Free Bitter Fruits: DI Erica Martin Book 1 (Erica Martin Thriller) by Alice Clark-Platts Page B

couldn’t. It was as though, if I said it out loud, it would dissipate what I had with her – it would evaporate like the mists hanging over the river that I ran through every morning. But I would dream as I ran along the bank, ducking through those wisps of wet cloud. I could be anyone I wanted in those mornings. I could pretend, quietly to myself, that it would be
on that
day that Emily would realize that she loved me.
    But always the run would end, and I would stalk up the steps on to Framwellgate and back into the land of the living. I would return from the run as Emily’s friend once more. Her
amici
, I thought sometimes, with a sneer. But I allowed it. I took what I could and to some extent I lived through her. Which was peculiar, because so much of what she did I thoroughly disagreed with.
    Emily had a steely side, she had ambition. As much as her vulnerability brought out the best in me, made me feel useful, I have to admit that I liked this other aspect. It made me think that if I stuck with her, she would stop me sinking into obscurity, reducing into nothing more than a human encyclopedia of twentieth-century literature and running routes on the north-east coast.
    As I say, though, often my views completely diverged from hers. Sometimes I even took Annabel’s part – Annabel, who was the more obviously conservative of the two. She had seemingly forgiven Emily for dumping her at the hockey social but looked at her with a cat’s eyes now, I could tell, slyly weighing her up, working out which side of her to butter up so that she could get some benefit from the relationship. Whether this was Nick too, I couldn’t tell – God knows what girls saw in that cretin. Both girls looked similar, they wore strands of pearls, curled their blonde hair to their shoulders and had a liking for cashmere jumpers, which made their bosoms look more mumsy than sexual. But Emily had it in her, I could tell, to rip the cashmere off, revealing a black lacy bra. And, as it turns out, that is indeed what she wore underneath.
    That quiet proclivity of hers became clear at another drink the three of us were having on a listless Sunday night. This time Annabel had driven us a little way out of the city, to a pub on the outskirts of Durham. Both girls were
depressed
, they’d said, emphasizing the word in their timbre as if the word on its own didn’t have the necessary effect. This was a common trait in the university. Language was considered almost an aside to the convoluted facial expressions and expressive body language used by my fellow students; as if a statement had no meaningunless accompanied by the actions of an Italianate clown.
    Anyway, there we were, out of town
at last
, Annabel had said, waving her hands as if to dispel a cloud of flies. I bought them both the ubiquitous vodka and sodas as well as my own familiar pint of Guinness. Emily was antsy and kept checking her mobile phone, which sat in front of her on the table.
    ‘There’s this game,’ Annabel said at one point. I looked at her while Emily continued tapping away on the screen of the phone. ‘Everyone puts their phone in the middle of the table. Whoever reaches for theirs first has to get the bill.’ I smiled at her, a shared acknowledgement of Emily’s distance; she hadn’t even heard Annabel’s joke.
    Annabel raised her eyebrows and gave me a weary glance when Emily went to the ladies at one point.
    ‘She’s obsessed,’ she said.
    ‘With Nick?’ I asked, knowing the answer.
    Annabel nodded. ‘He pissed her off today. Him and Shorty and some of the other hockey players were looking at these magazines in the JCR. Girly mags.’
    ‘And?’ I said. This news didn’t surprise me.
    ‘Oh, you know,’ Annabel took a sip of her drink, wincing a little at the cold of the ice as she swallowed. ‘Laughing about all the tits. They had a section called “Assess My Breasts”, or some such awfulness. Youcouldn’t even see the women’s faces. Just hundreds