BooksBarbecue
Back Bad Friends
Chapters (59)
  1. Bad Friends
  2. Copyright
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraph
  5. AFTER: DECEMBER
  6. BEFORE: JUNE
  7. Chapter One
  8. Chapter Two
  9. Chapter Three
  10. Chapter Four
  11. Chapter Five
  12. Chapter Six
  13. Chapter Seven
  14. Chapter Eight
  15. Chapter Nine
  16. Chapter Ten
  17. Chapter Eleven
  18. Chapter Twelve
  19. Chapter Thirteen
  20. Chapter Fourteen
  21. Chapter Fifteen
  22. Chapter Sixteen
  23. Chapter Seventeen
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. Chapter Nineteen
  26. Chapter Twenty
  27. Chapter Twenty-One
  28. Chapter Twenty-Two
  29. Chapter Twenty-Three
  30. Chapter Twenty-Four
  31. Chapter Twenty-Five
  32. Chapter Twenty-Six
  33. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  34. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  35. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  36. Chapter Thirty
  37. Chapter Thirty-One
  38. Chapter Thirty-Two
  39. Chapter Thirty-Three
  40. Chapter Thirty-Four
  41. Chapter Thirty-Five
  42. Chapter Thirty-Six
  43. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  44. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  45. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  46. Chapter Forty
  47. Chapter Forty-One
  48. Chapter Forty-Two
  49. Chapter Forty-Three
  50. Chapter Forty-Four
  51. Chapter Forty-Five
  52. Chapter Forty-Six
  53. Chapter Forty-Seven
  54. Chapter Forty-Eight
  55. A CONVERSATION WITH CLAIRE SEEBER
  56. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  57. About the Author
  58. By the same author:
  59. About the Publisher

To my horror, tears sprang to my eyes for the second time that day. I forced myself to meet his eye. ‘I will, if I’m worried. But I’m fine, honestly.’

‘Good. Well, I’ll see myself out.’

For about half an hour after the policeman left I sat in the dim light of the desk-lamp and stared at the small painting of the cottage in Cornwall. Something really bad was brewing, I felt it in my belly. ‘Something wicked this way comes’ – Macbeth’s three witches stamped round the midnight cauldron that held my life, and for some reason they were summoning evil against me. Something wicked that threatened to suffocate me. I had to escape.

Bel was leaving on Friday, so I had to stick around till I’d dropped her at Heathrow. But if I could get to Pendarlin, I was sure I would be safe.

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

It was raining hard. The rain had started the very moment I’d left work, and of course I had no umbrella, and then outside the tube I’d slipped off the pavement into the river running through the gutter so my trainers were completely sodden, and then my phone rang as I opened Bel’s front gate and I dropped it as I fumbled to answer it. When I bent to retrieve it, water cascaded down my neck, then down my back, so by the time Bel opened her front door I was thoroughly soaked and equally irritated.

‘You left me a message.’ The voice on the phone was curt. ‘What now?’

My eyes stung as my waterproof mascara slid down my face. ‘Alex.’ I was curter. ‘About time.’

Bel pulled a face. ‘I’ll be in the bedroom,’ she whispered.

‘Sorry,’ he said, sounding less than contrite. ‘I’m pretty busy.’

I waited for him to qualify his busyness until I realised he wasn’t going to.

‘You had red paint all over your boots this morning.’ I rubbed at my panda eyes in the mirror. ‘Why?’

‘What? What boots?’

‘In the hall. At your dad’s.’

‘For Christ’s sake, Maggie.’

A girl laughed in the background and it was like a knife in my belly. ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ I said sharply.

‘I’m getting really bored of this,’ Alex sighed wearily. ‘We’ve been through it a million bloody times. I’ve told you, it’s nothing to do with me.’

I heard a drink being poured and suddenly I felt like screaming. I bit my lip painfully.

‘Look, I’ve got to go.’

‘No, Alex, wait.’

‘What?’

Hannah appeared in the hall in a pair of patent tap-shoes and a Snow White outfit two sizes too small. ‘Watch this, Auntie Maggie.’ Some very loud and unrhythmic tapping began.

‘So where were you last night, Alex?’ I gave Hannah a thumbs-up. ‘You never told me that.’