Your Best Friend

by Julie Corbin

Genres: Psychological Thrillers

Synopsis

'Addictive and twisty... once you start reading you won't want to stop' Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

When Tess hears Lydia Green is moving back to the village, she is full of excitement.

As teenagers, Tess and Lydia were inseparable. Until the end of that last summer when Lydia suddenly moved away.

With the recent loss of her husband and two small children to care for, Tess could really use the support of her old best friend. It feels like a bright spot of light in such a difficult time. Like fate has brought Lydia back to her.

But when Tess sees Lydia for the first time in decades, in front of all the other mums at Saturday sport, Lydia pretends not to know her.

Tess can't believe Lydia would lie to her face in front of the whole village, or that she seems to want nothing to do with her.

Is Lydia playing some kind of twisted game? Or did Tess not really know her best friend as well as she once thought...

Don't miss the next heart-stopping thriller from Julie Corbin, perfect for fans of Louise Candlish and CL Taylor.

Readers LOVE Your Best Friend:
'It's safe to say I was gripped from start to end' Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'[A] must-read' Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'A fantastic thriller' Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'Fabulous read' Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Release date: October 3, 2024

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 336

Sample

Prologue

She’s running through the woods, gulping cold air that stings her throat and makes her cough. She feels him behind her and her heart doubles its speed but her legs can’t go any faster. When he catches hold of her hair, she screams, yanks herself free, then pushes back into his chest. He grunts several times, sounding so much like a pig that she has to stifle the hysteria wedged tight against the fear in her chest. She pushes him again and he loses his balance, slithers down the bank to one side of them. There is the crack of twigs, the dull thump of thighbone and elbow, the scrape of flesh on stone, and all the while he’s cursing, howling her name into the darkness like a wolf to the full moon.

Seconds of falling, and then a loud splash as his body comes to rest in the stream.

She waits, her heart ticking, her knees shaking. A huge shiver passes through her. Wide-eyed, she holds her breath and listens, tuning into sounds beyond herself: the soft shuffle of small mammals and insects, the breath of wind trailing through the leaves and lifting single strands of her hair.

When she’s satisfied that enough time has passed, she follows his fall down the bank, not sliding as he did, but carefully placing one foot in front of the other, stretching out blindly to grasp hold of tree roots and rocks to keep her steady.

She reaches the bottom and blinks into the gloom before spotting the body-shaped lump in the stream. She shivers again when she imagines him crawling towards her, silent as a snake, to wrap his hands around her ankles and pull her underground. But as she edges closer, she sees that he can’t crawl, that movement would be impossible. His limbs are twisted, his pelvis raised at one side, the angle unnatural. She feels sure his left knee has popped from its socket. There is the dark stain of blood on his temple. His eyelids flutter open then close again as he hovers in the space between the conscious and the unconscious.

The air is heavy here. Off the beaten track. Where dangerous possibilities lurk. She feels this significance move through her in a wave of heat. Here, chance and opportunity collide. No one is watching.

With quick, rough hands she digs aside the pebbles beneath his head. An inch more depth and his head drops further back, his ears, his cheeks and finally his nose and mouth sinking under the water. He breathes in the stream and coughs. Startled, his eyes open fully this time and she catches his panic, her indrawn breath caught short as her hand flies to her throat.

Should she? Shouldn’t she?

She stands away from him, watching as he tries to lift himself up. He almost manages, gives a growl of desperation when he fails. She hesitates for a split second before placing her foot high up on his chest, leaning in until all of her weight is over this one foot. He gurgles, tries for the last time to lift his mouth to the air, his bloody-­knuckled hands failing to grasp the shoe pressing down on him.

When he’s quiet, she watches him for a full, unconscionable minute before blowing on her hands to warm them. Then she retraces her steps back to the village, the moon’s glare highlighting her flushed cheeks.

Lydia

My stomach was in knots. The agent had a list of five couples interested in renting our house and the first was due to arrive any minute. ‘They’ll snap it up!’ the agent had said to me earlier that afternoon, her tone determinedly upbeat. ‘It’s exactly what they’re looking for!’

I’d spent two weeks putting off all viewings by inventing important meetings, a plumbing catastrophe and a strange smell in the basement. The agent had offered to show the house while I was at my meetings, contact a plumber on my behalf, spray air freshener in the basement. I refused all offers of help and told her I would call her back ASAP. I didn’t call her back, and so she had bypassed me completely and spoken directly to Zack. He was genuinely perplexed. ‘What’s going on, Lydia? Why didn’t you tell me about these issues? What am I missing here?’

‘I didn’t want to trouble you.’ He was staying weeknights at his mum’s house in Sussex. She’d recently been admitted to the hospice where she was receiving end of life care. ‘The smell was easily sorted but I didn’t want prospective renters sloshing through water from a burst pipe,’ I told him.

‘What pipe? When? How?’

‘The Patersons had the same issue,’ I said quickly. Since when had lying come so easily to me?

‘Who are the Patersons?’

‘They live at number twelve,’ I told him. ‘We went round there last year for a curry?’ I could almost hear his brain ticking over. ‘She made the most delicious samosas.’

‘Oh yeah, I remember now. And they had a cinema room on the top floor.’

‘Anyway …’ I took a breath. ‘They were about to begin a similar extension to ours and we talked about the plans.’ I exaggerated a story about their builder who had referenced ground level issues and an ancient stream that ran beneath the street. ‘… so it’s probably to do with the angle of the pipes, the plumber thinks. And with all the rain we’ve been having …’ I trailed off.

Fortunately, Zack had other things on his mind so he didn’t pick over the details. ‘The sooner you and Adam join me down here, the better,’ he’d said. ‘I miss you.’

‘And I miss you,’ I’d replied.

It was true – I did miss him. But that didn’t mean I wanted to move to Ashdown Village. I’d agreed to do it because I never really expected it to happen. And now, here I was, dragging my feet, hoping for a reprieve. Not because I didn’t care about Paula. She had always been a wise and supportive mother-in-law, and I was closer to her than I’d ever been to my own mother. Every day since she’d been admitted to the hospice, we’d messaged each other. I’d send her photos and videos of Adam and his friends, links to articles I’d read on the internet that I knew she’d enjoy and funny videos of animals or ­toddlers. She never made me feel as if I was letting her down by not visiting. But life was all about timing, wasn’t it? And she did have a terminal diagnosis. She could pass away at any moment; that wasn’t what I was hoping for – it was simply the reality.

I knew that these were thoughts I couldn’t voice. I would be too ashamed to say them out loud. Zack was a good son; that was one of the many reasons I loved him. To know that his wife was anticipating his mum’s death? That would break his heart, and make me the worst sort of person. Someone who puts herself before others. A selfish bitch.

I picked Adam’s jacket up off the floor and hung it on one of the hooks by the front door. He wasn’t happy at his London school and had gone to Sussex with Zack for a trial day at a school close to the village. He was excited at the thought of moving out of London. ‘It’ll be great living in the country, Mum, won’t it? And we can see Grandma more.’

Adam adored his grandma. Zack’s dad had passed away just after Adam was born and his mum had come to stay with us, often for months at a time, caring for Adam while Zack and I were working. I loved that they had such a close bond. Losing her was going to be hard on him.

I went through to the living room and half-heartedly plumped the sofa cushions. The room was a mess. As a rule, we weren’t tidy people and with Zack barely here, I’d given up all pretence of clearing up. There were empty wine glasses and coffee cups all over the surfaces. A thin layer of dust was accumulating, and the room smelt stale. I hadn’t baked any bread and there were no fresh flowers on the mantlepiece. It struck me that the house had never been so unwelcoming, and I was hoping that the couple coming for the viewing would hate it.

The bell rang and I opened the front door.  ‘Sorry.’ I kicked several pairs of shoes out of their way. ‘There never seems to be quite enough space in the hallway.’ Mandy was all smiles as she introduced them both – ‘Hi! I’m Mandy and this is my husband Fergal’ – I didn’t return her smile, my head was too full of noise.  

‘This is so lovely!’ Mandy said, stepping onto the black and white floor tiles and stretching her arms out either side of her. She was classically beautiful, a modern Grace Kelly. The sort of woman whom everyone looked at twice. ‘Much more room than we have at the moment.’ She walked to the bottom of the stairs, her ponytail bouncing with each step. ‘I love the shape of this staircase.’ There were books, shoes and clothes on practically every step but she saw past it all, her eyes following the graceful curve upwards.  

‘Any downsides to living here?’ Fergal asked me. He was small and bald with a pointy chin. People would have looked at them both and said he was punching well above his weight but I knew better than to judge any book by its cover.  

‘When you have visitors, it’ll be really hard for them to park,’ I said. Then shook my head. ‘Impossible, in fact. It’s a nightmare.’ 

‘It’s like that all over London though, isn’t it?’ Mandy replied, undaunted. She pulled at Fergal’s upper arm. ‘Don’t you just love the cupola?’  

He followed her eyes and stared up two flights to the dome-shaped glass ceiling, and the blue sky beyond. ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘That’s quite something.’ 

‘It makes the house hard to heat,’ I said. ‘Our bills have doubled in the last few years.’

‘We can wear layers,’ Mandy replied. ‘I love a cashmere sweater.’

‘Let’s go down to the kitchen.’ I ushered them ahead of me. ‘I’m afraid it’s smaller than some of the others in the street.’

Mandy paused twice on the staircase to reference small details that caught her attention before gasping as she entered the kitchen-diner. ‘It’s so perfect,’ she breathed. I watched her eyes mist over. She turned to Fergal, and they discussed entertaining ‘in a space like this’ with ‘all this natural light.’

‘It’s south-facing, isn’t it?’ she asked me. 

I nodded. My arms were folded and I used my foot to nudge a binbag of empty wine and spirit bottles, pushing the bag into the recess between the fridge and the breakfast bar. Had I really drunk that much in a week?  Mandy walked past me into the garden, and I prodded the bag a little more, the bottles clinking loudly. I gave Fergal a meaningful glance, as if to say this will happen to you if you live here.  

‘Hydrangeas!’ Mandy called out, chirpy as a cheerleader. And then, ‘I’ve always wanted to live in a house with a walled garden.’ 

I let them both linger over the magnolia tree and pots of hydrangeas before taking them upstairs. We’d seen two of the bedrooms when Mandy said, ‘The agent told us there’s a good chance you’ll list the house.’

‘Sorry?’ I swallowed awkwardly, my mouth dry.

‘That you’ll most likely stay in Sussex and put the house up for sale?’

‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘No, no, no!’ I repeated, more forcefully this time. ‘The house will only be rented out for a year and then we’ll be moving back.’

‘Oh.’ She smiled, her expression uncertain. ‘Okay.’

I stood in the hallway while they wandered through the master bedroom. Why had the agent said that? If Zack had told her we’d sell the house within the year then that wasn’t what we’d agreed. He had been travelling back and forth for almost a month when he bumped into one of his old school friends. ‘Remember Crofty?’ he’d asked me. ‘It was great to see him again.’ They met up for a game of golf and the next thing Zack was convinced that we should move back to his home village. He was all for putting our house on the market at once. ‘What’s stopping us?’

‘Our lives are here! And you’re making it work, living in your mum’s house during the week. Upping sticks and moving, that would be—’

‘Not really, Lydia,’ he interrupted, a sad frown on his face. ‘There’s barely room for me at Mum’s. The house is full of stuff. You know what it’s like.’ I nodded. His mum was a bit of a hoarder. ‘All the travelling up and down. And I want Adam to spend as much time with Mum as he can.’ His voice wavered. ‘She’s the only grandparent he has.’

I’d already suggested that she come to live with us but she needed specialist nursing care. So I agreed to the move – what else could I do? Especially as Adam was all for it. But I didn’t want to completely let go of the house.

‘We’d sell this place overnight, Lydia. You know that,’ Zack had said wearily.

‘But buying and selling can take months! It’s all the stuff that goes with it. Lawyers and surveys and toing and froing with one thing and another.’

‘Okay,’ he acknowledged. ‘Let’s rent ours out and find something down there.’

That was our agreement.

Mandy and Fergal finished their tour of the bedrooms and I took them back to the front door.

‘We love your home,’ she said to me, her eyes wide with sincerity. ‘We’ll speak to the agent straight away.’ She joined her hands as if praying. ‘Please consider us. We promise to look after it.’

‘I will. Thank you.’ I closed the door behind them and ran downstairs to the kitchen. I took a bottle of vodka from the freezer and a shot glass from the cupboard. I poured three shots one after the other, swallowing the liquid with a shudder, before collapsing onto the floor next to the binbag, my knees pulled up to my chest.

How could I have let this happen? I thought I’d been so clever. I thought I could erase my past with omissions, deflections and the odd well-timed lie. But here I was about to go back to the worst place in the world and there was nothing, short of leaving my husband and son, that I could do about it.

You could be honest, a small voice whispered.

Imagine that? I poured another shot of vodka and knocked it back. By now the alcohol was swirling in my blood and I felt relaxation spreading through the muscles in my arms and legs. The voices in my head were quieter; the pain in my heart subdued.

I drifted off with my thoughts, remembering how Zack and I met, one Thursday evening in a too-trendy bar in Camden, the place heaving with rowdy twenty-­somethings. While his date was on her mobile and mine had gone to the loo to hook up with his dealer, we got chatting about how out of place we felt – we were both in our early thirties and neither of us were drinking – and then I asked, ‘Where are you from?’   

‘A village south of Gatwick. You won’t have heard of it.’ 

‘Try me,’ I said, never for one moment expecting him to say …

‘Ashdown Village.’

I froze. My breath stopped. Ice spread through my skull. Zack didn’t notice my reaction because he was distracted by a crowd at the end of the bar who were playing drinking games. When he looked back at me, I was able to draw breath and paste a smile on my face. ‘Gone are the days when I could drink like that.’ My breath stopped again but this time it was for a good reason. He held my eyes and an understanding passed between us – I’ve found you. You’re mine. ‘Of all the bars in all the world,’ he said. We both grinned and then laughed. I felt a flood of relief, from terror to safety in the blink of an eye. ‘Do you fancy going somewhere quieter?’

We abandoned our dates and left together. When a few weeks later he ‘introduced’ me to his home village I kept my smile on full beam and my fear locked down. And when we became a couple, I always found reasons to invite his parents to our house. They loved visiting London so were more than happy to make the journey, watch a show, stay overnight and visit the less tourist-heavy streets.

Years had passed and it was far too late to be honest, not without causing Zack to question everything I had ever said. I was going to have to tough it out as best I could.

My mobile rang and I looked at the screen – Zack. ‘Hi, love.’

‘Mum, it’s me. Guess what?’

‘What?’ I smiled at the excitement in Adam’s voice.

‘The school’s amazing! They play games every afternoon. There are four pitches and my form teacher said I’m good enough to get into the football team in the ­village.’

‘That’s great news, Adam!’ I was two people: the mum who was pleased that her son was happy and the woman who was sacred witless of returning to a place she’d sworn she would never live in again.

‘And because it’s only the second week of term, the teacher says I can easily catch up with the work.’

‘Okay.’ I didn’t want to burst his bubble and say that we weren’t thinking of moving there until November at the earliest.

‘And I met Jenny who’s been helping Gran at the hospice. She invited us back to her house and it was really brilliant. She has loads of Lego and a big garden where the deer come in.’ Zack had told me about Jenny. She was a volunteer at the hospice and had taken Paula and Zack under her wing. And now, by the sounds of it, Adam too. ‘Dad wants to talk to you.’

‘Okay, love. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Good news on the rental!’ Zack said without preamble. ‘It’ll be ready in a week. Two months earlier than we thought.’

Fuck.

‘Adam’s really happy about it, and so is Mum.’ He left a pause for me to fill. ‘Are you there?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I heard you.’

We’d spent one long Saturday viewing houses and I’d found fault with all of them. Finally, I had to give way when we looked around one that both Zack and Adam were enthusiastic about: it had generous family rooms, was in a prime location and with an established garden big enough for a mini football pitch. I couldn’t argue with any of it but still I’d tried. ‘It’s very modern.’ I pointed to the spread of glass and huge cement blocks. ‘I’m not sure I like it.’

‘Easy to heat and to clean. Everything works. It’ll make a change from a Victorian town house.’

‘I like our house.’

‘You can like both, Debbie Downer!’ Zack had said, exasperated. ‘It’s not as if we’re buying it.’

I’d given in when the owner said they wouldn’t be moving out until the beginning of November but now here we were with a date. Next week. I poured another vodka shot.

‘How were the couple who came to view our place?’ Zack asked.

‘Nice.’

‘Do they want to rent it?’

‘I think so.’ And then I remembered. ‘They also seemed to think they’d be able to buy it at some point soon.’

‘Well, it’s likely we’ll find somewhere permanent down here, isn’t it?’

‘No. I’m not … I’m not.’ I tried to catch hold of a reason but the booze was clouding my mind. ‘I like our house! I’ve never wanted to live in the country!’

‘The pollution, the rush, the expense, the traffic noise – London has so much to offer,’ he said dryly.

‘We live in a quiet street. We have lovely friends.’

‘Why can’t you see this as an opportunity, Lydia?’ He lowered his voice. ‘For fuck’s sake! Do you think I want any of this? Do you think I want my mum to be dying?’

‘Of course not, I—’

‘Stop making this such a battle.’

‘I’m trying,’ I said quietly. ‘I really am.’

We said our goodbyes and my hand went up to my neck but there was no clothing there to loosen. The tight feeling was lodged inside my throat, a lump that wouldn’t dissolve no matter how much liquid I used to wash it away.  

I was on a runaway train with no way for me to get off.

Tess

The numbers. They just never seemed to add up any more. Or to be more accurate, the debit column was always hundreds, sometimes thousands of pounds greater than the credit column.

It was five years since she’d started her company – Maids of Honour – nothing to do with weddings, which she knew caused some confusion, but she was really stuck on the name and people soon got it. The honour referred to the cleaning products they used – everything was biodegradable and planet-friendly. She cleaned houses for a living. It wasn’t glamorous work but, until recently, it had helped pay her share of the household bills. Now, with only one salary and her dad’s pension, making ends meet was nigh on impossible.

She felt the baby kick and her hand automatically strayed down to her pregnant belly. She would have to take out another loan to tide them over until she could grow the business. It wasn’t fair to ask her dad for more money. He would dig into his savings if he knew she was desperate, but he was helping her out more than enough as it was. Why in God’s name hadn’t she and Steve got life insurance? Because they had thought they were invincible, that’s why. They had never imagined that either of them would die. They were only in their forties! It was inconceivable.

Until it wasn’t.

Steve had died seven months ago, but Tess felt like she’d been grieving for years. And at the same time, it was as if it had only happened yesterday. Every day was a fearful, endless grind: dragging herself out of bed, getting dressed, going through the motions of home and work, trying to find meaning in day-to-day activities. Trying, and failing, because every action and every thought led back to Steve.

She was thirty-eight weeks pregnant, and while she felt blessed to be carrying his baby, she was dreading giving birth. Steve got her through Bobby’s delivery, cheering her on when she felt as if it was all too much … Could I have more gas and air? Could someone please, please just knock me out and pull out my son because I’m not strong enough to do this? … Steve had coaxed her on, breathing along with her until Bobby was born and they became a family. But this baby, their daughter, would be one of those children who’d never know her dad. She’d be familiar with him through photographs, video clips and memories that were shared with her, but she would never truly know him. She wouldn’t experience the warmth of his smile, his hand holding hers as she walked into school, the joy of being thrown up into the air by a dad who would always catch her.

Tess blinked back tears and refreshed the spreadsheet, but it made no difference. Takings were down, not just because they’d lost some clients but because two of her six-strong cleaning team had left and she hadn’t had the energy to interview for replacements. Vanya had kept things ticking over, and Tess was grateful for that, but a business didn’t run itself.

‘I need a strategy,’ she said out loud. For the umpteenth time she wished that Steve was here, beside her, her life partner for ever and a day. Before he passed away, in one of their lighter moments, they joked about her getting a T-shirt that said, ‘What would Steve do?’ As far as parenting went, Steve was far more confident than she was. He seemed to know exactly how to pitch it. The balance between keeping Bobby close and tossing him in at the deep end was something he instinctively got right. ‘I know what I’ll do,’ he’d said to her one day after a chemo session. ‘I’ll write you letters.’

She asked him not to, because she felt that the very act of writing the letters was an invitation to death, an admission that he was giving up. But he wrote them anyway and left them in a shoebox for her. There were over twenty of them. Some of them dated for future birthdays, others had titles such as Being a parent or When you’re unsure what to do next.

There wasn’t a letter titled Strategy for Maids of ­Honour, but she didn’t really need one. She could hear Steve’s voice saying, ‘Word of mouth will get you so far, Tess, but every now and then you’ll need to put an ad in one of the local papers.’

‘Sound advice,’ she muttered. She would advertise in the local magazine, the free one that was delivered to all the houses in the village. She needed to make the advert eye-catching, punchy. She couldn’t afford to invest in a whole-page spread, so a standout font and bright colours were vital. She began to design the copy on her laptop, losing herself in the task until she heard the front door o. . .