Water Like a Stone (29 page)

Although she felt much better qualified to pick out boys’ things than girls’, Gemma followed Juliet’s direction without protest. Lally’s door was closed, and on it she had tacked a sheet of paper with a carefully hand-drawn skull and crossbones. Beneath the graphic, she had printed
KEEP OUT
, then below that, in parentheses, (
THAT MEANS YOU
,
SAM
!
).

“Sorry, love,” Gemma whispered, and turned the knob. The door swung open and she stood on the threshold, expelling a breath of surprise. She had been expecting openly expressed rebellion—what she found was a room that seemed to bear little imprint of its teenage occupant.

The walls were rose, the duvet a floral mint-and-rose print, the upholstered armchair by the window a coordinating mint-and-rose stripe. A few stuffed animals sat grouped at the head of the hastily made bed; the framed prints on the walls were variations on horses grazing in dreamily impressionistic meadows. These were a child’s things—had Lally held on to them by choice? And if so, why?

The room was too tidy as well, except for a few items of clothing tossed haphazardly on a bench at the foot of the bed and the snaggletoothed appearance of dressing-table drawers not quite shut.

Sniffing, Gemma caught the faint drift of cheap perfume, the sort that teenage girls bought at Woolworths or the Body Shop with their pocket money, and the normality of it eased her disquiet. She was letting her imagination run away with her again. She certainly didn’t know Lally well enough to make judgments based on something as superficial as her lack of boy-band posters and black drapes.

The sound of Juliet moving around in the next room, opening and shutting doors and drawers, spurred her into action. Juliet hadn’t given her a bag, so the first thing was to find a holdall or suitcase.

Rummaging through the wardrobe, the best she came up with was an empty, slightly worn backpack. Setting the pack on the bed, she quickly riffled through the chest of drawers, pulling out folded panties and bras that were little more than bits of lace and padding. She smiled a bit, remembering when she had worn such things so proudly and she and her sister had fought over who needed them most.

When her hands were full, she turned back to the bed and saw that the pack had tipped over, spilling a brightly colored bit of paper or foil onto the floor. She reached for it absently, then froze as her fingers closed round the small packet and she realized what she held.

It was a condom, wrapped in colored foil.

Gemma dumped the neatly folded clothes on the bed and reached for the backpack. She felt inside, exploring the depths until she found the pocket that had come open.

A sharp edge jabbed her finger, and she pulled out more condoms, a half dozen, their foil wrappers as cheerful as confetti. Sinking down onto the edge of the bed, Gemma thought furiously. Surely the novelty condoms were every schoolgirl’s idea of sophistication, passed giggling from friend to friend at lunch break. Possession didn’t necessarily mean that Lally had a use for them.

She slipped the condoms back into the bag and picked up the clothes, then stopped, her nose wrinkling. There was something else, a hint of a familiar smell.

This time she protected her fingers with a handkerchief, searching more thoroughly and feeling along the seams of the innermost pockets. Her diligence rewarded her with a bumpy, thumbnail-size packet of cling film. Carefully, she peeled back the clear layers of plastic, but her stomach was plummeting even before she saw what the film held. Tablets. White, unstamped, some oval, some round.

They could be anything, of course, but Gemma suspected the ovals were Xanax, or a similar tranquilizer, and the round tablets Ecstasy. The round tablets were unscored, and had that slightly homemade look. In any case, she was quite sure neither of the pills was something Lally should have.

But there was still something more; the smell was stronger now. She felt again, and her fingers closed on a softer packet. She knew what it was before she saw the contents. Pot, and a sizable amount.

She sat, staring down at what she held, until Juliet’s voice came anxiously from the hall. “Gemma, are you almost ready? We need to go, soon.”

With a jerk, Gemma shoved the drugs into her pocket and stuffed the clothes into the pack, all the while swearing under her breath. She called out, “Coming,” as she hurried to pull jeans and tops from the drawers, adding them to the pack until she thought she had enough for a few days’ wear.

Then she stopped, her hand on the doorknob, and took a breath. What the hell was she going to do about this?

How could she tell Juliet what she had found, today of all days? And how could she not?

“Juliet…” Gemma paused, concentrating on stirring the too-hotto-taste bowl of leek soup before her on the small café table. Suspect
ing that Juliet had subsisted through the morning on nothing but nerves and multiple cups of coffee, she’d insisted that they get some lunch once they were safely away from the Newcombes’ house.

Juliet had agreed, if reluctantly, and within a quarter of an hour they were seated in the tiny tea shop called the Inglenook, just up Pillory Street from the bookshop. It was a bit late for a cooked lunch, but the proprietor had suggested his wife’s prizewinning soup, and the steam rising from Gemma’s bowl smelled heavenly. And it was just as well, she thought, that they’d missed the height of the lunch crowd, as only one other table was occupied, providing the opportunity for a fairly private conversation, if only she could figure out what to say.

It had taken her only a moment’s contemplation to realize that she couldn’t, in good conscience, ignore what she’d found in Lally’s room. She put herself in Juliet’s place—what if someone discovered evidence that Kit had been using drugs, and didn’t tell her or Duncan? She would want to know, and would be slow to forgive anyone who kept it from her.

That decision made, her first instinct had been to tell Duncan and let him deal with it. She’d realized quickly, however, that that was merely cowardice on her part.

Gemma took a tiny sip of the soup, which was as good as it smelled, then made another stab at finding an opening. “It’s difficult, isn’t it, knowing what to do with teenagers, even under the best of circumstances?”

Juliet looked up from her soup, one dark eyebrow arched in surprise, and Gemma was struck by her sudden but fleeting resemblance to Duncan. More often, she’d seen Rosemary in Juliet, and occasionally a smile or a tilt of the head that made her think of Hugh. “I suppose so,” Juliet said slowly, rotating her spoon. “Lally was such a sweet child, always eager to please. And now—sometimes I wonder what happened to that little girl, if she’s even still there.”

Hearing the pain in Juliet’s voice, Gemma knew she’d struck a
nerve. “I doubt Lally knows herself.” She ate a little more of her soup, then broke off a piece of crusty brown bread and peeled the foil cover from a packet of butter. “When I was Lally’s age, I remember my mum telling me I must have been abducted by aliens.” Juliet smiled, and encouraged, Gemma went on. “Was Lally having a difficult time even before things got so rough with Caspar?”

Frowning, Juliet said, “I don’t know, really. It seems as if this entire year’s been hard for her, but now I wonder if there were signs earlier and I simply missed them.”

Gemma thought of how blind they had been to the problems Kit was having at school, and swallowed a little too hastily. She coughed until her eyes watered, but waved off Juliet’s concern.

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 owner 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 owner 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.