One of the Neighbours

By Elizabeth Early

Someone's trying to ruin Gemma's life. She thinks it's ONE OF THE NEIGHBOURS... A gripping, domestic thriller you won't be able to put down.

When Gemma embarks on a career as a foster carer, she opens up her life to more than three young siblings. Soon after the arrival of her first placement and their chaotic young birth mother, threatening notes begin to materialise, but that's just the start of it. After a malicious allegation is made to her employer, Gemma realises that someone close by is out to get her.

Somehow, the shadowy figure has discovered one of Gemma's darkest secrets, and she determines to find out who it is, before they blow her life apart.

A chillingly satisfying read, full of twists and turns, that will stay with you long after the last page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elizabeth Early
• Release date: Sep 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005902841

Elizabeth Early

Elizabeth Early has dreamed of writing novels since reading LITTLE WOMEN. She lives in London with her three children.

Book preview

Prologue

Chilly onlookers gather in small huddles outside the carved walnut doors leading to the public gallery. A few expectant faces glance upwards as court personnel bustle past, their bobble-hatted heads quickly returning to their screens.

Journalists jostle for position a few yards away, and a photographer almost collides with a suited barrister as he breaks away from the pack to capture a shot of a well-known BBC presenter. Their muttered apologies fog the icy air.

As jury members file in to swear their oaths, two women lean against each other on a bench peppered with splodges of dried chewing gum.

Passers-by might wonder fleetingly at the connection between me, a petite, well-dressed woman in her mid-30s, with wavy blonde, shoulder length hair, and the rumpled form sitting beside me. A stranger six months ago, it’s hard to believe that twenty-two-year-old Chloe Taylor knows more about me than my oldest friend. I glance sideways as she twitches around, jogging one knee up and down and picking at the corners of her nails. Chloe stares back at me, her dark eyes cloudy with the trauma of the last few weeks.

United in disbelief, our teary eyes flick across the austere facade of the building and settle on a lone male hovering near the entrance.

The man, good-looking and in his late thirties, has lines of anxiety etched onto his forehead and his immaculately cut suit is coolly formal, matching his expression. Fitting, I muse, releasing Chloe’s hand and taking in his dark jacket with matching, sombre tie. I suppose his solemn dress code is his way of acknowledging that all of our lives are about to change forever. My husband always knew how to dress to fit the occasion, one of his attributes that I couldn’t possibly fault.

His gaze flickers our way as he trots down the steps, then paces back and forth. He’s so focussed on getting through the next few hours, that he almost steps on a dead squirrel laying on its back on the pavement, its short arms outflung in grotesque parody of a creature wanting its belly rubbed.

I watch, transfixed, as a crow hops around the body, its head dipped sombrely as if in prayer. I hug myself, rubbing the goose-bumped flesh on my upper arms. Running his fingers over the top of his hair, Josh stares ahead with a look of steely determination, apparently not noticing the squirrel as he steps back over it, or the crow presently jabbing out one of its eyes. Then again, my husband always was expert at glossing over hard to ignore but difficult to absorb facts.

‘I’m not sure I can bear this, Gem,’ Chloe whispers in my direction, her clipped pronunciation in such stark contrast to the accent of the girl I first met months earlier, that it takes me by surprise. I blink as she reaches out for my hand. I take hers, gripping tightly.

‘We have to,’ I answer simply, knowing that we’re out of other options.

She shrugs her thin shoulders. There was a time when I found her brusque body language infuriating. Now, I feel a motherly longing to chase away the vulnerability she tries so hard to disguise. ‘We’ll get through it, Chloe. Life will be different, that’s all.’

She nods, biting down on her lip to stop the tears. Standing, I leave her alone and head for the court, wishing I could have found the words to express how sorry I was. Glancing towards my husband as I walk into court room 7, I can hardly believe the events that led us to this wood-panelled chamber. I notice Josh’s set expression as I take my place beside him. Nothing will deter him now.

With butterflies in my stomach, I take a deep breath and ready myself for whatever the next few hours throw my way.

Chapter One

Six Months Earlier

Gemma

The July sun hung low over the sandy track of Epsom Downs racecourse, shallow imprints of horseshoes reflecting golden under a clear blue sky. Spring had been slow in making its retreat and I felt grateful for the warm breeze bringing the first promise of a decent summer across the Downs as I stood at the open window, washing up.

My friend, Tiffany Connolly, sat on a stool at the breakfast bar in my open plan kitchen diner, an early evening glass of wine held delicately between her French polished nails.

‘I don’t understand how you can even consider it,’ she said, taking a sip of Sancerre and leaving a trace of glossy apricot lipstick on the rim of the glass. ‘It’s hard enough having to look after your own children without a house doula. I don’t know how you manage it, sweetie, honestly, I don’t. If I didn’t have Tatiana to help me with Eddie and Maddie I’d need a year in the Priory, minimum. Why on earth would you want someone else’s little brats around?’

I turned and stifled a grin as I caught a glimpse of my friend’s painted lips, curled at one corner in disdain. Tiffany, bless her, was the wife of a successful App designer and her self-confessed mission in life was to luxuriate in the benefits that such a happy match brought. There was no hole in Tiffany’s soul, no need to search for meaning or fulfilment. The shiny new Land Rover on the drive of her substantially bigger house down the posher end of our street, brought her genuine, deep happiness. I envied her, in a way.

‘I’m just trying to do something, oh, I don’t know –’ I stopped myself from saying ‘worthwhile’ because I knew Tiffany would snigger. I gave the cloth I was holding a short sharp squeeze instead, then set about scrubbing the worktops, hoping that would distract her. The truth was, I’d had an itch I couldn’t scratch for as long as I could remember; an inner compulsion to do something that didn’t revolve around self.

‘You’re sooo woke, darling,’ Tiffany trilled, throwing her head back and letting out a series of rapid squeaks; she laughed like a dolphin. ‘You’ll be putting up refugees in the garden next!’

‘Stop it,’ I admonished, but I couldn’t help smiling. Tiffany might have lacked a filter but at least I knew where I was with her, which is more than could be said for most of the other people in my life. ‘Fostering’s the perfect job to fit around school runs and stuff,’ I said as I wiped down the surfaces, neglecting to add that I also thought it would be good for my own children to learn that, unlike their school mates at their prestigious local forest school, not every family in England could boast a hot tub in their back garden and a second home somewhere in the south of France.

Deep down I suspected that I was drawn towards troubled children because, despite my rather privileged existence, I felt like an outsider, whichever circles I mixed in. Whether it was the neighbours, the shiny mummies at school or the people running the care agency I’d worked for, I never felt like I measured up. The children I was planning to look after would probably do as much to take away my own pain as I could ever do for them.

I was tempted to tell Tiffany that.

But I didn’t. Instead, my eyes swept across the room, where a tiny light flickered on my mobile phone. Tingling minutely, all the way down my spine, I pulled my rubber gloves off and drifted towards the handset. The glow from the continually flashing screen cast my fingers in a pale blue light as I slipped it casually inside the drawer beside me. I noticed the display – three WhatsApp messages and five missed calls.

A longing to share my secret with someone else passed through my chest. I glanced towards Tiffany, but my lips went suddenly dry.

Lots of the other mothers at school opened up about their problems. One had spent a small fortune in therapy but seemed to get further away from inner peace with every session she attended. I couldn’t help but feel that she might have been better to book a good holiday and take up a voluntary job so that she had less time to think about herself.

It was true that my own life was a mess, but I didn’t need a professional to help me acknowledge that fact. I’d already made the connection between losing my parents within two months of one another and the irrational fear of abandonment that had driven me into making a disastrous decision. A knee-jerk response to the conviction that my husband was going to leave me. I longed to share my secret with someone who might be able to help me extract myself from the hole I’d dug for myself, but I certainly didn’t want to risk all the mums at school whispering about it over a skinny latte in the coffee shop.

‘I mean, are they going to behave do you think?’ Tiffany trilled, interrupting my thoughts. ‘Can you send them back if they don’t?’

I laughed out loud then, and Tiffany gave me an offended look. She swept back her long tresses and gave her head a stiff little shake.

‘I’m just looking out for you, sweetie. You know how draining children can be. What does Josh say about it all?’

I cringed inwardly; the smile frozen on my face.

Perhaps if I’d shared the truth about my marriage there and then, the inevitable shock on Tiffany’s face would have been enough to stop it all getting so terribly out of hand. ‘He thinks it’s a good idea, as long as he doesn’t get roped in with the daily detail.’ I pulled the gloves back on and returned to the sink.

Tiffany gave a derisory snort and ran her fingers through her hair again, the ultra-straightened tresses glinting amber in the afternoon sun. The scent of lavender floated on the breeze and through the window, embracing my skin with a delicate warmth. The garden was fragrant and luminous with the arrival of summer and, for a brief moment, my heart lifted. For those few seconds, it really seemed possible that I might be able to draw a line under the past. Becoming a foster carer was a new start, a chance for the future to not be as bleak as I’d feared.

Fumbling around beneath the soapy water for the last of the cutlery, I remembered the bewilderment on Josh’s face when I’d first brought up the idea of registering with the local authority, nine months earlier. Beside me on the sofa, several cushions between us, he’d paused Match of the Day and turned to look directly at me, something he’d been doing less and less of as the months had gone by. ‘You do realise it won’t be like Little House on the Prairie, don’t you?’ he said with a scathing tone.

‘I know that,’ I said, grabbing a cushion and folding it against my middle. In truth, I did have visions of lots of laughing, happy kids passing bowls of bread around a large farmhouse table, while I ladled soup into their bowls, but I was also prepared for lots of tears and tantrums.

‘I deal with enough scroats at the nick, Gemma. I don’t want to come home to them as well. And what about Beth and Adam?’

He must have caught the flicker of doubt crossing my expression because he gave me a gloating smile. I turned away, annoyed. To be honest, I was daunted by the prospect of dealing with trauma-triggered behaviour, worried that it might be way outside my coping abilities. But I also remembered the fear I’d felt when nursing my own parents through terminal illness in my mid-20s. There had been several occasions when I’d wanted to run from the house and leave someone else to cope with the heartache and the loss. But I’d got through, and I was a better person because of it. ‘It’ll be good for them, Josh. It’ll help them to step outside the echo-chamber they’re in.’

‘You haven’t got a clue about real life, Gem,’ Josh snorted dismissively, shaking his head and returning his attention to the football.

I grabbed the remote control and turned the volume down. ‘But you’re always going on at me to bring some more money in,’ I snapped, still resentful that he’d dismissed the income from my job as a carer as ‘pocket money’. Ever since nursing my parents through cancer, I’d been drawn towards the elderly, and I’d built close relationships with all of my ‘clients’.

‘Foster carers get a wage and a small allowance,’ I said, shifting forward so that I was perching on the edge of the sofa. ‘It’ll pay better than my care round plus I’ll still be able to pick Beth and Ads up from school.’

Fees for the rather idyllic private school in the salubrious nearby village of Kingswood, known locally as the land of milk and honey, were on the rise every year. Beth and Adam received a generous bursary, but, still, Josh resented the best part of five thousand pounds a year going towards an education we could get for free. Fostering would enable me ease the burden; I’d be a stay-at-home mum on a go-out-to-work salary and fulfil my vocation.

Josh’s scowl had softened at the thought of tax-free allowances and so I’d seized the moment, leaning forward to take his hand. ‘It’ll be a positive life change, for all of us, Joshie,’ I said, trying to disguise my desperation by keeping my voice level. As each year passed, my yearning to foster had become as insistent as hunger. It was as if the fragments of my own life, scattered since losing my parents, might somehow come together if I heeded my primal need to nurture other lost souls. I knew that in some way I was still anchored to the night I had lost my mother. Fostering was something solid to tether myself to.

Josh raised a doubtful eyebrow in response, then drew his hand slowly away.

‘Coo-e-e-e...’ Tiffany waved a heavily perfumed wrist in front of me. ‘Sweetie, are you alright? You look... sad.’

‘Sorry.’ I tilted my head and flicked my rubber gloves off again, lowering them gently to the worktop. ‘Miles away. Fancy some tea?’

Crossing the kitchen, I picked the kettle up with a strange sense of distance, unaware of Tiffany’s answer. I knew she was chattering away about something or other but I found concentrating impossible. For a moment, as I turned on the tap, I wondered what my mother would have made of my life, as it was now. Stilled by a sudden sadness, I comforted myself with the certain knowledge that she would approve of my intention to foster, if nothing else.

Once again, for a split second, I considered interrupting Tiffany and opening my heart to her. It was tempting, but then, everything seemed to come so easy for her. Her idea of deprivation was if the nearest John Lewis store were unable to provide a home delivery service. I knew that she felt embarrassed on my behalf, because I was a mother who ‘had’ to work.

‘Josh’s so good, isn’t he?’ Tiffany crowed, craning her head to peer into the garden where our children were messing around on the grass. We both had one of each and Tiffany’s youngest, Eddie, shared a love of sport with Adam, so they were often keen to get together. Of course, Adam preferred it when we were invited to the Connolly’s house because their garden was the size of a football pitch, but for some unfathomable reason, Tiffany loved coming to me. I don’t think she intended to be patronising but she referred to our 1930’s semi as ‘so tiny and cute’.

Tiffany’s daughter, at fifteen, was turning into a proper mini-me, enough for my tomboy Bethany to avoid her like the plague. I stopped washing up for a moment and gazed out into the garden. Maddie sat perched delicately on a blanket next to our tumble-down fence, manicuring her nails. Bethany was propped up on her elbow on the spiky, weed-ridden grass on the other side of the garden, her face hidden by a chunky hard-back book.

‘I wish Denver were a bit more like Josh. All he does these days after work is fall asleep in front of the TV. He never lifts a finger to help. I’m left to do everything.’

Yes, it must be exhausting rolling off the ‘to-do’ list to Tatiana, I thought, forcing a cheery smile and taking Tiffany’s still half-full glass. I popped it in the sink, trying to distract her attention from the insistent chirp of my mobile.

One moment of weakness, when I had forgotten all of my responsibilities and allowed loneliness to take over, was haunting me with a vengeance. A stupid mistake and now Tom was refusing to leave me alone. But he had never called so many times in such a short period of time. I guessed he must have been hoping to talk to me before Josh got back.

My throat closed tight. Part of me was tempted to ignore it, but what if there was something badly wrong? It would be impossible to find an excuse to pop out and call Tom during the evening.

‘Hey! Rude,’ Tiffany said with a pout, her eyes on the sink. ‘I was still drinking that!’

‘Sorry, I need to get dinner ready, Josh will be back in a minute,’ I announced, taking a baking tray from the oven and hoping Tiffany would take the hint.

‘Good. I haven’t seen Josh for ages. Hey, I forgot to tell you about Anna.’

I recognised the familiar glint in her eyes and my heart sank.

‘You won’t believe it, really, sweetie, you won’t.’ She tilted her head to the side and blinked at me twice, before throwing her long tresses over her shoulder. The woman flirted constantly, even with me; she simply couldn’t help herself.

I hung my head for a moment, not knowing how to reply. All I could think about was trying to eject her from the house as quickly as possible. If I asked a single question or showed a glimmer of interest, she would go on for hours. Once Tiffany got started on the misfortunes and inadequacies of other women there was no stopping her.

‘I hadn’t heard,’ I called out behind me as I pottered to the fridge and removed a pack of sausages. ‘But I’ve always liked Anna,’ I added, hoping that might be enough to deter a dissection of the poor woman’s life.

Tiffany fell silent, unnerved and puzzled by my lack of solidarity. Her face contorted and she hesitated for a moment before launching into her excited chatter with renewed vigour. Edging close to losing patience, I closed my eyes, wondering why some women felt the need to out-do others in some kind of mindless competition.

Regular meetings were held at the school coffee shop, a venue opened by the PA so that those stressed out by trials and tribulations of the morning school-run would have a safe haven in which to lower their adrenaline levels before they attempted the perilous journey back home. Hours were whittled away by competitive mothers gloating about their children’s achievements, thereby bolstering their own success. If I ever allowed myself to be dragged along for a coffee, I tried to tune out of it. Besides, I knew as a wife I was a complete and utter failure. As for my children, though I loved them dearly, I wasn’t ignorant of their faults and frailties, and I felt no compulsion to brag about their many attributes either. My love for Bethany and Adam did not, thankfully, blind me to the value of other children. I resisted the temptation to slip my hands under Tiffany’s beautifully-toned arms and drag her towards the door.

‘O-kay?’ she asked, incredulous. ‘Anna is certainly not okay, Gems, sweetheart, when are you going to give up being so charitable towards people who don’t deserve it?’ If Tiffany didn’t get gossip off her chest as soon as she thought of it, she was in danger of self-combustion. I could hear the excitement in her voice as she explained that Anna, having grown tired of her husband lusting after the endless stream of au-pairs they employed, took the radical step of taking a young Spanish male in his early twenties into their home.

Richard, deliriously happy with the old-style ménage, immediately resented the new arrangement. For a few weeks he reluctantly put up with Arman’s mild flirting and Anna’s sudden interest in short, frilly skirts, ‘but,’ Tiffany gabbled, ‘poor Richard came home early from work the other evening and caught the boy blatantly filming Anna performing a sexy strip in their new bathroom. They’d only just got it fitted, darling. Top of the range, all from Moben. It’s simply awful. And you won’t believe what excuse she came out with...’

I nibbled the skin on the end of my thumb as I listened. I wasn’t sure I believed her. Most of Tiffany’s ‘news’ was complete hyperbole, so much so that I was surprised she hadn’t started her own Twitter feed. I was under no illusions as to the depth of our friendship and I knew I probably couldn’t trust her. But she often provided me with a light-hearted distraction from my day-to-day worries. Hearing how frantic she got when her interior designer was late or the DVD player in her Land Rover went on the blink, amused me. ‘Go on then, tell me.’

‘Mum!’

We turned in unison as Eddie raced up the steps, huffing and red in the face.

‘Maddie keeps ruining our game. She’s deliberately sitting right in front of the goal. Tell her to get out the way, can you?’

Tiffany sighed, peering outside as Maddie sauntered in.

‘I can’t help it if the sun’s moved. I need to get an even colour, mother. I can’t go to Dubai if I’m, like, all washed out, like butters over there.’ Maddie raised a thumb in the direction of her brother.

‘Shut-up, fake news.’

‘You shut-up, you B-Tec little brat.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Tiffany held up her hands in surrender, rolling her eyes and reluctantly rising to her feet. ‘I suppose we’d better get back. Tatiana’s probably got supper ready.’ She leaned over and grabbed me by the shoulders, planting barely-there kisses on either cheek. ‘Mwah, mwah, love you sweetie. Starbucks, about ten tomorrow?’

I closed my eyes in gratitude and relief. She was actually leaving. ‘I can’t tomorrow, Tiffany. I’ve got a visit from a social worker in the morning.’

Tiffany winced, as if the mere mention of the word ‘social’ was unpalatable, an unwelcome intrusion into her vision of how the world should be. ‘Okay, babe, if you insist on going down that road,’ she said, grabbing her car keys from the worktop. She only lived two hundred yards down the road, but she always drove up to me. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

Chapter Two

Gemma

For some reason, as I waved off their 4 x 4, Tiffany’s parting comment stayed with me. Despite the warmth of early evening, as I turned to close the door, I felt suddenly cold. The uneasy knot in my stomach was wound so tight that when I heard my name being called, I visibly jumped, my heart leaping into my mouth.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry, duck,’ Mrs Dennis from next-door chuckled as she shuffled her slippered feet over the uneven ground between two hydrangea bushes. Usually, I welcomed the sight of her plump, friendly face and her comfortable clothes. Immune to the heat, she was wearing a hand-knitted jumper, long flowing skirt and fluffy socks under her slipped. Her greying hair was bubbly, with curls caught up