New Year's Eve

J G Murray

• Publisher: Corvus
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781838950118
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Crime & Mystery Literature
• Index: Literature

New Year's resolution: Murder... When Hayley and Ethan move into Palace Gardens, they feel their luck has finally changed. No more run-down flats in dodgy areas. But behind the exterior of this beautiful Victorian house, things are less than picture-perfect, and the tight-knit community is unwelcoming. When Hayley befriends the woman next door, no-one is pleased. Least of all the man from upstairs. The one who watches them all from behind his window. Then they receive an invite for a New Year's Eve party. But what seems like a friendly gesture, proves to be anything but... READERS LOVE NEW YEAR'S EVE! 'An excellent read... I loved this book from start to end.' Manju, NetGalley review ' So dark and edgy... Truly gripping and wonderfully written.' Karena, Netgalley 'A cracking read, fast-paced, full of surprises and twists - brilliant!' Joanne, NetGalley

Chapter One

New Year’s Eve

‘Are you ready?’

Every part of me says no. Of course I’m not ready.

There’s no way I could be.

Ethan sees my expression and laughs. It is part mockery, part sympathy.

‘This is a party we’re going to, right?’ he teases. ‘By the look on your face, you’d think we were headed to a funeral.’

I shake my head, not in the mood to respond. We’re in the hall, preparing to leave. Our New Year’s Eve best on. I’ve managed to convince Ethan to put on a shirt and blazer he normally uses for work, and I’m in a black dress with sequins that I’ve never worn before. Ethan has even bought a bottle of what we guessed was good-quality Prosecco. Bizarrely, he’s placed it by the front door: it sits there like a pet waiting to be let out.

We still don’t quite know what to do with such luxuries – they don’t belong in our world yet, much as we want them to.

Ethan slips my coat off the hanger and offers it to me. I don’t take it.

‘I’m still not sure about this, Ethan,’ I tell him.

He exhales in a way that is just enough to hint at his irritation. ‘Hayley, this was your idea. When I think about how many times you’ve talked about the neighbours, how you wish we got on with them …’

I get it. I’ve been pacing around the flat for hours, unable to make a decision. I’ve even changed out of my outfit, deciding to abandon the evening altogether, only to put it back on again minutes later. I know how infuriating it must be: for him, none of this is a big deal. It’s just a party. We’re popping down to the flat downstairs for a drink, then heading out to meet our actual friends in town.

But then he doesn’t know. He hasn’t put his ear to the walls of this building and heard the blood pumping through its veins. He hasn’t met the cold looks of Flat B; the flashes of resentment from Flat A. Nobody stares at him from their window in Flat F whenever he goes outside. No one has hurt him the way they have hurt me.

Ethan steps forward. He towers over me; he is tall, sinewy. There is a leanness to him, from his buzz cut to his wiry limbs: although he eats and drinks whatever he wants, his body never gains an ounce of fat. He runs a thumb along my cheek and holds my chin like I’m an infant. His face looms close, his dark eyes finding mine. I catch the scent of his deodorant.

‘Let’s just take a deep breath and do it,’ he murmurs. ‘The sooner we go, the sooner it will be over. And then we can get out of here and have an actual good time.’

I don’t answer; just trail a finger down his arm, thinking it over.

He continues, very quietly now. Intimate. ‘Or not. We can blow it off. I don’t care. But it’s decision time.’

I glance up at that face, so close and familiar. At those eyes.

I take the coat out of his hand and begin to put it on. ‘No, you’re right,’ I say. ‘Let’s get it over with.’

He looks at me for a moment, as if deciphering whether I really mean it.

‘All right then.’ He nods. His eyes flicker; a glimmer of regret. As if maybe he wanted me to call the whole thing off.

But now it’s settled. Without another word, we go through the rituals: we gather our coats, check our phones, wallets and keys. Ethan grabs the bottle of Prosecco; he holds it awkwardly by its neck, like he’s going to wield it as some sort of weapon. I think of telling him that he’s probably shaking it too much by holding it that way, but hold my tongue. I can hardly claim to be an expert.

We are both doing our best to avoid tension and disagreement. I have, after all, just come back from staying at my father’s house after we agreed to spend some time apart. We are acting as if everything is normal, that this is a night like any other. I wonder when that will stop, and when we will have the conversation that determines our future.

With our coats and shoes on, we look at each other one last time. Ethan gives a little shrug. I’m not quite sure what it means, but I know that I don’t like it. Until we talk things over properly, every gesture and word is loaded with subtext.

He shuffles out of the front door and holds it open behind him, inviting me to leave. I take a final look at our flat; the hall is a stretch of comfort and familiarity, underlined with our coats, shoes and bags. I still think of it as new, even though we’ve lived here for the best part of a year. But that doesn’t stop it from being ours; a little pocket of us in the alien world of our apartment block.

I switch off the light, and the hallway disappears into gloom.

In all the apartment blocks we’ve lived in before, the stairs and entrance were just extensions of the street. They were dirty places, filled with dust, takeaway leaflets and letters addressed to past residents. No one took ownership of such areas; they were merely passageways into our homes.

Palace Gardens is different.

The walls are spotless white; the stairs carpeted and soft, so much so that you can go up and down in ghostly silence. The banisters gleam, the wood dusted and polished regularly. I don’t know who cleans the stairs, nor when they do it. It’s all part of the clockwork mechanics of a building I still can’t pretend to understand.

As we head down the stairs, I glance at the mark on the wall. I made it when scraping a guitar case against it on the day we moved in, and I can’t help but look at it every time I pass by. It’s a smear of grey against white, like a forensic thumbprint. Every time I see it, I want to cast a furtive glance up and down the stairs, as if someone is ready to launch out of their flat and accuse me of blemishing the property.

Ethan doesn’t pay any attention to the mark. He doesn’t tend to notice such things.

At the bottom of the steps is the entrance hall. There is a wooden pigeonhole assigned to each flat; another first for us when we moved in. Opposite is an oval mirror circled by a copper-coloured frame in the shape of a knotted rope.

I cast a quick glance at myself as I leave: beneath my thick coat, the sequins of my dress gleam. I wonder if it will be too eye-catching for the neighbours; they always seem to be impossibly well put together, elegant but simple.

Ethan doesn’t wait for me. He hunches a little, getting ready for the cold outside, and charges out of the front door. Freezing air floods into the hall; my skin tingles with winter. I glance one last time at the sight of my face framed in copper knots, then head into the chill.

There’s always a strange energy at the beginning of New Year’s Eve. The world is poised, holding its breath. It’s the only evening of the year when you know that everyone is awake, readying themselves. The restlessness can be felt in the air. A gust of wind surges across the road once we emerge from the building, rattling the bushes. The trees that line our street stretch this way and that, grasping and fumbling at each other like drunken lovers. Their leafless arms fracture a night sky coloured deep purple, as close to black as it gets in London.

With our heads hunched into our coats, Ethan and I make our way around the gravel drive, heading to the side entrance of the ground-floor flat. The cold quickens our pace, the ground crunching underfoot as we pass a row of gleaming cars. Inconveniently large for city living, the vehicles are a demonstration of wealth that belittles our own financial status. Since moving here, I’ve made it a habit to scoff at the petrol-guzzling vehicles whenever I can. Ethan never joins in with me.

We circle round the building, and an automatic light sears on, turning the gravel to gold at our feet as we approach the door to Flat A. The fact that it has a separate entrance is a sign of the property’s importance and superiority.

I don’t have time to gather myself before Ethan steps forward and rings the doorbell. There’s light beyond a layer of frosted glass, and I can hear voices inside. Soon we will be among them. The neighbours.

My throat tightens a little.

Ethan and I step back from the door, the way you do when you don’t really know the person about to open it. He takes my hand, gives it a squeeze, but it is perfunctory. He doesn’t want to be holding hands when the door opens. Affection, for him, is only demonstrated in private.

I wish he’d hold me a few seconds longer.

It’s only a short moment before the frosted glass darkens with the shape of someone behind it. The lock clicks, and the door opens.

Silhouetted by the light inside, a figure gazes out at us.

I can already feel my insides protesting in discomfort. It’s George, the owner of Flat A. He is the richest man in Palace Gardens; with the ground floor flat spilling onto the gardens under our balconies, his property is inarguably the most valuable and extravagant.

He nods at us. It is less a greeting and more an acknowledgement of our presence. He is a short, stocky man who has lost all his hair. As if to make up for it, his limbs bulge with personal-trainer bulk. His outfit of a shirt, waistcoat and chinos is, as always, well judged. He is just the right side of flamboyant, the image of someone I tend to think of as fashionable, but only because his looks communicate wealth and good living.

Last time we met, he shouted at me. Threatened me. Hurt me.

The tension between us is still there. I can see it in his features. A smile that looks more like a grimace. Eyes open slightly too wide, belying pent-up excitement. An eagerness for something to begin.

‘Finally,’ he breathes. ‘You’re here.’

When we are led inside, it is all smiles and handshakes.

George takes the bottle of Prosecco out of Ethan’s hands. ‘I’ll put it in the fridge,’ he says, as if that suffices as thanks. Then we are in the main kitchen and living room, surrounded by our neighbours, flutes fizzing with champagne in our hands.

Ethan hasn’t met many of the people in Palace Gardens; he goes around shaking hands and introducing himself. He’s always known how to work a room, to make his presence felt. But he has rarely been in company such as this. I wonder whether his boisterousness will work its charm here as it does everywhere else.

I follow him round the party. I’m more familiar with the neighbours and know all of them by name. There’s Teresa and Joshua from Flat B; the neighbour I call Staring Harold from the floor above us; and, of course, Beatrice from down the hall. She is the only one who doesn’t conform to what I like to think of as the Palace Gardens type: wealthy, proud and suspicious.

In the driveway, in the hall, the neighbours tend to be quiet and judgemental. Now, though, it seems they have all decided to adopt different personas. Gathered around an island counter in a spacious kitchen on New Year’s Eve, you’d never suspect the secrets they’re hiding. You’d never know there are people in this room who hate and loathe me, so much so that they would banish me from the building if they could. Here, everyone seems perfectly decent; they laugh at each other’s jokes and enquire about each other’...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Chapter One
• Chapter Two
• Chapter Three
• Chapter Four
• Chapter Five
• Chapter Six
• Chapter Seven
• Chapter Eight
• Chapter Nine
• Chapter Ten
• Chapter Eleven
• Chapter Twelve
• Chapter Thirteen
• Chapter Fourteen
• Chapter Fifteen
• Chapter Sixteen
• Chapter Seventeen
• Chapter Eighteen
• Chapter Nineteen
• Chapter Twenty
• Chapter Twenty-One
• Chapter Twenty-Two
• Chapter Twenty-Three
• Chapter Twenty-Four
• Chapter Twenty-five
• Chapter Twenty-Six
• Chapter Twenty-seven
• Chapter Twenty-Eight
• Chapter Twenty-nine
• Chapter Thirty
• Chapter Thirty-One
• Chapter Thirty-Two
• Chapter Thirty-Three
• Chapter Thirty-Four
• Chapter Thirty-Five
• Chapter Thirty-Six
• Chapter Thirty-Seven
• Chapter Thirty-Eight
• Chapter Thirty-Nine
• Chapter Forty
• Chapter Forty-One
• Chapter Forty-Two
• Chapter Forty-Three
• Chapter Forty-Four
• Chapter Forty-Five
• Chapter Forty-Six
• Chapter Forty-Seven
• Chapter Forty-Eight
• Chapter Forty-Nine
• Chapter Fifty
• Chapter Fifty-One
• Chapter Fifty-Two
• Chapter Fifty-Three
• Chapter Fifty-Four
• Chapter Fifty-Five
• Chapter Fifty-Six
• Chapter Fifty-Seven
• Chapter Fifty-Eight
• Acknowledgments