When Good Friends Go Bad (37 page)

'I told him where you live.'

'What! When? How?' She sprang up, looking like a rabbit about to run.

'I wasn't to know. I'm
so
sorry, Rowan.' Jen put her head in her hands, not wanting to see the terror and accusation in Rowan's eyes. 'He came to the reunion. He implied he'd never married. I didn't connect the two of you. How would I? It seems like Georgina, Meg and I might have stirred up a hornet's nest.' Well, she sure as billy-o wasn't going down alone.

Rowan chewed nervously at her lip, her eyes buggy with fear. 'What do we do? What do we do now?'

'Grab some things. I'll get you out of here.'

It was lighter outside than it had been in the house, the last lingering hint of dusk turning everything to a flat shade of grey. They were rushing towards Jen's car when Rowan clutched her arm.

'Look!' She pointed.

The passenger-side tyre was flat. Not just a little; the steel rim was almost touching the ground, the rubber pancaked around it. In her haste Jen hadn't noticed the rotten plank with three-inch nails she'd run over.

'We'll have to take yours.'

'I haven't got one any more.' Rowan looked miserable and terrified. 'Just a bike. And it'll be pitch black before we can walk to the Sheepshearer. What if he's there, waiting for us? What are you doing?' She watched as Jen pressed buttons on her mobile.

'Dialling 999.' From a shed behind them a cow gave a mournful low. Jen almost jumped out of her skin.

'There's no signal. You have to climb up that hill there to get one.' Rowan pointed at a cone-shaped mountain towering over the back of the farm. 'But the police won't help. We don't even know he's coming tonight. And besides, I can't leave.' She looked around wildly, as if only now realising. 'I've three cats, a dog and goats needing feeding, the cow to milk in the morning. And then I'll just be running again. I might as well stay here,' her face crumpled in defeat, 'let him find me. I knew it couldn't last.'

'No,' Jen said forcefully. 'That's plain wrong. You can't just give in.' Light bulbs exploded in her head. 'I know what we need to do.' Her voice sounded odd, even to herself.

'What?'

'Whenever we had trouble, ever since we met at school, what was our greatest defence?'

'Um . . . I don't know, running away, telling a prefect?'

'No.' Jen was already tightening her boot laces, ready to tackle a ruddy great mountain in the dark. 'The four of us. Standing together, shoulder to shoulder. Come what may.'

'Talk to me, Nutmeg. I'm tense. Tell me a joke.'

'You know you won't get it.'

'Please,' Georgina begged. 'I'm starting to feel my body rising like I'm floating and I might not be in control and I might swerve into a motorbike or something and . . .'

'You won't swerve into a motorbike, honey,' Meg soothed. She'd been trying to placate her friend all through the three hours of driving, cursing the luck that had placed her in this situation. She'd taken the train to London hoping to find Aiden in the Giordani offices and confront him at last. Instead she'd found only Georgina, packing up for the night. She was improvising some story about wanting to see where all the action took place just as they heard the SOS signal ring on Georgina's cell.

'Bring Meg and tell no one,' Jen had instructed down the crackly line, sounding as if a hurricane were blowing by her. 'It's crucial. Life and death.'

Too bad Georgina had seemed more nervous about an uninsured Meg driving her plush car than she was about her own motorway phobia, until now – when it was too late to turn back.

'Oh shit!' Meg cried out as Georgina did a kind of S maneouvre. 'Cool it, G.'

'I can't cool it. I'm taking off. Like an aeroplane on a runway. Look at my hands, I'm clutching the wheel so hard they've gone numb.'

'Unclutch them then.'

'Oh goblins, what was that?'

'Thirty-ton truck gone by on our inside.'

'Oh no, oh no.'

'Hey, look now.' Meg grabbed the wheel as the car swerved into the fast lane. 'Maybe you better swing over to the right, I mean left,' she quickly corrected herself. 'When it's clear, of course.'

'What if my tyre explodes?'

'What if what?'

'My tyre. What if it explodes?'

'It won't, Jeez. You get your car regularly serviced, don't you?'

'Max does. God, I hate motorways.'

'Well you shouldn't. They're just like normal roads but a shitload faster. Far less accidents.'

'Yes but when the accidents happen they're unbelievably humungous.'

'Talking about unbelievable,' Meg swiftly changed the subject, 'how the hell do you think Jen found Rowan?'

'And why didn't she take us down there with her?' Georgina found that if she took slow pants of breath, she could keep relatively calm. 'After all our searching, deciding to go it alone. She's been acting very strangely recently.'

'Maybe she wanted all the glory, huh?' Meg said cynically. 'Abandoning us at the final hurdle. She actually said urgent, then? Life and death?'

'And not to tell anyone. Oh, oh, I'm going again.'

'Deep breaths.' Meg began panicking. Georgina's nervousness was rubbing off on her now.

'I'm rising again . . .'

Meg checked the map. 'Only one more junction and we're off. Think of something else.'

'What?'

'Shoot, I don't know. Something comforting, a beach, lapping waves.'

'OK.' She seemed to calm down. 'I'm thinking, I'm thinking.'

A few seconds went by. Meg looked across at Georgina. She was quiet . . . too quiet . . . much too quiet . . . Maybe she was rising again or had fallen asleep or . . .

'Georgie!' she yelled fiercely.

'Yes!' Georgina yelled back. 'I was just thinking of the nice thing.'

'Well stop, and . . . um . . . sing instead. Sing out loud. It might help.'

Georgina warbled something Meg couldn't quite recognise.

'Good, good. I can see the three-hundred-yard sign. Now indicate and get ready to move across. That's it.' Meg breathed a huge sigh of relief as they moved into the slip lane and began to slow down. Despite her frazzled nerves, she smiled – Georgie's singing voice had always been atrocious.

Twenty minutes later Georgina had calmed down and was now listening to Magic radio.

'Sorry. I'm sure you must despise me for this ridiculous phobia of mine.'

'Not in the slightest, Georgie. In fact . . . I admire you.'

Georgina was startled. 'Me?
You
admire
me?
You're teasing, right?'

'Why would I be? Internationally famous design genius. Gorgeous husband. Rich as billy-o. You got it made, girl.'

'Yes, but what does it all mean? I have money and business success, granted, my husband . . .' She let the thought trail away. 'But aren't there more important things in life? Like friends? Children? Hobbies, even?'

'Jen and I are your friends – your work
is
your hobby and as for kids . . .' Meg paused. 'Somehow I got the idea you didn't want any. After you lost the first one.'

'I couldn't anyway.' Georgina felt tears spring to her eyes. 'I got sterilised.'

'Oh?' Meg looked shocked briefly, then recovered. 'Well you probably made the right choice, Georgie. Motherhood's a tough road. Take it from someone who knows.'

'It seemed the only thing to do.' Maybe she shouldn't be telling Nutmeg but dash it all, she was tired of all the secrets between them. 'Aiden fell apart when I got pregnant, just when I needed him most. He started sleeping around. Going out at night like a prowling tomcat, coming in stinking of other women. He never wanted the baby, the idea of being a father terrified him. And I was beside myself with worry and stress. The miscarriage devastated me, but it wasn't surprising, not really. And I didn't want to risk the same thing happening again. I had to face the fact I already had one child on my hands, I couldn't have coped with another. I loved Aiden. I didn't want to lose him.' She took a deep breath, relieved at getting it out. 'Please don't tell Jen.'

'I wouldn't. But why not?'

'Because she still . . . admires Aiden. It'll shatter her illusions. You know, Meg,' Georgina turned for a second to her friend, 'I've never said this before, but I like you.'

'You do? Hang a left here.'

'Yes, I mean we were always friends and everything. But I wasn't always sure whether I actually
liked
you. But I do. Underneath all that kick-ass attitude, I think you're, well, tremendous, really. A tremendous original true-to-yourself type of person.' She felt a surge of emotion rise up inside her.

'And you are too, Georgie,' Meg replied, leaning over to squeeze her hand. 'But why are we telling each other now?'

'Just in case I crash,' Georgina muttered as she headed for
a sharp bend.

There were loud insistent raps at the door.

'Shush your noise,' hissed Rowan sharply. 'It might be him.'

'No.' Jen peered through the window, frying pan at the ready. 'Quick, open it. I recognise the car. It's Georgie's.' Thank God for that. They'd been cut off just after she gave the address. She wasn't sure if they'd heard enough to find the place.

'Rowan!' Georgina burst through the door and rushed towards Rowan for a hug.

'Da da!' Meg followed close behind and opened her arms wide, then wider still, as she realised Rowan's size. 'Shit, is that you, Rowan? After all these frigging years?'

'What are you doing?' Georgina asked Jen as she began busily locking the doors behind them.

'Safety measures. You haven't heard the worst.'

As fast as she could, Jen enlightened her appalled friends about Tom's antics. They took turns watching the window while the discussion raged about what they would do if – when – he showed up.

'Any chance he might have followed you?' Georgina asked, back in her role of commander.

'No,' Jen said, 'his car was getting repaired. But I told him the name of the farm. And the town.'

Rowan sank on to a chair. 'He's definitely coming then.'

'I had no idea,' Jen mourned. 'To think I slept with him. I feel so used.'

'You slept with him?' All three heads whipped round to stare at her.

'Only once,' she said guiltily. 'It didn't mean anything.' Then she remembered that was what Aiden had said about Meg. But this was different. Wasn't it?

'None of us knew,' Meg consoled her. 'He was using us all, giving us ideas like Gwyneth and Totnes, so that we'd track Rowan down and lead him to her.'

'Bastard,' said Georgina, her face grim.

'What car's he got?' Meg pulled back the grubby net curtains.

'Red Toyota.'

'Oh goodness!' Georgina's mouth flew open before she smacked it shut.

'What?'

'I saw a red Toyota on the hard shoulder, round about Junction 28.'

'I didn't see him,' Meg said, astonished.

'You were busy map-reading. But now I think of it, he had Dugan's kind of hair, though his back was to the road. He was on one of those motorway phones, smoke coming from his bonnet.'

'That settles it,' Jen said decisively. 'He's definitely on his way. Have you anything we can use as a weapon?' she asked Rowan.

'Maybe a shotgun?' Meg suggested. 'A rifle? Or even a pitchfork?'

Rowan shivered. 'Only a nail file up in the bedroom.'

'Run and fetch it then,' Georgina ordered. 'You can stick it up your sleeve and if he gets violent . . .'

'He wouldn't be violent. He's never physically attacked me before.'

Jen gave a meaningful look at Georgina. If kicking and slapping wasn't physical, she didn't know what was.

'Doesn't mean it won't start.' Meg crossed her arms, looking like a Comanche warrior. 'He's been thwarted a long time – you've never been missing this long before. People get killed by their lovers all the time, driven insane by jealous passion. I remember once in Vegas . . .'

'Meg!' Jen and Georgina snapped simultaneously and Meg clammed up under their glares.

There was a moment's silence as the frightened-rabbit look came over Rowan's face again. She raced up the narrow stairs to the only other room in the house, a tiny attic-style bedroom with sloping ceiling, and came back down with a pathetically small nail file.

A log fell off the fire and they all jumped, nerves on edge, acknowledging the seriousness of the situation. A madman was coming to find Rowan. And Meg was right. He could turn nasty. Murderous. Ten years of pent-up frustration and they were miles from anywhere, no telephone connection, no way of calling for help.

Meg raised a tentative finger. 'Can I just say one thing? He's hardly likely to kill . . .'

'Shut up!' This time three voices drowned her out.

Jen looked at the faces of her friends, tense and nervous. 'It's all my fault, Rowan.'

'Can't be helped, Jen, bach,' she answered. 'He's a charmer.'

'Shit. Shit.' Meg started jiggling suddenly.

'What's up?'

'I'm dying to pee. But I don't want to go out there.'

'What about a bucket?' Jen suggested.

'It's in the cowshed,' Rowan said. 'And we're using the only mugs.'

'I'm not going in a mug anyway,' Meg said decisively. 'I can hold it. Quick, someone, distract me.'

'Um . . . um . . . what happened at the reunion?' Rowan tried to oblige. 'Did Yvonne Spitz turn up?'

'Oh yes,' Georgina beamed, and began to tell Rowan all about Yvonne and her Hong Kong counterfeit dress.

Rowan laughed. 'She came up to me on my first morning, called me a les and I didn't know what it meant. Shows how naive I was then.'

'You weren't naive!' Jen patted her arm.

'Oh I was. When it came to sex I didn't get half the things you were talking about.'

'Nor did I, Rowan. Nor did I,' Georgina empathised. 'But I was a good bluffer.'

Meg gasped, crossing her legs and bouncing. 'It's not working, who the fuck lives in a house without a bathroom?'

'What about that pony we used to look after, Murgatroyd?' Jen carefully tried to sandwich the subject between the other distractions. 'Do you remember what I did to you, Rowan? Told everyone about your ignorance of testicles.'

'Testicles? Whose testicles?'

Jen had to fill her in and she laughed. 'Let's face it, Jen, teenage girls can be right bitches.'

Meg's eyes were watering now. Suddenly she screamed, 'Crap! I gotta go!' and bolted out the front door.

They were still staring after her, frozen in shock, when the lights flickered and then went off.

Meg burst back in seconds later and slammed the door behind her. 'It's gone totally – and I mean totally – black out there. Why are we in the dark?'

'It's him, isn't it?' Georgina whispered hoarsely. 'He's snipping wires.'

'Probably a power cut,' Rowan said, sounding only slightly shaky. 'It's always happening. Here, I'll go and get candles.'

Half an hour later Georgina had taken her place on watch, and across the other side of the room Rowan was threatening to pace a furrow into the cold stone floor, veering off to check the window every third circuit.

The crackling fire had now burnt down to embers and there was a draught from a broken window, which was sending a subzero wind throughout the downstairs rooms.

'I'm freezing.' Meg acknowledged what the others were thinking.

'We need logs.' Rowan shivered. 'They're out back.'

Everybody suddenly started looking occupied, loath to volunteer.

'I've an idea.' Rowan opened an antique sideboard and pulled out a flask. 'Single malt. Surely that should warm everyone up.'

Though the drink went down well, they were no warmer.

'Maybe we can burn something else instead?' suggested Meg.

'Like what, the furniture?' said Georgina.

'How about,' Rowan looked around and picked up a pile of sketches, 'these?'

'What are they?' asked Jen.

'Just old stuff, ideas.'

Georgina walked over, began skimming through, then through again. 'Rowan, these are fabulous.'

'Thanks but . . . they're no use to anyone.' She began to tear at one.

'No.' Georgina stopped her. 'They're top stuff. You can't waste them.'

'Oh let her,' said Meg, shaking and flinging the sausage dog's blanket round her shoulders.

'No, I'm keeping them. Can I?' Georgina pleaded.

'Wait!' Meg was back at the window. 'Car headlights. He's here. He's really here.'

They all raced around the room and huddled in the shadows. Lucky, Jen reflected, that Meg had thought to ask Georgina to move her car and throw an old tarp over Jen's. Extra vehicles in the lane might have given the game away.

Jen grabbed her frying pan again, her hands sweating so much she could hardly hold it. She positioned herself behind the door as Rowan fumbled in a kitchen drawer for candles, Meg and Georgina clutching each other, eyes globe-like in the dying glow of the fireplace. Meg had the nail file, Jen noticed.