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 hold all 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-hot-to- 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 fi gure 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.