The Friend: An emotional psychological thriller with a twist

by Teresa Driscoll

  ‘No. I mean – yes. He’s fine. But why are you so worried about him?’

  She rolls her lips tightly together, glancing from side to side. Matthew’s instinct is this could go either way. He has just a few seconds to swing this.

  ‘Please, Aveline. I’ve come all the way from England. Is there something we should know? About Theo? About Emma? Is there something you need to tell us?’

  Aveline suddenly heads to the entrance to turn the shop sign to ‘Closed’ and to bolt the top and bottom of the door.

  She retraces her steps and leads him through a beaded curtain to a little seating area behind the shop. There is a small staircase and Aveline calls up the stairs to her husband.

  Matthew suspects real trouble now. On the phone previously, the husband was all conflict. But when he appears, the man is a surprise – tall and slim, in contrast to his rosy-cheeked and plump wife, he now looks more resigned than angry as Aveline explains in French what is going on. The husband puts his arm around her shoulders and kisses her on the forehead. They lock eyes for a time and he nods at her as if something has been decided.

  ‘You’re not in any kind of trouble, Aveline. We just want to understand things a little better. About how things were when Emma and Theo were visiting her mother. It’s to do with a case in England. Also we don’t understand why Emma moved to Devon. We’re hoping you can help us to understand . . .’

  CHAPTER 36

  BEFORE

  Why Devon?

  It was the very same question which hung in the air, clashing with the sweet scent of clematis that drifted in and out of the shuttered window as Madame Bell drifted in and out of consciousness those final days in France.

  ‘Why Devon?’ The weakness of Emma’s mother’s voice belied the panic in the tone – clutching at Nurse Aveline’s sleeve. ‘I heard her on the phone, fixing things. But I don’t understand. She hates the countryside. Hates it. So why is she taking Theo to Devon?’

  The nurse had tried to calm and hush her – it was always bad after the chemo but she tossed and turned through the memories; the scenes and the secrets stored away with all those papers on Emma’s past locked now in the chest in the loft.

  Claire Bell – born Sabina to a very different life on the road – had never especially believed in God, but she had once upon a time believed in some kind of natural justice. Balance. That hard work and good intentions would surely in the end be repaid.

  She had believed long ago that if she studied well, she could leave behind the taunts and the stares of the gorgios, the non-Gypsy children who sneered and laughed in the days when the world beyond the caravans and the camps was closed to her, the days when she could not read.

  ‘Is it my punishment? Is that it?’ she whispered to Aveline, who dabbed at her forehead with cool flannels, mistaking her patient’s troubles for fever as the old lady’s eyes darted around the room. ‘For turning my back on my own mother. Is Emma my punishment?’

  ‘Hush now,’ Aveline pleaded. ‘You must stop this. All this fretting, Madame Bell – it is wearing you out. Doing you no good at all. Emma and petit Theo have gone down to the market for pancakes. You need to rest now.’

  ‘I do love her.’

  ‘Yes, of course you do.’

  ‘I keep hoping, you see, that . . .’ In her dreams Claire twisted through the scenes and the scents. Antiseptic . . .

  Yes. There they are again. All the midwives in their smart blue uniforms, pink-faced and excited, jostling to see after Emma had been born. Dear Lord – will you just look at this beautiful baby girl. Have you ever seen such a perfectly shaped head? And so much hair . . .

  It was true. The other mothers on the ward who pushed and shoved and suffered all sorts of terrible interventions had babies with squashed, flat heads – all cross and stretched and strange. But Emma – a caesarean birth – had begun life as she would live it. Bewitching.

  ‘She is too beautiful.’

  And now the old lady closed her eyes and was clapping her hands slowly together. Clap. Clap. Tears rolling down her cheeks as if watching some performance from the shadows.

  ‘Shhh, now. Please. Madame Bell. How about I make some tea. Yes?’ Aveline gently parted her patient’s hands. ‘Earl Grey with lemon. Weak and hot. The way you like it in England.’

  ‘Even when she was quite little, I knew.’

  ‘Knew what?’

  Nurse Aveline’s own hands were trembling as she rinsed the flannel in the bowl alongside the bed. ‘I really don’t think you should be talking to me about this now.’

  ‘I am leaving it all to Theo. The money. I thought it would be safer. Changed my will. But she is taking him to Devon and now I am wondering – have I done the wrong thing?’ She was again clutching the nurse’s arm very, very tightly. ‘What do you think, Aveline? Have I done the wrong thing?’

  ‘Shhhhh.’

  Claire closed her eyes. The scent of baking suddenly . . .

  Flour still on the worktops. A Tuesday. Yes. Emma’s eleventh birthday.

  The day has started well. There is relief; Emma likes her present – a new pair of jodhpurs and riding boots for the lessons which are her latest fad. It will not last long, Claire knows that. Her daughter’s fads never last long, and soon they are bickering.

  ‘You will feed Hot Chocolate before school, Emma. Yes?’

  ‘It’s my birthday.’

  ‘Guinea pigs still get hungry on birthdays. And it’s his birthday too . . .’

  It is true. The impractical gift Emma had pestered and pestered for just last year – a long-haired chocolate brown bundle of trouble who seems to Claire to do nothing very much bar tremble with abject fear.

  ‘I won’t do it. You can’t make me. I am going to school.’

  ‘You will do it right this minute, young lady, or there will be no tea party with your friends. Go on. Right now, while I check on the cake.’

  From the kitchen window, Claire watches her daughter, pouting and still furious, trudging in her furry slippers across the wet grass to the cage by the shed.

  She feels a little mean for pressing her daughter on her birthday, but remembers the meeting in school, the look in the teachers’ eyes. Emma needs to learn cooperation, Mrs Bell.

  Emma opens the cage door and glances over her shoulder as if checking for an audience. Then she is taking out a bright pink handkerchief from her pocket, all the while still checking furtively around her.

  Claire instinctively steps back to conceal herself behind the curtain and watches as Emma leans deeper into the cage with the handkerchief and then seems to be . . .

  . . . what?

  What exactly is she doing?

  A deep knot begins to form in Claire’s stomach. She cannot quite see. Is she wrapping up the pet to bring him inside? Cleaning him? What?

  Claire runs through to the utility window for a better view but now Emma is suddenly very still, her arms outstretched and her body quite tense. And then, just as quickly, the moment has passed and she is locking up the cage as Claire bangs on the window. ‘Is everything all right, Emma?’

  Emma turns swiftly to the window, her eyes strange – distant and entirely detached; a look which Claire will come over the years both to know and to dread.

  ‘Everything is fine, Mummy.’

  And then skipping back into the house where she screws up the bright pink handkerchief and pops it in the bin. No explanation.

  Claire ices the Victoria sponge for the birthday tea and pipes Emma’s name with chocolate fondant. Twice during the day she thinks to check on the cage but shakes the thought away.

  Then later, after school, she is setting out all the treats on the table in the kitchen as Emma, entirely unprompted this time, skips out to the garden to feed Hot Chocolate his tea.

  So that when the scream comes, it is not so much a surprise in itself as a confirmation of a silent scream in Claire’s own head. The scream of a mother’s world ending; the moment she has been dreading. The moment when sh
e can no longer pretend that she doesn’t know.

  ‘Mummy, oh Mummy. Come quickly. Something terrible has happened. Hot Chocolate is completely cold. I think he is dead. Oh Mummy. Come look. On my birthday. I can’t believe it.’

  There were discreet, private therapists. Alarming reports with references to difficulties over empathy and conscience. Terrible rows between Claire and her husband, who would believe no wrong in his little princess. Later, after the divorce, the first expulsion from school when Emma falsely accused a teacher of making a sexual advance after he gave her a low grade for a test. But always Claire would cover in the end. Make excuses. Did not want to give up.

  Paperwork all locked in the chest with the letters. The records of the secret pay-offs much later, as a string of distraught and angry men turned up on Claire’s doorstep, desperate to find the runaway Emma, claiming all sorts. Fraud. Theft of money. Deceit.

  Claire had buried Hot Chocolate in the garden that dreadful birthday while Emma changed into a black T-shirt and trousers, seeming to her mother to be almost basking in the drama as her friends arrived for the celebration tea. She had told them that losing Hot Chocolate had made this quite the worst birthday in her whole life, until all the little girls were sobbing and cuddling and soothing while Emma’s eyes had shone, soaking up the sympathy and innocent disbelief like some kind of drug.

  ‘My daughter is not like other people, Nurse Aveline. There. I have said it. She is not like us at all. I wanted to bring Theo up myself but she wouldn’t have it. We must make sure that he is safe. You must promise me that you will help me make sure that he is safe? Yes?’

  ‘Hush now, Madame Bell.’

  ‘He loves her, the poor lamb.’ The tears flowing freely down the old woman’s cheeks – the wrinkles of her forehead screwed into tight, angry folds and the voice a haunted, panicked whisper. ‘But why Devon, Nurse Aveline? Why on earth is she taking him to Devon?’

  She will ask the question just one last time when Aveline is gone and the room is dark with the curtains drawn. She is hungry and very thirsty too. Emma is sitting silent by the bed, this terrible and final day . . .

  Why are you taking Theo to Devon? Where is Aveline?

  But Emma will not answer. She is wearing that blank and disconnected expression on her face that Claire has come to dread and she is holding a large, plump pillow as she stands and walks towards the bed . . .

  CHAPTER 37

  TODAY – 3.30 P.M.

  When I was five, I sparked a major alert involving the police by leaving school secretly in the middle of the day. I had turned up that morning to find that it was the dress rehearsal for the Christmas play and I was the only one who had forgotten my costume. Instead of owning up, I claimed it was in the cloakroom as a sick wave of dread cascaded through me. Then I excused myself to the toilet and set off for home.

  Crossing major roads and breaking every rule I had ever been given, the only thought in my head was home, I must get home – a picture in front of me of the fairy costume, hanging in a plastic cover on my wardrobe door. Everything else was lost to me. The traffic. The startled pedestrians as I bumped past them along the pavement.

  The same sick panic, multiplied a thousand times over, swimming through me now as I push my way through the crowds at Paddington. Home, I must get home.

  The picture in my head this time: Ben.

  ‘Watch where you’re going, will you?’

  ‘Oh, piss off.’ I shoulder the man out of my way. So angry. So afraid. Then so sorry. ‘Look. I’m really sorry. Truly.’ Hurrying then, running, towards the board to check the time of the next train. Damn. Just missed one.

  I try the mobile again. Messaging service. Check my watch. Half an hour until the next direct train. For a moment I think of the airport. Or a helicopter? Can you book a helicopter from somewhere? Then the crazy impossibility of it.

  My hand is shaking when the mobile rings again – Mark’s name flashing in green. Polly must have called him from reception, given him this number. For the second time I put the call through to messaging. He dials again. I reject it again.

  The fourth time, I flash it to my ear, sick of this. ‘Stop calling me, Mark. I’m going home.’

  My lips and hands are now trembling in unison as I again check my watch. I try once more to contact Ben but Emma’s mobile clicks straight through to messaging, and so I head towards a coffee stand, thinking caffeine might help, and sit down with my drink at a grubby table covered in crumbs and rings of sticky brown.

  I close my eyes, head down, to picture it once more – that moment staring at the framed photo on the wall at Mark’s new office. Emma had short hair, which was the first thing that threw me. A neat, pixie style – dyed a much warmer brown which made her brilliant blue eyes stand out even more. Everyone in the photograph had their arms linked around the next person’s shoulder. It was a team shot. Mark’s arm around Emma’s shoulder.

  ‘This woman. I think I know her.’ I had to cough to steady my voice as a tall, lanky man emerged from one of the offices on the corridor, apparently heading to the gents. ‘I think I used to work with her.’ A lie.

  So many lies.

  ‘Emma? Emma Bright? Yes, she was with the company a while ago. Graphic designer. Sorry – I don’t think we’ve met?’

  ‘Oh. I’m Sophie. Just here on a social visit.’ I blushed. ‘I know Mark. The director.’

  ‘Oh right.’ He was on his guard now.

  ‘So – Emma. I’d love to look her up. Do you know where she is now?’

  ‘No. Sorry. She was a freelance. Mark might know. They worked on some sports contracts together.’

  ‘Oh right. Thanks – I’ll ask him, then.’

  ‘Bit of a headcase. So was she into tea leaves when you knew her?’ He was smiling. ‘Used to read all our palms. Could guess birth signs too. Quite impressive until we found out she was getting them all from a guy in Personnel.’ And then, laughing, he was shifting from one foot to the other, checking his watch. ‘I’d better get on. Do you need anything else?’

  ‘No. No. I was just leaving. Thanks.’

  I put the cup of coffee to my lips and open my eyes. I am trying to work out in my head how long it takes for hair to grow. Emma’s is way past the shoulder now, so that would be – what? At least a year? More than a year?

  The coffee is too hot and so I take off the lid, hand still trembling, and begin to blow on the surface.

  More than a year. Dear God. I try very hard to calm myself by picturing Ben sitting at a cleaner table eating his cake. Smiling.

  Emma doesn’t know that I know. And Emma has no reason whatsoever to take anything out on Ben. This has nothing to do with Ben. This is about Mark.

  Emma says we have to go swimming, Mummy . . .

  Ben had misunderstood. Right? I mean, Emma has absolutely no motivation to upset Ben – and Mark wouldn’t allow that.

  Mark. Jesus. And now none of it is making any sense. Why would Mark move her to Tedbury? And why would Emma pretend to be my bloody . . . friend?

  I find my head lolling forward. Physically hurting. A booming ricocheting deep inside. I just cannot make it fit. Any of it.

  And then I look up. And there he is. Right by my table. Standing there in the brown corduroy jacket I helped him pick out just a couple of months back in a shop in Exeter. It was before the baby. Before the hospital . . . I remember so vividly looking at his reflection and thinking how great he looked. How lucky I was. How lucky I thought I was when I didn’t know he was sleeping with some . . . other . . . woman.

  I lash out then. Really hard. Swing my hand up so high and with such force that it makes the most extraordinary sound as it hits his cheek – the force magnified because he doesn’t even flinch . . . back away. Doesn’t even try to avoid the slap. He knows that I know because Polly told him I saw the pictures; that I just fled with no explanation. And so I hit him again and again, around the shoulders and the arm. And still he doesn’t move.

  People ar
e looking now and I feel dizzy, sick to my stomach, pushing the table away from me so that it makes the most terrible scraping noise as I swing my bag up on to my shoulder and begin to stride across the concourse. Away. Anywhere. Just away.

  ‘Sophie. We have to talk. Please.’

  No.

  I say this in my head, not out loud, hurrying faster and faster towards the display board. I want to be somewhere else – beyond all these prying eyes. I want to crouch into a small ball on the floor. To turn in on myself, into a dark place where this will not feel so bad. I want to phone Mark. To say: Baby, come and get me right now. Something terrible has happened. Only this time, for the first time in my life, I can’t. Because he is the something terrible that has happened. And there is no one else to call. And the realisation of all of this is making everything worse. Second by second it is getting bigger and bigger. And blacker and blacker.

  ‘Sophie, we have to talk. Please.’

  And now I stop dead, turning so suddenly that he bumps right into me.

  ‘Is he safe? Just tell me if Ben is safe with her?’

  ‘You’ve left Ben with her?’ He looks shocked.

  ‘Yes. I was going to surprise you. And I left Ben with her because you let me think she was my bloody friend!’

  ‘Sophie, please.’

  A lot of people are turning to stare at us now. A woman in a long black mac with a tartan scarf. A man in a smart striped suit paying at a nearby stall for a pack of sandwiches. Two children eating burgers with their father by a newspaper stand.

  ‘Let’s get on the train.’ Mark is steering my arm now towards the middle platforms. ‘It’s in early.’

  I shake him off, raising my shoulder. ‘You seriously think I’m travelling with you?’

  ‘Sophie, it’s not what you think.’

  ‘Oh, please. And you haven’t answered my question. Is Ben safe?’

  ‘Yes.’ And then he stares at his feet. Pauses. ‘Yes . . . I think so.’

  ‘You think so.’