The change in her tone made Kit look up. “No. Why?”
“I just wondered, that’s all.” She gave an elaborate shrug and stretched, showing a sliver of midriff. “God, I’m dying for a ciggie.”
“Don’t be daft,” Kit said crossly, although he was glad enough of the change of subject. “You shouldn’t smoke, and I don’t think we’re supposed to go out.” Lally had been complaining since Rosemary had ignored Lally’s plea for hamburgers and brought in sandwiches instead, and the constant harping was giving Kit a pounding headache.
“Why shouldn’t we?” Lally protested. “They’re treating us like prisoners.” She pulled out another half dozen books and stacked them carelessly on the edge of the table. “Shouldn’t we get a trial first?”
Both Rosemary and Hugh had been tactful enough—none of the children had actually been forbidden to go out of the shop, but tasks had been found to keep them busy from the minute they arrived. And although nothing had been said, Kit suspected it was because the adults didn’t want Lally or Sam to see their dad. He also knew that Lally’s mum had taken away her mobile phone—that had been the other subject of Lally’s ongoing complaint—and he guessed that Rosemary and Hugh were worried that Casper might come into the shop and demand to take the children, as he had yesterday in the pub.
Rosemary had given a little start every time the bell on the shop door rang, and Hugh had come down often from his small office on the first floor, making some excuse to check on them, once stopping to give Kit an awkward pat on the shoulder. Kit had caught Rosemary watching him as well, with a mixture of kindness and concern in her eyes that made him feel slightly uncomfortable and funnily warm at the same time.
Unlike his cousin, Kit was happy enough to stay in the shop. He liked the slightly musty smell emanating from the used- book section; he liked the higgledy- piggledy unevenness of the floors and the walls; he liked the weight of the books in his hands and the lure of the bright covers, the promise of adventures that would take him out of himself. He didn’t mind being kept busy, either—that held the recurring visions of what he had seen that morning at bay.
“Watch the books,” he said sharply as the stack behind Lally’s head teetered.
“I don’t care about the bloody books,” she retorted, but pushed the volumes back from the edge of the table and straightened them a little. She gave Kit a sly glance from under the wing of dark hair that had fallen across her face. “We could just slip out the back door.”
“No.” Kit collapsed the box he’d emptied with a little more force than necessary. “And even if we did, where are you going to get cigarettes? You can’t buy them.”
Lally grinned. “Oh, there are always places where you can get things. You know the pub round the back of the shop? This bloke that works behind the bar, he’ll buy them for me if I give him the money.”
“But that’s—” The bell on the shop door jangled, startling them both, then Kit saw Lally relax as a distinctly female voice answered Rosemary’s greeting. So she was nervous about her dad after all.
“It’s Mrs. Armbruster,” Lally whispered. “She’ll talk Nana’s ear off for an hour. Come on. If we go now, we can be back before anyone notices we’re gone.”
“What about Sam and Toby?”
“Granddad took them upstairs to play draughts. They won’t be looking for us. Come on.” She stood and moved lightly towards the door, her trainer-shod feet soundless on the wooden floorboards.
“Lally, no, wait.” Kit pushed himself up, but his feet seemed to have tangled themselves together and he stumbled awkwardly. “We shouldn’t—they’d worry—”
She stopped, her hand on the knob of the back door. “I’ll go on my own, then. You can cover for me.” Her eyes held disdain, and a challenge.
Kit flushed, shamed at being treated like a child. But worse was the thought of Lally alone on the street. What if her dad saw her and snatched her up? Then he, Kit, would be responsible for losing her.
If Lally was determined to go out, he would have to go with her.
“Make it quick,” Kit hissed at her as they stood on the pavement outside the pub. It was a quiet time of day, and he could see through the leaded window that the bar was almost empty. “How are you going to manage this, anyway? You can’t go in.”
They had gone out without coats, and he was already shivering.
The sky had darkened to the purple-gray of tarnished silver, and he thought he could smell snow in the air.
“You’ll see.” Lally tugged down the hem of her cotton sweatshirt, raised her chin, and pulled open the door. Stepping over the threshold, she called out, “Can I use your loo?”
Through the window, Kit saw the barman look up. He had spots on his pudgy face, and was probably not much more than eighteen.
“Sorry, love.” The barman shook his head as he wiped a cloth across the bar top. “You’re underage. Find the public toilets, or go to the Crown. They’ll let you in.”
Making a show of jiggling impatiently, Lally said, “Please. I’m desperate. I don’t think I can make it that far. I’ll be really quick.”
“Oh, all right. But shut the bloody door, and hurry up.”
Lally flashed Kit a smile and slipped inside. He saw her disappear into a passage that led towards the rear of the pub. After one more flourish with his cloth, the barman reached for something under the bar, then stepped casually into the same passage.
A moment later, he reappeared, then Lally emerged and quickly crossed the room, hands in the pockets of her sweatshirt. “Ta, love,”
she tossed cheekily over her shoulder as she pushed her way out the door.
“That’s Sean,” she explained as they started back towards the bookshop, Kit hurrying her along with a hand on her elbow. “Lives down the road from us. He’d do anything for me.” Lally fi shed a packet of Benson & Hedges from her sweatshirt pocket and began peeling the cellophane from the top. The wind caught the ephemeral scrap as she tossed it away, spinning it like a bit of tinsel come to life before it disappeared.
Pulling a cigarette from the pack and a plastic lighter from her pocket, she slowed and ducked under a shop-window awning. “Wait,”
she said, holding the cigarette to her lips and shielding the tip with her hand as she flicked the lighter.
“Lally, stop pissing about. You can’t stand here in the street and smoke. Someone will see you.” Nervous impatience edged Kit’s voice.
“So? What am I going to do? Wait until we get back to the shop and have a smoke in the back room? That was the point of this whole exercise, remember, for me to have a smoke.” She inhaled and leaned a little farther back into the awning’s cover, watching him with narrowed eyes before looking away.
Kit stared at her profile. For just an instant, he had the oddest sensation that he was seeing her as she might look in ten years, or twenty, the delicate contours of her face drawn and hardened by time and experience.
But he said only, “They’ll miss us. What on earth are we going to say if they’ve been looking for us?”
“I’ll think of something,” she snapped back at him. “For God’s sake, Kit, don’t be so wet. You sound just like my friend Peter. ‘Don’t smoke, Lally,’ ” she mimicked. ‘Don’t drink, Lally. Don’t do this, don’t do that. You might get into trouble, Lally.’ ” Dropping her half-smoked cigarette, she ground it viciously into the pavement with her heel. “It was all bollocks. In the end, he was no different— No, he was worse.” She glared at Kit, as if daring him to argue. Her eyes brimmed with unshed tears as she turned away, starting back towards the shop.
An icy dart of rain stung Kit’s cheek, then another. It had started to sleet. Running after her, he struggled to find his voice. “Why?
Why was he worse?”
The rising wind snatched her words, throwing them back at him in a gust of disembodied fury. “Because. Because he was a fucking hypocrite, that’s why.”
Chapter Nineteen
“He’s lying, I’d say.” Babcock gave a last glance at the house before turning the BMW into the main
