“I wonder how Pauline’s taking it,” the first woman says.
“Well, she won’t be lonely for long, will she? I expect someone will be along to comfort her. Bram, I hear. He’s a good-looking lad. . . .”
I’m so busy listening that Karen the hairdresser makes me jump.
“Dee! Isn’t it terrible! Who would do that to Charlie?” she says.
“I don’t know any more than you.” I turn away and look for floor wax. “Ah, this is it. Sorry. I’m due at the Neptune.”
There’s a knot of people outside and I don’t recognize some of them. Must be weekenders or tourists. I bet they’ve never even met Charlie but they’re lining up to give their expert opinion to a woman journalist videoing them with her phone. I expect she was at the Old Vicarage with the other press on Saturday, asking people about the concert and the drugs. The Cooks spoke to them about their little girl and gave them photos of her looking young and innocent. Like the drugs were forced on her.
But the media has moved on to the next tragedy, like they do.
“Charlie was a lovely old boy,” Brian, who owns the Golden Plaice chip shop, is telling the reporter. She’s got her sunglasses perched on her head and holds her mobile a little closer to his face. “He’d do anyone a good turn. And he had some great stories about his life. He was well-connected, you know?”
“Really? Anyone I’d have heard of?” I hear the reporter ask as I walk off to the Neptune.
Doll is standing behind the bar with her back to me when I let myself in. “Hello,” I say. “It’s really humid out there. Feels like we might get some rain.” And I go through the back to get started.
Doll doesn’t say anything. It must be awful, with everyone knowing that your son was responsible for nearly killing Tracy Cook.
I do the sinks and then make her a coffee and put it on the counter behind her. Keeping everything normal.
“I thought you might need this,” I say quietly.
She turns round and looks at me. “This is a terrible mess, isn’t it?” she says.
“Don’t worry. I’ll do in here next,” I say.
“No, Dee,” she says. “I’m not talking about the bar.”
She looks as though she got ready in the dark this morning. Her hair hasn’t been brushed at the back and she’s missing an earring. But I can’t take my eyes off her mouth. Normally Doll outlines it in pencil, then fills it in with lippie—rose for summer, plum for winter—but today she hasn’t bothered. She looks like a stranger.
“What happened at the festival. That terrible mess,” the naked mouth says. “We’ve got to sort it out.”
“We?”
“You must know as well as me, this drugs thing wasn’t down to Ade. He hasn’t got two brain cells to rub together—or money to buy pills. He has to borrow bus fare. Someone must have given them to him. Who would do that? Your Liam might know?”
“Liam? What are you talking about?”
“He used to take them, didn’t he? Maybe he still does? He’s always boasting about his wild days,” she sneers.
I just stare at her. Bloody Liam and his big mouth. “Of course, it’s nothing to do with him. That’s just talk—you know what Liam’s like. Gets a bit carried away with his stories. Anyway, Ade has confessed.”
Doll’s mouth hardens into a line and her lips disappear completely.
“My son didn’t know what he was saying—he was in a state of shock and should never have been interviewed,” she snaps. “He’s made a new statement.”
“What’s he said?” I clutch my hands together to stop them from trembling.
“That he was still affected by the ecstasy. And that he can’t remember what happened. Now we’ll see where the police look next, shall we? Be in no doubt, Dee, the truth will out. And in the meantime I’d like you to go—and leave your keys, please.”
“But, Doll—”
“On your way! And tell your husband I know he’s in it up to his neck.”
I sit in the car outside the pub looking at my phone. I should ring Liam and warn him but I don’t want to talk to him. The look on his face when he heard the radio this morning.
“They’ve found Charlie,” he whispered.
“Yes, but remember what we said? This is nothing to do with us. Let’s just get on with our lives. . . .”
And I thought we could. But now I’m not sure Doll is going to let us.