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

I read in the papers that it came out in court that Charlotte had recognised my necklace quite early on, that she was the one who had returned it to me, and also that Dan had confessed only when stricken with the poison – the last revelations of the dying man.

Except he didn’t die.

Which is fortunate because it means she is not facing an actual murder charge. They say he’ll be fine now; if it doesn’t kill stone dead at the time, there are no lasting effects of hemlock poisoning. Charlotte played it so cleverly by pretending she shared in the poisoned meal, even though she actually barely touched it.

Anything other than a guilty verdict seems unlikely. If I had been to prison myself all those years ago I’d be in a position to give her advice – what not to do and say once she’s behind bars, how to survive such a hostile environment. But mine was merely an act of folly that I got away with, whereas hers … she had intended to take a man’s life.

Once the jury gives their verdict, Charlotte won’t be able to deny it anymore.

Chapter 46

Charlotte

During the trial, the hours in that courtroom, bland and sterile and windowless, there is nothing to look at but the intent faces of the jurors, trying to seem intelligent and as if they understand what is going on when they are clearly far too stupid to do so, the peacocking barristers, so full of themselves in their pretentious wigs and gowns, and the court reporters, pencils flying across shorthand notepads. And you.

Preening yourself, so pleased that you’d set up your attack on Dan so cleverly that it is I who is taking the blame. You would probably say that I made myself vulnerable by making so many mistakes and maybe I did. But that’s often what happens to the innocent, isn’t it? They fall foul of their own guilelessness. Their inability to foresee that their best friend might sleep with their husband and then, when told that it’s going nowhere and that he really loves his wife, try to kill him. If you couldn’t have him, you didn’t want anyone to have him, did you? Least of all me, his lawful spouse.

When you put the hemlock in the curry, you cared nothing for either Dan nor me; our lives were yours to take to make yourself feel better. Did you even think of my boys, orphaned so young? And what, really, were you going to gain from it? It’s not as if you would benefit in any way. On the other hand, maybe you planned for only me to die, thinking that someone smaller and lighter might succumb more easily, leaving you free to close in on Dan, bereaved and suffering. To think that I am the one who warned you off the hemlock when we found it in that place we were foraging. If I’d said nothing you’d probably never have thought of such a vile plan.

All of these crazy thoughts tumble through my head as I sit in court or in my cell after I’ve given my evidence and wait for what is starting to seem inevitable.

The text message clinches it. Damn that stupid message. Damn that I sent it to you. Damn that you made sure you carefully preserved it. Handed it over at the first possible opportunity.

When the case collapses, at first I think it’s a joke, a mistake, a cruel prank.

But it’s not.

Non-disclosure of information. New facts. And then the words I’d hoped, but never truly believed I’d hear: ‘You’re free to go.’

These must be the sweetest words in the English language, the sound of justice being done.

Chapter 47

Susannah

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