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

I opened it, my hands trembling slightly. Inside it read: I love you, Mummy. My vision blurred over with tears and I brushed them away with the back of my hand. ‘Ames, it’s beautiful. Thank you so much.’ I pushed down the lump in my throat. ‘Did you make it at school?’

She shook her head. ‘No, last Tuesday. With Daddy.’

‘Really? With Daddy?’

‘I felt sad and Daddy said we could play art time.’ She stumbled over her next words. ‘S-so, I made you a card.’

I sighed and put my hand out across the table. ‘Ames.’

She didn’t give me hers and instead traced the outline of Peppa Pig with her forefinger.

‘Well,’ I said, changing the subject and withdrawing my hand, ‘are you looking forward to October? Going to the fair? For my birthday?’ I smiled. ‘That’s only a month away.’

She nodded glumly. ‘I want to go to Claire’s now.’

I put my hand up and signalled to the waitress for the bill. ‘Do you know what you want?’

Amy smiled. ‘A pink bracelet with a star on it. Frannie from school says it makes dreams come true.’

‘That does sound good.’ I leant in and put my card on the table. ‘Are you allowed to tell me your dreams? I know I’m not meant to ask.’

‘That you and Daddy aren’t cross at each other,’ she said simply.

I took the card machine from the hovering waitress and typed in my number, grateful for an excuse to busy myself with something else. I could have seen that one coming and I walked right in – now I was stuck for words. One thing I knew was that there were some things in life that a charm bracelet or any amount of dreaming couldn’t make happen.

I’d have loved to tell her my own dream: I wanted to take her home with me. Run away, if necessary. I knew that Amy might never understand how her father had controlled everything in my life: how I felt trapped and how one glass of wine in the evening quickly led to a bottle, and how I eventually yearned for the bitter hit of vodka in the mornings too.

Amy stood up and shrugged on her pink duffel coat.

‘That’s nice. Is it new?’ I pointed at the coat.

‘Yeah.’

‘Did Daddy buy it for you?’

‘Yeah. Well, it came from Sarah.’ She looked at the ground. ‘I still like the one you bought me, though.’

Sarah. I knew very little about her but I did know that Amy appeared to adore Paul’s new woman. Once, and only once, I had sat outside the school gates in my car waiting for Sarah to appear and pick up Amy. She was disappointingly slim and good-looking, maybe a bit obviously so, and my guts twisted when I saw how Amy bounded up to her and hugged her with the kind of affection I hadn’t seen or felt from Amy in a long time.

‘I’m sure you’ve grown out of that one by now. Besides,’ I smiled, ‘it’s very nice. Pink is much better.’

She walked in front of me and I thought: I could do it now. Take her away from here. We could set up a new life elsewhere. I knew that I could find a job – my career was the one thing I had focused on over the last few years – and Amy would soon adapt to a new school, new friends.

Once outside, she turned, took my hand and, as if reading my mind, said, ‘You know that thing where I have to tell the people who I want to live with?’ She scuffed the toe of her black patent shoe on the ground. ‘I don’t really want to choose between you and Daddy.’

‘I know, sweetheart. No one’s really asking you to do that.’ I straightened her coat collar. ‘Anyway, they’ll be really nice and easy to talk to, I’m sure.’

‘I think I want to live with you, Mummy.’

My heart skipped a beat. ‘Really?’ I asked as evenly as I could. ‘Well, you know how much I’d love that but it’s always your choice. Remember that.’ I drew her into me and kissed the top of her head. ‘Ames, you mean the world to me. It’s all going to be OK. I’ll make sure of it. I cross my heart.’

‘Mummy?’

‘Hmm?’ I mumbled into her full head of auburn curls, inhaling the glorious smell of Timotei shampoo.

‘The stranger’s there.’

My head shot up and I followed Amy’s gaze.

‘What’s she wearing, Ames?’

‘A blue jacket.’ She pointed.

My eyes moved fast over the pedestrians opposite: shoppers, a young couple stopping briefly to kiss, an old man with his head bent in concentration, a street seller flogging pashminas. Of all the roads in London, Oxford Street was a minefield when it came to spotting a person you recognise, let alone a stranger. I focused on the scene again, my eyes filtering the fast flow of pedestrians. That’s when I saw her, but I didn’t recognise her.

She stood up against a wall, stock-still. The woman did appear to be staring our way. I grabbed Amy’s hand and moved toward her, my eyes never leaving her. A taxi honked his horn as we made our way across the street.

‘Careful, love,’ the driver shouted out the window.

‘Mummy? Slow down.’ Amy clung onto my hand more tightly.

Just as we reached the other side of the road, the woman turned and walked fast past Boots and headed down Stratford Place. I started after her, my hand firm around Amy’s.

‘Mummy?’ Amy’s voice quivered ever so slightly with fear. ‘Mummy, you’re holding me too tight.’

I had come to a halt – she was moving too fast – and Amy buried her head in my jumper.

‘Mummy? You’re scaring me. Who are you following?’

‘That woman you saw. I don’t know who she is. No one, I expect. No one,’ I murmured, but there was something about her. Was it her hair or something about her face that made my skin prickle? Unease washed over me as I tried to push away the fleeting images of Bethany skipping through my mind. ‘I just wanted to find out if the woman you saw thought she knew us,’ I said, aware of Amy’s frightened eyes on me.

‘But the woman I was talking about headed down to the Tube.’ She looked momentarily perplexed, but then, and not for the first time, gave me an encouraging smile; my daughter had taken on the role of mother. ‘Can we go to Claire’s now?’

‘Of course,’ I agreed, but I was distracted, because I thought I had seen the woman walking fast along the street. I shook my head, gave a small shrug of my shoulders and smiled. ‘Come on then. Let’s get that charm bracelet, shall we?’

She nodded and we moved off, me inwardly counting the cracks in the pavement: three, six, nine. I looked over my shoulder just as we went to round the corner and gasped aloud as I stepped on the tenth crack. Amy hadn’t noticed as she hurtled toward the shops, but I looked behind me once more. The woman had most definitely gone, but the knot in the pit of my stomach hadn’t.

One month later

The twenty yards or so separating us gave me time to put my sunglasses on and take a deep, cleansing breath. I hadn’t slept for more than a couple of hours, worried about spending a day with Paul. I couldn’t remember the last time we had been together, the three of us. Perhaps this was the first time in three years. Sure, he was there when I picked Amy up on a Saturday but, otherwise, we kept our distance.

Soon, my anxiety was quashed by children’s squeals of delight, the smell of candyfloss and the warm, comforting heat of October sunshine and, I thought, how bad could it be? I spotted Paul and Amy stood on the corner of Acton Green and quickened my pace. Despite setting out early, the Tube had been on go-slow.

‘Sophie, nice of you to make it.’ Paul looked at his watch.

‘The Tube. Signalling problems.’

‘You should’ve set out earlier.’

I turned to Amy. ‘Hello, darling.’

‘Hi.’ She smiled up at me. ‘Happy birthday.’