Breaker

'It's true we didn't see him.' She sniffed. 'At least I didn't ... I suppose Tony might have done ... but it's not true about the rave. It didn't start till ten, so Tony said we might as well get in the mood earlier. The trouble is I can't remember much about it ... We'd been drinking since five and then I took the E...' She wept into her mother's shoulder again.

'For the record, Bibi, you're telling us you took an Ecstasy tablet supplied to you by your boyfriend, Tony Bridges?'

She was alarmed by his tone. 'Yes,' she whispered.

'Have you ever passed out before in Tony's company?'

'Sometimes ... if I drink too much.'

Pensively, Carpenter stroked his jaw. 'Do you know what time you took the tablet on Saturday?'

'Seven, maybe. I can't really remember.' She blew her nose into a Kleenex. 'Tony said he hadn't realized how much I'd been drinking, and that if he had he wouldn't have given it to me. It was awful ... I'm never going to drink or take Ecstasy ever again ... I've been feeling ill all week.' She raised a wan smile. 'I reckon it's true what they say about it. Tony thinks I was lucky not to die.'

Galbraith was less inclined to be fatherly. His private opinion of her was that she was a blowsy slut with too much baby fat and too little self-control, and he seriously pondered the mysteries of nature and chemistry that meant a girl like this could cause a previously sane man to behave with insanity. 'You were drunk again on Monday,' he reminded her, 'when DS Campbell visited Tony's house in the evening.'

She flicked him a sly up-from-under look that curdled any remnants of sympathy he might have had. 'I only had two lagers,' she said. 'I thought they'd make me feel better-but they didn't.'

Carpenter tapped his pen on the table to bring her attention back to him. 'What time did you come around on Sunday morning, Bibi?'

She shrugged self-pityingly. 'I don't know. Tony said I was sick for about ten hours, and I didn't stop till seven o'clock on Sunday evening. That's why I was late back to my parents'.'

'So about nine o'clock on Sunday morning then?'

She nodded. 'About that.' She turned her wet face to her mother. 'I'm ever so sorry, Mum. I'm never going to do it again.'

Mrs. Gould squeezed the girl's shoulder and looked pleadingly at the two policemen. 'Does this mean she'll be prosecuted?'

'What for, Mrs. Gould?'

'Taking Ecstasy?'

The superintendent shook his head. 'I doubt it. As things stand, there isn't any evidence that she took any.' Rohypnol, maybe... 'But you're a very stupid young woman, Bibi, and I trust you won't come whining to the police with your troubles the next time you accept unknown and unidentified tablets from a man. Like it or not, you bear responsibility for your own behavior, and the best advice I can offer you is to listen to your father once in a while.'

Good one, guv, thought Galbraith.

Carpenter tented his fingers over Bibi's previous statement. 'I don't like liars, young woman. None of us does. I think you told another lie last night to my colleague DI Galbraith, didn't you?'

Her eyes stretched in a kind of panic, but she didn't answer.

'You said you've never been on Crazy Daze when we think you have.'

'I haven't.'

'You volunteered a set of your fingerprints at the beginning of the week. They match several sets found in the cabin of Steve's boat. Would you care to explain their presence in light of your denial that you've never been there?' He scowled at her.

'It's ... Tony doesn't know, you see ... oh God!' She shook with nerves. 'It was just... Steve and I got drunk one night when Tony was away. He'd be so hurt if he found out ... he's got this thing about Steve being good-looking, and it'd kill him if he found out that we ... well, you know...'

'That you had intercourse with Steven Harding on board Crazy Daze?'

'We were drunk. I don't even remember much about it, It didn't mean anything,' she said desperately, as if disloyalty could be excused when alcohol loosened inhibitions. But perhaps the concept of in vino veritas was too obscure for an immature nineteen-year-old to understand.

'Why are you so frightened of Tony finding out?' asked Carpenter curiously.

'I'm not.' Her eyes stretched wider in a visible demonstration that she was lying.

'What does he do to you, Bibi?'

'Nothing. It's just ... he gets really jealous sometimes.'

'Of Steve?'

She nodded.

'How does he show it?'

She licked her lips. 'He's only done it once. He jammed my fingers in the car door after he found me in the pub with Steve. He said it was an accident, but ... well ... I don't think it was.'

'Was that before or after you slept with Steve?'