The Best of Friends by Alex Day (accelerated reader books .txt) 📕

died (she didn’t), no steely eyed Charlie recalling the fear I instilled in him (he wasn’t, ever, frightened).

Only I would be there.

The judge, a kindly old man who smiled broadly at me when I was led in, gave a brief summing up of the case as he saw it. He explained how I had been so poorly treated by Charlie that I had been left in a state of utter despair, and that I had clearly suffered inordinately by being abandoned in favour of another woman. He understood that I obviously still loved Charlie very much and this had clouded my reason and made me act in a way that was completely out of character.

My unblemished record hitherto, my creditable exam results, my solid, middle-class upbringing, were all cited in my favour. Finally, explained the judge, I had already lost everything that mattered to me – my partner, my degree, my home. I had acted in an ill-advised and imprudent way but I had had no serious intent to maim or kill and, in his opinion, I had endured enough. He painted me as an ingenue who should be pitied, not punished.

In light of all of this, he let me off virtually scot-free. No penalty, just a suspended sentence. And, of course, a criminal record.

It was a better outcome than I could possibly have expected and no one could believe it, least of all me. But, when I had recovered enough from the shock to think about it more deeply, it was obvious what had happened. The judge had fallen for my youth, my pretty face. Perhaps I reminded him of his own daughter, or niece, or a family friend. The silly old fool clearly couldn’t bear to see me carted away in a van, forced to endure the deprivations and degradations of life in a women’s prison. I just wasn’t that sort of criminal.

Thanks to that judge’s old-fashioned attitude and susceptibility to a young girl’s good looks, I walked from the Old Bailey, the scales of justice glittering in the pale autumn sun, a free woman.

Charlotte doesn’t look as if she’ll be as lucky as I was. I’m sure it would be the same if I were in her position. For a start, we’re middle-aged women now, no longer able to hide behind the recklessness of youth, to use it as an excuse for foolish and impetuous behaviour. More importantly, we’re no longer fresh-faced, dewy-skinned, doe-eyed beauties – not like twenty-year-olds are, anyway. So I suppose it’s hardly surprising that the jury is not all that sympathetic.

Lacing a curry with poison hemlock, leaves that perhaps she gathered from the patch we had visited all those months ago when I had first got involved with her foraging club, is never going to be explained away as an accident, an inadvertent mistake. The fact that she used her wholesome, happy-clappy hobby to nearly kill her own spouse … well, any courtroom would view that with the horrified disdain it deserves.

The gossips in the village have gone mad for this story, as one might imagine. Of course it’s not just the poisoning that has set tongues wagging. It’s the juicy details, now fully out in the open, about me and Dan, combined with Charlotte’s incandescent rage, her quest for retribution.

Miriam has been wearing a stunned, disbelieving expression for weeks now; every time she sees me her jaw drops an inch or two further. I don’t know if she’s more incredulous that Charlotte is a would-be murderer or that I, the poor church mouse, managed to attract the village superhero. She’s clearly having difficulty with the concept of taking Charlotte and Dan off the pedestal she’s kept them on ever since they first pitched up in the village, Mr and Mrs Nobody from Nowhere masquerading as the squire and his wife.

The press is having a field day, just as they did all those years ago when it was me in the dock.

‘Murderous mother vowed revenge’ blares the headline of the local free sheet. Jealousy is an emotion that everyone can understand so it’s no great surprise when the theory put forward is that Charlotte arranged the meal with Dan, pretending she was looking for reconciliation, whilst in fact secretly planning to murder him in the most terrible way. She accepted my offer of the curry to cover her tracks; if I had made it, it could not be her who was responsible for the poisoning, I suppose must have been her rationale – though of course, in court she denies it.

I’m so sorry for her boys, and there’s a part of me that feels pity for Charlotte, too. When I gave chocolates injected with mercury to Charlie and Josephine, I was propelled by heartbreak and devastation. For Charlotte, as far as I can see, it was pure base anger, a desire for revenge, a determination to make sure that Dan never went with anyone behind her back again.

There’s one thing I do feel bad about, that I sincerely regret. I should have told her about me and Dan. I should have been the one to tell her truth – though not of course that I deliberately planted the necklace. No, let her think that had been an accident, a silver chain broken unnoticed in the throes of passion. Once she and Dan were back from Corsica I had ruminated about confessing, going over and over it so many times, the pros and cons, whether I should or whether I shouldn’t. In the end, I left it too late.

So instead I decided to say sorry. I went back to see Charlotte, that evening after I’d dropped off the curry. But I wavered as I approached her front door, remembering her verbal attack on me when we met in the village. My resolve deserted me and I slunk back home. Jamie was still at his cinema party and Luke and Sam were so engrossed in whatever they were watching that they didn’t even notice I’d