‘I suppose I could always move back in with the missus,’ he pondered, as she struggled with her guilt and her conscience. ‘She’s keen. Me, not so much, but …’ He trailed off with a shrug.
Closing her eyes, Millie swallowed back her nausea. ‘We’ll have to be quick,’ she said, fetching her bag from the footwell and delving in it for the keys she’d had copied. ‘And you have to be careful not to take too much.’
‘In and out.’ Louis reached for his door. ‘And don’t worry, I only want quantities I can shift easily.’
Avoiding the CCTV camera on the high street, they were making their way down a side street to the back of the practice – Millie thanking God for the cover of dark – when it occurred to her to wonder: how did he know about Nicky? She might have mentioned Sally, but as far as she could recall, she’d never talked to him about Nicky and how fashion-conscious she was.
She couldn’t help wondering about him further when, once he’d taken what he wanted from the safe, he began to mooch around behind reception, despite her imminent heart attack.
‘Louis, we need to go,’ she urged him, close to tears as she kept watch at the front. She was monumentally pissed off with her parents, considering how they’d gone on at her about screwing her life up and then thought nothing of screwing it up for her. If her dad ever found out about this, though, it would kill him.
‘One second,’ Louis said. Then, ‘Shit!’ he cursed, knocking something from one of the desks. Her mum’s vitamin pills, along with her pen holder, Millie realised, scurrying around to retrieve the bottle as it rolled.
‘Well, well. Not that bright, is she, that little receptionist?’ Louis commented from where he was now crouched down peering up at the underside of Nicky’s desk, on which she’d taped her passwords.
Thirty-One
Jake
Jake sat on the drive for a while before going in. He’d thought that he and Emily might be making the tiniest bit of headway towards getting back to some sort of normality, despite the atrocities happening around them. Now he had no idea what to think. What to say to her. He was desperate for them to talk to each other calmly, but after what he’d just found out, he was struggling to see a way forward. Drugs were going missing from the surgery. He hadn’t been sure the first time he’d noticed stocks were low. He was sure now. It could only be her. It was Emily who did the stock check and the ordering of medication to be kept on the premises. Emily who kept the keys to the safe they were locked in. Emily who was taking unprescribed drugs. How the hell was he supposed to talk to her about that?
Running a hand over his neck, he glanced towards the house. He had no choice but to ask her about it. He couldn’t ignore it. It wasn’t just amphetamines being taken. There were painkillers and antipsychotic drugs missing too. Whatever the consequences, he was duty-bound to report it. Even stripped from their packaging, batch numbers meant the drugs could be traced back to the surgery. Aside from which, his own conscience wouldn’t allow him to stay silent in the hope of establishing for certain who was stealing drugs, and why. The consequences for anyone taking non-prescription drugs might be fatal.
He tugged in a breath and pushed his car door open. He’d never imagined he could feel like this. He didn’t want to go inside his own home. Worse, he felt his family would rather he didn’t. Millie was clearly angry and troubled, retaliating to her world unravelling around her by challenging boundaries and possibly jeopardising her future. Ben was furious with him, as indicated by the cutting sarcasm in his voice when Jake had tried to apologise to him. Despite his best efforts, everything was spiralling out of control and he had no power to stop it. He only hoped his relationship with his children was mendable. Being caught in the middle of warring parents was soul-destroying. Jake knew all about that. As for Emily, he was scared for her. For himself. The whole village community. People’s lives were being maliciously and systematically destroyed through information gathered from his surgery, the place that should be saving lives, and he had no power to stop that either.
Pushing his key into the lock, he wondered at the irony of his situation. He’d thought his father was a total fuck-up, been determined not to be seen as anything like him. It seemed now he was worse, by far. Certainly in Emily’s eyes.
Meeting Ben in the hall, he tried a smile. ‘Hi, how’s it going?’
‘Pretty shittily, as it happens.’ Ben smiled flatly back.
‘Right.’ Jake had no idea what to say to that. ‘Ben, I—’
He was about to ask him if they could go for a drink together in the hope of trying to have a proper conversation, but Ben cut him short. ‘Mum’s in the kitchen,’ he said, nodding over his shoulder and then more or less pushing past Jake towards the stairs.
‘Right.’ Jake glanced warily in that direction.
‘Just so you know, no earphones,’ Ben added acerbically, pointing to his ears.
Understanding that his son was warning him that he would be listening for any hint of an argument, Jake buried a sigh. ‘Where’s Millie?’ he asked.
‘Out,’ Ben said, sliding a derisory glance in his direction as he mounted the stairs. ‘Not that she knew you were coming home early or anything.’
It hurt that his kids suddenly seemed to hate him. Jake gulped back a tight knot in his throat.
Dropping his phone and keys on the table, he steeled himself and went through to the kitchen. Emily was stuffing things into the dishwasher. She didn’t acknowledge him, or even appear to notice him as he dumped his case in its usual spot.
He felt his heart go into free fall. What had happened? he wondered, feeling disorientated. Just a short time ago he would have walked over to her, massaged her shoulders when she straightened up and then kissed his way down the tempting soft curve of her neck. She would have chastised him for interrupting whatever she was doing, but she would always turn and lean into him. Now, like Ben, she seemed not to want to even make eye contact.
‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ he asked, though glancing around, he could see the kitchen was pristine. In her frustration, Emily had obviously been cleaning everything to within an inch of its life. Memories of his mother compulsively cleaning, of her manic behaviour in the dark days before her death assaulting him out of nowhere, Jake reeled inwardly. Standing in his own kitchen, his wife just feet away from him, his son upstairs, he felt suddenly and hopelessly alone. It was his own fault. She was paranoid, and behaving erratically because of the drugs, but he knew in his heart that it was his behaviour that had helped fuel it.
‘It’s all done,’ she said, clanging the dishwasher door closed, sending out a signal that, regardless of the small step they’d made towards each other earlier, they were poles apart again. ‘You managed to get back early then? I’m surprised,’ she added, before he could answer. ‘I thought after the news you received you might have cause to be out celebrating.’
Out celebrating?There was precious little to celebrate as far as Jake could see. He looked at her askance. ‘What news?’
‘You know, the text you received,’ Emily answered, glancing at him with a short smile. ‘Sally told me herself earlier. I imagine you’re both ecstatic, though I can’t imagine Dave will be. I take it you’ll be moving out?’
What the …?Jake almost dropped through the floor. She was talking about Sally’s news that she was pregnant? Imagining the baby was his because of some text that had quite obviously been sent by someone aiming to cause trouble?
