The Best Friend: a chilling psychological thriller Read online

  ‘No, I can’t.’

  ‘What do you mean, “no”?’ she spits. ‘Don’t tell me “no”!’

  ‘But these are nice people. They’re not nasty. They never did anything bad to us. Not really. Especially not the little boy.’

  Darcy shoves his chest with the heel of her hand. ‘You’re so pathetic,’ she sneers. ‘Always snivelling and moaning. I don’t want to do it, Nic. Do we have to, Nic? You’re weak. You’ve always been weak and stupid.’

  ‘And you’ve always been a bully,’ he replies softly. ‘Just like Mum.’

  ‘I’m nothing like Mum!’ she cries. ‘You take that back!’

  ‘No. Because it’s true.’

  ‘You ungrateful little shit.’ Darcy raises her fist like she’s going to punch him. She’s obviously not used to her brother talking back like this.

  ‘You always make me do things I don’t want to do,’ he says. ‘And I always do them. I never say no. But not this time.’ Callum takes something out of his coat pocket and holds it out in front of her. It’s a black and silver Swiss army knife. He flicks open the blade.

  Darcy laughs and lowers her fist. ‘What are you going to do with that, Cal? Pick your nose with it?’

  He ignores her and walks over to Jared.

  ‘Don’t kill him now, stupid!’ Darcy cries. ‘We have to do this properly. Like I planned. Or we’ll get caught.’

  My heart is in my throat. Surely he won’t kill Jared, not after everything he just said to his sister. Jared glances across at me, eyes wide, and I try to convey love and forgiveness in my gaze. Callum moves behind Jared, crouches down and slices through the zip ties around his wrists, placing the penknife in Jared’s hand and coming around, back towards his sister.

  Darcy now realises what Callum’s just done. ‘No-o-o!’ She launches herself at her brother, kicking him and clawing at his face. He grabs her in a bear hug, trying to restrain her. But she’s mad as hell, swearing and lashing out at him with everything she’s got.

  Jared has managed to slice through the ties on his ankles, and he’s pulled the scarf down, off his mouth and around his neck. Now, he’s up off the chair and turning his attention to me, cutting through my wrist ties and sawing at the gag, working it free. I’m shaking with relief but I can’t take my eyes of Darcy and her brother.

  Her thumbs are pressed down into Callum’s eye sockets. He’s howling in pain and frustration, pulling at her arms, trying to shake her off. Callum is big. He’s strong. But Darcy is fuelled by bitterness and rage. Her strength is in her fury. Callum wrenches one of her hands off his face, blood dripping from his eyes. But she gets it free again, makes a fist and punches him in the throat. He wheezes and coughs. Darcy blindly reaches behind. Her hand snakes across the table top, feeling around for the knife which lies just within her grasp. I can’t let her get to it, but Jared hasn’t cut through my ankle ties yet.

  ‘Jared!’ I croak. ‘The knife! Get the knife!’

  He turns to see Darcy groping on the table for it while trying to fend off her brother who now has her by the throat.

  ‘Go!’ I urge.

  Jared leaves me with one leg still bound to the chair. But he’s too late. Darcy’s fingers close around the knife handle. She brings it around and plunges it deep into Callum’s chest. Her brother stops howling and releases his hands from around his sister’s neck. He drops to his knees and stares in disbelief at Darcy who wears a look of exhausted triumph.

  With the knife still protruding from his chest, Callum falls forward, crashing to the ground with a sickening thud, rivulets of blood streaming and pooling across the white marble floor. Silence falls upon the room for a brief moment. And then a wail starts up from within Darcy’s chest.

  ‘Now look what you made me do!’ she screams. ‘Cal!’ she yells. ‘You stupid idiot! You’ve ruined everything!’ She kicks his lifeless body and crouches down to try to get to the knife out from beneath his hulking body. But before she can get to it, Jared drags her away, standing between her and Callum’s body. He holds the penknife out in front of him as Darcy whips around to face him.

  ‘You haven’t got the balls to do anything with that,’ she says.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ Jared says. With his free hand, he reaches into his jacket pocket and takes out his phone, tossing it over to me. ‘Lou, call the police.’

  Somehow, I catch the phone without dropping it.

  ‘I’m not going to prison for this,’ Darcy says, still eyeing the penknife. ‘When the police arrive I’ll tell them you killed my brother. I’ll tell them―’

  ‘It’s over, Darcy,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘After everything you told me tonight, you’ve got no lies big enough to cover what you’ve done.’

  She stares from Jared’s knife to the phone in my hand. I can see her weighing up her options.

  I punch in the numbers 999, but nothing happens. ‘I can’t get a signal!’ I cry.

  Jared turns toward me and in that split second as he looks away from Darcy, she shoulder charges past him, knocking him sideways and sprints up the stairs.

  ‘Go after her!’ I yell. ‘She can’t get away!’

  Jared nods, uses the penknife to slice through the last zip tie on my ankle, and gives chase, taking the cellar steps three at a time.

  I lurch out of the chair, ignoring the bolts of pain shooting through my cramped limbs, and follow him out of the basement. I need to get a signal and call the police. I shouldn’t have sent Jared after her. He can’t confront Darcy alone. If she can kill someone as strong as her brother, she’ll have no difficulty hurting my husband.

  Once I reach the top of the cellar steps, the bars appear on Jared’s phone screen. A signal! I press 999 again as I hobble out of the utility room and into the kitchen. The bifold doors are open, the freezing night air creeping into the Lane’s mansion. But no amount of fresh air will ever cleanse the stench of horror from this house.

  ‘Hello, emergency services, which service do you require? Fire, police, or ambulance.’

  ‘Police,’ I say. ‘And ambulance. Please hurry.’

  ‘Connecting you now.’

  I make out the shape of my husband. He’s running towards the open gate at the bottom of Darcy’s garden, exterior lights illuminating his dark-suited shape. There’s no sign of Darcy. She must already be on the beach, trying to make her escape.

  ‘Hello, where are you calling from?’ It’s the operator.

  ‘Sandbanks,’ I gasp as I jog across the decking. ‘Please come quickly.’ I give them my name and Darcy’s address. Now, I’m running across the icy grass again. At least this time I’m giving chase rather than the other way around.

  ‘Please, please get here as soon as you can.’ I reach the open gate and limp through it onto the beach, glancing wildly from left to right, trying to see if I can spot them.

  ‘What’s the nature of the emergency?’ the operator asks, calm in the face of my panic.

  ‘Darcy Lane took my son, kidnapped me and my husband, and then she stabbed her brother,’ I cry. ‘I think he’s dead. And now she’s run off onto Sandbanks Beach. My husband is chasing her. I’m scared for him. She’s dangerous. You need to find my son – the maid took him to the cinema – I don’t know which one. Please find him. Please.’

  The woman tells me to calm down, assuring me the emergency services will do everything they can to locate my son. That they’ll be here within a few minutes. I hope that’s soon enough.

  There! To my left I see a figure running away from me along the shoreline. It’s a man. It’s Jared. I won’t be able to catch him up. My lungs are already burning and I’ve hardly moved any distance at all. Where could Darcy be? Anywhere, I guess. As I stagger after Jared, I throw panicked glances over my shoulder, paranoid that she’s doubled back and is coming after me. But the beach behind is empty.

  Ahead, Jared has stopped. He’s looking around. I daren’t call out in case Darcy is lurking close by in the dunes, or somewhere in between the other b
each houses. She could be watching me right now. I give an inward shiver as I finally draw closer to my husband.

  ‘Did you see which way she went?’ I pant.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did she definitely come out the back way?’

  ‘I saw the kitchen doors were open,’ Jared says, ‘so I assumed she’d come out that way, but I guess she could just as easily have gone out the front.’

  ‘Shit,’ I say. ‘Shit.’ And then my whole body begins to shake. To shiver and tremble. I can’t tell if it’s because of the cold, or if it’s the shock.

  Jared takes off his suit jacket and wraps it around my shoulders, pulling me into his body and holding me close. He kisses my hair and lets out a sob. ‘I’m so sorry, Lou,’ he says. ‘I’m really, truly sorry. I let you down badly. I don’t know how you’ll ever forgive me.’

  I don’t reply. For now, it’s enough that we’re alive. Then, my ears pick up the distant wail of sirens.

  ‘What about Darcy?’ Jared asks, letting me go, but taking my freezing hands in his. ‘Shall we keep looking?’

  ‘Forget Darcy,’ I say, my teeth chattering. ‘The police will find her. Joe is more important. We need to get Joe. Right now. Make sure he’s okay.’

  My voice is drowned out by the juddering, whirring sound of a helicopter passing over our heads. Jared and I run back towards the house as its searchlights sweep the beach.

  I wonder if they will ever find her . . .

  Chapter Thirty Four

  ONE MONTH LATER

  The fire crackles and my eyes are drawn by the dancing, licking flames. Three empty stockings hang over the fire, and the curtains are drawn. I lean back into my husband’s chest and he kisses the top of my head.

  Joe wriggles his body into my side, all cosy in his PJs and dressing gown. I inhale the scent of him – his clean, soft skin, his freshly shampooed hair.

  ‘What time does Santa actually get here?’ he asks.

  ‘Once you’re asleep,’ I reply, tweaking his nose.

  ‘But isn’t there an actual time that he comes? Like a timetable or something?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘He only comes once your eyes are closed and you’re fast asleep, snoring your head off.’

  ‘I don’t snore!’

  ‘Of course you do,’ Jared replies. ‘All real men snore.’

  Joe looks up at Jared and gives him a crazy stare. We dissolve into laughter and Joe, already over-excited, starts dancing around the lounge, putting on a mad performance for us, leaping about, pulling faces and singing When Santa Got Stuck up the Chimney.

  After everything that happened with Darcy, I thank God that Joe came out of it unscathed and unaffected. In fact, I think the only good and true thing Darcy said that night was when she told me Joe had gone to the movies with Tyler. They were safely away from the house in town watching some Pixar movie, blissfully unaware of what was going on. When Marianna brought them home, she drove back to a driveway teeming with emergency-service vehicles. Joe thought he’d landed on a movie set. We didn’t go into details. We just told him that a man had had an accident and the police needed to help him. He seemed to accept our version of events.

  After Darcy escaped that night, I almost died with panic that she was on her way to snatch Joe from outside the cinema. Thank goodness she was too selfish to risk getting caught. Lucky for us, Darcy put her own survival over any plans for revenge. She didn’t even return to get her own son. Poor Tyler. He may have been a bully but now he has no parents to care for him. He’s gone back to London to live with Mike’s sister. I hope, in time, he’s able to get over the trauma. That he doesn’t end up carrying similar scars to his mother.

  So, after all that. After all the police, the search helicopters, the sniffer dogs and TV appeals, Darcy managed to escape. No trace has been found of her. The police are still looking, but I don’t hold out too much hope. She’s had a lifetime’s experience of evading justice, of lying and conning. She only told us a small part of what went on during the years after she left care. It seems Nicole Woodward was also wanted in connection with a string of other murders – mainly of vulnerable elderly people. Now she’s disappeared, no doubt with a new identity. She’ll have landed on her feet somewhere else, I’m sure of it.

  Everyone was shocked when they discovered what had happened. Beth has been her amazing supportive self, and the school mums were suitably stunned and apologetic – sending me flowers, and bringing round cakes and casseroles. Mum and Dad were devastated, feeling somehow responsible. They even remembered talking to the little boy and girl at the care home all those years ago, but felt they were unable to take on siblings, which was why they hadn’t asked to adopt Nicole and Callum. It had been nothing to do with them “preferring” me. They had simply wanted to give Beth a single brother or sister, and I happened to be the lucky one.

  My heart breaks for the child Nicole was back then. Too bad she let it twist her into a monster. She was consumed by her bitterness instead of rising above it. I wonder if she’ll ever let it go or whether it will eat at her for the rest of her life.

  ‘Come and sit back down,’ Jared calls to Joe, whose crazy song and dance is now losing steam. ‘The movie’s about to start.’

  As it’s Christmas Eve, we’re watching Elf – such a wonderfully, funny, feel-good movie. Joe bounces onto the sofa and I count my blessings once again.

  I suppose, after everything, I could have told Jared to get lost. I could have kicked him out and felt totally justified. He had believed Darcy – a relative stranger – rather than his own wife. But . . . I know how utterly convincing Darcy could be. How she manipulated him by subtly discrediting me. She played a good game, and it was her intention to make me suffer. To split my family up. Well . . . no way is she getting her wish.

  Jared is making up for it. Helping me recover from my ordeal. Making sure I’m okay and that I have everything I need. Well . . . I do have everything I need. It’s right here in this room.

  Chapter Thirty Five

  TWO YEARS LATER

  She stops pushing the wheelchair for a moment, leans down and says something to the old woman, making her laugh. For one worrying moment, I think I might have made a mistake and got the wrong person. But, as she leans, her wavy chestnut hair falls forward over her shoulder and she pushes it back with a casual flick – I’d know that gesture anywhere.

  This small Edinburgh park is peaceful and quiet, set in the centre of a residential square, lined with beautiful, four-storey, Georgian houses, a Christmas tree in each drawing-room window. The weather is clear and bright, biting cold. We don’t get days as chilly as this down south. I watch the two of them make their slow progress along the sycamore-lined path, stopping now and again to chat and laugh about something or other. You’d think you were looking at a grandmother with her dutiful grown-up granddaughter. I know better.

  I’m not sure how I feel about seeing her again. I’ve been waiting for this day for so long, and now it’s finally here, I can’t quite believe it. It doesn’t seem real. I hope I don’t fall apart. I thought I would feel excitement, instead, a fascinated dread clutches at my stomach and a strange numbness overtakes my brain. Yet, there’s also a boiling anger deep down. I know it won’t go away until I’ve done this.

  ‘Okay,’ I say to myself, striding purposefully across the short grass towards them. I know what I want to say, I’ve rehearsed it enough times. As I get closer, I note her chain-store clothes, fake leather boots, and cheap dye job. Her designer days are well and truly behind her yet she still manages to look elegant.

  She might have changed her appearance but I, on the other hand, look just as I’ve always done. Perhaps just a little older and a little slimmer. I know she’ll recognise me as soon as I draw close enough. I made a special effort today – my auburn curls are tamed into soft waves, my wool coat is stylish and fitted. My boots are soft, expensive leather, as is my handbag. All these trimmings don’t stop my heart jangling with nerves.

  I
finally had the operation on my knee. It went well, and now I lift weights and run every day to keep myself strong. I also enrolled in self-defence and kickboxing classes. I’m fitter than I’ve ever been in my life. It makes me feel more empowered. We may think we live in a civilised society where physical strength is no longer necessary. Where the mind alone is all we need to survive. But I know different. We’re all just animals fighting for survival. Struggling for our place in the world. And when we find that perfect place, we’ll bite and scratch and hiss and spit to keep it from being taken away. I’m not prepared to lose my place. Not now. Not ever again. I will fight for my family with whatever means I have available to me.

  I wasn’t about to let my fear of this woman hang over my head for the rest of my life. How could I ever truly relax my guard knowing she was still out there? Still a threat.

  I walk in a diagonal line across the grass, drawing closer. I hear her talking to the old woman. She’s describing what she’s going to cook for supper this evening and – I almost laugh out loud – she’s speaking to the old woman in a perfect Scottish accent.

  Any second she’ll glance up and . . . There – she’s seen me. My heart jolts. My stomach flutters. Her expression falters for a moment but she quickly regains her composure. I can almost hear the cogs in her brain whirring and clicking, calculating what I’m doing here and how she should react.

  ‘It took me a while,’ I say, coming to a stop in front of the wheelchair, ignoring its elderly occupant and staring instead into Nicole’s blue eyes. ‘But I finally tracked you down.’

  She blinks. ‘Sorry, I think you might be mistaken. I’ve no idea who you are.’

  I shake my head. ‘You can drop the Mrs Doubtfire act. You sound fucking ridiculous.’

  ‘Well now, that’s a bit rude.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Darcy – or Nicole, or whoever the hell you are today – I know it’s you.’ Her face is fuller. Less chiselled. Her brown, wavy hair makes her look less glamorous, more homely. But her eyes are still the same – calculating and hard.