Good Friend , livre ebook

RedDoor Publishing - Jo Baldwin

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111 pages

English

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"The pain still lies deep within me. I've learnt to 'manage' it over the years, but today it feels stronger, throbbing like a toothache, yet in the pit of my stomach." Once upon a time they were best friends. They were all friends. So when Jenny moved to Australia to focus on her swimming career, she not only lost Kath, but her soul-mate Tom. It was for the best. Or so they said. Now, eight years later, Jenny seeks out her childhood friend and heads to rural France where Kath has settled. At first the women fall back into a close relationship, but before long strange and malicious behavior leads Jenny to realize the truth: that Kath has played a clever game all along to manipulate and control those around her. And Jenny is her biggest victim. Set against the glorious backdrop of the Languedoc lavender fields, The Good Friend is a beautifully written psychological drama about love, lies and a dangerous obsession. Because once the truth is revealed, there's no going back.

Sujets

Thriller

Romance

Informations

Publié par	RedDoor Publishing
Date de parution	01 septembre 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781913062217
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0180€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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– Early reader reviews –
‘Ominous, slick and unnerving’
‘Riveting’
‘The ending had me page turning like a woman possessed… I am usually pretty spot on at working out what is going on, but not this time’
‘Excellent’
‘This is a brilliantly written book and I couldn’t wait another day to see the end… a fascinating psychological thriller that I would highly recommend to anyone’
‘An excellent thriller… five stars’
‘Genuinely gripping… this is a definite page-turner’
‘I thoroughly enjoyed this book’
‘Put some time away for this book… a terrific psychological thriller with lots of lies, deception, tragedy and twists’
‘Fantastic’
‘A thriller full of twists and turns, secrets and lies’
‘What an amazing book. Loved it from beginning to end’
‘An exceptional read… I was sucked in from the very beginning’
‘A solid five star psychological thriller about obsession and friendship’
‘Full of twists and turns… completely spell-binding and addictive. The writing style is fabulous, the characters are all intriguing and interesting and the plot will keep you guessing and racing through to find out all the answers’
‘An intense thriller about friendship and jealousy’
‘It had me gripped from the beginning to the end… full of suspense and twists’
The
Good
Friend
Jo Baldwin

Published by RedDoor
www.reddoorpublishing.com
© 2019 Jo Baldwin
The right of Jo Baldwin to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the author
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover design: Clare Connie Shepherd
www.clareconnieshepherd.com
Typeset by Fuzzy Flamingo
www.fuzzyflamingo.co.uk
For my four Kenchies
– Chapter 1 –

June 2013. Gare de Lyon, Paris
A shoal of colour darts to and fro, weaves in and out. People pressed for time. Pushing, pulling, like the ebb and flow of a tide. Among them a young couple, laden with luggage, grasp hold of two small children, faces tense as they try to locate their train. On the platform, the guard peers at his watch, taps it three times and raises a whistle to his mouth. He catches sight of the family and hesitates, his pointed nose and chin jerking up and down like a grub-hungry woodpecker. He points them towards their carriage, slams the door shut behind them and blows on his whistle.
Inside the carriage, the mother babbles away in Gallic relief and points her children towards four reserved seats while the father takes on the task of rearranging the near-full luggage rack to accommodate two big bags. Triumphant, he rejoins his family, his sweaty sandals squeaking through the carriage like mice.
My gaze drops. I am aware that I have been staring at strangers for too long, have been seduced by this new tableau of togetherness. However, it is not mine to share. A wave of loneliness washes over me, but I force it away and turn back to look out of the window, towards the station’s canvas of bustling anonymity.
The train starts to advance forward, tentative at first like a toddler’s first steps, then gradually gathers momentum as it grows in confidence. A murmur of calm descends over the carriage. Soon we reach the edge of the city and move into the suburbs, where the scenery changes. Modern tower blocks stand tall and foreboding. Lines of brightly coloured clothing hang like forgotten bunting from balconies. A bright-blue sky forms the backdrop to a toy town of rooftops, service stations and out-of-town shopping centres.
We scoot through a tunnel. A ghostly white face blinks back at me from the darkness and it takes me a moment to realise I’m staring at myself. I pinch the bare flesh on the back of my thigh. Stay strong. You’ve got to do this. Finish what you’ve started. Something my mother advised me to do when I was introduced to a new routine: a new term at school or having to read out loud in class.
‘If you pinch yourself, it will hurt, but only a little. Just focus on the pain and you’ll forget about the rest.’
I close my eyes and picture her gentle face. If only she were here now.
As the train nudges through a trajectory of silent landscapes, I catch sight of a meandering river making its own journey south alongside my own. Its presence provides comfort, in the same way that a flock of wild geese might for someone out hiking alone in the wilderness.
The wilderness. That’s where I feel I am right now: in an emotional wilderness. I know that I have to draw on my full mental strength in order to see this through. And I will. I have to. There’s no going back.

***
The train jerks forward, jostles me awake and throws my pillow – a rolled-up cardigan – to the floor. My head is thumping. I reach above me to try and twist some cold air into my face, but the aircon’s already on maximum. Where’s the refreshments trolley when you need it? I lean over the empty seat next to me to check down the gangway but apart from the odd foot tapping up and down, it’s empty. The rows of heads remind me of bottles in crates, all chinking along to the same gentle rhythm. That old Police song ‘Message in a Bottle’ jumps into my head and I wonder what message each of us is taking to our destination – a marriage proposal perhaps, or some sad news? I haven’t decided what my message is going to be. A lot will depend on the answers to the questions I need to ask first.
The song carries me back to that summer when Kath and I, bored with the monotonous day-to-day of living in the Somerset countryside, took ourselves to the river with a bagful of empty glass bottles we’d found at the local tip. We decided that if we were going to change the course of our destinies, we needed to get to work straightaway. So, perched on the riverbank, we wrote a heap of SOS messages, with our names and addresses printed on each, making an appeal for someone to come and rescue us from our life of drudgery and hardship, which of course wasn’t the case, but like any pre-pubescent teenager we liked to live in a semi-imaginary world of swashbuckling pirates, armour-clad knights and ermine-cloaked princes. In ceremonious style, we dropped the bottles one by one into the fast-flowing river, ran along the bank, watching them bob up and down in the rippling ribbons of water, until they disappeared out of sight.
Three years later, Tom knocked on my door, a sludgy bottle in his hand, my message in the other, and changed my world forever.
The pain still lies deep within me. I’ve learnt to manage it over the years, but today it feels stronger, throbbing like a toothache, yet in the pit of my stomach. Without thinking, I reach out to sketch a heart and arrow on the breath-misted window. I’m poised to fill it with initials, when my companion opposite moves in her seat to cross her legs.
‘ Pardon !’ she murmurs, as one high-heeled foot brushes my calf. She glances at my artwork and smiles in conspiratorial recognition.
Quickly, I wipe it away and pick up my magazine to cover my pink embarrassment. You’re not supposed to look back. Only forward. The future . Remember?
The train continues to hum and whistle its way forward, speeding intermittently through long narrow tunnels. The sky gradually empties of sun-bursting clouds the further south we go, becoming silver-grey. My eyes follow a carpet of tufted green into the distance. A lone caravan sits in a field, a battered old car parked alongside it. Perhaps an elderly couple live there, penniless but filled with love and laughter watching a game show on their small TV; or a lonesome man of the south who’s travelled north for work, sitting behind a pile of empty beer cans, staring at nothing and missing his wife and children; or perhaps it’s a large family squeezed into the tiny living space like sardines in a tin, arguing and goading each other, until one of them jumps up and leaves, slamming the door shut, never to return. Alone for the first time, like me. Each and every one of us is cocooned in a separate bubble. We bounce along in our own worlds, sometimes colliding, but rarely stopping to look around until our bubble bursts and we are alone. And only then do we notice copies of ourselves everywhere.
‘D ésirez-vous boire ou manger quelque chose, Mademoiselle ?’
An efficient-looking woman wearing a dark-blue dress nods at me from behind her refreshments trolley. Stumbling over my limited French, I point at a bottle of still water. Her nimble fingers count out the change in my outstretched palm.
‘ Merci .’ I unscrew the lid and stretch out more freely across the unoccupied seat next to me, briefly catching the eye of the French woman opposite. She leans across the table that separates us.
‘Excuse me, but do I know you? Somehow you look familiar.’ Her English is fluent with the faintest accent.
‘No, I don’t think so.’ I shrug my shoulders stiffly. ‘This is only my second time in France.’
She shakes her head in a puzzled manner. ‘ Excusez-moi , I am mistaken. It must be that you look like someone I know.’
She is striking, probably in her early fifties, immaculate in a pinstripe suit, with brown, glossy hair pulled back into a neat chignon. Her red lipstick stands out against her olive skin.
‘No worries. It happe