C.J. Skuse - Sweetpea - The most unique and gripping thriller of 2017

‘I won’t be stunning,’ said Imelda. ‘I’ll probably break both camera lenses!’

Lucille’s turn: ‘Babes, you’re gorgeous. You’ll be all princess-like and there’ll be flowers everywhere and with that amazing church… it’ll be like a proper fairy tale.’

‘Yeah,’ she scoffed. ‘If I can’t shift this bloody muffin top in the next six months it will be a fairy tale – Shrek !’

Cue the shrieks.

‘And June’s always sunny, so you’re bound to have the best weather for it,’ said Pidge, rubbing Imelda’s arm. ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be wonderful.’

Enough?

‘Yeah, I suppose you’re right.’

(Note: I have cribbed this endless ego massage here but please understand, Dear Diary, that Imelda’s wedding takes up at least 90 per cent of every social occasion.)

Then she brought up the very thing I’ve been dreading since it was first mooted last September – the Weekend That Must Not Be Named.

‘You’re all coming to my hen weekend, aren’t you? No buts. You’ve got six months’ notice after all.’

Fuck it. In a fairly large bucket.

‘Oh, yeah, what are we doing again?’ asked Anni, swigging her orange juice.

‘Not sure yet – possibly Bath for a spa day or Lego Windsor. But it’s deffo Friday to Sunday.’

‘Rawther!’ Lucille giggled. She was matron of honour.

Then it was onto Man Bash Central – Woman Bash Central in Cleo’s case – how Rashan/Alex/Jack/Tom/Amy had stayed out all night on a job/booze run to France/coach trip to Belgium/job/pub crawl/austerity protest. How Rashan/Alex/Jack/Tom/Amy had got so unadventurous in bed these days. How big Rashan/Alex/Jack’s dicks were (Cleo and Pidge always carefully avoided this subject) and finally how Rashan/Alex/Jack/Tom/Amy had given them a Rolex/flowers/Hotel Chocolat salted-caramel puddles/a holiday/a hug just to say sorry after a row that Anni/Lucille/Imelda/Pidge/Cleo had instigated.

The only thing Craig ever gave me that meant anything was bacterial vaginosis, but I kept that to myself.

‘What’s Craig up to these days, Rhiannon?’ asked Anni. She always brought me into the conversation. Imelda sometimes did this when vying for the gold medal at the Passive Aggressive Olympics. She’d ask, ‘ Any news on your junior-reporter thing yet, Rhee? ’ or ‘ Any sign of Baby Wilkins in that womb of yours yet, Rhee? ’, when she knew full well I’d have mentioned it if I had news of huge job change (please, God) and/or womb invader (please, God, no).

‘Uh, the same,’ I said, sipping my fifth glass of Prosecco. ‘He’s fitting out that shop in the High Street that used to be a hairdresser’s. It’s going to be a charity shop.’

‘Thought there might be something sparkly waiting under the Christmas tree this year,’ said Imelda, loudly to the entire restaurant. ‘What’s it been now, three years?’

‘Four,’ I said, ‘and, no, he’s not that thoughtful.’

‘Would you say yes if he did propose, Rhiannon?’ said Pidge, her face full of wonder, like she was thinking about Hogwarts. (She and Tom were planning to get married at the Harry Potter Experience in Orlando soon – I shit you not.)

I hesitated, the gnawing in my chest biting down harder. Then I lied: ‘Yeah, of course–’ I was about to qualify that with an If he could stop taking Lana Rowntree up her aisle for five minutes long enough to walk me down one , but Lucille cut me off before I had chance:

‘Talking of charity shops, I bought this great vase in the one opposite Debenhams; such a bargain…’ she began, launching into a new topic of conversation and leaving me behind on my Island of Unfinished Sentences.

Not that I wanted to talk about Craig or Craig’s dull job. Neither were interesting subjects to talk about. He built things, ate pasties, smoked the odd spliff, liked football, played video games and couldn’t pass a pub without eating enough pork scratchings to fill Trafalgar Square. That was Craig – Gordon Ramsay clap – done.

So they were all wanging on about The Weekend That Must Not Be Named when a random bloke with bad neck zits appeared at our table, clutching a glass of lager.

‘All right, girls?’ said Random Bloke with Neck Zits. He produced a couple of red-wine bottles, emboldened by a six-strong gaggle of blokes with neck and chin zits at the bar. Surprisingly, the corks were still in the bottles so there was no danger of us being Rohipped and dragged to the nearest Premier Inn for a semi-conscious rape-fest. Yeah, I think of these things, another reason I’m a useful friend.

These weren’t the same guys who’d bought us Prosecco, this was a different lot. Younger. Louder. Zittier.

‘Mind if we join you?’ Winks and knowing looks all round.

Cue giggles and shrieks.

I had intended to order the double chocolate brownie with clotted cream for pudding but we were at the part of the evening where we all had to hold our stomachs in so I resisted, wondering if I could get home for some leftover Christmas tiramisu ice cream before the bongs signalled the death knell of fun-eating habits.

Imelda, Lucille and Cleo made the usual ribald comments, clearly turned on by the attention. Pidge started joining in too, once a sufficient amount of wine had been imbibed. She was always too Christian to participate in either tittage or bants before alcohol allowed her to. I wasn’t nearly pissed enough for either.

So the evening dragged on like a corpse tied to a donkey cart as the Seven Dorks squeezed onto our table and allowed their eggy breaths and chubby fingers to fog our air and tweak our knicker elastic. We had Grunty, Zitty, Shorty, Sleazy, Fatso, Gropey and Mute.

Guess which one I got stuck talking to. Or rather, at.

And, one by one, the PICSOs all left me. They each did the ‘you’re only young once’ speech and hooked up with the Dorks to go on to a club for a New Year’s foam party – can’t remember which one as I had no intention of following them.

‘You coming, Rhee?’ asked Anni, weighed down with gifted baby detritus. ‘Me and Pidge are just gonna shove this lot in the car and meet them there.’

I don’t know why she was so excited to be tagging along to a nightclub. She was the size of a barge and was on orange juice and bi-hourly toilet breaks. Nightclubs weren’t known for facilitating either.

‘Yeah, I just need the loo,’ I said, sinking my wine.

I was testing them now. Testing to see who would actually wait for me. Who was the true friend? But, as I expected, nobody waited. I paid my part of the bill, stood on the doormat of Cote de Sirène and watched them all waddling and cackling up the street with the Dorks circling them like sharks around chum. Not a second thought did I get.

So there I was, alone, in the centre of town, preparing to hike the two miles back to my flat, on New Year’s Eve.

But this is where my fun began.

As it turned out, walking across town went without incident. I’m not counting the tramp with a tinsel halo, pissing in streams down both legs, using NatWest as a walking aide. Or the couple shagging behind the wheely bins at the back of Boots’ car park. And I’m not counting the fight that broke out inside Pizza Express then spilled onto the pavement, during which a bald man in a striped shirt yelled, ‘I’M GONNA RAPE YOUR FUCKING SKULL, MATE!’

None of that was particularly noteworthy.

Whereas, what happened down by the canal, was.

It must have been about 11.30 p.m. by the time I reached the playing fields and took the short cut along the cycle path and down to the canal towpath, a mere five hundred feet from our flat. It was here that I heard footsteps behind me. And my breath shortened. And my heart began to thump.