Free Narrow is the Way by Faith Martin Page A

mountains. They catch them in these big nets apparently. Isn’t that gross? And I mean, silly? How much meat could there be on a swallow? Anyway, Julia got really mad about it, and when this bloke said they were going to be doing a tree-planting out by Charlton-on-Otmoor, and called for volunteers, Julia signed up, and dragged me along. Of course, it was really hard work planting these little sapling things, and we only planted five or six, before Julia got fed up and we skivved off. That was sort of typical of her. But she really, genuinely, believed in the cause though, and later she bought some save the seal stickers and stuff, and demonstrated outside an animal lab once in Oxford, but only when she felt like it. You see what I mean?’
    Hillary nodded.
    ‘And it was the same with the shampoo,’ Mandy went on. ‘The stuff that wasn’t tested on animals, and had no stuff in it that would harm the environment was too dear, Julia said. It would cut into her profits too much to use it. So she wrote a letter to the manufacturers, telling them it was no use producing stuff unless it could compete in the market-place. They wrote her a rather snotty letter back, and Julia used normal shampoo after that.’
    Hillary was careful not to smile. But just how much of the spoilt child had been ingrained in the adult? ‘She didn’t like being challenged you mean?’ she mused.
    ‘Oh no. But don’t get the wrong impression. Her heart was always in the right place,’ Mandy insisted. ‘Like when we went to give blood. That wasn’t her fault either.’
    ‘You’ve lost me,’ Hillary said gently.
    ‘Well, we’d just left school, and there was this mobile blood donor van parked up on the village green. You know, they travel about from town to town so people can volunteer to give blood? Well Julia thought it was a great idea, and we went in and signed up to be blood donors, and organ donors – you know, you fill in a card and put it in your purse?’
    Hillary nodded, remembering that there’d been a donor card in Julia Reynolds’s purse the night of her death.
    ‘Well, I gave blood first, and I could see straight away that there was something wrong. Julia went sort of … well, pale and greenish. And when the time came for her to be tested, just to have the little finger prick, to check for anaemia she just couldn’t go through with it. Turned out, she had this phobia about needles. I remembered then how she’d cried and made a fuss when we were little and had to have our jabs. They were very nice about it on the blood van, even though you could tell they were a bit exasperated. Well, the nurse was. She was this old biddy who rolled her eyes a bit. It made Julia cross. But it really wasn’t her fault, see, ’cause when she had to have her appendix out later, it was really awful for her. She hated the hospital, and couldn’t stand it. She said it did her head in. She’d always hated anything to do with illness and stuff. She even discharged herself early, it was so bad. The doctors warned her, but she went straight to bed once she got home, and was careful not to do too much, and it turned out all right in the end. But I mean, it had to be real, didn’t it? To discharge yourself like that? I couldn’t have done it, I can tell you, I would have been scared stiff. And she was really in pain, just after surgery, but she said she just couldn’t breathe in there. In the hospital. So it wasn’t her fault. People were always blaming Julia, thinking she was pulling a fast one, when she really wasn’t.’
    Mandy paused to take a much needed gulp of air and Hillary once again placed a calming hand gently over Mandy’s clenched fist. ‘OK, Mandy, it’s all right.’ The other girl had worked herself up into a such a state of agitation in defending her dead friend, that she looked ready to burst into tears.
    ‘Nobody knew her better than you did,’ Hillary soothed. ‘You must have been a good friend to her. Tell me, can