Page 25 of The Way We Are Now

‘What’s going on, Clare?’ I asked, once the two detectives had followed Katy out of the room.

‘Do you think she’s been, you know…?’ Clare lowered her voice.

‘What?’

‘Shoplifting!’ Clare’s eyes widened. ‘All that stuff upstairs in her wardrobe. Blimey, they’ll see it all. Katy’s bound to show them.’

‘Oh, God! Do you reckon they’ve arrested her and then come to search her room?’

‘Or raped?’ Clare pulled a face. ‘Maybe they’ve got Theo…’

‘But they didn’t know who he was, did they? They can’t have got him if they didn’t seem to know who he was, can they? I need a drink,’ I added, heading for the fridge.

‘Don’t think we’ve any left. And it’s only four o’clock.’ Clare frowned. ‘You don’t want the police seeing us drinking at four in the afternoon.’

‘It’s not illegal,’ I said, tutting.

‘But weed is.’ Clare pulled a panicked face. ‘There’s some in my room. What if they find it?’

‘I don’t think they’re here to search your room.’ I shook my head.

‘They might look in every bedroom. You know, just to check she’s not hiding from them in the wardrobe. I mean, if they’ve come to arrest her for shoplifting. Look, I’ll make some tea for us all. Find some Hobnobs. Show we’re responsible members of society with good manners and not shoplifters or drug smugglers. Oh, do you reckon that’s what it is? Has Fliss been pushing drugs? Is that where she’s got all the money from? She sold me the weed.’

‘Fliss did?’ My head came up in shock. This was something else I didn’t know about her. ‘You got it from Fliss?’

‘It was only a little bit.’ Clare was petulant. ‘She said you wouldn’t approve.’

‘I don’t mind a joint every now and again,’ I protested. ‘Just not anyone selling the stuff.’

‘Hey, someone’s got to sell it if we’re going to smoke the stuff…’ She turned, flushing scarlet, once she’d realised DS Bamford had come quietly into the kitchen and was standing listening.

‘Did you find what you were looking for?’ I asked politely.

‘We need to take a couple of things away with us.’ She held up a zipped see-through plastic bag, and I saw she was wearing a pair of thin blue rubbery-looking gloves.

‘Can you do that?’ I asked. ‘Without a warrant, I mean?’

‘If you’d rather, we can come back with a warrant?’ The woman raised just one eyebrow this time.

‘Look, you need to tell us what it’s all about.’

‘I’m afraid we can’t at the moment. But thank you so much for helping with our enquiries.’

DI Crowther put his head round the kitchen door. ‘Thank you, girls. You’ve been very helpful. We’ll be in touch.’

‘It would be a lot more helpful if you could just tell us what’s going on? What Fliss has been up to? Is she OK?’

‘As I said, we’ll be in touch.’

‘Come on, let’s get to the library and then a drink and some chips in the union bar.’ Clare was pulling on her coat. ‘I bet we could have had a lift down with those two if we’d thought about it.’

‘Clare, I don’t intend turning up in a Noddy car.’ I had an awful feeling that the police visit was something serious, that it was more than Fliss maybe shifting some weed or pinching the beautiful clothes hanging in her wardrobe.

‘Oh, she’ll be fine!’ Clare tutted. ‘You know Fliss!’

We left Katy revising for an exam in her room, walking through the rain that had been threatening all day towards the bus stop.

‘Look,’ Clare said. ‘The Mini’s gone.’