The Best of Friends

by Alex Day

  I remember so clearly how I felt the day the judge set me free. A strange mixture of relief, disbelief, and aimlessness, as if now there was nothing left to fight for because all the fight had left me. I drifted for days, weeks, months. My parents tried to get me to restart my course, to contact the university and ask them if I could re-do the year. But my heart was no longer in it.

  Anyone who’s ever spent the night in a police cell, alone and afraid, with no idea what is going to happen, will understand that the experience never leaves you. If one has pleaded not guilty and therefore been to trial, undergone cross-examination and hostile questioning in the way Charlotte has over these past weeks, it must be even worse.

  But now, against all the odds, inexplicably, unbelievably, she has got away with it.

  I can’t believe it. I didn’t attend the trial, other than for my own time in the witness box. I thought it would come across as voyeuristic. There are plenty of people in the village who went along, populating the public gallery like so many febrile mediaeval spectators at a public hanging or burning. I had no intention of being one of their number. And anyway, I had to go to work and take care of my boys. I simply couldn’t spare the time.

  The papers filled in the gaps, reporting in infinitesimal detail the batting to and fro of the lawyers’ statements and questions. It all seemed like a done deal. Until it wasn’t. Until the day of the knock at the door.

  It’s early and I’m bundling Jamie out of the house to catch the bus to secondary school. Luke, in his last year at primary, is now allowed to walk there on his own but can leave twenty minutes later than his brother.

  I see the patrol car approaching down the street and passing our door. I wonder what it’s doing here. Probably there’s been some trouble with the kids from the housing estate, I muse. There has been some vandalism lately, the swings in the children’s playground have been destroyed and a litter bin set on fire. That’s the problem with the country. There’s absolutely nothing for these youths to do, no club, no sport, no activities. The devil finds work for idle hands, as Marjorie would say and, much as I hate to agree with her, it’s true.

  I pull the door closed behind Jamie and go back to trying to locate Luke’s coat which has not been hung on the peg in the hallway as it should have been. I try to suppress my annoyance at his carelessness, whilst at the same time gently reminding him that it’s his responsibility to look after his stuff and to know where it is for when it’s needed.

  The knock on the door comes as Luke is whining, ‘Well, it’s not my fault,’ and I am saying, in that voice of barely hidden irritation that all mothers will recognise, ‘Well, whose fault is it then?’ Telling him he needs to go and look again in his bedroom, the bathroom, the sitting room – in every room in the house, essentially – I go to answer the knock. I’m not even looking at who is on the doorstep as I open the door, but back at him to check he is actually following my instruction and not ducking back into the kitchen to retrieve his phone and play some more of whatever mindless game he’s currently wasting his time on.

  When I turn my head and see them, my heart skips a beat and my pulse starts racing.

  ‘What … what’s the matter?’

  Police officers on the door always spark terror. It reminds me of that time they came in answer to Charlie’s accusations, but they’re not just frightening for that reason. Immediately, I think the worst, that someone is harmed, that something awful has happened. It can’t be Jamie, as he only just left. Justin? Has he done something stupid? No, he wouldn’t; he’d never leave the boys without a father. But perhaps he’s been knocked off his bike, injured, killed even? I’m probably still the person listed as next of kin on his documents …

  But it’s not that. They’re not here because of Justin, or Jamie.

  ‘Ms Carr,’ says the burly, tall one. ‘We are arresting you for the attempted murder of Mr Daniel Hegarty and Mrs Charlotte Hegarty. You do not have to say anything …’

  Gradually, it dawns on me, the terrible, irrefutable, cataclysmic truth of what is happening.

  That the person replacing Charlotte in the dock is me.

  Chapter 48

  Charlotte

  I can’t work out whether it’s ironic that Miriam is the one I have to thank for how things changed. If it were, the irony would come from the fact that Miriam has been gossiping about me for years. Not in a bad way, you understand. Just that kind of tittle-tattle about someone that sets the tattler up as a friend and confidante, as someone special, someone with privileged access to the sanctified inner circle. With Miriam, it’s all about her serf-like obsession with those richer, more beautiful, and infinitely higher in status than her.

  The way she’s always tried to inveigle herself into my good books through sheer, blatant sycophancy ended up being my saviour. The story, as I understand it, goes like this. Miriam is in the pub one night, after the parish council meeting. A young man joins the councillors at their table and says he’s looking for someone, an old friend, who he believes lives in the village. Her name is Sue Birch, though she may have a married surname these days.

  Miriam thinks there’s something familiar about the name but she can’t quite place it, so she takes the young man’s number and promises to call him if anything occurs to her. A day or so later, it does. She remembers exactly where she has come across the name Sue Birch. Written inside a book she’d seen in your living room, a tome on toxicology that you’ve kept all the years since university. You must have called yourself Sue rather than Susannah back in those days, and Birch is presumably your maiden name.

  Miriam phones the young man and passes on the information. But the idea that he is a friend has started to seem strange. Surely he’d have looked online or on social media to find you if this were the case? Or enquired through mutual acquaintances?

  Anyhow, armed with the address and phone number he needs, the young man clearly feels able to divulge more than he has before. He turns out to be a TV researcher, working on a documentary on female poisoners. Which, so it seems, is what you are. You once tried to kill your ex-boyfriend and his new partner with chocolates contaminated with mercury. Who would have thought that dear, sweet, unassuming Susannah could contain such evil intent within her? Truly, it’s astonishing.

  With that revelation, darling Miriam, always loyal, always on my side, endlessly held in thrall to my exalted position, my power of patronage in this small village, contacts my defence team. It’s the spur they need to insist that the CPS pass on all of your phone and laptop records. The police have taken everything but not gone through it all, and not put any of your many incriminating internet searches, downloaded documents and phone calls forwards as evidence.

  Once my lawyers discover your numerous delvings into foraging websites, asking questions about how much hemlock would be required to kill, how long it would take, if there is an antidote, your fate is sealed. You use the paedophile’s excuse that it’s all just research for your ‘book’ (the idea for which you scammed off me in the first place) but fortunately not even the police are stupid enough to fall for that one.

  Interviewed under caution for the first time, Miriam comes up with her second gem. She had seen you, in the late afternoon, approaching my house via the back gate that leads to a path between the stable block and the walled garden, and thence to the kitchen door. Miriam herself had been in the lane searching for blackberries, which grow there in abundance. She had been concealed behind rampant tangles of brambles and, intent on her task, she had not called out to you. She had been surprised when you emerged only five minutes later but assumed you’d just dropped by on a whim and that I was out and therefore hadn’t answered your knock.

  Even after all this, once we get back into court, your defence team still tries to pin it on me.

  ‘Mrs Hegarty, you are maintaining that, unbeknownst to you, Ms Carr entered your house, your kitchen, and put hemlock in the curry that you had already tasted. Do you really expect us to believe that she cou
ld have done this without you noticing, in the few minutes she had available to her? Those minutes that we know numbered no more than five as we have Miss Whitehead’s testimony on this.’

  I can see how it looks. A massive coincidence that in those five minutes, I was not in the kitchen or anywhere in the vicinity. But that’s life, isn’t it? Full of sliding doors moments – if this hadn’t happened, then the next thing wouldn’t have done and so on.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘Susannah knew that when she dropped off the curry I still hadn’t showered or done my hair. So she would have known that I would go off and do this at some point. And she also knew I wasn’t my normal self, that I was all over the place. She took a lucky chance that I’d be elsewhere and it paid off. But she would have been able to see into the kitchen from outside and I suppose that, if she’d spotted that I was still in there, she’d just have gone away again and come back later. She didn’t imagine that anyone would see her, so it wouldn’t matter if she had to give it more than one try.’

  ‘So we are supposed to believe, are we Mrs Hegarty, that in that grand house of yours, the biggest in the village, the manor no less, full of artworks and jewellery of considerable value and interest to thieves, you have no security devices against intruders? No alarms? No CCTV?’

  The barrister flashes a conceited smile at the jury, as if to say, look at me, aren’t I the bee’s knees? Honestly, I thought having a woman against me would make it easier but actually I think they’re worse than the men. Just as cocky and egotistical as the male of the species and utterly lacking in female solidarity.

  ‘It may seem strange,’ I respond, with complete equanimity, ‘but you’re right. We do have a burglar alarm but it’s only used when the house is completely empty, which isn’t very often with …’ I falter slightly as I realise that what I was going to say, ‘with two live-in staff members, the housekeeper and the au pair we normally have’ will not go down well with the twelve good men (and women) on the benches facing me. The last thing I need is for them to see me as a stuck-up rich bitch. ‘With such a large family,’ I resume, almost faultlessly, ending with a sweet, sad smile. ‘We have never wanted our boys, our precious children, to feel like they’re living in a fortress,’ I continue, ‘so we don’t have CCTV. The fact of the matter is that there was nothing to stop Susannah walking right on in – and she knew it.’

  Touché. I’ve done it. I’ve made us look humble and ordinary, no different, really, to any of the jury.

  The barrister waffles on for a while, asking spurious questions that I easily bat back. When her questioning finishes, I allow myself a small, self-congratulatory smile. I think it went well.

  Under cross-examination, Miriam helps out no end. She confirms that you were wearing your red trench coat. Not the obvious choice when slinking around trying to go unnoticed but, on the other hand, if you hadn’t worn a coat at all it would have been odder. It was cold that day, rainy, the impending storm hanging heavy in the air. And everyone is used to seeing you in that scarlet garment – you might have drawn more attention without it.

  Forensic tests add the final touch to the evidence. The right coat pocket, where it might be expected that a right-handed person would put things, bears traces of hemlock. Minuscule ones, but there nevertheless.

  Incontrovertibly there.

  Chapter 49

  Susannah

  Whilst the lawyers speak, we are only a few feet away from each other, Charlotte and I. We steadfastly ignore each other’s gaze. The trial seems to last forever. My side has made a point of my good character, just as was the case all those years ago, my impeccable upbringing, my (mainly) private school education, my respectable position in society, my inherent decency … They lay it on thick as treacle on a stack of pancakes.

  Charlotte’s side, on the other hand, has made a bad character application. There’s an audible gasp when the details are put in front of the court.

  That I have history. That I have form.

  That I am a poisoner.

  I’m hung out to dry, tarnished by a past that, to me, seems to belong to someone else. Unfortunately though, it is mine – and I can’t escape it.

  Eventually, it’s time for the summing up. Nervously, I clasp my hands together and listen as if in a trance, unable to connect to reality, my heart filled with a bitter, leaden dread.

  ‘You poisoned Mr Hegarty because of your jealousy, hatred, and anger,’ the prosecuting QC says, addressing the jurors, who are listening expectantly, eyes wide open, following his every gesture as he makes his statement. ‘Over a sustained period of time, you did everything you could to try to win his heart, and to sour his relationship with his wife. You did this because you wanted him. His charm, his good looks, but above all his wealth, were things you coveted for yourself. But, though you seduced him and slept with him whilst Mrs Hegarty was away on a family holiday with her children, ultimately he turned you down. When you found out that the couple were trying to make up, to make a go of things, to rekindle their romance, you flipped. I put it to the court that you lost your mind and your anger – not for the first time in your life – became uncontrollable. You decided then and there to put a stop to it.’

  The court is on tenterhooks, utterly silent, the weight of expectation hanging thick and heavy in the stuffy air.

  ‘Mrs Hegarty never once suspected that you, the person who, though you had not known one another that long, had quickly become her best friend, was trying to steal her husband away from her. She could not possibly imagine what hatred lived within the depths of your heart, what cruelty you are capable of.’

  ‘Objection!’ My barrister’s voice rings out. ‘This is no time for melodrama and hyperbole.’

  The judge nods. ‘Please keep to the facts,’ he says.

  My legs are quivering, wobbling as if they might give way. I don’t understand what is happening, how they are making such a convincing case against me when it’s all lies. No one realises that this is how justice works, that it hangs on who has the silkiest tongue, the most velvety words.

  The QC’s face is emotionless as he resumes. ‘You poisoned their curry with hemlock you had gathered locally; you were well aware of where it grew and how toxic it is. Mr and Mrs Hegarty ate the curry.’

  ‘No!’ My voice is overly loud in the still, stifling air of the courtroom. ‘No, it’s not true.’

  My defence team look towards me as one, horrified. The chief barrister makes a gesture that clearly says, ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Please could I request that all those in the courtroom are silent during the closing statements,’ commands the judge, reprovingly.

  The QC takes a deep breath and, with a flick of his gown, continues. ‘Very soon the effects became apparent: a gradual paralysis of the limbs and the organs, but the victim remaining conscious to the last. Mr Hegarty was only saved by Mrs Hegarty’s fearless journey through the stormy night to the hospital, and the prompt treatment he received once there from the paramedics, doctors, and nurses. Fortunately, Mrs Hegarty, who had barely eaten any of the curry herself, was minimally affected.’

  The QC turns to me. I’m crying now, silent tears seeping from my eyes and down my cheeks. My head is in my hands, my blonde hair all awry, sodden strands sticking to my forehead and my face. I can sense the lack of sympathy in the stultifying air of the courtroom; it is like a thousand knives in my back. I rejoiced at this when it was aimed at Charlotte. Now pointed in my direction, it’s a different matter altogether.

  Pausing only for a moment, the QC directs his gaze back to the jurors. ‘Hemlock, as many of us know, was the poison of choice of the ancients. It has not been used in a British poisoning case for many years, though another plant, a genus of wolfsbane, was used in a very similar crime in 2009. In that instance, the victim died.’

  His voice, up to this point, has been measured, calm. Now it rises in volume and urgency as he addresses his comments directly to me. The theatricality of his actions is hard to ignore.

&n
bsp; ‘Exactly what you hoped to achieve by what you did is unclear. As you have continued to protest your innocence, it is possible that we will never know. But the effects of what you have done will leave a lasting legacy on your victims for years to come.’

  It won’t. There are no lasting effects. You will be fine; so will Dan. It’s all lies. Once more, I am silenced quickly when I start to shout this out.

  A profound hush descends on the room. There is no possibility other than a guilty verdict.

  Chapter 50

  Charlotte

  I read out my victim impact statement to the court. I have to take a few deep breaths to steady myself before I begin. My voice is strained and tight throughout. Frequent pauses occur whilst I forcibly suppress my tears. I conclude with the most powerful line of all: ‘You tried to destroy our lives, but in the end, you destroyed your own.’

  The judge gives a term of fourteen years. It’s very reasonable, all things considered.

  We leave the courtroom together, Dan and I, arm in arm. United. Everything you didn’t want us to be. I manage to quash the urge to smile until we are out of sight of the cameras massed outside in the street. It wouldn’t be good to be seen to be gloating, when the eyes of the world are upon us. Interest in the case has grown and grown, and it’s built into a major story. Someone will probably turn it into a Hollywood movie. I wonder who will play me. Cate Blanchett would be good, but she’s a little too old now, and too fair for me really. Anne Hathaway? So beautiful and talented, she’d be ideal. As for you, obviously Nicole Kidman leaps to mind. Fittingly blonde, and her character’s cold pursuit of her aims by any means necessary in To Die For mirrors your manipulative murdering soul to perfection.

  The whole business has done Dan no harm, either – he’s busier, and richer, than ever. It’ll make my book – nearly finished now – a bestseller. Shame yours will never see the light of day.