The Friendship Pact

by Alison James

  Her father has plenty of savings and might be persuaded to lend her some cash. But he would insist on knowing what the money was for, and once she had told him, could she trust him not to tell Marcus about what she was doing? She doesn’t think so. Jeffrey has already proved himself all too vulnerable to her husband’s manipulation. And after his stroke, she doesn’t want to risk his health by adding anxiety about her welfare.

  Using her new burner phone, she logs on to an auction site and starts trying to work out realistic prices for her favourite dress rings and gold bracelets, one of which turns out to be worth at least two thousand pounds. The doorbell rings, forcing her to abandon her task midway through drafting a listing.

  Adele stands on the doorstep.

  ‘Adele! What a surprise!’ This is all she can manage; her brain desperately struggling to catch up. How the hell did she find me?

  ‘Yeah, I bet it is.’ Adele gives a broad grin and lopes into the hallway, looking around in wonder. Lucy half expects her to start stroking the wallpaper. ‘In case you’re wondering, Mum’s mate Janet got Gwen – your dad’s cleaner – to look in his address book when she was working round his place. She said there was no phone number written down for you, otherwise I’d have phoned you obviously.’

  ‘Obviously,’ says Lucy weakly. ‘Come on through. Coffee?’ If they’re quick, Adele can be on her way before there’s any risk of Marcus returning.

  ‘Yeah, go on then,’ says Adele, staring open-mouthed at the bespoke Tom Howley kitchen units with their carbon grey doors and cream marble counters. ‘Wow. This place. How much did this lot set you back?’

  ‘A fair bit,’ Lucy admits, switching on the espresso machine.

  ‘So how much does your old man earn, then?’

  Lucy just gives a faint smile. She doesn’t know the exact figure anyway.

  ‘Quarter of a mill a year?’ Adele asks.

  ‘More, I think.’ She reaches into one of the cupboards for cups and saucers.

  ‘And you want to give all this up? You must be smoking drugs.’

  Lucy sighs. ‘There’s more involved in a marriage than just the trappings,’ she waves a hand round the room, ‘the stuff.’

  ‘Nice problem to have,’ sniffs Adele. ‘Anyway, that’s actually why I’m here. Sorry about the other night. It was a bit weird seeing you like that, and it made me a bit, you know… touchy.’

  Lucy presses the button on the coffee machine and a hot, fragrant stream hisses into the cup. ‘It’s okay. I know my turning up like that after all these years… it was a lot to deal with.’

  ‘I lost my shit and I shouldn’t have done. Like I said: sorry.’ This craven, eager-to-please Adele is unfamiliar to Lucy and is making her feel oddly disorientated, even in her own home.

  She sets the cups of coffee on the table and gestures for her to sit down.

  Adele takes a sip of the espresso and pulls a face. ‘Christ, Luce, that’s a bit fucking strong! Give us some more milk, will you, and some sugar.’

  Lucy obliges.

  ‘Anyway, that’s not the reason I’m here. The other night… we didn’t mention the obvious. You know what I mean.’

  Lucy feels fear creeping up the back of her neck.

  ‘Joanne Beckett,’ supplies Adele.

  Lucy pinches her fingers together as though she’s trying to warm them up. ‘No, we didn’t. I guess neither of us could face it.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Adele scrunches up her face. ‘But the fact is, I know that since I last saw you, you haven’t told anyone about my… about what happened when she fell in the water. About my part in that.’

  ‘I promised,’ Lucy says simply.

  ‘I know. And you kept the promise, which means a lot. After I’d asked you to leave the other night, I got to thinking about that. About how much I owe you.’

  ‘We were very young,’ Lucy reaches out her hand and touches Adele’s. ‘You weren’t to know what could have happened.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. But I was still over the age of criminal responsibility. I could have ended up in Young Offenders. For years. So, anyhow, I was thinking about that. And then I thought about what you asked me. About wanting to start a new life.’ She stirs two heaped spoons of sugar into her coffee. ‘So I decided I should help you. Plus, I get it, I really do. Why you might want to leave. The girls’ father… well, he could be a real pig, and there were times I wanted to just grab them and take off. Never come back, you know?’

  Lucy nods.

  ‘So I asked around a couple of people I met when I was inside, and I’ve been given a name. A guy local to me who’s done time for insurance fraud and knows about this kind of stuff. He’ll be able to help. For a small fee.’

  ‘How small?’ Lucy thinks back to the prohibitive cost of hiring a lawyer like Frances Harper.

  Adele shrugs, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it, without asking for her host’s consent. Lucy fetches an ashtray, but makes no comment. ‘I mean; you’d have to sort that with him obviously, but maybe a couple of grand? Something like that?’

  ‘And what would I get for that?’

  ‘Again, you’d have to speak to him, but it would be along the lines of a new passport and ID, somewhere to stay, that kind of thing.’

  Lucy is suddenly reminded of the Netflix documentary series about the FBI. There was an episode focusing on their witness protection programmes, and the former agent that they interviewed on camera explained how it takes immense strength and discipline to walk away from your life and never go back. That even the most innocent backtracking can place lives in danger. ‘Can he be trusted, this contact?’ She puts her cup down and makes eye contact with Adele. Those deep-set, slightly slanting eyes can still unnerve her. ‘I’d have to be certain that he wasn’t going to tell anyone where I was. I mean, not just Marcus – my husband. That bit’s obvious. He’d have to make sure he didn’t give away my new information to anyone.’

  ‘Not even me?’ Adele twirls her cigarette between her fingertips thoughtfully. ‘Best friends forever, and all that.’

  Lucy hesitates, remembering how happy that friendship once made her. Then she shakes her head. ‘Not even you. Nobody. That’s the only way these things work.’

  Adele wrinkles her nose. ‘Fair enough. Let me take your number, and I’ll ask him to contact you.’ She pulls out her phone and swipes away the screensaver of her daughters, ‘Shoot.’

  ‘0734…’ Lucy starts to recite her contract phone number then checks herself. Of course, she’ll have to supply the number of the new handset bought in Redgate. ‘Hold on a second.’ She goes upstairs and fetches it, still unable to remember the digits off by heart. ‘You’d better take this one.’

  ‘Ooh,’ Adele grins. ‘A secret phone. Good thinking, Batman.’

  ‘It’s pretty much essential given my situation, I’m afraid.’ Lucy reads out the number.

  ‘Okay, noted. Wait for my contact to get in touch, yeah? His name’s Denny Renard.’

  Denny Renard. Lucy types the two words into her Contacts list, as yet blissfully unaware what this name will come to mean to her.

  Fourteen

  The day after Adele’s visit, Lucy switches on her ‘secret’ mobile and finds a text.

  hi this is denny r here adele gave me yr number, need to arrange a meet

  Her heart sinks. Denny’s communication style is a lot less literate than she was expecting. This man is supposed to have committed insurance fraud, which must involve a degree of intelligence, but this missive suggests an amateur. How can she entrust her future to someone like this? She thinks about telling him she’s changed her mind, but decides that since Adele went out of her way to find him, she should at least hear what he has to say. Then, to keep her options open, she’ll look into finding a cheaper solicitor. There must be someone out there who won’t require such a huge payment up front. She vaguely recalls Helen saying that her brother was a lawyer: she could ask him.

  She texts back.

  When and where
did you have in mind?

  Her phone pings with a reply almost immediately.

  how bout the dog?

  Lucy types back.

  Not Dog & Fox. Don’t want to meet in Redgate, I know too many people there. Needs to be a distance away.

  ok how about red rooster diner tonight 6pm

  He names a fast-food place on the dual carriageway that links Redgate with the A3, next to a truck stop and a petrol station. Lucy calculates that she can drive there and back for 6 p.m. and still be home again before Marcus gets back from the hospital.

  She buys herself some time with advance preparation of a casserole for their supper, then scribbles a note on the pad in the kitchen, telling Marcus that she and Helen are planning to go out for a drink after their last lecture of the day.

  Dressing for an assignation with a hired criminal is not something she’s ever had to consider before. The last thing she wants is to look conspicuous. She’d like to blend in, which isn’t straightforward at 5’10” with long, luminously blonde hair. In the end she dresses in yoga leggings and a hooded sweat top, tying up her hair and stuffing it under a baseball cap, which she keeps pulled down low over her face as she walks into the Red Rooster.

  Denny’s texts were not what she had expected, and nor is he in person. He’s taller than average and heavily muscled in the artificial way of someone who is naturally slight but spends all their time bodybuilding with weights. His thighs are so thick that they knock up against each other awkwardly when he walks and bulge through his skinny jeans. Under his T-shirt (featuring the slogan ‘Muscle Monkey’), his overdeveloped pectorals bunch forward, folding over on themselves, and his tanned biceps are like two huge hams. He has two full sleeves of tattoos, and one that extends up from his chest and over most of his neck: a red and blue swirl of Japanese-style fishes and flowers. His trendy fade haircut is deceptive: when she looks more closely at the lines on his face, she realises that he must be around forty.

  ‘All right?’ he says, thumping his body down in the chair opposite Lucy. ‘Adele told me you were a looker.’ His smile reveals long incisors which give him a vulpine appearance.

  Lucy hands him a menu and spends a long time deciding what she wants to eat, because she has no idea how to start the conversation, or negotiation, or whatever this is going to be. She orders a toasted cheese sandwich and a coffee, and Denny asks for a double hamburger (‘Well done’) and a beer.

  ‘So,’ he says easily, extending his thick thighs so that they’re taking up all the space under the table and she has to tuck hers under her chair. ‘You’ve got yourself every little girl’s dream and married a rich, successful geezer, but you want to jack it in. Why’s that: not getting enough action in the bedroom?’

  Lucy stares at him: shocked at both his casual sexism and the personal nature of the enquiry.

  ‘Aw, come on,’ he says, tapping his menu rhythmically on the edge of the Formica table, then straightening the cuffs of his shirt sleeves. He seems unable to keep still, full of pent-up, animal energy. Lucy wonders if he uses steroids. He looks the type. ‘It’s just banter.’

  ‘Let’s not go into my reasons: it’s really not necessary,’ she tells him, avoiding contact with his unsettling pale green eyes. ‘I just need to know what you can do to help, and how much it will cost.’

  ‘Righto then, Blondie, have it your way.’ The waitress brings their food, and he starts ripping the beef patties into shreds with his knife and fork. ‘I can get you a passport and a driving licence in a new name. The idea is that you can then use those to get whatever other ID or accounts you might need. And I can fix somewhere for you to stay for a bit when you first leave home; somewhere secure, where you won’t be found.’

  Lucy sips her coffee, thinking about this. ‘And the price?’

  ‘Five bags.’

  She frowns at him.

  ‘Bags of sand. Thousand. Five thousand.’

  Lucy’s shaking her head. ‘No. I can’t pay that much. For that much I could employ a solicitor to take my husband to court and get a restraining order.’

  Denny shrugs, unperturbed, and thrusts a huge piece of meat into his mouth. ‘Would that stop him though? Your old man? From what I heard via your mate, he’s not going to give up that easily.’

  He has a point, Lucy thinks. Any legal action she took would be interpreted by Marcus as designed to humiliate. It would rile him up rather than put him off. And there was a risk he would charm his way out of it, blind any judge with his stellar reputation and royal connections.

  ‘Three thousand,’ she says, taking a bite of her sandwich. ‘That’s all I can afford.’

  ‘No can do, sweetheart,’ Denny says sadly, tipping back his head and letting the beer run down his throat. ‘It costs more than that. The accommodation ain’t going to be cheap for starters. If you don’t want a fleapit.’

  ‘Four thousand would really be all that I can manage.’

  He pretends to think about this. ‘Go on then. Only ’cause I’m a sucker for a pretty face, mind.’

  Suppressing a shudder, Lucy ignores this. ‘How long would it take?’

  ‘Passport’s going to be about five days, minimum. I’d need the cash first, obviously. And you’ll need to send me a passport-size photo of you that’s high enough res to reproduce my end.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll still need to think about it.’ Pushing her plate away, Lucy reaches into her bag to pull out her wallet, but her hand touches something smooth and hard. Christ, she thinks, I forgot. Her phone is in her bag: the one that Marcus tracks via his app. She meant to leave it on the kitchen table, as though she had forgotten it.

  ‘Don’t think for ever, darling.’ Denny pushes out his lower lip and taps his empty beer bottle against the edge of the table. ‘My services are available for a limited time only.’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’ Lucy returns the baseball cap to her head and hurries out into the car park.

  ‘Shit!’ she swears under her breath as she drives back into London. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’ Please let this be one of those times when Marcus is tied up with patients all day. That I get home first, so he never discovers I’ve left town. But when she gets back to Barnes, his car is parked on the driveway and the lights are on downstairs.

  She walks into the kitchen, but there’s no one there. The house is deadly quiet.

  ‘Marcus?’

  He’s sitting in the drawing room in semi-darkness, the room illuminated only by the light from the hallway. She catches the glitter of his eyes, the jut of his cheekbones, which has become more pronounced in recent days as he’s lost weight.

  ‘Have a nice day, darling?’ His voice is cold, quiet.

  He knows.

  He holds up the note that she left for him. ‘Good lecture was it?’

  She shrugs. Maybe he hasn’t actually checked on her phone. Bluff it out. ‘Okay, I guess.’

  ‘I checked your lecture schedule online. You didn’t have any today. So where have you been? Only, the location of your phone would suggest it’s somewhere on the A427.’ His voice is getting louder.

  ‘I went—’

  ‘And don’t…’ this word is almost a shout, ‘… don’t say you went to see your father, because I’ve already phoned him and he hasn’t seen you.’ He stands up, his full height menacing, then strides to the drinks cabinet and takes out a bottle of vodka, pouring himself a glass and swallowing it down neat. ‘So, where were you?’

  The pounding of Lucy’s heart makes her chest tighten and her ears ring.

  ‘What’s the point in me telling you, when you already know?’

  ‘Ah, but I don’t know who you were with…’ Marcus swallows the remains of the vodka and pours himself another glass. His voice thickens, becomes indistinct. ‘Lover boy, was it?’

  Lucy turns and heads back towards the staircase, but Marcus blocks her path.

  ‘Oh no you don’t, Lucinda. Not until you’ve answered the question.’

  She pushes past him and run
s up the stairs. There’s a crashing sound as something explodes within earshot and, turning round, she sees that Marcus has thrown the vodka bottle after her, narrowly missing the backs of her legs. It shatters against the wood trim of the stair treads, a glittering firework of clear glass and colourless liquid, followed by Marcus’s heavy footsteps. With a little whimper, she sprints up to the landing.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, I’m not trying to hurt you, you stupid girl!’ he shouts. ‘I just want to know what’s going on. After all I do for you, is that too much to ask?’

  Lucy runs into the spare bedroom and drags the heavy chest of drawers against the door. Marcus hammers against it with his fists, then thumps it so hard with his shoulder that the hinges threaten to splinter away from the door frame. Eventually, realising that he can’t get in, he changes tack.

  ‘Actions have consequences! Have you thought about that? Eh? If I can’t trust you with the car, can’t trust who you’re going to meet in it, then you can’t have it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Lucy asks, her voice shaking. Although she already knows.

  ‘I pay for the bloody thing. It’s my name on the lease agreement. So tomorrow I’ll tell them we don’t need it any more. Get them to take it away. Let’s see how you get on making assignations with lover boy using public transport.’

  ‘Marcus,’ Lucy keeps her tone reasonable. ‘We can’t go on like this. Surely you can see that? This is not how marriage is supposed to work.’

  ‘Oh, so you think instead you’ll just piss off with someone else and take half my hard-earned money with you, do you? Let me tell you, Lucinda,’ he spits the last word, ‘that is not going to happen. I’ll kill you before I let that happen.’