Don’t Trust Me: The best psychological thriller debut you will read in 2018

That’s what kicked off my friendship with Drew Payne. We met at a local bar when Lizzy and I were out on a girls’ night with colleagues from her school – her attempt to cheer me up and my first venture into public after my breakdown. At the start, it felt like an awkward evening with her staffroom friends all trying so hard not to talk about the fact that I’d recently been given the push from my teaching position at Eastfields. I suspect Lizzy had banned the topic but it was the equivalent of the instruction ‘don’t think of a blue elephant’ – these nice primary-school teachers, unsullied by the experience of tutoring hormonal teenagers, couldn’t help but feel the holes in the conversation were forming the big-elephant shape of my disgrace.

‘Let me get the next round,’ I announced, in part so I could flee the niceness. Lizzy followed me to the bar as I attempted to order. As usual, I failed to attract the attention of the server.

‘I’m sorry. I can feel I’m making the whole evening a disaster,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to go so you and your friends can enjoy yourselves?’

Pretty, confident, blessed with a swatch of honey-blonde hair that I had seen make straight guys weak at the knees, Lizzy merely rolled her eyes and took the crumpled twenty from my fingers. She elbowed her way past the shirt-sleeved businessmen blocking the counter.

‘You really don’t want me to leave?’

‘Don’t be silly, Jessica. Just give it time – and a few more drinks. They’ll all loosen up after that.’

‘Hey, it’s Lizzy, isn’t it?’ The man next to her at the bar, who had been nursing a pint, turned on hearing her voice.

Lizzy frowned, ready to deter all boarders, but then her expression cleared. ‘I know you, don’t I? Let me guess: guerrilla gardening club?’

‘Guerrilla what?’ I laughed.

The guy grinned. ‘There’s a group of us in West London. We descend in the dead of night on public spaces like verges and roundabouts and plant stuff – bulbs, vegetables, even trees.’ He thumped his chest. ‘Reclaim the streets for nature, yo!’

‘Lizzy, I did not know that about you!’ I accused my friend. ‘You rebel.’ I’d known she was into the Green Party but hadn’t realised she’d taken things further.

‘I like to keep my secrets secret. It’s Drew, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah. Can I buy you a drink?’

‘We’re getting drinks in for our whole table, but thanks.’ Lizzy saw her chance. ‘Hey, can I order, please?’

Her attention now on the bartender, I was left to make conversation with the guerrilla gardener. I gave him a quick study. Medium height, edgy looks, he might look a bit too alternative for most of the women in this posh bar. I couldn’t see him coming here as his first choice.

‘So, um, what brings you here? A couple of neglected hanging baskets that need filling on the sly?’

He laughed. ‘No. I was abandoned by a disappointed date.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. It happens a lot. Once they reach the “what do you do?” part of the conversation, my profession puts a lot of people off.’

Lizzy picked up the first three drinks. ‘Can you bring the rest over when they’re ready, Jessica?’

I didn’t want to leave the conversation with Drew at this intriguing juncture. ‘Of course. No problem.’

‘Nice to see you again, Drew. Catch up another time, hey? I’d better get back to my friends,’ said Lizzy.

His eyes followed her, another in the disappointed Lizzy fan club.

‘She doesn’t date much,’ I told him.

‘Oh.’ He turned his attention back to me. ‘How do you know her?’

‘Not gardening club. Same street. Known her a few years now. We live really close, in and out of each other’s houses, you know the kind of thing: watering plants when we go away, feeding each other’s pets.’ Hauling the broken fragments of a friend to the bar to cheer her up. ‘But you can’t leave me guessing. What profession is it that sends your dates running for the hills? Paid assassin? No? Uh-oh, not a…’ I whispered as if it was a shameful secret, ‘… a tax collector?’

‘Undertaker.’ He wiped condensation off his Corona and lime. ‘Someone’s got to do it.’

He wasn’t my idea of an undertaker, too young and wild for that with a range of piercings. I suspected tattoos up his sleeve. To find him doing something so unexpected ticked my boxes. ‘You don’t need to apologise. What are you called? Dead Guys R Us?’

He snorted at my stupid joke, which was lovely.

‘No, Payne and Bullock, almost as bad. I’ll suggest yours to Dad as the new company motto.’

‘Frankly, Drew, your date was an idiot. You’re doing a necessary job. Interesting. All walks of life and so on.’ The bartender put the last of the drinks in front of me. ‘Not walking obviously – at least I hope not. I mean, corpses rising off the slab: cool in a horror flick, not cool in real life.’ Enough, Jessica. Don’t say any more. I glanced over my shoulder but Lizzy’s friends were happily chatting now I wasn’t there. ‘Um, so how did your family get into it?’

His eyes sparkle. ‘There were all these dead bodies, see? And no one to bury them.’

I was wondering now if I’d got him wrong about his gaze following Lizzy. Was his vibe a bit on the gay side? He certainly seemed at ease with me. ‘Ah, one of civilisation’s oldest problems.’

My table waited a long while for their drinks. I only returned once I’d persuaded Drew to come with me. I’d assured him that the girls’ night rule only existed to be broken. And if later Lizzy happened to mention to Michael how well I’d got on with her guerrilla gardening friend, then that would be all to the good. I was hoping that Michael would be a tiny bit jealous as I feared we’d already entered the ‘I couldn’t care less what you do as long as you stop dragging me down’ phase in our relationship.

So it’s to Drew’s house I am fleeing now. Watching for pursuit by Khan’s men on the mean streets of Clapham, I take the train to Feltham.

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