Love Me to Death: A spine-chilling psychological thriller with a startling twist

By Susan Gee

Something sinister stirs in Stockport...
The police find a young woman's body in the woods the same week a couple discover a crude, handmade doll in Lyme Park. But are the two findings connected... or a strange coincidence?
In a town full of loners and unhappy families, nothing is as it seems...
All Mr Anderson wants is a family. After his elderly mother died, he was almost unbearably lonely. Now it's time for him to claim his own.

All Jacob wants is for Maggie to love him back. She only has eyes for the Vincent twins – but maybe he can make her see just how much he cares.
And everyone is a suspect.
A quietly sinister, utterly chilling new thriller from Susan Gee, the author of Kiss Her Goodbye. Perfect for fans of You and How to Get Away with Murder.

Praise for Susan Gee:

'Fans of thrillers won't be disappointed by this wickedly dark book' Ellie H, Amazon reviewer.

'Great characters, thrilling storyline and full of twists' Kayleigh Sanders, NetGalley.

'Wow what a book! An incredibly gripping read from start to finish' Sarah Wolstow, NetGalley.

'An excellent and unusual thriller' Amazon Customer, Amazon reviewer.

'My favourite genre just got a new author!' IM, Amazon reviewer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: May 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781788547741

Susan Gee

Susan Gee is a crime writer from the North West. She was a finalist in the Good Housekeeping Novel Competition and the Daily Mail 'Write a Best Seller' Competition. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Manchester University. Susan lives in Stockport with her husband and two children. You can find her on Twitter at: @SusanGeeWriter.

Book preview

1

Stockport was thick with snow. The heaviest it had been for years. The red-bricked buildings were edged in a thick white covering that twinkled under the streetlights and hid the dirty grey pavements. There was no sign of it stopping either. It was relentless. Fat white flakes that slid down the windows and piled up along the window ledges. The trains had been cancelled and some of the schools were closed. Snow fell on impacted ice and a biting wind howled through the streets.

On the east side of Lyme Park, a couple walked their Boston terrier up the steep path that overlooked the Cheshire plains. The man’s stomach rumbled at the thought of the roast beef slow-cooking back home, as the dog ran on ahead. They continued higher, over the powdery snow and up towards the old Elizabethan hunting lodge, known as The Cage.

The Cage stood on top of the ridge: an imposing structure, three storeys high, with four towers and a series of black rectangular windows. The dog barked and the woman walked after it, her long blonde hair blowing in the wind. Down below, two black ravens hopped up onto the bench in their search for food – the sound of their caws, the only noise in the deserted surroundings.

It was difficult for her to catch up to the dog on the uneven ground, but as the woman got nearer, she could tell that it had found something. It ran in a circle around something dark on the snow, the size of a dead bird or a large rodent.

‘Badger. Get here now!’ she shouted, as she got closer.

‘What’s he found? Not deer poo again?’ the man laughed, from further behind.

The dog barked again as the woman grabbed its collar and clipped on the lead. She tilted her head, trying to make sense of what it had found, while the dog pulled against the lead.

As she got closer to the object on the ground, she saw that it was a doll – a child’s toy left up there – but as she moved closer, it wasn’t like any doll she’d ever seen. It was propped upright, sat in the snow, arms by its side and head flipped back. The blue checked shirt it was wearing had been stitched with a thick black thread. The stitching was clumsy, but painstakingly done, and on its knee was a single white porcelain flower.

She looked at the handmade clothes and shivered. The figure was untouched by snow, despite the recent downfall, and that it had been left there recently unnerved her. She looked over her shoulder at the surrounding fields to see if anyone else was around, but they were empty – just a featureless expanse of white.

The figure looked up at her from the ground, with eyes of palest blue, as the wind blew through its hair. She wouldn’t have expected the hair to move like that, it was too realistic. Something wasn’t right, there was a thick ridge around the doll’s head and the woman leant over to get a better look. It looked like the hair of the doll was attached to a thick layer of skin that was edged in dried blood. As she took a step backwards, the doll appeared to smile and she almost lost her footing on the icy ground.

The chill of the wind cut through her coat as she stood there, face as pale as the surrounding snow and eyes fixed on the doll. By the time the man reached her, she knew that this was no ordinary doll.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked, but all she could do was stare at the grotesque little figure on the ground. ‘What is it?’

‘I think it’s real skin,’ the woman told him.

He took a step nearer as a gust of wind sent the hair up off the doll’s face. The man frowned as he bent down to get a closer look. As he did, the dog started to bark again and the noise sent the ravens flying back up to the safety of the trees.

*

On the other side of the town, Mr Anderson was taking a walk. He left behind a trail of impacted footprints in the snow as he walked beside the snaking lines where the kids had dragged sledges over the pavements. The slow crunch and gentle creak of the snow as a pair of Doc Martens crushed it with a thick-ridged sole was the only sound tonight. Everyone else was indoors.

Mr Anderson always took a walk in the evening. He loved the darkness. His nine o’clock stroll would always happen, without fail, come rain or shine. Even when he was sick, he’d still attempt it. He liked the weather at the moment: the chill of it. The way it cut into his throat as he breathed. He liked how his breath hung like a cloud as he paced the streets. Here, and then gone again, into nothing.

He preferred this time of night, because there were few people out and the weather had improved things further. Mr Anderson disliked the people that filled the streets, the sound of their voices and the way they moved over the concrete – an army of blank faces. Stockport was much improved without them and now the snow made everything clean. It cleared his mind of the incessant noises from the day, the tapping feet on the pavements and clicking of tongues. He inhaled. It was perfect.

This was the time that he could finally get his thoughts in order. He knew what he had to do, but it had taken a while for him to get things ready. It was only when the snow had come that he’d known it was the right time. The white purity of it was perfect, as though someone had thrown a sheet over the dirty, stained town and transformed it into his own blank canvas. Stockport had been waiting for him, lying dormant until it was ready to be cleansed. He had been ready, just waiting to start.

The numbers had been increasing. The homeless were everywhere; when he travelled into Manchester, they were scattered on every street corner. When he started out, he never thought that there would have been so many, but almost every day there was someone else of interest – so many people without a family to look after them. With the falling snow his eyes had been opened to new possibilities. It had been a long time coming. The time had come for him to start his family.

When he got home it was mildly warmer than outside. He didn’t put the lights on or the fire. He did not like waste. Time was precious too and the time was his now. ‘A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life,’ his mother would tell him. There was no need for light anyway. He had spent many an hour alone without it. It was calming and he was comfortable in the silent darkness.

His mind was detached from all the day’s happenings and the happenings of the past. The house was his now. There was no need to feel odd about being out of the cellar anymore. Recently, he’d been feeling the need to go down there again, but he’d fought against it. It wasn’t something that he wanted to ever return to. Mr Anderson went over to the wooden chair in the living room and sat down with his back against the wall. The hard-backed chair dug into him as he stared into the darkness until he could make out the shapes of the furniture in the room.

The clock in the corner clicked and chimed through the minutes as he listened to the people next door. The television hummed through the thin walls as he heard them move around. He leant back and placed his palm against the wallpaper, knowing there were only a few bricks separating him from them, they were so beautifully close. If the wall wasn’t there, he could take a step and be in their living room with them. Sit down and hear what it was that made the woman shriek with occasional laughter. They were a family and he wanted it.

He strained to listen for the sounds of a childhood that he had never had, the voices of the people who ate and talked together and went out for walks with their dog. Sometimes the sounds of their plates clinking would remind him that he was hungry and he’d go to the kitchen himself to make something: a modest meal that he would eat alone.

His favourite spot was the living room chair. If anyone left their house, he could watch through the net curtains. He’d been displeased when the mother had left. She had been at home all day. When he was off work, he’d hear her singing as she moved through the house. She was slightly overweight and plain, just as a mother should be, but she smiled a lot too, which was odd. He’d heard her laugh through the wall more times than he’d ever heard his own mother’s laughter. Mr Anderson couldn’t even remember what his mother’s laugh sounded like. They were the closest to family that he’d got. She’d gone now, the previous mother, and when a new woman had replaced her, he realised how easy it was to start again with a new family.

Mr Anderson smiled. There had been some mistakes, but he’d improve. He’d started his project and things were good. He made a sound deep within his throat, in between a cough and a gasp. He’d waited so long. It was all he’d ever wanted and he was surprised at how much it meant to him now that it was here – a family of his own just like the people next door. It was about to become reality. He had everything to offer: his own house, a quiet space, time to make things perfect. He was ready.

Despite the darkness, he could still make out the shape of the box in the corner of the room where he kept his modelling tools. He had stencilled the words ‘Vive Hodié’ on the top: words from one of the sundials at The Cage, his favourite place.

These were the tools to create his family. He thought about the first doll he’d completed. He’d made the figure with painstaking details, a man in blue denim jeans with a checked shirt. He remembered the look on the man’s face when he’d been working on him: the horror that turned to compliance as the knife finished its work. The way his eyes bulged as the last breath left his body – the bloody clump of hair that he’d carefully removed from the scalp and taken away in a plastic bag before he left him there on the concrete.

The snow had covered the street by now and he could see the glint through the window, so bright despite the darkness. He started to rock in the chair, like he did when he was young; it was still comforting today. The steady movement was calming, but it was more than that – it was like being rocked to sleep.

The body of the homeless man had been found quickly. Mr Anderson hadn’t tried to move it. He wondered if anyone had found the doll he’d left at Lyme Park, or if the police would ever connect the two. In the darkness he started to laugh. He couldn’t help it. The sound was too loud in the quietness of the house and for a moment he imagined his mother standing in the doorway, legs wide and face stern with anger, asking him, ‘How dare you make a noise?’ When it didn’t happen, he laughed again, louder. It was an odd sound – a sound that this house wasn’t used to. Such happenings were confined to next door, but that was about to change. He would allow it to happen. Mr Anderson would let happiness in, and it would taste as crisp on his tongue as the icy flakes of snow that had started to fall outside.

2

Jacob thought the morning would never end, but he was finally going to see Maggie. As he walked to the top of the hill, she was standing on the curve of the road. More snow had fallen again last night and there was another dusting on the pavement. It was going to get heavier later; the weatherman had said that the whole country was set to get it. Maggie pushed the loose curls from her face and the wind flattened her clothes to her body. He hadn’t seen her dressed up like that for a long time. She was wearing red shoes that glittered and her legs were the palest white. Jacob felt his palms moisten. He wanted to say something funny, but she started talking about the buses before he got the chance to.

‘Look at you,’ he smiled.

Maggie laughed. ‘What?’

Jacob laughed back. ‘Those shoes.’

‘Yeah, well it’s nice to dress up sometimes.’ She stretched out her toe into a point. ‘They’re my cousin’s. Nice, aren’t they?’

He stared at her slim white ankle. ‘Yes, but watch you don’t slip. It’s icy.’

‘You’re worse than my mum.’

The bus came quickly and he was upset that they weren’t there for longer. He wanted the Vincents to see him there with her, so they knew that she’d asked him instead of them to go with her. Being with her was amazing. It took all his strength to stay focused and not glance down at her legs that were stretched out under the seat as the shoes blinked in the sunlight.

As the bus drove towards town, he barely gave anything else a thought. The motorway belched its fumes and the cars screamed, but today it didn’t bother him. As they passed it, he didn’t even look back to check for a figure stood on the edge of the bridge. It was different today and he knew it was because he was with Maggie.

‘How’s things?’ he asked.

‘Great.’ She smiled down at the shoes.

‘That’s good then.’

‘Sure is.’

Jacob smiled. He liked it when she was like this. The town was busy and the sun glinted over the frosty ground.

‘I thought we’d go up to the market. If I can make it up the hill in these.’ She glanced down at her feet. ‘Think you were right. Should have worn my boots, but I’ve been dying to pinch these since my cousin got them.’

Jacob smiled; she looked up to her cousin despite what she said.

‘We should take your shoes out somewhere decent.’

‘Another time. I’m meeting some girls from the theatre in a bit.’

‘I thought we were going to do something else afterwards.’

‘Thought you just wanted to get something to eat?’

He smiled through gritted teeth. He wasn’t used to things not being planned out. It wasn’t the way he liked it. As they got further from the bus depot there were fewer people. It wasn’t how he imagined the day was going to be, but he pretended that everything was fine.

‘They do some ace cakes in here. Matty showed it to me the other day,’ she said, pointing to a cake shop down one of the side streets. ‘I told him I needed some ideas and then he finds this place.’

Jacob nodded. Of course Matty would have found this for her. Jacob decided that it didn’t matter that she’d been here with Matty; at least he’d got the chance to spend time with her now. He should take her somewhere new. Somewhere that would be just theirs. Somewhere that they’d found together, not just because Matty was trying to impress her.

‘When did you two come to Stockport?’

‘Dunno. Few weeks ago, why?’

‘No reason.’

They walked down the road and past the cake shop and the smell was sweet like icing as Maggie went over to the window. She nodded at a giant wedding cake in the window. ‘That’s nice, isn’t it?’

He nodded. He hoped that they’d be together forever and have their own wedding cake one day.

She smiled and pointed over the road. ‘We’re going there.’

‘Thought we were just getting some chips?’

‘No. It’s my treat.’

‘I should have dressed up too. I didn’t know it was going to be so special.’

‘It’s not, don’t worry.’ She pulled out her tongue and smiled. It was so pink. It reminded him of the times they used to share a bag of blue sherbet in the park, eating until their tongues turned blue. She always laughed so hard when it happened, as though it had never happened before. He missed those times.

‘I don’t know what it’s like. Might be awful.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he replied.

He felt pleased that she wanted to be with him – they wouldn’t usually do this. They’d just hang about and get a pastie or some chips. His mum used to tell him he needed to relax a bit and not to have everything set out, but it was hard.

The café was nice inside. There were tablecloths and chairs that matched. It was the kind of place that he wouldn’t go on his own.

‘I’ll just get a drink,’ he said.

‘No, you’ve got to get the soup and sandwich with me.’

He wondered if this was a date – the nice clothes she was wearing, the café? It must mean something.

After they’d been served, he pressed the petal on the flower in the vase on the middle of the table and watched her. He was too nervous to eat and was glad it was only soup. The bread roll crumbs fell onto her top and he had to stop himself from reaching out to brush them off. The waitress smiled over. Her pinafore was pure white, not a drip of coffee on it. She thinks we’re a couple, he decided.

‘Did you hear about that thing at Lyme Park?’ Maggie asked.

‘The police were there weren’t they?’

She leant forwards. ‘Some woman found something when she was walking her dog.’

Jacob stirred his tomato soup and frowned. ‘What was it?’

‘Bits of a body or something.’

‘Gross,’ he told her.

‘I know.’ Maggie looked up at the ceiling.

Jacob waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. He watched her tear at the bread, sending crumbs everywhere. He didn’t want to talk about what they’d found up there. He didn’t want to know. If he was good at conversation then he’d find something funny to tell her, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t like Matty Vincent who could just talk about nothing.

Maggie looked at her watch for the third time since they came into the café. He hoped to take her to the cinema afterwards, or a safe place where he didn’t have to worry about talking, but it was going wrong. He hadn’t been prepared. If he’d known it was going to be a date, he would have thought about what to say first. He’d have had some stories ready and a list of things to ask her. Usually they just messed about and had a laugh together. He wasn’t used to seeing her looking so nice and it made him nervous. He thought about what it would be like if he could get rid of the Vincents and just be with her all the time. If that happened, things would be a lot easier.

‘Why are you smiling?’ she asked.

He hadn’t realised that he was. ‘I wasn’t.’

She pulled back her chair and grabbed the coat from the back of the chair. ‘It was alright, that. I’ve got to meet the girls though, I’m already late.’ He wanted to grab her and pull her back down, but he started to stutter.

‘We’ve only just got here.’

She shrugged. ‘I just needed to use my voucher. Bob gave it to me at the theatre. He’s a tight bastard so I had to use it. Give it to the woman, will you?’

He sat back down as she walked out of the café and across the road into a group of people. He always managed to get it wrong. He just wasn’t sure how it kept happening.

‘Your girl in a rush then, sweetie?’ the waitress asked, as she chewed her pink bubble gum through glossy lips.

‘She’s meeting someone.’

‘So long as you’re not going to do a runner.’ The waitress smiled as she put her pen to her glossy lips. ‘Fancy a dessert from the specials?’

He shook his head. ‘No, we’ve got a voucher. It just says soup and sandwich.’

The waitress nodded before she walked away.

Jacob left the voucher on the table and followed Maggie outside. He hated that he was following her again and kept well back in case she saw him. She was easy to spot; he could hear the little heels clicking against the pavement, bright red against the tarmac.

Jacob didn’t believe that she was meeting the girls. She was too dressed up for that and it was obvious she was going somewhere special. He watched through the crowd as she walked through the precinct, barely able to walk.

As he waited by the street corner, he felt sick inside. The need to have her was starting to hurt again and if he could get rid of it, he would. He wondered where it had come from. They’d always been friends, but recently it was like an itch that wouldn’t go away. He was thinking about her all the time.

If he could touch her skin and feel her mouth on his just once, then perhaps that would be enough, but he doubted it. He wondered what his mum would think about it. He wished he could talk to her. She’d always liked Maggie. She’d bought her a magic set for her birthday once and the pair of them had practised for ages. His mother was full of tricks too, but she saved the best trick for the end. There on the bridge one moment and then gone. Jacob stopped walking.

He sat on the bench at the bottom of the hill and waited. He knew Maggie wouldn’t catch him as he watched her go, wondering who she was meeting this time. Someone from the youth club maybe, or school? Matty Vincent? She’d been distant lately, not ringing him as much as she used to. He thought it was just that she was busy, but maybe she’d just lost interest in him. Or worse, she’d come to the same conclusion that everyone else had. That he wasn’t worth knowing.

As he got to the top of the hill, Maggie waved at a girl and ran over the road towards her. The sound of laughter came from further up as two more of her friends appeared from around the corner. He knew he shouldn’t be there. She wasn’t lying. He was an idiot. He walked away. She was different, she had people that wanted to spend time with her while he had no one but her.

When he reached the top of the hill, he could see that the traffic was busy. From beyond the road, the sound of a girl’s scream made him look round. She shrieked with laughter as a man grabbed her around the waist and Jacob continued on with his head down.

He watched the cars, the same patterns and movements he knew so well, the motorway and its noises. He watched the cars as they went under the bridge and on to other places while he stood there. Nothing mattered – this was always moving, never stopping. It was relentless. He hadn’t fitted in anywhere since his mum went, but nothing else changed. It all kept moving on without him. Maggie was the only one that made things bearable.

He looked at the buildings and tried to memorise the lines so that he could draw them later. He imagined taking it apart, piece by tiny piece, line by tiny line, every shadow and every ridge. He remembered the pain in his fingers where the pencil had caused a ridge in his skin because he’d used it so much. It hurt, like he’d been hurt.

He knew he’d done the right thing by not following Maggie for any longer, but not knowing where she was now felt bad. It was how it always was. The children at school would talk about him in the playground – pretending not to see him – and the sideways glances of the teachers made his head hurt. He was sick of people either feeling sorry for him or thinking there was something wrong with him. That was why he liked Maggie, she was never like that and that’s why he mustn’t lose her. She treated him like he was the same as the rest of them, when he knew that he wasn’t.

3

That night, the snow fell thick and fast, covering everything. More than predicted and still it came. Jacob walked down the road and thought about what Maggie had said about Lyme Park; the park wasn’t far from the old asylum and he hated it up there. What had just happened was another reason never to go. Jacob followed a set of prints from