincidence for it to happen on the same day we received the solicitor’s letter.’

‘He wants to intimidate us,’ she agrees.

‘He can want all he likes. If I get any nuisance calls on my shift tonight, I will be polite and professional and I’ll send a note to the others asking that they do the same. We do not quake in fear from dead air at the end of a phone.’

‘No, we don’t.’

The determination in Jen’s voice is a contradiction to the fear in her eyes and I look away before we both lose our nerve. Across the office, Geoff remains absorbed in the designs we’ll need to resubmit to the planners. I can’t imagine him turning his back on his life’s work. He thrives on the glory when our designs are brought to life, but I know my husband: he didn’t mention retirement on a whim. The subject hasn’t been dropped, and one way or another, I will have to follow the advice I gave Jen and consider my own future.

The foundation isn’t the only legacy of Meg’s that I’m struggling to keep alive. She loved her family and there was a time, before Lewis, when Meg would have done anything for me and Geoff. She went to great lengths to keep our marriage together and in spite of the horrific odds of parents breaking up after the loss of a child, we kept going after she’d died. We had to, for our business and the staff, for our sanity, and for Meg most of all.

‘I’ve finally built up the courage to watch Meg’s videos, or at least the earlier ones that remind me of what mattered to us all back then,’ I say. I tip my head towards the window: the red brick and Portland stone striped hotel on the opposite corner of the Strand was once the White Star Line offices. There’s a bride and groom out on the balcony, surrounded by guests. ‘Remember our twentieth wedding anniversary?’

‘I helped Meg organise the party.’

Jen’s smile chases away our fears and reminds me how good it is to have her around to share happier memories. Our lives had been peppered with simple moments that I didn’t appreciate at the time, but I do now as I think back to the day my caring and thoughtful daughter decided to patch up her parents’ failing marriage.

‘How many guests were at your wedding, Mum?’ she’d asked as she came tumbling downstairs with Jen in tow.

I was in the sitting room leafing through a community newsletter that advertised all kinds of night school classes. I’d found it that morning on the kitchen counter and I was fairly certain it hadn’t been Geoff who had turned the corner of the page for ballroom dancing. The summer holidays were drawing to a close, Sean was all set to go to uni and, as Meg kept reminding me, she was old enough to look after herself. Geoff and I needed new challenges.

‘We only hired a small function room,’ I said. ‘So not many.’

‘But you would have liked a bigger party?’

‘We were busy building up the business at the time and we didn’t need the expense. What mattered back then was exchanging vows and committing ourselves to each other. Isn’t that right, Geoff?’ I added through gritted teeth, pausing until he peeked over the top of his newspaper.

‘What was that?’ he asked as if he hadn’t been listening.

‘Mum was saying how she missed out on a big party and we should have one for your anniversary.’

I was about to correct my daughter but she was pulling Jen into the centre of the room so they could present their plans.

‘We’ve been looking at hotels and Thornton Hall looks nice and has a room for a hundred guests, which would be a good number and not that expensive. You said you liked the DJ at Melanie’s wedding and Jen can get the number off her, can’t you, Jen?’ Meg asked, looking to her cousin for confirmation that Jen’s older sister would provide the necessary information.

Jen nodded. ‘But Meg doesn’t want the same buffet.’

‘No one likes curled-up sandwiches,’ my daughter continued. ‘But this hotel does barbeques.’

The sun had been streaming through the window, adding streaks of gold to Meg’s dark blonde hair. She had been so sure of herself, as if the future were hers to command.

‘A barbeque? In November, Megan?’

She had beamed a smile at her father. ‘OK, fair enough, we’ll go for a hot buffet instead. So how big a budget can we have?’

If it had been left to me, the budget would have been zero but when Meg asked her father for something, Geoff delivered. The party had been an extravagant event and, as an extra surprise, our children had booked us into the honeymoon suite so we could stay over. Meg had wanted to make us happy but when I’d looked at the video footage, I was reminded how little enjoyment she had taken from the occasion.

She had been dropping hints for weeks about Jen moving in with us after Sean moved out. I wouldn’t have minded, Jen was no trouble and our spare room was practically hers anyway. Geoff didn’t seem to care either way but it was Eve who put her foot down. Meg had hoped to ply her aunt with drink at the party to get her to agree but Eve wouldn’t hear of it.

Meg was distraught but she wasn’t the only one struggling to get into the party mood that night. Our marriage wasn’t in a state worth celebrating back then, no matter how hard Meg tried to pretend it was. She didn’t know the exact details of her father’s affair with a barmaid at the golf club but she knew how close he’d come to destroying the family and the business.

Jen had known about the affair too, but if that’s what she remembers as we watch the wedding party through the window, she doesn’t let it show. ‘Whatever happens,’ she says, ‘I’ll keep fighting as long as you want me to. Meg wouldn’t have it any other way.’

Whatever happens? Jen makes it sound as if we’re going into battle. Perhaps we do have a fight on our hands, I think to myself as I watch an unexpected gust tug at the bride’s veil and pull it free. It floats away, out of reach of grasping hands. Not everything can be saved.

8 (#ulink_e2fcadbb-71fc-5d99-91d9-5f2e8a1505c2)

Jen

It’s half past eight in the morning and although there are some early shoppers out and about, few have ventured to the upper level of Liverpool One where the shopping mall gives way to green space. It’s mostly restaurants up here and I suspect that the people I can see crossing Chavasse Park are bracing themselves for a gruelling weekend shift.

Keeping some distance from the expanse of damp grass that might cool a tired and exhausted body after an intensive workout, I head towards The Club House which occupies a central position close to the green. There’s a section of tall hedging that surrounds an outdoor dining area and offers the perfect vantage point to carry out my undercover operation.

The park grows busier but after half an hour, I wonder if I’m wasting my time. The girl who posted the tweet about the workout didn’t specify a time and it’s possible I’ve missed them. I couldn’t leave the apartment until Charlie was safely out of the way. He’s spending his day checking out his new commercial contracts at New Mersey Retail Park and was too anxious to notice my impatience for him to leave. I haven’t spoken to him about Lewis, and even last night, when I mentioned the nuisance calls in passing after Ruth messaged to say there had been more during her shift, I didn’t suggest who might be behind them. Charlie would only tell me I shouldn’t assume it’s Lewis. I don’t. There’s the possibility it’s Ellie acting under instruction.

We’ve never had this many put-down calls before. Is it a coincidence? No more than it is for me to be in Chavasse Park when Lewis turns up with his boot-campers. If he turns up, that is. I could have missed him by minutes, or the session might have been relocated or cancelled all together. It rained overnight and the grass is sodden.

Shuffling from one foot to the other, I press my hands to my cheeks to warm both. I sweep my fingers beneath a fringe that has become slick with moist air and is sticking to my forehead. My hair will be a frizzy mess within the hour, which is annoying because I’d taken particular care with my appearance. If I do manage to spot Lewis or, more to the point, if he spies me, I want him to know that I’m a force of nature, just like Meg had been before he stepped into her path.

‘What do you think?’ she’d once asked. We were backstage, peeking through the curtain after dress rehearsals for the alternative nativity play Meg’s sixth form drama teacher had co-written with her students. I wasn’t part of the production but I’d shown up to rehearsals once too often and when one of the cast had dropped out, I’d been commandeered to play a sheep. It was originally a talking part but after an unconvincing performance, the script had been adapted around me.

‘What do I think of what?’ I asked. I was playing with my hooves rather than eyeing up the group of students who had gathered in the auditorium for a sneak preview, and continued to loiter with intent despite the performance being over.

‘Him.’

She pulled me closer and I followed her gaze to the group of boys who had lost interest in heckling the actors for an encore and were kicking at the parquet floor tiles. Charlie was there too but that wasn’t where Meg had her sights.

‘Lewis Rimmer?’ I asked with genuine shock. There was no doubt he was drop-dead gorgeous but there was a rumour he’d stabbed someone in revenge for his cousin’s death, and that was why he and his mum had had to run away in the middle of the night with only the clothes on their backs. Clearly it was an exaggeration but I panicked every time he caught me looking at him, and I could never imagine talking to him without stumbling over my words.

‘Oh, Meg, you can’t,’ I whispered.

‘You’d be surprised what I can do.’

And that was the thing with Meg: I never could second-guess her. She’d been in a foul mood for weeks as the pressure mounted before opening night but the minute she put on her costume for the dress rehearsal, she was a different person.

‘At times like this, Jen, there’s only one way to find out if it was meant to be,’ she added. ‘If my public want an encore, that’s what they’re going to get.’

And with that, Meg flicked back the curtain and ran onto the stage. The Angel Gabrielle sparkled in her sequinned ballgown, revealing jeans and trainers as she lifted the hem of her dress. She was running fast and her pace didn’t slow as she ran out of stage. She leapt over the footlights with her arms held out wide in a swan dive.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her, and neither could anyone else. Charlie was one of the first to react but Meg had her own flight plan. She didn’t doubt that Lewis would catch her, although it was more of a tumble as she thumped into him, knocking off his glasses as the two of them were sent skittering to the floor. She was sixteen and she thought she was indestructible but the countdown to her death started that day. She had two more Christmases, two summers and only one more birthday.

The sound of shouting pulls me back to the present. I see two blokes on the opposite side of the park look down over the tiered steps that rise up from the ground level. I can’t see who they’re laughing at but I can hear a man yelling instructions. Bodies clad in Lycra begin to appear one by one, their contorted features burning red and their backs bent.

‘Move, move, move!’ a man hollers. I’m too far away to hear their weak replies – it’s only Lewis’s voice that travels.

When he reaches the summit, Lewis is straight-backed as he continues to jog on the spot. I thought I was prepared for seeing him in the flesh but I’m overcome with such a sense of loathing that my damp skin burns. Here is a man who thinks nothing and no one can defeat him. I step away from the hedge so that he can see me if he chooses. That’s all I want – for him to look at me and know that I’m not scared. Except, despite my fury, my legs are like jelly and I flinch each time he yells, recalling how often he had screamed in Meg’s face.