Then she thought about Kit’s association with Lally, and felt a clutch of dread. Surely they could trust him not to get involved with drugs, whatever he might feel about Lally—he’d always seemed such a sensible boy. But a sliver of doubt wedged in her heart like an ice fragment, and she found she’d lost her appetite.
“Of course, it’s been worse since Peter died,” said Juliet, and Gemma looked up in surprise.
“Peter?”
“A friend of Lally’s at school. Peter Llewellyn. He drowned in the canal. There was . . .” Juliet pushed her plate away, as if she, too, suddenly found it difficult to force food down, no matter how good.
“There was alcohol involved. It was such a shock—Peter was the last boy anyone would have expected . . . And Lally, Lally seemed to take it very hard, but she wouldn’t talk to me about it.”
Gemma saw her opening. “Was there anything else indicated in the boy’s death?”
“Anything
else? What do you mean?” The baffled tone told Gemma that Juliet wasn’t going to make this easy for her.
“Drugs. Did they find drugs in Peter’s system?”
“No.” Juliet shook her head. “No. Not that I heard. And I can’t imagine that they did. These kids, they’re just babies, really. I mean, experimenting with alcohol is one thing, but—”
“Jules.” Gemma found herself using Duncan’s nickname for his sister, an intimacy she wouldn’t have contemplated an hour ago.
“There’s something I have to tell you.”
Juliet looked at her, her dark gray eyes dilating with apprehension, but she didn’t speak.
Glancing round the room, Gemma saw that the only other customer, a woman in the back corner, had taken out her mobile phone and was murmuring into it. The proprietor had disappeared into the kitchen. Still, she leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I’m sorry.
There’s no easy way to say this. But when I was getting Lally’s clothes, I found some things in her backpack. Drugs.”
“What?” Juliet said, blankly. Then, “No, that’s not possible.”
But in spite of her protest, her oval face paled. “Did you say her backpack? Lally has her backpack with her.”
“This was an old one, in the wardrobe. The one I put her clothes in.”
Blowing out her lips in a little puff of relief, Juliet tried a smile.
“Lally hasn’t used that since last year. She must have loaned it to someone who left the things in it, by accident.”
Gemma reached out and laid her fingers lightly on Juliet’s wrist.
“Juliet, I really am sorry. But no one forgets they’ve left things like this lying about. The pills, maybe, but not the other. There was marijuana, too. And even if Lally was keeping the stuff for someone else, she’s involved in something dangerous. You had to know.”
“Pot?” whispered Juliet, her argument abandoned. “And what sort of pills?”
Gemma sighed. “I suspect some of the pills might be a ’pam drug, Valium or Xanax. Tranquilizers. Do you or Caspar have a prescription?” When Juliet shook her head, she went on. “The other tablets look homemade—I suspect they’re Ecstasy.”
“But that’s not all that bad, is it?” Juliet asked, her voice rising on a shred of hope. “I mean—I read about raves—” She brought her
hands together, twisting them in her lap as if one were seeking comfort from the other. They had begun to tremble. “Oh, Christ,” she whispered. “I can’t believe it, there must be some mistake.”
Gemma couldn’t bring herself to mention the condoms, not now.
Silence descended on their little table. Their unfinished bowls of soup had cooled; the scattered crumbs of bread lay drying on the cheerful tablecloth. Closing her eyes, Juliet sat so still she might have fallen asleep. The woman sitting alone finished her conversation and snapped her mobile phone closed, glancing curiously at Gemma and Juliet as she made her way to the register.
The own er emerged from the kitchen, engaging the woman in friendly banter as he rang up her bill—she was obviously a regular customer.
Opening her eyes, Juliet fixed Gemma with a burning stare, and under cover of the voices of the owner and customer, said quietly,
“I’ll kill her.” Spots of color flared high on her pale cheeks.
“No.” Gemma had been thinking furiously, ever since she’d found Lally’s stash. “Juliet, wait. I’m not suggesting you ignore this—God forbid—but I think you should hold off for a few days before you talk to her about it.” It seemed to Gemma that both mother and daughter were stretched to the breaking point, and that a confrontation might have disastrous consequences.
“Things are so unsettled just now—I’m afraid you may both say things you’ll regret. Wait at least until you’ve worked out a plan for you and the children, and until you’ve told her what you mean to do.
Looking round, Gemma saw that the café’s own er had disappeared into the kitchen. She reached into her pocket and passed the bags surreptitiously across the small table. “Deal with this when you’re calmer.”
Juliet gazed wide-eyed at what she held. Then she stuffed the bags into her handbag. Her shoulders slumping, she said, “Promise me this time. Promise me you won’t tell Duncan.”
“So what did she look like?” Lally sat back on her heels and looked at Kit across the opened case of the latest Harry Potter. They’d spent most of the morning, and the last hour since lunch, unpacking and shelving the boxes of books in the small back room of the bookshop.
“Was there blood?”
“Just bugger off, okay?” said Kit. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Dropping her gaze, Lally ran a fingertip over the slightly dusty spines of the books left in the box. He thought he’d discouraged her, but after a moment she said more quietly, “Did she—did she look like she was asleep?”
The change in her tone made Kit look up. “No. Why?”
“I just wondered, that’s all.” She gave an elaborate shrug and stretched, showing a sliver of midriff. “God, I’m dying for a ciggie.”
“Don’t be daft,” Kit said crossly, although he was glad enough of the change of subject. “You shouldn’t smoke, and I don’t think we’re supposed to go out.” Lally had been complaining since Rosemary had ignored Lally’s plea for hamburgers and brought in sandwiches instead, and the constant harping was giving Kit a pounding headache.
“Why shouldn’t we?” Lally protested. “They’re treating us like prisoners.” She pulled out another half dozen books and stacked them carelessly on the edge of the table. “Shouldn’t we get a trial first?”
Both Rosemary and Hugh had been tactful enough—none of the children had actually been forbidden to go out of the shop, but tasks had been found to keep them busy from the minute they arrived. And although nothing had been said, Kit suspected it was because the adults didn’t want Lally or Sam to see their dad. He also knew that Lally’s mum had taken away her mobile phone—that had been the other subject of Lally’s ongoing complaint—and he guessed that Rosemary and Hugh were worried that Casper might come into the shop and demand to take the children, as he had yesterday in the pub.
Rosemary had given a little start every time the bell on the shop door rang, and Hugh had come down often from his small office on the first floor, making some excuse to check on them, once stopping to give Kit an awkward pat on the shoulder. Kit had caught Rosemary watching him as well, with a mixture of kindness and concern in her eyes that made him feel slightly uncomfortable and funnily warm at the same time.
Unlike his cousin, Kit was happy enough to stay in the shop. He liked the slightly musty smell emanating from the used- book section; he liked the higgledy- piggledy unevenness of the floors and the walls; he liked the weight of the books in his hands and the lure of the bright covers, the promise of adventures that would take him out of himself. He didn’t mind being kept busy, either—that held the recurring visions of what he had seen that morning at bay.
�
�Watch the books,” he said sharply as the stack behind Lally’s head teetered.
“I don’t care about the bloody books,” she retorted, but pushed the volumes back from the edge of the table and straightened them a little. She gave Kit a sly glance from under the wing of dark hair that had fallen across her face. “We could just slip out the back door.”
“No.” Kit collapsed the box he’d emptied with a little more force than necessary. “And even if we did, where are you going to get cigarettes? You can’t buy them.”
Lally grinned. “Oh, there are always places where you can get things. You know the pub round the back of the shop? This bloke that works behind the bar, he’ll buy them for me if I give him the money.”
“But that’s—” The bell on the shop door jangled, startling them both, then Kit saw Lally relax as a distinctly female voice answered Rosemary’s greeting. So she was nervous about her dad after all.
“It’s Mrs. Armbruster,” Lally whispered. “She’ll talk Nana’s ear off for an hour. Come on. If we go now, we can be back before anyone notices we’re gone.”
“What about Sam and Toby?”
“Granddad took them upstairs to play draughts. They won’t be looking for us. Come on.” She stood and moved lightly towards the door, her trainer-shod feet soundless on the wooden floorboards.
“Lally, no, wait.” Kit pushed himself up, but his feet seemed to have tangled themselves together and he stumbled awkwardly. “We shouldn’t—they’d worry—”
She stopped, her hand on the knob of the back door. “I’ll go on my own, then. You can cover for me.” Her eyes held disdain, and a challenge.
Kit flushed, shamed at being treated like a child. But worse was the thought of Lally alone on the street. What if her dad saw her and snatched her up? Then he, Kit, would be responsible for losing her.
If Lally was determined to go out, he would have to go with her.
“Make it quick,” Kit hissed at her as they stood on the pavement outside the pub. It was a quiet time of day, and he could see through the leaded window that the bar was almost empty. “How are you going to manage this, anyway? You can’t go in.”
They had gone out without coats, and he was already shivering.
The sky had darkened to the purple-gray of tarnished silver, and he thought he could smell snow in the air.
“You’ll see.” Lally tugged down the hem of her cotton sweatshirt, raised her chin, and pulled open the door. Stepping over the threshold, she called out, “Can I use your loo?”
Through the window, Kit saw the barman look up. He had spots on his pudgy face, and was probably not much more than eighteen.
“Sorry, love.” The barman shook his head as he wiped a cloth across the bar top. “You’re underage. Find the public toilets, or go to the Crown. They’ll let you in.”
Making a show of jiggling impatiently, Lally said, “Please. I’m desperate. I don’t think I can make it that far. I’ll be really quick.”
“Oh, all right. But shut the bloody door, and hurry up.”
Lally flashed Kit a smile and slipped inside. He saw her disappear into a passage that led towards the rear of the pub. After one more flourish with his cloth, the barman reached for something under the bar, then stepped casually into the same passage.
A moment later, he reappeared, then Lally emerged and quickly crossed the room, hands in the pockets of her sweatshirt. “Ta, love,”
she tossed cheekily over her shoulder as she pushed her way out the door.
“That’s Sean,” she explained as they started back towards the bookshop, Kit hurrying her along with a hand on her elbow. “Lives down the road from us. He’d do anything for me.” Lally fi shed a packet of Benson & Hedges from her sweatshirt pocket and began peeling the cellophane from the top. The wind caught the ephemeral scrap as she tossed it away, spinning it like a bit of tinsel come to life before it disappeared.
Pulling a cigarette from the pack and a plastic lighter from her pocket, she slowed and ducked under a shop-window awning. “Wait,”
she said, holding the cigarette to her lips and shielding the tip with her hand as she flicked the lighter.
“Lally, stop pissing about. You can’t stand here in the street and smoke. Someone will see you.” Nervous impatience edged Kit’s voice.
“So? What am I going to do? Wait until we get back to the shop and have a smoke in the back room? That was the point of this whole exercise, remember, for me to have a smoke.” She inhaled and leaned a little farther back into the awning’s cover, watching him with narrowed eyes before looking away.
Kit stared at her profile. For just an instant, he had the oddest sensation that he was seeing her as she might look in ten years, or twenty, the delicate contours of her face drawn and hardened by time and experience.
But he said only, “They’ll miss us. What on earth are we going to say if they’ve been looking for us?”
“I’ll think of something,” she snapped back at him. “For God’s sake, Kit, don’t be so wet. You sound just like my friend Peter. ‘Don’t smoke, Lally,’ ” she mimicked. ‘Don’t drink, Lally. Don’t do this, don’t do that. You might get into trouble, Lally.’ ” Dropping her half-smoked cigarette, she ground it viciously into the pavement with her heel. “It was all bollocks. In the end, he was no different— No, he was worse.” She glared at Kit, as if daring him to argue. Her eyes brimmed with unshed tears as she turned away, starting back towards the shop.
An icy dart of rain stung Kit’s cheek, then another. It had started to sleet. Running after her, he struggled to find his voice. “Why?
Why was he worse?”
The rising wind snatched her words, throwing them back at him in a gust of disembodied fury. “Because. Because he was a fucking hypocrite, that’s why.”
Chapter Nineteen
“He’s lying, I’d say.” Babcock gave a last glance at the house before turning the BMW into the main road.
“About last night?” Kincaid snapped the lock on his seat belt and turned the heater vent—now spewing frigid air—away from his face.
“Yes, I think so,” he agreed. “And maybe more besides, but something about the last question really put the wind up him.”
He was still sorting his own impressions of Roger Constantine, and found himself missing Gemma. They used each other as sounding boards, and no idea was too far- fetched to be tossed into the pot.
Ronnie Babcock, however, had proved himself a good listener. “Constantine seems a clever man, though,” he allowed himself to muse aloud. “You’d think if he meant to kill his wife, he’d have a ready-made alibi.”
As they left the leafy village of Tilston behind and the heater began to generate some welcome warmth, Babcock said, “But what if it wasn’t planned? What if Annie didn’t just ring him to set a date for dinner? After all, we only have his word for that. What if she dropped a bombshell? Told him she wanted to meet and discuss a divorce? No more living the good life in the Victorian villa for poor
Roger.” He gestured behind them. “Not only would he lose the house, but I’d wager he could never afford to keep up a comparable lifestyle on a journalist’s pay. Now he gets it all, plus the life insurance, with no strings attached. I’d say he had a good deal to lose.”
Kincaid considered this, frowning. “Or what if it was just the opposite—she rang up and said she was coming home, for good? In the five years she’s been gone, he may have come to like the status quo very well. Maybe he didn’t want her to come back. Either way—”
“Either way, he’s got a motive, but the logistics are diffi cult. Say he was surprised by her phone call, whatever the content, and wanted to talk to her in person. I’m not sure he could have driven from Tilston to Barbridge in last night’s fog, much less have found his way to the boat, especially if he didn’t know exactly where she was moored.”
They had just swept round a ninety-degree blind turn on a lane not much wider than the car. Kincaid shuddered at the thought of driving
this road at night, in bad conditions. It was possible, but was it likely? “Was the fog as heavy to the west?” he asked.
“I don’t know, but we’ll find out.” Babcock slipped his phone from his pocket and hit speed dial. “Sheila? Are you still on the boat?
Okay, listen. I’ve some things I want you to check. I need to know if last night’s fog extended as far west as Tilston. What?” He glanced at Kincaid and grinned. “I know you’re not the weather bureau,” he continued. “But we’re going to need someone from that area to knock on doors, chat up the neighbors about Roger Constantine. We need to know any tidbits of gossip, as well as whether anyone noticed his movements last night. And if you get on to Tilston, I’m sure the locals can tell us if they had a pea-souper last night.
“Oh, and when you’ve got that sorted, pull any financial records you find on the boat—in fact, pull any sort of papers you can find.
And what about the house- to- house in Barbridge?”
A tinny squawk of protest issued from the phone’s speaker and
Babcock rolled his eyes. “Of course you can do all that,” he said soothingly. “I’ve great confidence in you. I’ll ring you when we get to the station. ’Bye now.”
“Complaints, complaints,” he said to Kincaid as he flipped the phone closed. “I’m sure we never whinged like that. What’s happened to the copper’s work ethic?” He slowed, and Kincaid saw that they’d once again reached the junction for No Man’s Heath, the village with the reputed pub. “Now,” Babcock continued, a gleam in his eye, “what do you say to a ploughman’s lunch?”
Sheila Larkin swore under her breath. Who did the DCI think she was, bloody Wonder Woman? Not that she wasn’t used to him expecting her to be in two places at once, but he’d been enjoying bossing her about in front of his mate, and that she resented.
She’d been looking round the narrowboat’s galley when her phone rang, and now, as her stomach growled in protest, she eyed with longing an unopened packet of ginger biscuits in the cupboard. The temptation passed quickly, however, and she shut the cupboard door.
Deborah Crombie - Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James 11 - Water Like A Stone dk&gj-11 Page 29