Keep Your Friends Close: A gripping psychological thriller full of shocking twists you won’t see coming
door saved her from having to explain, although she still sprung off the bed and prepared to dart into the bathroom. On seeing that it was one of the older members of staff, who didn’t seem to register her presence, she could relax again.
He set their suitcases down by the bed and gave Aaron a nod after a tip was pushed into his fist on his way out. Aaron closed the door, his hand lingering on the handle. He took another moment or two to consider Karin, then crossed over to the window.
The panoramic view of Morecambe Bay was stunning. But it unnerved her. Nevertheless she made an effort to see it through Aaron’s eyes and went to join him. Aaron seemed grateful for this and draped his arms around her neck.
Karin shuddered at the memories circling out there beneath the darkening sky: throwing her pebbles into the sea; two figures grappling on the wet sands.
‘Not too shabby a view. Is it?’ said Aaron.
She couldn’t allow him to see the swell of tears gathering behind her eyes and turned away from him.
He was distracted though, luckily, checking the time on his phone. ‘I think we should go and get some supper,’ he said. ‘Are you okay to go straight down? It’s getting late.’
Karin sniffed. She had somehow managed not to let a single tear fall and was fanning her arms down her dress. ‘Come ready, you said.’ It did occur to her at that point to suggest room service, but she knew this wasn’t really an option. And what if Louie was on duty and brought it to their room? She tried to rid herself of that thought before it expanded any further. Besides, Aaron had already said how much he was looking forward to dining in the Sun Terrace and what a stunning location it was. Karin didn’t want to disappoint him. He had gone to such lengths. All for her.
He guided her out into the corridor in a gentlemanly fashion. She liked those old school touches, the way he held doors open for her, the small gifts he presented her with and the way he sometimes took her in his arms and glided her round the room in a slow dance. She welcomed his calmness too. With Louie it was always fast and intense, driven by the brashness and daring of youth. A rough-and-ready sort of love which spun out of control. Karin should have ended it far sooner than she did.
Closing her eyes, she drew in a deep breath and made herself smile. Louie no longer worked here. She was absolutely certain of it.
‘Oh. But we ought to take the stairs,’ she said, immediately thrown into turmoil when Aaron started heading back down the corridor to get the lift. ‘They’re really something. You need to see them.’
The staircase was indeed a stunning feature of this hotel, but it was a delaying tactic on her part. To chance upon Louie directly out of the lift would be like stepping in front of that train. At least the slow, downward twist of the stairs would give her more time to think, and Aaron seemed pleased that she was at last entering into the spirit of this special place.
Karin forced him to linger at the top of the Art Deco stairway, the red carpet spiralling all the way down in an elegant shell shape to the entrance hall below. ‘Wait though,’ she said, still not permitting him to set off until he had also looked up to admire the fresco on the ceiling.
The curved handrail offered itself to her like an old friend. Smooth and solid, it seemed to want to take away some of her stress as her hand wrapped tightly around it. Karin closed her eyes again, feeling for the first step with her toes. These were stairs not to be rushed, like red piano keys unfurling underfoot; a stairway to be seen on, to savour, evoking a bygone era but with a modern-day twist. Karin turned to Aaron and smiled. She was about to remark on some of these things but stopped herself when all the other memories came crashing against her chest; feeling like she was being crushed; causing her to stumble. Aaron was there to catch her, insisting on holding her arm the rest of the way down. Karin couldn’t help thinking that every step she took was delivering her that bit closer to Louie.
Louie woke up that morning with the same thing on her mind as every other morning. Her hand reached out across the bed.
But she wasn’t there.
Louie pulled back the curtain, flinging the window upwards to fill her lungs from the salty mists of sea air floating past, using the broken broom handle to prop the window open once the frame had stopped rattling. Even before filling the kettle, she felt her nostalgia settling in once again, knowing it would tighten its grip as the day wore on.
Today was Karin’s birthday.
Breakfast in bed, small gift to open. Later on, they would take a stroll on the beach. A few hours painting and lovemaking, then maybe popcorn and a film in the evening when they had finished their shift. Karin wouldn’t want to go out; she rarely did after work, and certainly not with anyone else. She liked to have Louie all to herself.
Louie moved the mannequin into the corner on her way to the bathroom, having to dodge the various canvases as she went. Some propped against walls, pieces of furniture, some already bubble-wrapped and others still waiting to be framed. The whole place looked more like an artist’s studio these days. When Karin was around she had forced Louie to confine the art to one area of the room with a screen round it, as a way of keeping the living space separate. Now it was allowed to spill everywhere. Strange artefacts occupied many of the surfaces, things washed up by the sea. They had collected most of it together. Shells. Bits of wood, all shapes and sizes. Lengths of rope and faded fishing nets. Glass bottles, of interest because of their shape or colour. Broken toys, back from unexpected voyages, nibbled by sharks and other weird-looking sea creatures. Rusted chains. A selection of worn-out coins. A pile of pebbles. Large and small.
The kettle fizzed into a frenzy and switched itself off. Louie slopped a generous amount of milk into her mug but left the teabag in the other to brew a bit longer, the way Karin liked it. After a few seconds of staring at Karin’s mug, she tipped it away and flung it into the sink, breaking the handle.
This room was full of reminders.
The mannequin had on one of Karin’s old T-shirts and a pair of cut-off denim shorts which she had also left behind. Louie rubbed the ends of the T-shirt between her fingers, releasing a tiny bit of her into the air, because it still held a faint trace of Karin’s scent. Something caught her eye on the shelf. A previous birthday offering, a flick-book of the sea that she had made for Karin’s twentieth. As she fanned the pages, a mini-breeze wafted into her face and a tiny seahorse bobbed up and down on the watercolour waves in the bottom corner of each page.
‘Don’t you like it?’ she had asked, because Karin hadn’t said anything at first. Then she realized she was crying, said it was the best birthday present she had ever been given and kissed Louie on the lips.
Louie tried desperately to recreate that, how it felt to have Karin’s lips pressing warm against hers. As time went on she could feel it less and less. Karin had left a void in her life the size of Morecambe Bay. Equally unpredictable, the swirling tide pulling her down when she least expected it. For a long time afterwards, Louie tried to find her. In the note that Karin had left, she said she had gone to the States, although Louie didn’t necessarily believe that. She phoned and messaged her constantly in the hope that Karin would let slip where she had really gone. Was she okay? Why had she left in such a hurry? Did Louie do something wrong? Wasn’t she happy? Had something happened? Why wouldn’t she speak to her? Then the voice of an American girl had finally convinced her, but it had wounded Louie more than anything to think that Karin might have found someone else so quickly. Not long after that, she must have changed her number because Louie couldn’t get hold of her any more.
Despite this, she viewed the separation as a temporary thing. Karin would come back to her one day because they were linked by an inexplicable force, connecting them through life, death, and forever. Meanwhile, Louie found a certain amount of peace in her painting. Her obsession had become