The Best Friend

by Shalini Boland

  The sun dips still lower, so I start moving again. I hear soft footsteps behind me. My heart jolts, but this is a popular dog-walking route so I shouldn’t be worried. Nevertheless, I pick up my pace. Not far until I reach the road.

  The footsteps are closer now. I think I’ll let whoever it is go past me. I stop and move to the side, glancing behind . . . and my heart freezes.

  It’s him.

  It’s my stalker.

  After Darcy’s interference, I thought he had left me alone for good. To see him this close up is bone chilling, the sunlight catching his bearded face. He is tall, burly, strong-looking and his blue eyes have locked onto mine. He’s wearing the same brown corduroy coat as last time, but he’s not wearing his fisherman’s hat today. Instead, a woollen beanie is pulled down over his ears, his longish hair curling out beneath it. He opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something but I have no wish to hold a conversation with this man. I’m held in place by fear for a split second before my fight-or-flight reflex kicks in – and I’m no fighter – so I turn and I run.

  I hear his footfalls behind me, gaining. I have no breath left to scream.

  ‘Stop!’ he growls.

  Yeah, right. I put on an extra spurt of speed. I don’t know where from. My lungs are squeezed tight, my thighs and calves already burning from my mammoth walk, and steep climb up the chine, my knee grinding in agony – I’m sure I’m going to need an operation on it soon – if I manage to live that long. If this guy catches me, I dread to think what he’ll do – Murder? Rape? Worse?

  I hear his breaths now, merging with my own. Oh God, no. I can’t outrun this man. He’s almost on me. I try to scream but my breath is taken, my lungs squeezed from the effort of running. His fingers close around my shoulder. I squeal and manage to jerk away and veer off the path into the woods. As soon as I do so, I realise this was a bad idea. There’s no daylight in here, no chance of a passer-by to save me. Branches twist and bracken crunches underfoot. Twigs claw at my face and now I’m crying with terror. His fingers scrape the backs of my arms. ‘Stop!’ he snarls again, frustration and anger in his voice.

  I scream thinly as his arms lock around my body and he tackles me to the ground. We crash into the undergrowth, his weight pinning me. Soggy leaves and mud slide into my mouth and up my nose. I cough and spit and choke. A bird screams out a warning. Too late for me.

  ‘Help!’ I try to yell, but my voice comes out weak and croaky. His hand slides under my face, smothering my mouth and nose. I can’t breathe. Shit. Is this it? Will I ever see Joe again? Am I going to die today?

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  His warm hand still covers my mouth and nose, my hands pinned below my chest where I tried to break my fall. He’s half-sitting, half-lying on my back, his beard scratching my neck, his knees either side of me. Terror numbs my body, freezes my mind. If he doesn’t remove his hand from my face soon, I’m going to suffocate. I try to wriggle free. He’s too heavy. I kick out my legs, but I can’t do anything other than bend them back impotently.

  ‘Stop struggling,’ he says, his voice soft and low in my ear. ‘You’ll hurt yourself.’ His accent is local – a Dorset accent, probably Poole. ‘Don’t try to scream.’

  I want to tell him to get off me, but it comes out as nothing more than a muffled whimper. If he takes his hand away from my mouth, the first thing I’ll do is yell as loud as I can.

  ‘Sorry I scared you,’ he continues. ‘I only wanted to talk, but you started running away.’ He pauses. ‘I have to tell you something. It’s important.’

  His words don’t sound aggressive, and, despite my sweating, shaking terror, I’m curious to hear what he has to say. But why does he still have me pinned to the ground? Why did he chase me in the first place?

  ‘If I let you go, will you stay and listen?’ he asks. ‘I won’t hurt you again.’

  I want to yell at him to get the fuck off me. Again, my words are stifled by his thick fingers.

  ‘Shh,’ he says, easing his hand away from my mouth. I gulp in lungfuls of loamy air, too choked to scream straightaway. I feel him ease up off my body, his other hand still pressing down on my back. I draw in a steadying breath, tense my body and then, twist my body around on the ground, kicking out at him with my right leg. My foot doesn’t connect, and he lunges across me, pinning both legs as I contort my body around and begin pummelling his back with my fists.

  ‘Help!’ I yell ‘Someone, help! Over here! In the woods!’ My voice sounds pathetically weak, but we’re not too far from the path, someone could hear. Please, God, let someone hear.

  ‘Shut up!’ the man growls. ‘I’m trying to help, you silly cow.’

  He rolls me onto my back, straddles me, grabs both wrists in one of his massive hands and presses his free hand over my mouth again. If only I were stronger. No matter how much I writhe and jerk, I’m helpless to get free, pinned like a butterfly on a board.

  ‘If you’d stop struggling and listen,’ he grunts,’ you’d know I don’t want to hurt you.’

  My body is bruised and aching, but I can’t give up. I have to get away from this man.

  ‘For Christ’s sake stop!’ he shouts. ‘Look, I know Darcy Lane.’

  This gets my attention and I stop struggling against him for a moment.

  ‘I know her,’ he says. ‘I know what she’s really like.’

  The fight escapes from my body, and my shoulders sag, sinking into the earth as I digest his words. He takes his hand from my mouth and springs to his feet. Then he reaches down a hand to pull me up. I hesitate for a second, but then accept, my battered body peeled from the muddy ground.

  On my feet once more, my breath comes ragged and uneven, my heartbeats slowing to a clatter, rather than the echoing boom that filled my ears only moments ago. The light has almost disappeared from the woods and this man from my nightmares towers above me. Yet I don’t run.

  ‘You know her?’ I ask.

  He nods. ‘Look, I’m sorry about just now. I just wanted to talk to you. I could tell you were scared. I shouldn’t have chased after―’

  ‘Tell me how you know Darcy,’ I demand.

  ‘Shall we go somewhere else?’

  I shake my head. ‘No, here’s fine. I need to know. I need to . . .’ My legs wobble, and I sit back down heavily on the frigid ground. I straighten my legs out in front of me, my knee grinding painfully.

  ‘You okay?’ He crouches in front of me.

  I flinch back instinctively.

  He raises his hands as though I’m pointing a gun at him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

  I nod. ‘I just have to sit for a minute. My legs, they’re a bit shaky.’

  In the gloom, I see him stand and shuffle off, looking around for something. He soon spots what he’s been searching for, and heaves up a huge fallen log before placing it on the ground next to me with a rustle and a thud. ‘Here, sit on that,’ he says. ‘The ground’s cold.’

  I do as he asks. This time, tentatively accepting his hand as he helps me off the ground. He squats opposite me and sighs.

  ‘I’ve wanted to talk to you for ages,’ he says, ‘but I wasn’t sure if she was doing it to you, too. I had to be sure. I had to wait and see.’

  ‘Doing what?’ I ask.

  ‘Destroying your life,’ he says. ‘Like she destroyed mine.’ His gaze lifts from the ground to my face. We stare at one another in the gathering darkness. Is he telling the truth?

  I wipe my muddy, tear-streaked face with the sleeve of my coat. My feet are like ice blocks and my whole body throbs in pain, but I can’t be side-tracked by encroaching thoughts of central heating and warm baths. I need to hear what this man knows about Darcy.

  ‘Tell me,’ I say.

  ‘My name’s Max Allerton,’ he begins, ‘and I used to be rich and successful, happily married with children.’ He pauses and takes a breath. ‘But I was stupid. Tempted.’

  ‘By Darcy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When?’
>
  ‘It was about ten years ago. Just before she met Michael Lane.’

  ‘You had an affair with her?’ I ask.

  ‘A one-night-stand. Worst decision of my life,’ he says. ‘She knew I still loved my wife and kids. So she blackmailed me. Ripped me off for every penny I had.’

  I find it hard to feel sorry for a man who cheated on his wife, but his voice is filled with so much pain, it’s clear he knows he made a terrible mistake. And I know how Darcy can manipulate people into doing things – things they don’t want to do. How she can get under your skin and make you question everything. She almost fooled me, and she’s already fooled Jared, the school mums, the police . . .

  ‘She worked for me,’ he says. ‘She was my book keeper – knew exactly how much money I made. She destroyed my business, which I guess some might say I deserved after what I did. But she didn’t stop there. She also made sure my wife knew what had happened between us. She taunted Maggie with our affair, even though she’d promised me she wouldn’t. And then, the final blow – she set me up for tax evasion. Got me put away for eight years.’

  I gasp, although I don’t know why I’m so surprised. ‘She did all that?’

  ‘She did.’

  ‘And you were actually sent to prison?’

  ‘They released me last year. Let out early for good behaviour.’

  Something occurs to me. ‘That time outside Flora’s café,’ I say, ‘when she told you to stay away from me. Surely, she must have recognised you. Is that why she warned you off?’

  He shakes his head. ‘No. She didn’t recognise me. I look different now to how I looked back then. I was a rich young man with a beautiful family . . .’ He breaks off and digs into his jeans’ pocket, pulling out a mobile phone, its screen illuminating his worn face. He presses a few buttons and swipes the screen several times. ‘Here.’ He holds it out in front of me and I see a photograph of a handsome, clean-shaven, fair-haired man dressed in a suit – nothing like the man who’s crouched before me now – with a pretty, dark-haired woman and three laughing children.

  ‘Is that . . .?’

  ‘Me. Yeah. I know, hard to believe isn’t it?’ He gives a dry laugh. ‘Me, before Darcy shredded my life. Like she’s trying to do with yours.’

  I take his phone and stare hard at the photo, looking from it to Max and back again. I can see a faint resemblance – the same eyes and nose. I hand him back his phone.

  ‘Why has she even made a move on me?’ I say. ‘I’m not rich.’

  ‘You must have something she wants.’

  ‘She’s stolen my career . . . my husband’s trust . . . my life. But I still don’t understand why. I’ve done nothing to her, and she already had a perfect life before she met me. My career wasn’t anything special. She could’ve picked on a much more successful writer.’

  ‘I don’t know why,’ Max says. ‘But I couldn’t stand by and let her destroy another innocent person’s life. I had to let you know she’s done this sort of thing before.’

  ‘I think you’re too late,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘My life’s already a mess. If you’d warned me about Darcy earlier, I could’ve avoided all―’

  ‘I already told you, I had to be sure she was targeting you,’ he says. ‘To start with, I wasn’t sure. And, honestly, would you have even believed me, back then? I mean, would you, really?’

  ‘Probably not,’ I say.

  ‘Once I saw all those police go into Mike’s place on Friday night, and I saw you get taken off to the station, I knew things must have gotten to a really bad place. I knew I had to come and tell you about what she’d done to me.’

  ‘You saw all that at Mike’s apartment? You followed me there?’

  He nods.

  I give a shiver. ‘How does that help me now? I take it no one believed you back then when you said the tax evasion was Darcy’s doing? So why would they listen to you – a convicted criminal – now?’

  ‘I just thought if we worked together, we might have a chance of stopping her going any further . . . maybe we could play her at her own game.’

  I rest my chin in my hands and think. ‘Will you come and talk to my husband, Jared, about it? Tell him what you told me?’

  He doesn’t reply, so I prompt him. ‘Max?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ he says. ‘Not straight away. Darcy’s got a restraining order against me. I’m not allowed to go anywhere near her. If we tell your husband and he doesn’t believe us . . . if he tells Darcy, she’ll make sure they put me back inside, and we won’t be able to catch her out. And if we don’t stop her, you’ll be the next one to end up in jail.’

  ‘The police let me go,’ I say.

  ‘For now. But Darcy won’t leave it there. No way. She likes to finish what she starts.’

  Max’s words chill me further. Cold dread flooding my body. My teeth have started chattering together and I can no longer feel my fingers. I finally have an ally, someone who believes me. So why do I feel more scared now, than I did before?

  * * *

  Thankfully, when I finally get back to the flat, the others aren’t home yet. I couldn’t deal with all the questions they’d fire at me if they saw the state I’m in. I catch sight of myself in the hall mirror – I look like I’ve been on an SAS assault course. My face is scratched, bruised and smeared with mud, my hair tangled, mud-caked, and infested with leaves and twigs. And as for my soaking clothes . . . they’re completely ruined. If the stains weren’t enough, the rips will consign them to the bin or the fire. I already left my boots outside – I should have dumped them straight in the recycling.

  Bath then bed, I tell myself. My stomach growls. Okay, maybe some food should figure somewhere in the equation. The wall clock in the hall shows that it’s only a few minutes to six. It feels like midnight already.

  I head into the kitchen and rummage in the cupboard under the sink, finally finding a roll of black bin bags. I tear one off the roll and take it into the guest bathroom with me, switch on the light and avoid looking in the mirror again. I’ll check myself over once I’m clean. I realise I’m going to have to have a shower before getting in the bath – otherwise I’ll be sitting in a tub of muddy water.

  I peel my clothes from my body, finally thawing out, but my whole body throbs. As I remove my jumper and t-shirt, I notice livid bruises have begun to appear on my torso and arms. I dump all my clothes in the bin bag. I’ll wash them later and work out if anything can be salvaged once they’re clean.

  Beth’s shower is way better than our one at home. As I step into the cubicle and turn the dial, the spray comes out hot and fast. Too fast. The jets are so powerful, they’re hurting my battered body. I ease back the pressure and let the water cascade over me, wincing as my split, bruised skin is cleaned from head to toe, mud, leaves and pine needles swirling around my feet. I’ll have to unclog the plug hole.

  Over the sound of the shower, I hear the front door slam and Megan’s running footsteps. I was lucky. I only just made it back before them.

  ‘Aunty Lou!’ Megan’s fists bang on the bathroom door.

  ‘I’m in the shower, Meggy. I’ll be out in a minute!’

  ‘We had sticky toffee pudding for afters!’ she calls. ‘And I brought you some back. Do you want it now?’

  My heart melts at her sweetness. ‘Lovely!’ I shout back. ‘I’ll have some later with a cup of tea.’

  ‘Sorry, Lou!’ Carys’ voice calls to me from outside the bathroom. And then I hear her chastise Megan. ‘Leave Aunty Louisa. She’s in the shower.’

  ‘See, I told you,’ Megan replies. ‘She does want the sticky toffee pudding.’ Their voices fade as they move away from outside the bathroom door.

  I’m not sure whether to tell my sister and Carys what happened today. But, I never told anyone about my stalker, and Beth will go mad that I never mentioned him before. They would want me to tell the police. I can’t afford to tip Darcy off about Max. And I don’t want to get him into trouble
either. If Darcy has a restraining order against him, then he could get sent back to prison. I tip my head forward under the spray and work my fingers through the tangled mess that used to be my hair. Sharp twigs have embedded themselves into the curls. I even find a couple of small stones caught up near my scalp. I shudder as a squashed, drowned spider drops from my fingers into the shower tray, and wonder what other hideous creepy crawlies have found their way into my hair.

  I’ve arranged to see Max again, tomorrow. We can’t risk being spotted by anyone I know so we’re going to meet back near the cliff-top path. There’s a wooden bench in a clearing off the main track. There shouldn’t be many people up there on a cold, November, Monday morning.

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  I’m early for our 9 am meeting, but Max is already here as I arrive at the clearing. He’s sitting on the damp, wooden bench and rises to his feet when he sees me, brushing imaginary dirt off his coat and trousers. He holds out his hand and I shake it. It’s a gentle handshake, belying the man’s strength. Maybe he doesn’t want to do anything that could remind me of yesterday’s violence. Either way, a polite handshake feels a strange way to greet one another after the shock and terror of yesterday’s encounter.

  I take my hand back and shove both hands into my coat pockets – actually, Beth’s coat pockets; mine is wrecked beyond saving. Max and I perch next to each other – he sits in the middle of the bench and I’ve positioned myself on the edge, wary in his company. Despite everything he told me yesterday, I still can’t help thinking of him as my creepy stalker. The cold has already begun to numb my feet and hands, and I’m starting to wish we’d chosen to meet in a warm, anonymous café. But we’re here now so I’ll just have to ignore the icy chill.

  Max clears his throat. ‘I wanted to say sorry again. About yesterday. I didn’t plan on it going that way. I pictured a more . . . civilised meeting.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Apology accepted. But, yes, you probably could have been a little less determined. I’m just glad you didn’t turn out to be the nutter I thought you were.’