My best friends secret, p.1
My Best Friend's Secret, page 1
MY BEST FRIEND’S SECRET
DANIELLE RAMSAY
To my mother, Janette Whittet Ramsay
‘In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.’
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR
‘I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’
MAYA ANGELOU
‘Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.’
A TALE OF TWO CITIES: CHARLES DICKENS
CONTENTS
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
More from Danielle Ramsay
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Danielle Ramsay
The Murder List
About Boldwood Books
1
THURSDAY
I glanced at Willow, Issie and Ava as they focused on the minister’s reading of Psalm 23. It was unspoken, but each of us could feel this insidious rift between us – guilt. We were all plagued by the same question: how could we not know? One of us must have been able to prevent it. Worse still, which one of us was to blame?
The hornets’ nest in the pit of my stomach stirred. I held my breath, hoping the waspish noise would abate. Instead, the frenzied swarm buzzed in all directions. As if reading my mind, my husband Jacob took hold of my hand and squeezed it.
I caught Willow quizzically looking at me. Heat flushed up my neck. I pretended to read the Order of Service in honour of Jasmine Donaldson, or Jaz as she was known to us. Thankfully, Willow turned her attention back to the elderly minister. The last thing I needed today was her questioning me. I watched, unable to stop myself from feeling a stab of jealousy as Charles put his arm around her delicate shoulders and pulled her into him. I could feel the tears pricking at my eyes again.
I pulled my hand from Jacob’s suffocating hold. I breathed out and turned my attention to the people around me. Aside from Willow, Issie and Ava, most were strangers, their long, mournful faces lost on me.
‘And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,’ the minister sombrely concluded, with a discernible quiver in his voice.
He had shared in his eulogy with the mourners that he had baptised Jaz as a baby in this very church thirty-three years ago. And now, here he was, tragically laying her to rest. I watched as he lowered his white, wispy-haired head as if in silent prayer. He then lifted his watery light-blue eyes and nodded at Jaz’s father in the front row before stepping down from the imposing wooden pulpit.
I dropped my head as Jaz’s father stood up. I waited a few moments before looking up to see his tall, black-suited, rigid figure approach the white-clothed table in front of the wooden pulpit. It was adorned with elaborate bouquets of cream roses and lilies – Jaz’s favourite flowers – surrounding two large photographs of her. He stopped, his eyes resting on the beautiful black-and-white headshot of his daughter as she confidently beamed out from the silver photo frame at him – at us. It was a recent black-and-white photo, unlike the other one, which was an old colour photograph of Jaz taken at Queen Victoria’s School for Girls as a tall, striking eleven-year-old, full of life and dreams of the bright future ahead of her. He shook his head as if struggling, as I was, with the knowledge that he would never feel the warmth of Jaz’s infectious smile again.
Stiffly, he turned his gaze to the elaborate solid walnut coffin positioned to the side of the pulpit. I watched as he walked towards it, his trembling, liver-spotted hand touching the polished lid before climbing his way up to the pulpit. Once there, his rheumy hot eyes sought out mine. My skin burned with shame. It should have been me up there telling the mourners about my friend. But I had declined Jaz’s father’s request to read out a tribute, too fearful that I would choke on my words. Instead, I had given it to him to read on my behalf. I had made the excuse that my grief was so overwhelming that I doubted I would be able to speak without becoming an inconsolable mess. But, in reality, it was guilt that silenced me. Not that I could tell him. Nor could I tell Willow, Issie or Ava. Jaz was the one person who knew, and she was the reason we were here.
How could I stand up there and pretend that I had no part in Jaz’s death? I thought back to the texts and voicemail message I had left Jaz two weeks ago. I replayed them over and over again in my mind, drowning out her father’s voice as he read my eulogy about his daughter – my oldest friend.
I watched as Willow crumpled into Charles, her body convulsing in silent sobs as Jaz’s father read my words. Jacob sought my hand, gently touching it. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Ava or Issie sitting ahead of me, holding one another’s hands for support.
I squeezed my eyes shut as her father described his much-loved and only child to the mourners as I tormented myself with the ‘what if’ scenario. I scratched and tore at my last words to her, questioning what part they played in her death – if any. I needed to remind myself of that fact as I didn’t know whether she had listened to my voicemail. However, I knew that she had read my WhatsApp messages by the double blue ticks. But her only response had been silence, prompting me to ring her. When she’d declined my calls, I had left a drunken voicemail message. Spiteful, unjust and accusatory. I’d made a point of reminding Jaz that I was always there for her. Or, at least, I thought that was the case. Jaz chose not to talk to me that night. Instead, she took her life.
When I woke up the following morning feeling miserable and hungover, Jaz was already gone. The reality that I could never take back those cruel last words to her tore me apart. Up until that moment, too caught up in my own maelstrom, I didn’t even realise that Jaz was in trouble. Now that she had my full attention, it was too late. I was too late…
I had failed her.
Oh God… Jaz… I am so sorry.
I suddenly realised that Jaz’s father had stopped speaking, and everyone was standing, singing. I stood up and looked down at the Order of Service, clutched in my hand, momentarily thrown by the photograph of Jaz on the cover, smiling up at me as if nothing was wrong. Hands shaking, I fumbled through the pages searching for the hymn as the voices soared around me:
Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart
And all is darkened in the vale of tears…
Be still, my soul….
The Order of Service in my hand became blurred as tears blinded me. I slowly breathed in as I tried to focus on keeping it together, but the tears continued to trail down my face.
Tears won’t bring her back, Claudia!
I squeezed my eyes tight as I tried to silence the guilt-fuelled voice in my head.
If only…
I stopped myself.
The singing surrounding me was drowned out by my inner voice as it raged at me about my failure to help Jaz when she needed me the most.
‘Claudia? Hey? Claudia?’
Jacob’s concerned voice cut through my tortured thoughts.
I shakily breathed out as I opened my eyes and turned to look up at him. How long had I been standing with my head bowed and eyes closed?
Praying for what, Claudia? For Jaz? Or for yourself?
‘Come on. We need to go,’ he tenderly prompted.
It was then that I realised the funeral service had finished, and we were the last people left in the small, centuries-old stone-built church. The rows of worn wooden pews now empty.
I looked up at the front of the small kirk to the table with the lavish flowers adorning Jaz’s photographs. She smiled at me, laughter in her eyes, as if mocking me for my grief.
I tried but failed to swallow back the tears.
‘I know this is hard on you. We don’t need to stay for the burial. They’ll understand,’ Jacob whispered as his dark brown, gentle eyes searched mine.
I turned away from him, looking for her – for Jaz. But her coffin was gone.
How did I miss them taking you?
But I had. Just as I had missed the signs that my best friend was suicidal.
Oh God, Jaz…
Jacob touched my face, moving a stray lock of hair that had fallen across my wet cheek.
I instinctively flinched.
I looked at him. The hurt in his eyes was unmistakable.
He sighed. ‘I don’t think staying will help. Let’s give our apologies to Jaz’s parents and go. Yes?’
I remained silent.
‘
‘Claudia? We wondered where you were,’ a voice interrupted.
I turned to see Issie standing in the church doorway.
‘We think it’s right that the four of us are together for…’ She faltered, unable to say the unthinkable, shaking her head instead.
For the truth was, we were about to bury our old school friend. Nothing could make that fact bearable.
‘I’m coming,’ I somehow managed to answer.
Issie looked at me, then at Jacob. The strain between the three of us palpable. Embarrassed, she nodded, then left.
As I made my way out of the pew, Jacob grabbed my arm to stop me.
‘Don’t do this,’ he said. ‘Let’s just go.’
I pulled myself free from his tight, smothering grip.
I couldn’t believe the way he was looking at me. I wanted to scream at him that I had lost my best friend. That she and I had been inseparable from the age of eleven, until, that was, she decided to kill herself. But the words failed me.
Without answering, I turned and walked away.
‘Claudia? Claudia!’ Jacob’s desperate voice echoed behind me.
I looked at Jacob. He briefly held my gaze, his beseeching eyes searching mine for some acknowledgement that we were going to be all right. I couldn’t give it to him. Instead, I turned my attention back to the heavy silence that clung to the intimate gathering as they began lowering Jaz’s coffin to her final resting place.
Issie grabbed my hand as Willow heaved a deep sob as the cold earth took our friend from us. Even Ava momentarily lost her composure.
I looked across at Jaz’s mother, her noble, handsome face worryingly pale. Her elderly husband, twenty years her senior, was oblivious to her pain, stoically watching as his only child disappeared. I shifted my gaze, too guilt-ridden to look either of them in the eye. I looked beyond them to the backdrop of their tragedy, the bleak and rugged Scottish mountains which dominated this isolated part of the world. It felt as if the Isle of Skye’s Cuillin Hills’ oppressive shadow stretched out to us from across Loch Scavaig, up the shores of Elgol, to the small, intimate graveyard and the very soil I was standing on.
I suppressed the anger I felt at her burial place. Somewhere so remote from the city life that had liberated Jaz. She had found freedom hundreds of miles away from what had become a foreign land to her. The irony that she had ended up back here, to lie for eternity beneath these low grey skies, under the baleful watch of her ancestors, their headstones and tombs dominating the small iron-fenced graveyard, was not lost on me, or Issie, Willow and Ava. We all felt it – the inequity of our friend’s abrupt death and her bitter end. It was as if we were schoolgirls again, but we weren’t. We were four thirty-three-year-old women brought back together by the funeral of the one friend we all loved without question. For Jaz was our linchpin. And now that she was gone, I was in no doubt that our friendship would end up buried with her.
I turned towards the entrance to the family graveyard and was surprised to see a woman in her late twenties to early thirties watching me. She was alone beyond the centuries-old cast-iron bars separating the ancient graveyard from the narrow country road which led to the Donaldsons’ old, large, detached ancestral property that had been in their family for over two hundred and fifty years. There was something about her that made me uncomfortable. Her eyes were hidden behind sunglasses. A coldness cut through me as she moved her attention to Issie, then Willow and finally Ava.
I squeezed Issie’s hand.
‘Are you all right?’ Issie asked, turning to me.
‘Look over there towards the gates. Can you see her?’ I lowly whispered.
Issie followed my gaze. ‘So?’
‘Who do you think she is?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps it’s one of Jaz’s colleagues from her law firm,’ Issie suggested.
‘Don’t you think it’s odd that she’s standing alone out there watching us?’
‘I don’t think it’s necessarily us she’s watching. Maybe she is paying her respects without imposing on Jaz’s family.’
Accepting Issie’s explanation, I turned my attention back to the minister as he concluded the burial service.
‘She’s leaving,’ Issie pointed out a few minutes later as the people around us started to disperse.
I looked back and watched as the woman with the long dark chestnut brown hair and sunglasses hurried away from the graveyard towards the row of parked cars.
‘Did you see her during the church service?’ I asked.
‘No. Did you?’
I shook my head.
‘Why are you so bothered about her?’ Issie asked.
‘I swear she was watching us. It’s as if she knew us.’
‘How could she?’
I didn’t have the answer. But for some reason, I couldn’t dispel the unease I felt. I knew she was watching the four of us.
But the question was why.
2
Jacob caught my eye from across the room. I had promised that I would only stay an hour when we all returned to Jaz’s parents’ house. I could tell that he was unimpressed that I was now on my second glass of wine.
‘How do you do it?’ Issie longingly questioned, shaking her head. ‘He still adores you after all this time.’
I broke away from Jacob and turned my attention back to my old school friends. I smiled at Issie, watching as long, blonde curls flounced around her head before taking a mouthful of wine, so I didn’t disabuse her of that notion.
The five of us – Jaz, Issie, Willow, Ava and I – had shared a dormitory for seven years at Queen Victoria’s School for Girls in the Surrey countryside. We couldn’t have been more different if we tried, but despite that, we had remained friends with no secrets between us since the age of eleven.
At least, that is what I’d thought until Jaz decided to take her life.
Issie was the artist, living in a cottage in Kent and working out of her studio in the back garden. Willow, like Issie, had been drawn to the arts as a gallery manager for an art studio in Soho, whereas Jaz and Ava were dedicated lawyers. And I’d followed my passion for reading to become an associate professor at University College London. We all lived in London, or in Issie’s case, within easy reach of it, apart from Jaz. She had chosen to practise law in Edinburgh.
Maybe if she had stayed in London, we wouldn’t all be reunited here today.
‘We’re all still meeting at Barrafina in Soho, next Friday?’ I asked, pushing away that thought.
Ava nodded, as did Willow, while Issie mumbled: ‘Of course.’
It was Jaz’s favourite tapas bar, and we had all agreed to have a meal and drinks in her honour and celebrate her life, just the four of us.
‘So, tell us about the new man in your life, this Charles,’ I said, turning to Willow, acutely aware that we were avoiding the elephant in the room – Jaz’s shocking suicide. All we knew was that she had taken her life. But we didn’t know how or why. That was the question that haunted us. Not that we had openly spoken about it.
‘Oh… Charles is just so wonderful,’ Willow enthused. ‘I mean, he’s not Jacob, but who is?’
I smiled at Willow, glancing back over at my husband. He was now deep in conversation with the elderly minister and a couple of Jaz’s parents’ friends. Jacob was a paediatric cardiologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. He had worked what felt like day and night to achieve that position and rightly deserved it. He was a year older than me, physically attractive, confident and…
