The Silent Friend Read online

  About the Author

  Diane Jeffrey is a USA Today bestselling author. She grew up in North Devon, in the United Kingdom. She now lives in Lyon, France, with her husband and their three children, Labrador and cat.

  Diane’s debut psychological thriller, Those Who Lie, was a Kindle bestseller in the UK, the USA, Canada and Australia. He Will Find You, set in the Lake District and Somerset, is her second novel. The Guilty Mother, Diane’s third book, was a USA Today bestseller and spent several weeks in the top 100 Kindle chart in the UK. The Silent Friend is her fourth book.

  Diane is an English teacher. When she’s not working or writing, she likes swimming, running and reading. She loves chocolate, beer and holidays. Above all, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends.

  Readers can follow Diane on Twitter [https://twitter.com/dianefjeffrey] or on Facebook [https://facebook.com/dianejeffreyauthor] and find out more about her books on her website [https://www.dianejeffrey.com/].

  Praise for Diane Jeffrey

  ‘Tense and compelling, a genuinely thrilling read’ Elizabeth Haynes

  ‘Brimming with tension, riddled with doubt and suspicion, insidious and compelling with a terrifying ending that had me catching my breath’ Sue Fortin

  ‘A tense, gripping domestic noir that shows just how fast the dream of a new life can turn into your worst nightmare’ T.M. Logan

  ‘A scorchingly good thriller’ Lisa Hall

  ‘This is a must read for anyone who lives to delve into psychological thrillers!’ Linda Strong

  ‘With brilliant main characters and a wonderful plot, this book is a real page-turner. I would highly recommend this book’ Stephanie Collins

  ‘I absolutely adored this book’ Lu Dex

  ‘Great book … keeps you guessing!! If you love twists and turns then this book is for you!’ Diane Merrit

  ‘With twists and turns that will wrong-foot you all the way, a dash of dark humour and a strong emotional punch, this is an excellent debut that more than earns its place within the genre’ S.J.I. Holliday

  Also By Diane Jeffrey

  The Guilty Mother

  He Will Find You

  Those Who Lie

  The Silent Friend

  DIANE JEFFREY

  HQ

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

  Copyright © Diane Jeffrey

  Diane Jeffrey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  E-book Edition © November 2020 ISBN: 9780008404710

  Version: 2020-10-01

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Praise for Diane Jeffrey

  Also By Diane Jeffrey

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Reading Group Questions

  Extract

  Dear Reader …

  Keep Reading …

  About the Publisher

  For Anne,

  My beta reader, cousin and friend,

  With my love and gratitude.

  Un grand merci à toi.

  xxx

  “The band that seems to tie their friendship together will be the very strangler of their amity.”

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, Scene 6

  Prologue

  I wonder how you knew. I keep replaying our whole conversation in my head, but I can’t pinpoint what gave it away. I’m glad you found out. Relieved. I should have told you the truth months ago, but I’ve grown fond of you and I was scared of losing you.

  When you carry a shameful secret inside you, it becomes a heavy burden that weighs you down. The longer you put off telling the truth, the harder it gets. You try to paint as accurate a picture as possible, but in the end you add another coat of lies. And then another. Until you almost believe in the alternative reality you’ve depicted.

  You know what it’s like. You were also hiding something. You tried to tell me your secret, but I was the last person you should have told. I reacted badly. I was unsympathetic. What I should have said was that none of what happened was your fault. I am culpable, but not you.

  If I could go back, would I do things differently? I don’t think so. What choice did I have? If I’d been honest with you from the start, you would never have befriended me. Our friendship was important to me. I’m truly sorry that things turned out this way. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.

  Chapter 1

  7 MONTHS BEFORE

  Laura

  As Laura entered the flat, her phone pinged with a text. She groaned. It was time to make up her mind. But after mulling things over for the last fortnight, she was still indecisive. Kicking the front door closed behind her, she dumped her handbag and shopping on the floor.

  It was always dark and gloomy in her flat, even on sunny days like that Saturday. Although poky, it was her refuge, and at the end of a working day, she liked to shut herself off from the outside world and relax with a book or a film. She kept the place obsessively clean and tidy, although no amount of bleach and polish masked the smell of damp.

  ‘I’m home,’ she called out, shrugging out of her coat and slipping off her shoes. Harry barely acknowledged her from his usual place on the sofa.

  ‘Lazy cat,’ she muttered affectionately, picking up her bags and making her way into the kitchen.

  She put away the shopping before fishing her mobile out of her handbag to read the
message. Just as she’d thought. It was from Claire.

  You have to come.

  Please.

  xoxo

  Laura couldn’t go. How could she get out of it this time? Last year, Claire had found cheap flights from Belfast International to Alicante. She’d tried to talk Laura into going with her and the others. A whole week in August. It would be great craic, according to Claire, all that sea, sun and sangria.

  Her mother had said something catty. She usually did. How her father had put up with her for so long was beyond Laura. She’d been like that even before he died, although she became worse afterwards, when he was no longer around to keep her in check. Laura remembered her mother’s words as if it were yesterday. ‘Better ditch the bikini,’ she’d said. ‘They’ll mistake you for a beached whale.’

  Laura wasn’t nearly as fat as her mother liked to make out. A little overweight, yes, but she was surely of average build for a citizen of Northern Ireland. And she didn’t even own a bikini. Cursed with a ghoulishly white Celtic complexion, Laura tended to stay out of the sun. Which was one of the reasons she didn’t go to Spain.

  Even so, she’d been flattered that her colleagues had asked her to go to Alicante with them and grateful that Claire included her all the time. They were poles apart, she and Claire. Laura had freckles, eyes the colour of seaweed and scraggly ginger hair whereas Claire was skinny with cobalt blue eyes and long shiny jet-black hair. She was beautiful. Popular, too. Everyone at the library adored her.

  In the end, Laura had lied. She said she’d been invited to the wedding of one of her cousins. She had twelve cousins on her mother’s side, and they were all married except for one: Declan. Same-sex marriage would have to be legalized in Northern Ireland before Declan and his partner could get married. But Laura’s colleagues knew nothing about her family and so, as implausible as that excuse was, it got her out of the trip.

  Afterwards, she’d listened to the suntanned girls reminiscing about their holiday in Spain. They talked about nothing else for a week. The weather was lovely! We were bladdered! The paella was cracker! Spanish men have such firm arses! It had all made Laura rather envious.

  In turn, Laura told them a bit about the fictitious wedding. She’d spent hours during the holidays devouring novels. As the main characters tied the knot at the end of a few of her summer reads, she used that for inspiration.

  She made herself a cup of tea now. Sitting next to Harry on the sofa and cradling the mug in her hands, Laura thought of all the reasons she couldn’t go this year. A week in France.

  ‘Who would look after you for a start?’ she said to Harry, stroking his soft fur.

  Plus, she didn’t have a passport. Deep down she knew these were excuses rather than reasons not to go. She could easily apply for a passport and her neighbour, Mrs Doherty, would happily take in the cat.

  She’d have to make up a story. Perhaps she could buy her flights – Claire said they were cheap – and then drop out at the last minute. One of her uncles could die or her mum could break her leg. Then it wouldn’t look like she hadn’t wanted to go in the first place.

  Lyon. That was this year’s destination. There were direct flights from Dublin. Laura had never been to France. She’d never been abroad unless you counted their family holidays on the mainland. They’d taken the ferry to Scotland – from Larne to Stranraer – four or five times when she was little, when her dad was still alive. But she’d never taken the plane.

  And this was the main reason Laura didn’t want to go. She had an irrational fear of flying. Her stomach pitched at the thought of boarding an aircraft. She couldn’t stand the idea of putting her life into the hands of a pilot she couldn’t see. She knew it was safer to travel by plane than by any other means of transport, but that didn’t help. She didn’t mind taking the boat. She could swim if the worst came to the worst, or at least stay afloat until help came. But if something went wrong in the plane, she couldn’t fly. Or hover. This was why she’d bottled out of going to Spain the previous year. Silly, but there it was.

  But France tempted her more than Spain. A lot more. Laura was a Francophile. She’d taken French A-level and gone on to read French at Queen’s. She read novels in French, her favourite writers being Guy de Maupassant and Marcel Pagnol; she watched old French films, especially by New Wave cineastes; and listened to France Info every day on the radio. She’d always wanted to go to France. It was just that she’d imagined travelling there by boat as far as Scotland or England, then by train and on the Eurostar.

  Lyon. What did she know about Lyon? Not a lot. Nothing whatsoever, come to think of it. It was quite far south, wasn’t it? She googled it on her smartphone and scrolled through the Wikipedia page. South-East France, foot of the Alps. The basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière … Silk weaving … Fête des Lumières festival … Frères Lumière cinema … Roman theatre … Interpol … gastronomy.

  Claire wanted to go to Lyon simply because The Naturals were playing there in August. The local rock band was playing on their doorstep in March – in the SSE Arena in Belfast, which would have been a lot handier, but tickets had sold out in less than ten minutes when they’d gone on sale six months previously. The Naturals were performing at two venues in France – Paris and Lyon. Claire said hotel prices in Paris for August were astronomical. So Lyon it was.

  Lyon wasn’t by the sea. There would be no risk of turning red like a cooked lobster at the end of a day on the beach. Plus Laura loved The Naturals. They’d long been her favourite band. Her cousin Declan was friends with the bass guitarist – they’d been at school together. Connor, that was his name. She met him once before he was famous after a gig he and his group had done in The Dirty Onion. He was a ride, Connor. Not very tall, but muscular. She’d loved his smile and the mischievous twinkle in his clear blue eyes.

  She looked up, catching her image reflected in the black TV screen. She gave herself a stern look while she thought things over. An opportunity. That’s what this trip was. Declan was always saying she should do something out of her comfort zone.

  Picking up her mobile, she texted Claire.

  OK! Count me in!

  Claire’s reply came straight back.

  Yay! You won’t regret it!

  xoxo

  Laura hoped Claire was right. But as she climbed into bed that night, she already regretted her decision. She couldn’t put her finger on why exactly, but going on holiday with her friends to France seemed like a very bad idea. She wrestled with a strange gut feeling she was heading towards some inevitable disaster. Pulling her covers up to her chin, Laura closed her eyes and told herself she was being ridiculous.

  Chapter 2

  7 MONTHS BEFORE

  Sandrine

  Sandrine shook Antoine as he lay in his bed, the covers kicked off onto the floor. He didn’t respond, his body warm and yet seemingly lifeless. Was he ill? She spent her life worrying about one child or the other, even though her elder son was now officially an adult and her younger son wasn’t far behind.

  ‘Antoine,’ she said, shaking him again, ‘you’re going to be late for work.’

  He opened one eye, looked at her, then closed it again. ‘I’ve set the alarm on my phone,’ he said.

  ‘You won’t have time for breakfast if you don’t get up now.’

  ‘I work in a supermarket, Maman. The bakery there has croissants and pains au chocolat. And they have freshly squeezed orange juice.’

  ‘You won’t work there for much longer if you arrive late,’ she said playfully, picking up the quilt from the floor and throwing it over him. Pulling it over his head, Antoine groaned.

  ‘If you hadn’t stopped my pocket money, I wouldn’t have to work there at all,’ came his muffled voice. ‘I could have a lie-in on Saturdays like Maxime.’

  Sandrine didn’t know if he was joking or not. She glanced around his room. As usual, it was tidy and orderly, unlike his younger brother’s bedroom. Even the posters on Antoine’s wall were neatly aligned. His c
lothes were folded in a neat pile on a chair by his bed whereas Maxime always left his clothes discarded in a heap on the floor.

  She smiled to herself, marvelling, not for the first time, at how alike her boys were, and yet at the same time how different. They couldn’t have looked more similar if they’d been cloned. They had the same features, the same expressions and gestures. Sandrine and her husband Sam sometimes mistook one for the other in their photo albums. They had to examine the pictures closely to work out who was who. Max didn’t have the green flecks in his eyes that Antoine did and Antoine’s eyebrows were darker and more sharply defined.

  Not only did they look alike, they also liked many of the same things – video games, jigsaw puzzles, fishing, the beach and the sea, dogs and cats. They had the same tastes in music: R&B, rap and rock. But Antoine was bookish while Max preferred the outdoors. Max had been cuddly as a child and was still affectionate whereas from a young age, Antoine had been fiercely independent and detached.

  Antoine’s alarm went off, cutting off Sandrine’s thoughts. She left the room and went to join Sam for breakfast.

  ‘Do you think he’s depressed?’ she asked Sam.

  ‘No! You worry too much,’ he said fondly as she sat down opposite him at the kitchen table.

  She couldn’t help worrying about her boys. That was her job as their mother. Indeed, she felt that bringing up her children was her only job, as she’d given up teaching years ago when Antoine was born. She’d intended to go back to work, but it hadn’t been necessary financially and she’d enjoyed her role as a stay-at-home parent. She had friends and didn’t feel isolated. Perhaps she’d get back into teaching – at least give some private lessons – once the boys left home. That might distract her from feeling grief over an empty nest when the time came.

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ she said. ‘I’m just concerned about him, you know, since … well, what happened with Océane.’

  Sam reached across the table and put a hand on her arm. ‘That was months ago,’ he said. ‘I doubt he even gives her a thought these days.’