The Best of Friends Alex Day (best short novels .TXT) 📖

treat constipation. And anyway, I had proof that I’d checked that they wouldn’t die – my call to the poison unit had been recorded. Later, this last simple action was to prove vital in court.

But the truth is that I never wanted to kill Charlie and his French tart. I just wanted them to feel the pain that I had felt, experience the agony they had put me through. To teach them a lesson. That’s what I told the police, and they believed me.

I was charged with attempting to harm and released on police bail. The trial would not take place for a few months. In theory, I was free to continue with my life, innocent until proven guilty. But no one would want their medicines dispensed by a pharmacist who’d tampered with toxins, and the university made it clear that I wasn’t welcome on their course anymore. Rather than suffer the ignominy of being unceremoniously thrown out, I left. All that work, all those hours of study, all the money I’d spent on books and materials and living in London.

All gone.

My parents were incandescent with rage. They chastised me endlessly, over the phone and in person when they drove up to accompany me to my first bail appointment at the police station. It was a nightmare and, to make matters worse, my own brothers regarded me with barely disguised contempt, and treated me as if I were a stranger, a cuckoo in the nest, unrecognisable as their own sibling.

I couldn’t get work whilst I was waiting for the case to go to court; I had no one to ask for a reference and anyway, I would have had to explain to any potential employer that at some point I’d need a period of time off to go to the Old Bailey and defend myself against a poisoning charge, which is clearly not a request on which most employers would look favourably. So, when the end of the month came and the next rent was due, I moved out of the flat for good. Simone and Debs were glad to see me go, of course – too kind to actually insist on it but nevertheless relieved and grateful that my lack of money meant that they didn’t have to actively chuck me out. Simone was an evangelical Christian; I wondered what all her God-bothering friends would make of me. Not a lot, it was fairly safe to assume.

Like most people, I’d never been in trouble with the law before. I hadn’t even indulged in the shoplifting from The Body Shop in which all the other girls in my class at school had participated. Too scared of getting caught, too intimidated by the prospect of my parents’ wrath if I were found out. But now I understood just how awful it is to have the prospect of a custodial sentence and a criminal record hanging over you. It sapped all my energy, removing all desire to achieve anything. There seemed no point when, at some unspecified time in the near future, I might be heading for prison, might be locked up and deprived of my freedom.

The next few months were the worst of my life and there were times when I wasn’t sure that I could cope, that I felt myself begin to go under. To cap it all off, an acquaintance, on a visit home to her folks, came to see me and informed me that Charlie and Josephine had got married. A shotgun wedding because she was pregnant.

There were so many reasons why this news flattened me. Not least because, when it came out in court – as it inevitably would – that the only person who had put one of the chocolates in her mouth was expecting a child, was that very moment forming and creating a new life – well, that was surely going to be the kiss of death to my defence.

That’s when I gave up.

I can’t give up now though. I’ve got the boys to think of.

Charlotte and Dan are due back at the end of the week. I lie in bed at night, wondering what will happen when Charlotte finds out. Because she will find out. Wives always do. The truth will out, one way or another.

Dan seems to think he’s infallible, that he can breeze through life doing exactly what he wants and escaping the consequences and after all, as Charlotte has told me, he’s got away with it before. But this is so close to home, his wife’s best friend.

That surely changes everything.

Chapter 29

Charlotte

The two weeks Dan spends with me and the boys in Corsica are blissful, like a second honeymoon. I don’t know what’s happened but I can’t remember the last time he was so loving, so attentive. Perhaps it’s true that absence makes the heart grow fonder – though I’m not sure that’s ever been the case before! Or maybe he’s sensed how I’ve changed, how determined I am to be different, to include him more. From now on, we’ll be one big, happy family, everyone mucking in together, sharing our joys and our disappointments like proper families do.

The fantasy lasts right until the moment we get home and I climb into bed, pleasantly tired from the journey. I altered our flights so that we would all return together. It cut a week or so off the time we’d intended to stay in Corsica but I couldn’t bear to say goodbye to Dan. I want our newfound bliss to last forever. Now, as I lie in bed enjoying the natural, rather than air-conditioned, cool, Dan is downstairs quickly writing an urgent work email. I suppose some things will never change. But I don’t mind; he’ll be here soon.

The housekeeper has put fresh sheets on the bed and I luxuriate in the crisp white linen. It’s been line-dried outside so that it smells of an English summer day. I remember that I left an unfinished detective novel on the