The Party: The gripping new psychological thriller from the bestseller Lisa Hall

‘There’s nobody that would want to hurt Rachel,’ Gareth’s voice is strained and he runs his hand through his hair again, like some sort of nervous tic, ‘she gets on with everybody. There were lots of people at that party – every room was crowded. There were lots of people that we knew there, but also lots of people that we didn’t know. Presumably friends and acquaintances of Liz and Neil.’

‘Rachel?’ Carrie gives a brief nod to Gareth, but clearly wants to hear it from me. ‘Nobody at all?’

‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘There isn’t anyone that I can think of who would ever do something as awful as this.’

The interview, the statement, whatever you want to call it goes on and on, Carrie asking me questions about every little aspect of the party. Who else was there? I have to tell her that I don’t know, I only remember seeing Neil and Liz, although I know other people were there. What time did I think the party finished? I don’t know, I can’t remember anything past the first hour. Did anyone see me spending time with anyone in particular? At this I utter the same words for the hundredth time, I don’t know, tears of frustration streaming down my cheeks. If only I could just remember something, anything, that could give Carrie a lead. Eventually I manage to stop the tears, my eyes feeling raw, and Carrie apologizes for causing me any distress. As she leaves the room to fetch tea, I turn to Gareth.

‘Please, can we just go now?’ Exhaustion is tugging at my bones and all I want to do is go to sleep. ‘I’ve done what you wanted, I’ve reported it.’

‘Not quite done yet, sorry, Rachel.’ Carrie appears in the doorway, obviously overhearing, and replies before Gareth gets the chance to. ‘I’d really like to get the doctor to give you a quick medical examination, and to take some photos of that nasty bruising, if that’s OK with you. We’ll also do some tests for STDs and a pregnancy test.’

God, I want to weep, the thought of someone pulling at me, inspecting the deepest parts of me, makes me want to throw up. I can’t even entertain the thought that whoever he is might have given me something else as well.

‘Rachel, please,’ desperation leaches into Gareth’s voice, ‘you’ve been really brave. Please just do this one thing; whoever did this needs to be caught.’ Fighting back the panic that seems to have been simmering under my skin since the night of the party I agree to the medical, despite feeling as though I might faint at the touch of someone I don’t know. Gareth is right – whoever did this needs to be caught, and if it means I need to do this, then I need to do it. Gareth kisses my temple, and then I follow Carrie along a corridor towards the back of the police station, and realize that this must be the rape suite – a block of three rooms, one for examination, another room similar to the one I have spent the morning in, and a bathroom, complete with shower. Carrie explains that after the medical, I can have a shower and she’ll give me clean clothes to wear home, if I want them.

‘Where are the clothes you wore that night, Rachel?’ she asks, as another officer photographs the bruises that stain the skin on my arms.

‘At home,’ I whisper, ‘in the laundry basket. I haven’t washed them yet.’ Carrie tells me she’ll come and collect them, that I don’t need to worry, just put them in a bag and she’ll drive over tomorrow to pick them up. She leads me into the examination room and I start to slowly slide my clothes off behind the paper screen, my heart thumping double time in my chest. Even the realization that the doctor examining me is a woman doesn’t stop the fear from clogging my throat, and I lie on the examination table, my muscles so tense they hurt. Finally, endlessly, it is over and I slide from the table, wrapping the paper gown Carrie has left out tightly around my body and dress in my own comfortable, familiar clothes, ignoring the jogging pants and sweatshirt provided by the staff. Back in the room, Carrie perches on the end of the coffee table, talking to Gareth, both of them looking up startled when I appear in the doorway.

‘All done?’ Carrie smiles and gets to her feet, moving towards the door. ‘Rachel, you’ve been fantastic – really helpful. I’ll be over tomorrow to collect the clothing, and as soon as I have any further information for you I’ll be in touch. Here’s my number, you can call me any time, OK?’ She presses a business card into my hand and I whisper my thanks. I don’t want her to come over tomorrow. I don’t want to have to call her. I just want this to never have happened.

We drive home in silence, the claustrophobic kind that you could cut with a knife. I have no words left to say, and after a few feeble attempts at starting a conversation, it seems that Gareth has run out of sympathetic phrases, something that I’m more than a little relieved about. Once back home indoors, he offers to take Thor for a walk, somehow sensing that I don’t want to leave the house, and he grabs the lead from where it hangs by the back door.

‘Will you be OK if I take the dog out? I won’t be long.’ He doesn’t look at me as he fusses with the lead, not quite managing to clip it in even though Thor isn’t moving.

‘What were you talking to Carrie about when I was in the examination room?’ I didn’t want to ask, but the look on his face when I re-entered the room puzzled me, and I want to know what was said. He sighs and ruffles a hand through his hair before he answers.

‘I asked her if it made a difference, the fact that you’d had a bath as soon as you got home that morning.’

‘And what did she say?’ My heart starts hammering in my chest and my mouth goes dry. I twist my fingers together to hide their shaking, but I already know what the answer will be, I knew straight away when I saw her face when I answered the question.

‘She said it probably did. That it will have massively reduced the chances of them recovering any useable DNA.’ He stands and clicking his tongue at Thor strides towards the back door, slamming it closed behind him. I stare after him, my breath coming in frantic huffs as I fight back tears, at the realization that despite seeming so supportive on the surface, perhaps my husband doesn’t really believe me.

6 (#ulink_f1dcbdce-0b27-56dd-9ed9-8c1ca72aa3a9)

LATE AUGUST – THREE AND A HALF MONTHS BEFORE THE PARTY

Ted slides a warm hand up my thigh under the table and I push him away half-heartedly, feeling guilty at the little thrill that runs through my veins at his touch.

‘Don’t, Ted. What if someone sees?’ I look over my shoulder but the people at the other occupied tables are engrossed in their own lives, no one is paying any attention to us. We are sitting in the beer garden of a pub twenty miles outside of West Marsham, chosen for its tucked away location. Over the past two weeks things have escalated between Ted and myself, starting when he called me two days after the barbecue, seemingly to check how my hand was. We’ve met for coffee twice, just to chat, and now … now, we’re sitting in a pub, tucked away from prying eyes, and Ted’s hand is on my thigh. I have cancelled this afternoon’s clients, a risk in itself, in order to be able to meet Ted and I have butterflies in my stomach at the idea that something more might happen, alongside shredded nerves.

‘That’s why we picked this place, isn’t it? Because it’s little known and secluded, so no one would see us?’ Ted turns his blue-eyed gaze on me and stares intently. I look away, feeling suddenly shy. Feeling noticed. My stomach flips as I breathe in the scent of his aftershave and for a brief second, I long to feel his mouth on mine again, before I pull away, reaching for my wine glass.

‘We can never be too careful.’ Smiling, I tip my glass towards him before taking a sip of the cold, crisp white wine, perfect for the warm summer afternoon. Despite the buzz of spending time with Ted, there is always the niggle of fear that someone will spot us at the back of my mind. ‘Where is Angela today?’

‘Apparently she’s at work. But she took her yoga mat and she was wearing her leggings, so I strongly doubt that that’s the case, unless she’s going in after her “class”.’ A shadow crosses his face briefly, as Ted makes air quotes around the word, convinced as he is that Angela isn’t going to yoga so often to work on her flexibility. Despite the rumours, and what Ted told me that day in the bathroom, Angela is still living at the family home. ‘What about Gareth?’

I shrug and bury my face in my glass to buy myself a few seconds. Who knows where Gareth is today? He’s stopped telling me anything about the business, dealing with all the properties himself, and now that he’s taken on an actual, proper secretary he doesn’t even need me to do his paperwork any more, all under the guise of leaving me ‘more time for your aromatherapy’.

‘I don’t know where he is,’ I confess, draining the last of my wine. ‘He’s always either out somewhere, or closeted away in his office at home.’ Even when he’s only in his office, the emotional barrier he’s put up between us means he might as well be a million miles away.

‘So, things haven’t improved much between you recently?’ Ted asks, his hand moving from my thigh to rest lightly on the table, a respectable distance away from my fingers.

‘Not really. They’re worse, if anything. I mean, we’ve barely spoken since the night of the barbecue.’ I flush a hot red at the thought of that night, the night this … thing between Ted and I started. ‘Every time I try to talk to him he tells me he’s too busy and he’ll speak to me later.’ Of course, later never comes. I quite often have clients come to me after they finish work, meaning that I spend most of the evening in the log cabin at the end of the garden that serves as my treatment room, and then I’m usually asleep by the time he comes up to bed, if he even comes to bed at all, and he’s gone by the time I wake up in the morning.

‘You don’t have to put up with it, you know, Rachel.’

‘The same way you don’t have to put up with Angela sleeping with her yoga teacher?’ Immediately the words leave my mouth I feel like a bitch, even more so at the way Ted’s face crumples slightly. He pulls it back quickly though, I’ll give him that, and the look is gone before I’m even really sure I saw it in the first place.

‘Rachel, I know that my marriage with Angela is over. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think that. I wouldn’t have let anything happen at the barbecue if I wasn’t sure that Angela was about to leave me.’ Ted’s voice is quiet, and deadly serious. His forehead creases in a deep frown as he speaks, as if it hurts him to say the words out loud. I wish I had another drink that I could nurse, a barrier that I could hold between us, so things don’t feel quite so intense. ‘Angela is sleeping with Devon, or Cornwall, or whatever the bloody hell his name is. I’ve found the evidence – she’s not exactly tried to hide it – and much as it pains me to admit it, she’s going to leave me … the signs are all there.’ I want to ask him what the signs are, what should I be looking for in Gareth, but he carries on speaking, his voice breaking slightly. ‘That’s the reason why I put up with it all – because when she does leave, when I am left behind, telling Sean that life as he knows it is changing, then I can’t be blamed. It won’t be me that my son can’t stand to be around. I might not have Angela, but I’ll still have Sean. Do you see?’ His eyes search mine and my heart flutters under his intense gaze.

‘Yes, I do see.’ I look away, my right hand moving to fiddle with my wedding ring. It sits fast on my finger, metal snug against skin. ‘It’s different for me though, Ted – do you see? I do love Gareth – I want things to work with him, but I am so sick of being pushed aside, ignored … treated like I’m nothing.’ I raise my eyes to meet his. ‘I’m lonely, Ted, but when I’m with you, I’m not. I feel like you notice me. Gareth … he doesn’t even know I’m alive sometimes, but he’s my husband, and deep down he is still that man I married. I love him and I want us to get back to the way things were, but I also want this, here, with you. For now, anyway. Does that make me a bitch?’

‘Some would say so,’ Ted laughs, before reaching over and brushing his hand through my hair, in that way that makes me forget about Gareth and his cold, brittle demeanour, and I force away the feeling of self-loathing that bubbles under my skin.

I should leave, I know that. But sitting in the sunshine with Ted, enjoying the alcohol, the sun beating down on my bare shoulders, the feeling of actually being listened to for the first time in I don’t know how long, I can’t resist staying for one more drink before I head back to real life.

‘Another beer?’ I get to my feet, swinging one leg over the seat of the picnic bench, and picking up my empty wine glass.

‘Wouldn’t say no … but don’t you have to get back?’Ted flicks his wrist to glance at his watch. Another thing I like about him – he’s just as aware of where I need to be and when I need to leave as I am, although that might be fear of being found out that makes him so conscious.

‘One more drink can’t hurt, can it?’ I smile down at him. ‘And it’s like you said, it’s not as if there’s anyone we know here.’ Stepping my other foot over the seat of the bench Ted brushes his fingers across my ankle, sending a shot of desire straight through me. I’m not sure I’ll be able to go straight home after this drink.

The inside of the pub is dark after the bright sunshine of the beer garden, and I squint slightly as I enter, willing my eyes to adjust. It’s busier in here now, and glancing at the clock behind the bar I see it’s almost six o’clock. Not that I have anything to rush back for, Gareth won’t be home until goodness knows when, and Robbie will be out with Sean. I jostle next to a couple of men in suits at the bar as I wait to be served; the speedy service of this afternoon gone now as people stop in on their way home from work to enjoy a drink in the evening sunshine. Definitely best to make this the last drink before I get Ted to drop me somewhere close enough to the house to walk the rest of the way, but far enough out that we don’t get spotted.

As I wait, the pub getting busier and busier, I feel less and less confident about staying. What are you doing, Rachel? Are you really going to risk everything with Gareth for a fling with Ted? Just as the guilty feeling that sits heavy in my stomach becomes unbearable and I finally make the decision to leave it, to go home to Gareth and forget about seeing Ted again, I catch the bartender’s attention and he mouths, ‘Same again?’ I waver for too long, and then it’s too late – he pours a beer for Ted and another glass of wine for me. Turning, my hands full, I am startled by a man standing right behind me, almost too close. Beer slops over my hand and I yelp, holding the glass away from me to avoid it spilling down my skirt.

‘Shit, I’m sorry …’ He raises a hand to steady me before he squints at me over the top of his glasses, recognition dawning on his face. ‘Rachel? What are you doing here?’

Fuuuuck. This is the last thing I need. I knew we should have left while it was still quiet, less chance of being spotted. Now it seems like I’ve blown everything. Keep cool, Rachel, he doesn’t know anything.

‘Aaron.’ I keep my tone deliberately on the icy side, hoping that he doesn’t want to stop and chat. ‘I haven’t seen you for years.’

‘It’s been a while,’ he smiles, crinkling his eyes at me, ‘so, is Gareth here? It would be good to catch up over a drink, if you guys have time.’ He looks pointedly at my full hands, both carrying fresh drinks, and my heart sinks down to my sandals.

‘Ermmm, no.’ I manage to force the words out through my dry mouth. The urge to sip at the wine in my hands is overwhelming. ‘Gareth isn’t here, I’m just … having a quick drink with a friend, that’s all.’

‘Ah. Shame.’ Aaron looks me up and down, and I remember how he used to make my skin crawl when he first started working for Gareth. Aaron and I had been at the same university together but had never really been friends, he’d just known some of the people that I had hung around with. I hadn’t seen him since graduation, not until his CV landed on Gareth’s desk. I didn’t remember him being creepy at uni, but when he started working for us he had this … unsettling air about him. Intense – to the point of making me feel quite uncomfortable.

‘We’ll have to catch up though, really soon,’ he’s saying, ‘I’ve just moved back over this way. I split up with Harriet, so I’m renting a place over in West Marsham, not far from you guys actually.’ Oh Jesus, I’m not sure things could get any worse.

‘Yes. Yes, of course. We’ll arrange something. If you’ll excuse me?’ Heart thundering so hard I swear Aaron can see my pulse jumping in my throat, I lift the full glasses and nod towards the door into the garden.

‘Nice to see you.’ Aaron stands to one side and I walk as casually as I can towards the beer garden, feeling his eyes on my back until I’m out of his sight.

‘Here.’ I thrust the not quite full pint at Ted and take a healthy slug of the rapidly warming white wine in my glass.

‘Easy tiger, what’s the rush?’Ted looks at me in amusement as I swallow, not even waiting to sit back down on the bench. ‘I thought we said one more drink would be OK.’