The Personal Shopper (42 page)

‘Thought you might want this,’ he said, crouching down beside Owen’s sleeping bag and handing over the book. ‘How are you doing? Comfy?’ He looked around: there were three other boys in the other corner of this big Boy-Scout-sized tent.

‘Do you think you’ll get any sleep? Or will it be ghost stories all night long?’

‘Don’t know,’ Owen said.

‘But you’re not sleepy yet?’

‘No, not yet,’ Owen told him, then promptly gave a huge yawn.

‘You’re warm enough though?’ Ed asked.

‘Yeah . . . hmmm . . . fine.’

Something about Owen’s slightly pained face made Ed ask: ‘Sore tummy?’ When this got a nod, he suggested: ‘Too many beans maybe?’

‘Yeah . . . too many beans.’

‘I’m sure everyone in here will understand if you need to release a little . . .’ he raised an eyebrow, ‘pressure. Just keep your bag pulled tight.’

This made Owen grin and he suddenly found himself telling Ed: ‘The maps that I made for this trip – the special walk that I’d planned along Even Ridge – I’ve forgotten to bring them. I left them on my bed.’

‘It’s OK,’ Ed assured him, surprised to see such an anxious look on Owen’s face. ‘We’ll buy an Ordnance Survey first thing in the morning and plot it out with that.’

‘Yeah, well, but the thing is . . .’ Owen continued, ‘I’m worried my mum or my sister will find them.’

‘Now why would you worry about that?’ Ed asked with a puzzled look.

‘Well, you see . . . the thing is . . .’ Owen made a long pause, but Ed gave him such an encouraging look and nod of the head that in a tense little burst of words, he began to explain: ‘It’s about my dad.’

It wasn’t nearly as hard to tell someone as he’d expected.

Ed listened carefully, asked just a question or two, then told Owen he should try and get off to sleep now and have another think about it all in the morning.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Lana goes outdoors:

Fuchsia rebel girl T-shirt (Camden market)

Pale grey skater trousers (Quicksilver sale)

Silver parka (Topshop)

Fuchsia trainers (Rocket Dog)

Est. cost: £110

‘There’s no way I can tell you about it . . .’

‘Mum!’

There was an unusual note of urgency to Lana’s voice
 
as she walked into Gray’s kitchen, clad in skimpy pink pyjamas and holding out several sheets of paper.

‘What is it?’ Annie, still in her dressing gown, uncurled her newly painted fingernails from the mug of coffee she was enjoying in front of the large sunny window. ‘It’s eight fifteen! What are you doing up so early?’ she asked as Lana handed her the pages covered with Owen’s cramped handwriting and intricately detailed pencil drawings.

‘Trying to find my iPod, but Owen must have taken it,’ Lana snapped.

Lana liked to wire up for sound first thing on a Saturday morning, then dive back under the duvet for at least another hour or two.

Annie leafed through the pages, but couldn’t see what was exciting her daughter so much. ‘These are Owen’s little maps and drawings of the camp-site he’s at with Ed,’ she said.

The plans were so detailed and so careful – each with a little compass drawn in at the top – she could picture Owen sitting at the kitchen table, hunched over them, tongue poking slightly from the corner of his mouth.

She felt the wave of worry about him break over her again. The same feeling she’d had as he’d climbed into the dodgy little hatchback Ed had turned up in. Borrowed from a friend, apparently.

Ed, already dressed to hike in muddy blue waterproof trousers and walking boots, seem
ed to catch wind of her anxiety.
‘I’m a
very careful driver,’ he assured her,
‘
I don’t want you to worr
y about that. OK?
I’ll take very good care of him. Won’t I, Owen?’ Then he’d given her a wink, to lighten the moment. And mayb
e to show he was sorry for the criticisms he’d raised
the last time they’d met.

Watching Owen cheerfully buckle himself into the car, Annie was glad she hadn’t phoned Ed up and told him not to bother, as she’d considered doing. She was also glad Ed hadn’t made the same call.

They’d both obviously decided to put their disagreement on hold for Owen’s sake.

‘OK. Well, goodbye . . . goodbye, Owen.’ She’d gone round to her son’s side of the car and tried not t
o wave and smile too much
.

‘Did you have any idea where they were going?’ Lana now asked her accusingly as Annie continued to look at the drawings.

‘Of course I know where they are! They’ve gone to the Black Mountains.’

‘And do you know where that is?’

‘It’s in Wales.’

‘Yeah . . . the bit otherwise known as the Brecon Beacons.’

Annie could feel her heart rate speed up at these words.

‘This map . . .’ Lana began, but Annie’s eyes had now picked out the words
Even Ridge
in tiny writing running along one of the contours Owen had copied onto his plan.

‘Oh my God!’ she exclaimed. Even Ridge was known for only one reason in their family. It was Roddy’s place.

‘Don’t you get it?’ Lana was almost shouting at her: ‘Owen wants to visit Dad’s—’

‘Why does he want to do that?!’ Annie cut her off, her voice now urgent too. But she already knew of this deep-seated wish of Owen’s. He had asked her to take him many times before and she had always assured him they would go, the three of them would travel there together as a family, ‘when they were all ready’.

What she’d really meant was when
she
was ready. And she was not.

She didn’t even like to think about when she could face this trip and had put Owen’s request so far to the back of her mind that she had succeeded in forgetting about it altogether.

But clearly, Owen was determined to go and had hatched this clever little plan all on his own. She was certain Ed could have had nothing to do with it.

Annie snatched up the kitchen phone and punched in the number of the mobile Owen had with him. Ed, of course, infuriatingly, did not have a mobile.

‘I’m not a brain surgeon,’ he’d informed her. ‘Nobody will ever need to contact me that urgently!’

But now she did.

She heard her own voice coming down the line at her: ‘Hi, it’s Annie, I can’t take your call right now . . .’

‘Owen, it’s Mum,’ she began her message. ‘Please phone me, straight away.’

As soon as she’d hung up, she told Lana: ‘Get dressed. We have to go there. If Owen’s going to do this today, he needs us to be there with him.’

Gray came downstairs for breakfast just as Annie, fully dressed and all set to head off with Lana, was about to wake him and explain what was happening.

‘There’s a problem with Owen,’ Annie told him. ‘Lana and I have to head up there and be with him.’

‘Is he OK?’ Gray asked.

‘He’s not hurt, it’s nothing medical . . . look, we really have to go . . . do you mind if I explain it to you later?’

‘Right, well,’ Gray looked grumpy about this, ‘I’ll have a quiet little day to myself, will I? Maybe I’ll do some tidying up in this pigsty of a home.’

‘Sorry, I was going to do . . .’ Annie shrugged her
 
shoulders apologetically. There was a lot of stuff lying about everywhere. Something about Gray’s open plan house didn’t really lend itself well to family life. There just wasn’t any room to put anything. Maybe they needed storage boxes; maybe a trip to Ikea would solve everything.

‘Perhaps if I search hard enough,
Lana
,’ he said pointedly, ‘I’ll come across the two boxes of medicine currently missing from my supplies.’

‘What?!’ Annie and her daughter chorused together.

‘Yes, that’s right.’ Gray was still several steps above them on the stairs, his face clearly furious, but trying to do an impression of calm: ‘On
e box of twenty Valium tablets
missing from my locked office cabinet. A nice little earner for somebody.’

‘Do you know anything about this?’ Annie snapped at Lana.

She shook her head emphatically, not taking her eyes from Gray.

‘Gray, if there’s a problem with my children, you come and talk to me about it first,’ Annie told him, now furious too. ‘Don’t just go about making completely unfounded accusations.’

‘But we know Lana’s dishonest!’ he exclaimed. ‘Didn’t she cost you your job? And the way she’s been behaving the past few weeks, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit to find out she’s on drugs!’

This was too much for Annie. She took Lana by the arm and hustled her out of the front door, giving it a great dramatic slam for good measure.

Once they were in the Jeep, she revved the engine and roared out of the driveway, creating two deep ruts in Gray’s neatly raked gravel.

No words passed between mother and daughter until they were miles out of Upper Ploxley and on the motorway heading west, then finally Annie asked first about the dental drugs, to which she got an emphatic: ‘I don’t know anything about that, I promise.’

Then she began her enquiry into the missing £2,000.

At first she was met with silence. Lana turned her head, folded her arms and stared out of the passenger’s window at the passing scenery.

After a long pause, she asked her mother a question in return: ‘How do you know about that?’

‘Ed told me.’

‘Ed! How does he know?’

‘He checked the bank account. The money’s been taken out. It’s not rocket science, Lana.’

‘I didn’t think he ever looked!’

Annie let this completely incriminating remark pass without comment. She kept her eyes on the road, drove steadily and waited.

‘There’s no way I can tell you about it . . .’ Lana said slowly. ‘No way.’

‘Of course there is,’ Annie said gently, feeling her heartbeat accelerate with fear, ‘I’m your mum. I care about you more than anyone else in the world does.’

Then Lana began to sob.

And Annie began to feel very afraid. Lana had obviously done something terrible, or someth
ing terrible had happened. The worst
thoughts rac
ed through her mind. Pregnancy
? Gambling? Drugs? Guilt that she hadn’t paid close enough attention to her stroppy, difficult, but
 
nevertheless fragile, about-to-turn-15-year-old was coursing through Annie’s veins.

‘Lana, whatever it is, you’re here with me. You’re safe and I’m going to look after you. Whatever it is.’

‘It was for Suzie . . .’ the words began, in between tears and sniffs and fresh sobs. ‘She’s in such a mess . . . her parents have split up and her boyfriend’s a . . .
total . . . he’s just a druggie
, Mum. No other word for it . . .’

Annie was nodding encouragingly, but her grip on the steering wheel was knuckle-white.

‘She was just doing it at the weekends,’ Lana went on, ‘but . . . it g
ot to her.
We kept telling her to split up with him and get some help.’

Annie moved the Jeep over into the slow lane so she could give Lana’s story better attention.