Author: Alison James
Category: Thriller
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/alison-james/page,14,480702-the_friendship_pact.html
‘For God’s sake, stop!’
Ignoring her, appearing not even to see her, he throws the car into reverse and shoots out of the driveway, clipping the wheel arch against the stone gatepost. He needs to be stopped, Lucy thinks. She should phone the hospital. But the landline phones are still unplugged and put God knows where, and she no longer has a mobile; only the pre-programmed one that Denny gave her.
Fumbling in her bag, she grabs it and runs out onto the street after Marcus’s car. It’s going too fast, weaving precariously back and forth across the central white line. Waving her left arm to try and catch the attention of one of the few passing motorists, she switches on the phone with her other hand and presses the ‘Emergency’ button.
‘999: what’s your emergency?’
The car revs with a horrible loud, grinding sound and picks up speed. Lucy sprints down the road after it, phone still in hand.
‘Hello? What’s your emergency, please?’
It’s as though the accelerator has got stuck somehow, because the car’s trajectory is unstoppable, heading across the opposite lane and into the path of an oncoming car.
‘Police, fire or ambulance?’
The other vehicle, a small white hatchback, swerves just in time, but Marcus’s car continues its deadly path, right across the road and up onto the pavement. Lucy holds her hands up to her mouth, the operator still faintly audible on her handset, as the Range Rover hits a tree trunk at seventy miles an hour. The bonnet crumples and Marcus’s car turns into a single, roaring ball of flame.
PART TWO
Twenty-One
The outside of the place is familiar: she has seen it so many times before.
But despite Lucy’s numerous visits to the home of her husband’s first wife – to drop off or collect her two stepchildren – she has never been inside it until now.
Amber holds open the door of the pretty terraced house off Westbourne Grove and allows Lucy to cross the threshold, but there are no words of welcome. At Marcus’s funeral, which she attended with the children, Amber’s face was impassive under her hat’s black veiling. She gave Lucy a stiff embrace and an air kiss, but Lucy knew that it was purely for show, because the two women were being scrutinised by two hundred mourners.
‘Have you got the stuff with you?’ Amber demands. She’s a handsome woman in her mid-forties, always immaculately made up and with glossy sable curls that look as if they’ve had the benefit of hot rollers. Today she’s wearing a grey cashmere roll-neck sweater and well-cut black trousers.
‘It’s in the back of the car,’ Lucy says, gesturing outside to the cardboard boxes of the children’s possessions that Amber has demanded she return. ‘But listen… are you sure you need them? I wouldn’t want Tom and Lydia to feel the door was closed to them. As far as I’m concerned, they still have their rooms in the house.’
‘No,’ says Amber coldly. ‘That wouldn’t be appropriate.’
‘Appropriate?’
‘Under the circumstances, I don’t want the children returning to… where it happened. It’s too much for them.’
Lucy sighs. ‘Okay, if you’re sure that’s what they want.’ She turns back to the front door, then pauses a beat. ‘The coroner’s inquest is next Tuesday: I don’t know if you’ve been told?’
‘Surely you’re not going to attend?’ Amber folds her arms across her chest, her expression stony, and Lucy realises with a chilling rush of shock that Amber blames her for Marcus’s death. Of course, she hasn’t said as much, but she doesn’t need to. It’s spelled out in her body language.
‘Of course I’m going to attend.’ Lucy struggles to keep her voice level. ‘Why on earth would I not?’
Amber narrows her eyes. ‘According to Beryl, Marcus crashed the car because of extreme stress. Stress caused by you walking out on him.’
According to Beryl. No surprise there. Any chance for the old bag to stick the knife in.
Lucy knows she shouldn’t argue, that she should let the facts do the talking at the inquest, but she can’t help herself.
‘Marcus crashed the car because he had combined a whole bottle of wine with 60mg of temazepam. I was the one who tried to stop him driving.’
Amber shrugs. ‘Sitting pretty now though, aren’t you?’
Lucy turns back, her hand still on the front-door catch. ‘Meaning?’
‘Well, the house is paid off, there’s a huge life insurance premium and a considerable death-in-service payout. Four times his salary, if I remember rightly. That alone must be getting on for a million. I see you’ve already treated yourself to a brand new car.’
Lucy decides against explaining that Marcus got rid of her old car as a way of trying to keep her prisoner in her own home. Instead, she runs down the steps and hefts the cardboard boxes from the boot of her car, dumping them on the driveway. Then, without another word, she drives away.
Sitting pretty.
Amber’s words come back to her over and over again once she is back in the house in Barnes. Is that really how she is seen now? The shock, the trauma and the outright ugliness of her widowhood have felt anything other than pretty. Given her desire to end her marriage, her extreme pain at Marcus’s death has taken her by surprise. Gillian, her bereavement counsellor, has explained to her that the loss of a troubled relationship can be far more difficult to deal with than the ending of a harmonious one. It involves regret, relief, shame and guilt. Guilt most of all. Lucy knows rationally that the hours Marcus was working, the drinking, the abusing sedatives – none of these were her fault. And yet still she feels guilty.
‘Maybe I should have agreed to drive him to the hospital after all,’ she said to Gillian at their last session. ‘And kept him alive.’
‘And maybe he would have ended up killing his patient,’ Gillian pointed out. She has taught Lucy to explore her feelings during therapy but to try and distance herself from them the rest of the time, as a self-protective mechanism. So Lucy closes the doors of the children’s now-empty rooms with a sigh and goes back to her desk to continue with the process of job applications. She doesn’t need to work for financial reasons; as Amber bitchily pointed out, she’s now very comfortable financially. But she wants to. She wants to be busy, and to push herself. To achieve something in her own right.
As she is registering on a couple of graduate recruitment sites, the doorbell rings. She jumps up to answer it.
‘Hello?’ The figure on the doorstep has their back turned, taking in their surroundings, and at first Lucy doesn’t recognise her.
‘All right?’
It’s Adele. She’s changed her hair colour again, to pastel violet, and there’s a new piercing on her nostril.
‘Gonna let me in?’
‘Of course.’ Lucy opens the door wide. ‘Come in.’
Adele walks through to the kitchen without being asked.
‘Coffee?’
She pulls a face. ‘Nah, didn’t like that strong stuff you made last time. Tea’ll do.’
Lucy sets the kettle to boil and turns to smile at her friend. ‘It’s good to see you… To what do I owe the pleasure?’
‘I heard about your husband,’ Adele says simply. ‘Read about it in the papers. I didn’t get any reply when I tried to text you, so I thought I’d better come around in person and check on you.’
‘Sorry, I don’t have that phone any more,’ Lucy says, swirling a teabag round the mug, adding milk and handing it to Adele, ‘I would have replied otherwise.’
‘So,’ Adele takes a noisy slurp. ‘To be honest I’m not quite sure what I’m meant to be doing.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘I mean, am I meant to be giving condolences or congratulations?’
Lucy flushes slightly, busying herself with searching for biscuits. Adele does have a point. She was approached with a request for help, help in escaping a marriage that was intolerable. And now Lucy has well and truly escaped: through her husband’s untimely death.
‘Obvious
ly, you know better than most that things were not great between Marcus and I.’
‘But you’d gone back to him.’ The sharpness of Adele’s tone takes her aback.
‘No, not exactly…’ Lucy continues to rummage in the cupboard, reluctant to turn round and face the full force of Adele’s cross-examination. ‘Things were… The night he died we were in the process of trying to work something out. Something that would involve us separating though.’ She pulls out a tin of oatmeal biscuits and slides them across the table to Adele. ‘I wasn’t going to stay with him.’
‘Dead convenient, in that case.’ Adele’s slanted eyes glitter with something bordering on malice. She waits for Lucy to respond, and when she stays silent continues: ‘That he’s out the way and you end up with all this.’ She waves her hand around the large, beautifully appointed kitchen.
‘It might look that way, but, trust me, this wasn’t what I wanted.’ Lucy’s voice cracks. ‘The last two weeks have been an utter nightmare.’
Adele turns down her lower lip to show that she doubts this. ‘You gonna keep this place?’ she asks. ‘Or will you sell it? Bit big just for one person, isn’t it?’
Lucy thinks of the two rooms on the top floor, now stripped of their books, games and clothes. ‘Yes, it’s definitely too big. So I’ll probably put it on the market. Not yet, but maybe in the summer.’
‘How much is it worth then, a gaff like this?’ Adele asks, as gauche and tactless as she was when they were children.
‘About three million.’
Adele’s eyes widen. ‘Bleedin’ ’ell, Luce. You’re a millionaire. You get the old man’s life insurance payout too?’
‘The payment has been delayed until after the inquest, but yes, I will.’
‘And how much is that?’
Lucy feels suddenly queasy at this questioning. Especially from Adele, who was once convicted of taking a few extra thousand pounds in benefits to try and keep her family afloat.
‘I don’t know,’ she lies. ‘I’ll need to speak to my solicitor about it in due course.’ She clears away Adele’s empty mug to indicate that their chat is over.
‘Nice though, eh?’ Adele looks straight into Lucy’s eyes with an unreadable expression; one that hints at secrecy. ‘Nice problems to have.’
‘How are you?’
Helen adopts that special tone people use when speaking to the recently bereaved, one Lucy knows only too well.
‘Fine,’ she answers, then regrets the glib choice of word. ‘You know: getting there.’
‘Hope you don’t mind me phoning your landline, only I couldn’t get through on your mobile.’
‘Yes, sorry about that.’
In fact, Lucy is not sorry. Having a brand new mobile phone with no numbers yet stored on it has been a convenient way of keeping well-meaning enquiries away. Though some people – like Jane Standish – have called round in person bearing casseroles.
‘Anyway, the reason I’m phoning is to ask you over for supper with me and Pete. Nothing fancy; just the luxury of a meal you haven’t had to cook.’
‘That’s sweet of you, Helen, but I’m not sure. I’m not very good company.’
‘Nonsense,’ Helen’s voice is warm but brisk. ‘It’ll do you good to get out of that house. Tomorrow evening, and I’m not taking no for an answer.’
Lucy assumes it will just be the three of them for supper: herself, Helen and Pete. But when she arrives at Helen’s flat in Crouch End, there’s a fourth person, introduced as Pete’s friend Noah Kenyon. He’s a bear of a man, with shaggy hair and a slightly scruffy beard, but his hazel eyes have a roguish twinkle and there’s a warmth about him that Lucy can’t help but respond to. To her relief, he deals matter-of-factly with her newly widowed status, telling her that he’s sorry but without gushing, probing or – most importantly – doing the sympathetic head tilt when he asks her about it. He’s quick to move onto other topics of conversation and soon they’re talking about the perils of cycling in London, the joys of getting to the end of a master’s degree course and the mysteries of Article 50. Helen has made a hearty chicken and lentil casserole, Noah has brought several bottles of wine and Pete supplies a 90s soundtrack from his collection of vinyl. To Lucy’s surprise, the evening turns into a robustly cheerful affair: so much so that she is sorry when it comes to an end.
Minutes after the taxi has dropped her at home in Barnes, the doorbell rings. Lucy determines to ignore it, but it rings a second time. Surely not Adele again, she thinks, her good spirits evaporating. Here for another round of contrary needling.
But the figure outlined in the fanlight is far too tall. Tentatively, she slots the chain into place and opens the door.
‘Hi again.’
It’s Noah Kenyon, in bike leathers and holding a crash helmet under one arm. He extends the other arm sheepishly, and she sees he’s holding the leopard print scarf she had been wearing earlier that evening.
‘Sorry to disturb, but you left this at Helen’s flat, and since I only live just across the bridge, I offered to drop it off for you.’
Lucy releases the chain and opens the door wide, revealing a huge blue Kawasaki parked across the driveway.
‘That’s very kind of you: thanks.’ She hesitates a second, then remembers her manners. ‘Want to come in for a nightcap?’ Nightcap sounds wrong. It has a suggestive ring, like an invitation to look at her etchings. ‘I was just about to have a herbal tea,’ she goes on quickly. ‘Before bed.’ This sounds even worse, and she blushes like a schoolgirl.
Unfazed, Noah grins. ‘I could use a camomile. Or a peppermint,’ he adds quickly. ‘Whatever you’ve got.’
They settle on spearmint and lime leaf. Noah sprawls on the kitchen sofa, apparently completely relaxed. He gives a brief, appreciative glance at his surroundings but doesn’t fawn about the decor or query the economic wisdom of one person living in such a house alone. His lack of self-consciousness is infectious, and for only the second time in months, Lucy is able to relax. It feels wonderful.
‘Thanks for this evening,’ she says as she hands him the tea, feeling she should acknowledge this. ‘It was good just to forget everything for a while. I’m grateful.’
Noah gives her his easy grin. His hazel eyes are fringed with surprisingly long and lustrous black lashes. Noticing this, Lucy feels both a jolt of dismay and the pull of attraction. She has an unsettling impulse to reach out and touch him.
‘No problem,’ he tells her. ‘You’ve had a shitty time, but that’s in the past. Things can only get better from here.’
‘I hope you’re right.’ She gives him a careful smile.
‘I am: you’ll see.’ He pushes his unruly dark hair back from his forehead and stands up, leaving his tea half drunk. ‘I’d better be off. You’re probably very tired. I should think sleep’s been in short supply.’
Lucy nods. ‘Right again.’
‘Tell you what, how about we go for a drink some time, and you can let me know how things are going? I’d love to hear first-hand if I was right. About things getting easier from here on in, I mean.’
‘That’s a lovely idea.’ She hesitates. She likes this man. She even – to her utter surprise – feels something more than mere liking. And yet. ‘Thank you. But I’m sorry; it’s a little too soon.’ Suddenly her mind is full of Marcus again, and the imminent inquest. It’s as though she’s been punched in the solar plexus. ‘I’m just not ready.’
Twenty-Two
‘It’s really a family thing, but it’s quite fun, and I thought it might be nice for you to get out of the house. Enjoy this lovely weather.’
On a Saturday morning in late May, Jane Standish phones to invite Lucy to a spring fair on Clapham Common.
‘It would be nice to go out…’ With the phone pinned against her shoulder, Lucy unfolds the written copy of the coroner’s verdict that she has just received in the post: Marcus James McAdam Wheedon, D.O.B. 16.08.69. Death by accident (road traffic collision). ‘… As long as you’re su
re I wouldn’t be in the way?’
‘Nonsense, the more the merrier. It will be good to see you.’
Lucy decides to put on a floaty grey summer dress that always lifts her mood when she wears it and ties up her hair in a high ponytail. And it is indeed a lovely day, with high clouds scudding across a picture-perfect blue sky, the trees vibrant green and the air carrying birdsong and a faint scent of blossom. Even south London is pretty in this weather, Lucy thinks, as she strolls towards the common from the bus stop.
‘You look so well,’ Jane says, as soon as she spots Lucy at their meeting place near Long Pond. She embraces her warmly. ‘Doesn’t she, Robin?’
‘Yes,’ he says kissing her on both cheeks. ‘I’m pleased to see it.’
Jane’s tone has a faintly accusatory edge. Does she look too well? Lucy wonders. If she seems okay, will people assume that she doesn’t care about Marcus’s life being over?
‘Sleep,’ she says simply. ‘I’ve finally started sleeping again.’
Ever astute, Jane gives her a lingering look and says, ‘It must be a very confusing time for you. Lots of competing emotions, I should imagine. Including relief.’
‘Yes,’ Lucy agrees but does not elaborate.
Jane links arms with her. ‘Come on, let’s find somewhere that’s serving coffee. I don’t know about you, but I’m desperate for caffeine.’
The fair turns out to be little more than an extended farmers’ market with entertainments for children thrown in: an oversubscribed bouncy castle, a ball pit and a fire engine to clamber over. A few weary-looking Shetland ponies have been press-ganged into giving rides to the under-eights. Robin takes the children to buy candyfloss while Jane and Lucy sit at a picnic table with their coffee.
‘Mostly I feel shell-shocked,’ Lucy admits. ‘As though this is all a bit unreal. You know: like it’s happening to someone else.’
‘It’ll get easier. Bit by bit,’ Jane says, squeezing her hand. She narrows her eyes slightly. ‘Do you miss him?’