Author: Alison James
Category: Thriller
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/alison-james/page,15,480702-the_friendship_pact.html
‘I don’t know,’ Lucy replies carefully, looking across the expanse of grass to where the ponies are ambling back and forth. ‘I miss the Marcus from the early days of our marriage. But maybe not the recent Marcus.’
‘And are you still planning on moving away from London?’
Lucy shrugs. ‘That job I was interested in – the one in Bristol – will be long gone. But maybe if I find something else as appealing, I would consider it. If I end up staying in London, I think I’ll certainly sell the house and move somewhere smaller.’
Robin comes back with the children. Barney – every available bit of skin covered in sticky pink sugar – needs the loo and Oscar wants to go and investigate a stall selling computer games.
‘Daddy will go with you,’ Jane tells her oldest son, ‘And I’d better take Barney. Lucy, would you mind keeping an eye on Molly for a few minutes. Meet you back here in ten?’
Molly slips her hand through Lucy’s, and at her request, they walk over to pet the ponies.
‘Didn’t have you down as the ’orsey type.’
The low voice comes from somewhere behind her, but Lucy recognises it straight away. Denny Renard.
He’s wearing indigo-wash jeans, aviator shades and a short-sleeved cotton shirt, the sleeves so tight round his straining biceps that they almost cut off the circulation. ‘You look very pretty, Blondie, I must say. Widowhood’s obviously suiting you.’
Molly clutches her hand more tightly, gazing up in confusion at this threatening stranger.
Lucy drops to her haunches and plucks a handful of long grass. ‘Why don’t you take this and give it to that brown pony over there?’ She points to a rotund caramel-coloured one with a blonde mane. ‘Make sure you hold your hand flat, like I showed you.’ Molly nods solemnly and runs over to the pony.
‘What are you doing here,’ Lucy hisses at Denny once the little girl is out of earshot. ‘How did you even know I was here?’
He taps the side of his nose. ‘Ways and means. I like to keep tabs on my friends.’
He must have followed her here from Barnes, or how else could he possibly know? Had he been on the same bus?
‘We’re not friends,’ she says crisply, still watching Molly out of the corner of her eye.
‘Aw, come now, that’s not very nice,’ Denny wheedles.
‘I’m sorry, I’m here with friends, I can’t talk to you.’ She turns her back, indicating that the conversation is over.
‘You still got that mobile I gave you?’ The tone of his voice changes. It’s hard-edged, and not the slightest bit friendly.
‘I don’t know,’ Lucy says truthfully. She used it to call the police on the night that Marcus died but can’t even remember what happened to it from that point. What followed is a blur of sirens, cups of tea from well-meaning neighbours and witness statements.
‘Well,’ Denny says in the same menacing tone, ‘I suggest you find it. And you’d better hope you do.’
Before Lucy can react, he’s turned on his heel and disappeared into the crowd.
She eventually finds the mobile when she gets home, after searching for twenty minutes. It has slipped down behind the settle in the hall, where she must have flung or dropped it on the night of the accident. The battery is flat, but one of the children once had the same brand of phone and there’s a spare charger in the kitchen drawer.
Once it comes to life, it bleeps with a text. There’s no written message, just an audio file. Lucy clicks on the link to play it out loud.
Her own voice comes into the room, startling her. There’s no doubt that it’s a recording of her, but there’s also no doubt that the things she said have been rearranged to completely alter their context and, by implication, their meaning.
‘I wish he was dead… he has Temazepam. I’ve taken some of the tablets out of the bottle… of course… we’re going to kill him.’
Twenty-Three
A few days go by without Lucy hearing any more from Denny, but she already knows better than to breathe easy. He won’t leave matters there.
Sure enough, three days later, another message arrives on the cheap and nasty mobile handset. She has come to loathe the thing, as though it’s a plastic and lithium avatar of Denny himself.
what did u think of my bit of damming evidence then
She has replayed the audio message several times. Of course, she knows that the phrases on it are out of sequence, but they have been seamlessly spliced together and, to a less attuned ear, it does indeed sound as though that’s what she said when she and Denny were talking on the evening Marcus died. It must have been digitally altered by an expert; presumably one of Denny’s convict pals.
She doesn’t reply, but as though he’s somehow watching her, another text arrives.
interesting wasn’t it. what a jury will call proof of intention. we need to meet
Furious, she snatches up the phone and types back.
There’s no way I’m going to meet with you. Forget it.
Ten seconds later there’s another bleep.
oh yes you are if you know what’s good for you. dog and fox tomorrow 6pm
Lucy switches the phone off and shoves it to the back of a kitchen drawer, hidden behind spare light bulbs and balls of string, as though that will neutralise its threat. Then she snatches her denim jacket, shoves her feet into flip-flops and heads off for a walk to clear her head.
She ends up walking past the huge detached houses on Castlenau and over Hammersmith Bridge. When she reaches the main shopping thoroughfare, her eye is caught by a stylish new delicatessen selling mainly Japanese and Korean foodstuffs. She picks up a basket and browses the aisles, picking out some kimchi and some rice vinegar, for the simple reason that she’s attracted by their colourful labels. Then she spots a familiar figure, procrastinating over which brand of rice to choose.
‘Hello,’ she says to Noah Kenyon. ‘Didn’t expect to see you in a hipster heaven like this.’
His mouth forms an ‘o’ of surprise, which morphs rapidly into a delighted grin. ‘Not really my natural habitat,’ He holds up his basket. ‘But I work from home – just round the corner – and I’ve run out of rice. Any excuse to get away from staring at a computer screen…’
Lucy wracks her brains to recall what Noah does for a living. Something to do with design? Computer graphics?
‘Anyway, how about you? Not exactly your neck of the woods, is it?’
I was trying to escape my criminal tormentor and this is where I ended up.
‘I fancied a walk, and before I knew it I was in the fleshpots of Hammersmith.’ She smiles. ‘I’m only really window-shopping. If you can window-shop for food.’
‘How d’you feel about getting a coffee?’
Lucy readily abandons her impulse purchases, Noah pays for his rice and they walk a few metres down the road to a small Italian bakery that also has an espresso machine.
‘I’m glad I bumped into you,’ he says after they’ve made small talk for a few minutes. He fixes her with his incongruously beautiful eyes.
‘I think it was the other way round; I bumped into you.’
‘However it was, I’m really glad. I’ve been trying to pluck up the courage to ask Helen for your number. And now I don’t need to: I can go straight to the source.’ Lucy’s smile is hesitant, and he says quickly, ‘I know you said you weren’t ready for… involvement, or a date even, I get that. I’d simply like to offer to be a friend, should you need one. That’s all. I promise.’
She can’t resist Noah’s warmth and his disarming lack of game. He proffers his phone and she types in her number, noting the return of his delighted smile as she hands it back to him. She wishes she could tell him about the loathsome Denny and his campaign of harassment, but she can’t.
‘I’d better get going,’ she says, sliding down off her stool and kissing him swiftly on his cheek. ‘See you around.’
The Dog and Fox is quiet at six o’clock on a Wednesday evening, with no workers splurgi
ng their Friday pay packets, or Saturday clubbers preloading before moving on elsewhere.
A few of the regulars were in the pub the night Lucy went there to find Adele, what feels like half a lifetime ago, and they nudge one another and give her curious stares. She half hopes Adele herself will appear and provide some much-needed moral support. At least she’s not obliged to make a duty visit to her father, who is visiting his widowed sister – Lucy’s Aunt Dorothy – in Torquay. The stroke, so closely followed by the shock of Marcus’s death, has left him frail and anxious, and she’s glad that he’s enjoying a few days of home cooking and sea air.
At six fifteen, Denny lopes in wearing the sort of shiny nylon tracksuit that professional athletes wore in the 1970s and another pair of box-fresh trainers, neon yellow this time.
‘Get you a drink, darling?’
Lucy shakes her head, her teeth gritted. ‘Let’s just get this over with.’
‘Suit yourself.’ He shrugs and heads to the bar, coming back with a double whisky. ‘Now, let’s just have a nice little chat… You enjoy that tape I made of you discussing killing your old man, did you?’ He leans back in his chair and leers, making his neck tattoos bulge.
‘That’s not what I really said to you, and you know it.’ Lucy keeps her arms pressed tightly by her sides, her hands in her lap. She avoids looking at Denny.
‘I know that, and you know that: sure. But anyone else listening to it, they’re going to hear your voice. And those words.’ He smiles, pleased with this summary, and takes a mouthful of Scotch, swilling it round like mouthwash. ‘Soliciting to commit murder, I think they call it.’
‘Come off it, Denny,’ Lucy says, with more conviction than she feels. ‘What are you planning to do with it? Go to the police? And risk implicating yourself? And, anyway, expert analysis would be able to prove that audio has been messed around with.’
‘Ah, but are you willing to risk that though?’ Denny asks cheerfully, exposing his long incisors. ‘Some jurors might have reasonable doubt about that. Especially if there’s other evidence.’
‘What other evidence?’ Lucy snaps. Her raised voice attracts the attention of the other drinkers, who turn their heads in her direction. ‘You know perfectly well there isn’t any.’
Denny merely taps the side of his nose.
To give herself a few seconds to calm down, rather than because she’s thirsty, Lucy fishes her wallet from her bag, which hangs over the back of her chair, and walks over to the bar to buy a glass of mineral water.
Don’t let him see he’s rattled you, she tells herself, as she returns to the table. Stay in control.
‘Look,’ Lucy sits down again and glances around her before leaning in a little closer. ‘I’m assuming this is about money. You want me to pay you to keep this fiction to yourself.’
‘Give the girl a gold star.’ Denny licks his fingertip and holds it up in the air.
‘If I give you some… some cash… call it a bonus for the services you provided… will that be the end of it?’
‘Well now, that all depends.’
Lucy clenches her fists in her lap. ‘I can give you five thousand.’
Denny gives a short bark of laughter. ‘Five K? You’re kidding me, right?’
‘All right then. Ten.’
He leans in closer. ‘Come on now, Blondie, you’re sitting on a pile, we both know that. That house. The dead doctor’s cash. It must all add up to millions. You can do a lot better than a few poxy grand.’
Lucy stands up abruptly, her knee knocking the table and spilling Denny’s drink. It drips onto his massive, shiny thigh. ‘I’m not going to be blackmailed by you,’ she says in a low voice, her fists clenched at her sides. ‘You get that? You can fuck off.’
But as she strides out of the pub, she knows only too well that her counterpunch will make no difference. She knows that Denny will be back.
The next morning Lucy receives an email inviting her to an interview. The Pink Square Agency is a small digital company serving charities, and the job itself is administrative and poorly paid, but nevertheless she is delighted to have been shortlisted without any directly relevant experience other than her recently completed degree. She emails back her intention to attend, and goes downstairs to the kitchen to make coffee.
Despite herself, Lucy’s eye is drawn to the drawer where she has hidden Denny’s phone. She turns her back to fill the water chamber on the coffee machine, but still the wretched phone draws her back. She can’t ignore it. She pulls it from the drawer and switches it on, holding it at arm’s length like a grenade. There is a text waiting for her. Of course.
It takes her a while to work out what she’s looking at. It’s an image, slightly blurred, but when she walks over to the French windows and holds it nearer the light, she eventually discerns that it’s a screen grab of a text message.
I need you to find someone who will help me kill my husband
Frowning, she reads it again, then a third time. This is not a text she has written; she’s quite sure of it.
Then a second message arrives; another photo. This one has zoomed out slightly, and it shows the text on the screen of a phone identical to the one she bought in Redgate when she was about to embark on her life as Joanne Chandler. The ‘secret phone’.
Ignore it, the rational part of her brain insists, but in a surge of fury she’s already typing.
This is ridiculous. I didn’t type this, and that’s not my phone.
Five minutes later, the handset vibrates with a reply:
oh yes it is, you left yr phone in flat in brighton
And then she remembers: Marcus snatching the phone from her and hurling it across the kitchen and she – in her panic about her father’s imminent demise – only too willing to leave it behind. And what was it Denny said when he picked the lock on the front door: ‘the caretaker said your stuff was gone from the flat’? He must have gone to Brighton himself, looking for Lucy, and found her phone in the empty flat.
She forces herself to take deep breaths to slow her racing pulse, and as she calms down, her thoughts clear. This is ludicrous. There’s no way Denny will be able to prove she sent that text: he can’t even prove that the pay-as-you-go phone in question belonged to her. And if she’s supposed to have sent it to him, how can he avoid calling his own involvement into question? He’s got a criminal record; it would not be a stretch to conclude that murdering Marcus was his idea.
She’s about to switch the phone off without replying when another message arrives. Another photo.
This one is taken from black and white CCTV footage. The quality is questionable, but it’s clear enough to show the back view of her blonde hair as she hands over cash to the spotty youth serving in the phone store in Redgate. A second text arrives almost immediately.
they have record of handset serial number in the shop and here u r buying it
The phone buzzes again.
& if ur wondering how I got picture, shop manager is friend of friend
A chill runs through Lucy’s blood. Denny’s resourcefulness is unexpected, and unnerving. She bought the phone for cash some time before she first met with Denny. How long had he been planning his blackmail attempt? Against her better judgement, she replies this time.
If that text is supposed to be to you, then you can’t implicate me without implicating yourself. Think again.
She tries to power down the phone before he can respond, but he’s far too quick for her.
who said anything about it being sent 2 me? it’s you who needs 2 think again
Twenty-Four
The Pink Square Agency is on the fourth floor of a building just off the Old Street roundabout.
‘Hi, I’m Ellen,’ says the girl who meets Lucy in reception. She has a cloud of ginger hair around a broad, smiling face.
‘Nice to meet you,’ Lucy says. She has worn a linen suit and is now regretting it because all the agency employees seem to be in a uniform of dungarees, slogan T-shirts and Converse
sneakers. She feels like a headmistress making a surprise visit to a sixth-form common room.
The interview is conducted by Ellen and two others, Megan and Ari, and the tone is relaxed and informal; so much so that after ten minutes Lucy is chatting away, forgetting that she’s at an interview at all. The agency’s roster of clients is interesting, and she asks as many questions about them as she is asked about herself.
‘Sorry,’ she says eventually, flushing slightly. ‘Rabbiting on a bit.’
‘It’s fine,’ says Megan, who’s one of the directors. She wears her dark hair in a severe pixie cut and teams the obligatory Converse with a Breton top and chunky necklace. ‘It’s great that you’re so passionate about working with charities. The thing is, although the role involves a bit of client liaison, there’d also be quite a bit of basic admin work. Spreadsheets and so on. Would you be okay with that?’
‘Fine,’ says Lucy, meaning it. She would just be happy to have a job and be able to leave the house every day like a normal adult.
‘The other thing is…’ says Ari, a slight, handsome man with greying temples. ‘… we’ve pitched the salary at the level of a recent graduate, but you’re obviously a little older, and you have a master’s degree.’ His gaze fixes on Lucy’s tailored suit and Russell and Bromley loafers. ‘I’m not sure if that would be in line with your expectations. Only, since we work with charities, we have to keep our payroll spend to a minimum.’
‘It’s not a problem,’ Lucy says quickly. She glances along the line of faces on the other side of the desk. ‘Cards on the table – I may as well be completely honest – I don’t need the money. My husband died recently, and he’s left me extremely well-provided for. But he also left me with an empty house and a surfeit of my own company. That’s one reason I’d really like this role.’