The Friend: An emotional psychological thriller with a twist Read online

  Table of Contents

  TODAY – 4.00 P.M.

  CHAPTER 1 BEFORE

  TODAY – 4.30 P.M.

  CHAPTER 2 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 3 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 4 BEFORE

  TODAY – 5.15 P.M.

  CHAPTER 5 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 6 BEFORE

  TODAY – 5.25 P.M.

  CHAPTER 7 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 8 BEFORE

  TODAY – 6.00 P.M.

  CHAPTER 9 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 10 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 11 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 12 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 13 BEFORE

  TODAY – 6.15 P.M.

  CHAPTER 14 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 15 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 16 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 17 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 18 BEFORE

  TODAY – 6.30 P.M.

  CHAPTER 19 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 20 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 21 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 22 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 23 BEFORE

  TODAY – 7.00 P.M.

  CHAPTER 24 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 25 BEFORE

  TODAY – 7.05 P.M.

  CHAPTER 26 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 27 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 28 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 29 BEFORE

  TODAY – 7.15 P.M.

  CHAPTER 30 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 31 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 32 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 33 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 34 TODAY – NOON

  CHAPTER 35 TODAY

  CHAPTER 36 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 37 TODAY – 3.30 P.M.

  TODAY – NOW

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ALSO BY TERESA DRISCOLL

  Recipes for Melissa

  Last Kiss Goodnight

  I Am Watching You

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Teresa Driscoll

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542046664

  ISBN-10: 1542046661

  Cover design by Tom Sanderson

  For my lovely dad, who is greatly missed

  CONTENTS

  TODAY – 4.00 P.M.

  CHAPTER 1 BEFORE

  TODAY – 4.30 P.M.

  CHAPTER 2 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 3 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 4 BEFORE

  TODAY – 5.15 P.M.

  CHAPTER 5 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 6 BEFORE

  TODAY – 5.25 P.M.

  CHAPTER 7 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 8 BEFORE

  TODAY – 6.00 P.M.

  CHAPTER 9 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 10 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 11 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 12 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 13 BEFORE

  TODAY – 6.15 P.M.

  CHAPTER 14 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 15 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 16 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 17 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 18 BEFORE

  TODAY – 6.30 P.M.

  CHAPTER 19 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 20 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 21 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 22 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 23 BEFORE

  TODAY – 7.00 P.M.

  CHAPTER 24 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 25 BEFORE

  TODAY – 7.05 P.M.

  CHAPTER 26 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 27 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 28 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 29 BEFORE

  TODAY – 7.15 P.M.

  CHAPTER 30 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 31 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 32 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 33 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 34 TODAY – NOON

  CHAPTER 35 TODAY

  CHAPTER 36 BEFORE

  CHAPTER 37 TODAY – 3.30 P.M.

  TODAY – NOW

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  TODAY – 4.00 P.M.

  Why a robin? I don’t understand . . .

  I am in the train toilet – feet wide apart – leaning over the tiny, stainless-steel sink, trying very hard to . . . just . . . breathe . . . goddammit . . . and trying also to work out what the hell a robin has to do with any of this.

  More than two hundred miles away, my child is in a hospital bed being cared for by strangers. He may or may not have had his spleen removed.

  There is appalling confusion which a series of phone calls has done little to resolve, because he is with a friend and astonishingly the medical team cannot tell them apart. Obscene and surreal, this identity thing, but only now does it hit me that in brushstroke terms they are quite similar: brown hair, brown eyes and, thanks to a recent growth spurt in my son’s friend, pretty much the same height, too.

  A nurse with a soft Irish accent has been trying to coax sense from me through the fog which seems to hang all around my body, making it difficult to think straight. In one phone call she is wondering if my son has any distinguishing marks.

  Moles? Freckles? A birthmark?

  I have been told already that the boys’ clothes were removed by paramedics, but for some reason I find it comforting to run through the list with the nurse anyway: a green T-shirt with a dinosaur logo (a favourite which I ironed specially last night) and black jeans folded up at the hem because they are too long. I keep meaning to stitch them up for him but I am not really that kind of mother and . . .

  She interrupts me gently to ask about his hair.

  Curly? Straight?

  I tell her that he has an unusual crown – a bit like a question mark. I used to trace it with my finger when he was asleep in my arms as a baby.

  There is a pause on the line during which I find that I am inadvertently tracing a question mark on the edge of the sink, and then she is saying, sorry, but she’s checked the hair and she can’t really see what I mean, and I am no longer listening, thinking instead about the day my son decided to cut his own fringe. He was about three – a year ago – and he came into my room with wide, frightened eyes beneath the crooked mess, scissors still in his hand.

  And in this horrid, tiny place, I can for a moment see his perfect face staring right back at me through the smudges of the stainless-steel surround. Can you fix it, Mummy?

  The train is rocking – ta-tum, ta-tum – negotiating a corner then picking up speed, so that I have to set my legs even further apart to steady myself. Someone starts to knock gently on the door of the toilet cubicle, asking if I am all right, but it is such a ridiculous question that I am aware of an alien noise emerging from my mouth as I close my eyes to the blur of pictures pushing their way through this fog – the times and places when I should have seen this coming.

  Stopped it.

  It has taken us just six months to get here and I cannot believe I have allowed it . . .

  And then the nurse’s voice is back on the line – ta-tum, ta-tum – and more animated. One of the boys has something drawn on his arm in felt-tip pen. A doodle which looks like some kind of bird – a robin po
ssibly, as the chest has been coloured in bright red.

  And she wants to know if this means anything to me.

  A robin redbreast?

  CHAPTER 1

  BEFORE

  We met on a Thursday. Two boys. Two mothers. Much later, and especially on that train, I will torture myself for the curiosity and excitement I felt; the enthusiasm with which I so easily opened my door to it all.

  But at the time there was no clue to the future – the consequences. At the time I did not know that someone was going to die, and so I was lost in the humdrum of a day so very ordinary that at the critical point of our meeting I was distracted by the parsnips.

  I had been to the farm shop for eggs, taking just my handbag, but the parsnips surprised me – so fat and firm. I bought too many for the free but flimsy paper bag, and so came upon the kerfuffle on the village square with Ben balanced on one hip and parsnips spilling in all directions.

  At first I didn’t notice the lorry, just the small crowd gathered by the pub, several familiar faces shaking their heads in practised dismay. It was only as I stepped forward, more parsnips escaping the split bag on to the ground – damn – that I realised what had happened.

  It was not the first time; in our four years in Tedbury Cross, I had seen two identical accidents – lorries misjudging the twist of the hill by the pub and ending up wedged between the wall of the public bar and the side of poor Heather’s cottage.

  ‘Poor Heather’ was a local artist of the struggling variety with the highest insurance premium in the village. When, just a couple of years earlier, a significant part of her kitchen wall had to be rebuilt, she determined to throw in the towel. But word of the lorry threat had spread. Two buyers pulled out in swift succession, and with homeowners more afraid of ‘blight’ than nuclear war, the parish council launched a loud but wholly futile campaign for a bypass.

  ‘Oh, no’ and ‘not again’ were the mutterings through the crowd as I tested my stomach muscles, trying to reclaim parsnips without dropping Ben. It was only as I stood back up that I noticed her. My mirror image. This striking newcomer – a woman of similar age in precisely my pose; a small boy balanced on her own hip.

  She was dressed head to toe in black, with silver ballet pumps and accessories – a city chic which stood out immediately as she pushed large square sunglasses back from striking blue eyes. I noticed Nathan, a local architect and family friend, staring while sucking in his stomach, and had to bite my lip against a smile.

  ‘Your removal van?’ I stepped forward as our boys eyed each other from our hips with a shy curiosity.

  ‘I’m afraid so. Not a very good start, is it?’ Her son buried his head in her neck. Ben did exactly the same to me, each boy pretending not to steal glances. Very funny.

  From across the square, several voices were by now shouting conflicting directions at the driver of the removal van, temporarily imprisoned in his cab by stone walls on either side.

  Left hand down hard . . .

  No. No. He needs to straighten first. Edge forward. Then reverse.

  ‘We’re supposed to be moving into Priory House.’ She pulled a face. ‘At least that was the plan. I’m Emma, by the way. Emma Carter.’ She began to stretch out her hand but her son wriggled a protest, so she shrugged an apology, looping her hands together to hitch him up to a more comfortable position.

  I smiled. ‘Look – I’m just opposite. Why don’t you come in for a cup of tea? I’m Sophie, and this is Ben.’

  ‘Oh, that’s very kind but I couldn’t. Really. I need to help sort this mess out.’

  ‘Trust me. This is going to take quite a while. And there are more than enough cooks already. Chances are there will be a TV crew along shortly. I’m afraid it’s not the first time this has happened. There’s a bit of a campaign going to get something done.’ Her face changed and I felt a punch of guilt. ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve alarmed you, Emma. Seriously, you both look as if you could do with a drink. Why not lie low at mine? The boys can play. It’s no trouble.’

  ‘But I feel so responsible.’

  ‘Nonsense. It’s hardly your fault. Come on.’ I moved to the left to explain the plan to Nathan, trailing more parsnips in my wake, which made Emma laugh out loud. A few more heads turned, several people stepping forward to rescue the vegetables, so that we were both smiling at the absurdity as I led the way to our cottage.

  As I opened the door, it hit me instantly – that strange frisson of excitement in the company of a stranger. I noticed her looking straight down and remembered exactly how I’d felt the first time I saw it. The floor. Sometimes after a holiday it could still surprise me. The flagstones. Not the angular precision of the diamond-cut slate in the smart kitchen shops we would visit sometimes in that former life in town, but this softer, paler evidence of a life which has borne witness. Endured. The stones all rounded and smooth – the contours worn away by hundreds of feet over hundreds of years so that on our first viewing I wanted to crouch down and stroke it. Desperate to run my fingers over the cool, smooth stone. I was too embarrassed back then – the estate agent grinning from ear to ear while Mark mouthed behind my back that I was not to show so much enthusiasm. Bad for bartering, Sophie.

  ‘Lovely place.’ Emma put her son down, straightening his clothes before stopping me in my tracks by kneeling to run first the flat of her palm and then her fingers across the floor, tracing the shape of fossils in the corner of one of the larger stones before sitting back on her heels.

  ‘I am so jealous. This is simply gorgeous.’ Again she traced her fingers across the same stone, a favourite of mine, and I noticed that her hands did not match the rest of her at all. Short, untidy nails and dry, rough patches of skin. ‘Such a shame so many of these floors were dug up. Priory House has carpets, unfortunately. I was hoping there might be something interesting underneath but I’ve checked. Concrete.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ I was a tad disorientated, a flutter of something I could not yet understand, and so I turned away, leading the boys through to the kitchen to pour them some apple juice before kneeling down to greet Emma’s son at eye level.

  ‘So, what’s your name, young man?’

  ‘Theo. It’s short for The-o-dore.’

  ‘Is it now? Well, that’s a very nice name. I’ve never met a The-o-dore be-fore.’ I emphasised the rhyme but there was no response, not the smallest of smiles, and so I turned to my own son. ‘OK, Ben. How about you show Theo the toys in the playroom and share nicely, yes? And remember, I’ve put new batteries in the trains.’

  And then I stood back up, only to feel it even more strongly. That forgotten but not unpleasant combination of nerves and anticipation. A stranger. A change. A breath of fresh air.

  ‘So you know Priory House, then? Oh, but what am I saying . . . You probably know all the houses in your village, Sophie.’

  ‘Sorry, I wouldn’t sit there. Cats’ hairs. Coffee or tea, by the way?’

  ‘Oh, tea please. Then I can read your leaves as a thank you. Oh, God. Look.’ She was kneeling at the window seat. ‘Someone else is squeezing into the removal van’s cab now, through the window. Do you think that’s a good idea?’

  ‘If it’s one of the farm hands, it’s a very good idea. They can turn trailers on a sixpence. Sorry – didn’t quite follow what you were saying. About the tea, I mean?’

  Emma turned back from the window. ‘My party piece. Reading tea leaves. Picked it up from my gran. I do palms too. You’re not anti?’ And then, seeing my frown, ‘I’m sorry, Sophie. I’ve embarrassed you.’

  ‘Not at all.’ A lie. ‘OK. Yes, actually, you have. To be perfectly honest, I think I’ve only got tea bags.’

  She was laughing at me as I began rummaging in a wall cupboard.

  ‘It’s OK, really. Don’t go to any trouble. Builder’s tea is fine – the stronger the better – though I wasn’t kidding about the reading thing. We can do that another time.’ Next, turning again towards the window, ‘Sorry – did you say something abou
t a TV crew turning up?’

  ‘Quite possibly. Bit of a running saga – lorries and that road. Depends how long he’s stuck and how busy the newsroom is. Though if they let one of the farm boys take over, it may not come to that.’ I gave up the fake rummage, well aware we had no loose tea, and so dropped three tea bags into a blue china pot, leaning out of the way of the steam as I poured from the kettle.

  ‘This is very good of you, by the way. Rescuing me and Theo. Wouldn’t happen in Streatham.’

  ‘So you’ve come from London?’

  ‘Not directly. Via France, actually. I had a few months there with my mother.’

  ‘Oh, right. I see.’

  ‘I doubt it. A bit complicated, actually. There isn’t a Mr Carter in case you were wondering. Never was. I do hope that won’t ruffle feathers? For Theo, I mean, in a little place like this?’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ I could feel the flush as I carried the teapot and two of our best mugs to the table. ‘So – a few months in France? That sounds lovely.’

  And then Emma surprised me again – an unmistakable wince, with those striking eyes flickering as she fiddled with her long, dark hair. An odd and unexpected fracture in the show of confidence.

  She was buying time, and I felt sorry for her sudden discomfort as she pointedly looked away towards the playroom where both boys were lying on the floor, fitting lines of trucks behind engines on parallel rail tracks. We both watched. I waited.

  ‘They seem to be getting on well. Theo was nervous about the move – me too, actually,’ and then Emma’s tone was at last steady again, ‘though I rather think I’m going to like it here,’ her smile returning, not just to her mouth but to her eyes, which I only now noticed had tiny flecks of different colours in them – green and brown streaked through the blue. A detail so unusual it made me suddenly self-conscious again – aware of this really strange and unexpected mix of feelings. Curiosity, and something rather odd.

  Something which, in that moment, I could not quite put my finger on.

  TODAY – 4.30 P.M.

  So what exactly is a spleen for?

  I stare out of the train window, struggling through the filing cabinet of my brain for a biology lesson or a snippet from some documentary which might help, but find nothing, remembering instead the woman a few seats away with the annoying child . . . and the iPhone.