Page 2 of The Psychopath Next Door

Beside her stood my daughter. I couldn’t read Rose’s expression, which was something that was happening more frequently these days. When she was little I had always known exactly how she felt. Joy and anger shone out of her face. I put her recent inscrutability down to the upheaval of the move, like a shield she’d put up to protect herself from her own emotions.

‘Hi, sweetheart. Is everything okay?’

The woman answered for her. ‘I saw her being hassled by these bigger kids when she got off the school bus?’ Her voice went up at the end of the sentence, and it took me a moment to recognise that she had a faint Australian accent. ‘Teenage boys. I told them to clear off and then thought I’d better walk her home in case they came back.’

My attention snapped back to my daughter. ‘Oh. Are you okay? What did they do?’

I put my hands on her shoulders. She had the same light brown hair as Emma, the same hazel eyes, shot through with green. A ‘lucky’ gap between her front teeth, which she got from me. My little girl.

‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘It was those two brothers.’ She waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the houses across the road. ‘They were just being idiots.’

‘Looked like typical teenage dickheads to me,’ said the woman. Yes, she was definitely Australian, the accent more prominent when she spat the insult.

I looked across to the house Rose had pointed at. Number 36. We were number 27, Snowdon Close, one of several streets – all named after mountains – on this recently completed estate in South Croydon. All the houses were semi-detached, arranged in pairs, with small front lawns and rectangular back gardens. I hadn’t met the family who lived at 36 but I’d seen them. The dad was a big guy and the mother looked fierce. Their two sons, who must have been around the same age as Dylan, our fifteen-year-old, had a dirt bike which they’d ride around the fields behind the estate, the buzz cutting through the summer air like a hornet.

‘Can I go inside?’ Rose asked.

She pushed past me without waiting for an answer, dumping her school bag by the coat rack and heading for the kitchen. I heard her greet our dog, Lola.

The Australian woman met my eye. ‘She’ll be all right. The boys were just teasing her, you know? Nothing major.’

‘I’ll talk to their parents,’ I said. ‘Thank you for bringing Rose home.’

‘No worries. Just trying to be a good neighbour.’ She tilted her head to indicate the house attached to ours. The empty one. ‘I’m moving in this weekend.’

‘Oh! Welcome to the neighbourhood.’ I realised I hadn’t yet introduced myself. ‘I’m Ethan. Ethan Dove. And that was Rose.’

She put her hand out. ‘Nice to meet you, Ethan Dove. I’m Fiona Smith.’

She stood there, looking at me, and I found myself saying, ‘Do you want to come in for a cup of tea? Or a cold drink?’

Fiona grinned. ‘Yeah, actually, tea would be lovely. Thank you.’

I led her to the kitchen. Rose had already vanished up to her room. Lola, our cockapoo, came over from her bed in the corner and sniffed the newcomer, tail wagging.

‘She likes you.’

‘She’s cute.’ She dropped her voice to a stage whisper. ‘Better not tell her I’m more of a cat person.’

I put the kettle on and Fiona looked around the kitchen. It was still a little like a kitchen in a show home, all shiny tiles and clean chrome. We hadn’t made our mark on it yet.

‘So you’re moving in?’ I asked.

‘Yeah. Tomorrow.’

‘We haven’t been here that long. We were living in south London before and decided it was time to get out of the city.’

‘But not too far out, eh?’

‘Exactly. I wouldn’t want to live too far from a Starbucks.’

She laughed harder than the joke merited. Being polite. I asked if she wanted milk and sugar – yes and no – then gave it to her in the mug with the Rolling Stones lips logo.

‘What do you do?’ she asked.

‘I run a record shop.’

‘Oh, really? You mean vinyl?’

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