Part 36 (1/2)

I stared at a calendar hanging on the wall: two emerald taniwha with swirling tails. The world had turned upside down and inside out. I despised the courier, the dealer, the cook, everyone involved in supplying those monstrous crystals to my beautiful girl. I loathed them. They were vermin, hiding under hoods and behind gang insignia. They were creatures with no self-respect, no future, scrabbling for rotting sc.r.a.ps on their filthy heap. I agreed entirely with Jean Colbert: put down poison, lay traps. They had to be eradicated.

Not Sacha.

Bianka's words were tangling. 'It doesn't matter what I do or say, she won't listen, just nuts off at me. I told her to go ahead and screw up her life-but I didn't mean it!'

Not Sacha. Sacha was a G.o.ddess in a white dress, weaving magic with her flute; a beloved sister who splashed her brothers in the river. She was a chatterbox with a high forehead and apple cheeks who never stopped smiling, and loved hot chocolate and marshmallows. When a bee stung her, I put on special cream. On my wedding day I told her I loved her most in the world, and she said she loved me more.

No, not Sacha. She wasn't vermin.

'Rival gangs,' Bianka ran on breathlessly, 'do anything to shut each other down. You don't mess with them . . . She told me someone attacked her car when she was doing a delivery. It was a warning. The deeper you get into this, the freakier the people.'

'Doing a delivery? No, no. She was grocery shopping. She can't have been . . . I mean, that was weeks ago.'

'She started using again the day after you got back from skiing.'

I saw Sacha on the mountainside, gazing at the pristine cone of Ngauruhoe. I'm lucky: I've been given a second chance, and there's no way I'm going to throw that chance away.

'That isn't possible.'

'Yes.' Bianka sounded heartbroken. 'Coming home brought everything back. She got hit by this craving and it was driving her crazy, she was afraid she was going to kill herself if it didn't stop. So she sent a text from your phone. Someone drove out and left the stuff under your letterbox. She took the dog for a walk and collected it. She thought she could handle it, she'd just have a little bit to perk her up and everything would be okay.'

The ground was opening. There was nowhere safe.

Bianka was still talking. 'Look-I'm sorry, but you've got to know-she sells it, too.'

'Sells it? You mean she's a dealer?'

'Well, sort of. She breaks it up and sells it to her mates.'

My legs were shaking. I pulled out a chair and fell onto it.

'Please take her away, Martha,' begged Bianka. 'She's s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her life, big time. Take her back to England while you still can.'

I couldn't move, after that call. I sat irresolute and stunned as the wind rose outside. So far, every decision I'd made had ended in disaster. I jumped in terror as a violent gust tore the lid off our dustbin, rolling it across the yard.

Pick up that phone and call the police! wailed Mum.

'Shut up, shut up. I'm trying to think.'

For heaven's sake, blow the whistle! This is too big for you now.

Dazedly, I lifted the phone. Once I'd shopped Sacha to the authorities, I could let go. They would take it irrevocably out of my hands. No more choices. Listening to the dial tone, I mouthed my first words: h.e.l.lo, good evening, hi, um, I'm calling to betray my daughter. Perhaps they'd send a posse and arrest her tonight. She'd be so frightened, and what would I tell the boys? There would be police interviews and court appearances. She'd be a criminal, her life in tatters; and all because I'd made this call.

I dropped the receiver. I couldn't do that to her, to all of us. Surely we could sort this out behind closed doors? First, Kit must be told that his stepdaughter was a criminal, tied up with maniacs who attacked cars. I forced my steps across the sitting room and stood in front of the studio door. The handle s.h.i.+fted under my palm.

That's right, urged Mum. Put him in the picture.

But he'd never forgive her. Anyway, I reasoned, why burden the man with such terrifying knowledge on the eve of realising his dream? In a few hours he was off to Dublin for an exhibition that could change all our lives. If he knew what I knew, he might even cancel his trip.

I lifted my hand off the door handle, and crept away. I had another, perhaps even more difficult, conversation ahead of me.

Sacha was pacing in her room, half-dressed, her cheeks leached of blood. 'I'm sorry,' she sobbed. 'I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. I love you, I love Kit, I love the twins.' Her contrition seemed absolutely genuine, but the change in her was bewildering. It was as though there were several Sachas, all living within the same body. She took hold of my face and turned it towards her. 'They're out there.'

'Who?'

'Can't you hear them whispering?'

I listened. Yes . . . there was something. The possum was dancing on the tin roof, scrabble scrabble of little feet; or perhaps it was a family of rats gnawing on the rafters.

'They're coming.' Sacha's eyes were wild and staring. 'I've seen them, hiding behind the trees.'

'But who's coming?'

'I wish I was dead.'

Five minutes later she was limp, her eyelids thin as gauze. I covered her up and made her warm, because she was my special girl. My lost girl. When I kissed her, my own tears ran onto her face.

I lay in the dark, rigid as a board, listening to the wind trying to tear off our roof. Kit came up at midnight. He moved quietly around the room, and I heard his suitcase being zipped before he slid in beside me. To my intense relief, he was sober.

'I know you're awake,' he said softly.

'Wish I wasn't.' I turned over to face him, but I didn't move closer and neither did he. We lay two feet apart. Sacha's addiction was a physical presence, malevolent and ugly. It had lodged between us.

'She's paranoid,' I said. 'Thinks there are people prowling around outside.'

'People prowling . . .? Hang on.' Kit swung out of bed and strode to the balcony door, peering into the night. 'Maybe there are, though. Some of her burglar mates, d'you think?'

'She says she hears voices, people whispering. It's a bit like . . .'

He was still at the window. 'Spit it out.'

'Well, I don't know. Schizophrenia or something.'

'G.o.d help us.' Kit rolled back under the covers. 'Should we take her to hospital?'

'I don't think we can, without blowing the whistle. How are we going to explain the state she's in? Anyway, if she starts babbling on about hearing voices she could end up in the psychiatric unit! No way.'

'For Christ's sake.' His frustration was rising again. 'Stupid, stupid girl! Why is she doing this to us? Is she punis.h.i.+ng us for something? Is this all about emigrating, or not knowing her father?'

'I don't know why she's relapsed. People do. Look at smokers.'

'Nicotine isn't quite in the same league.' Kit was silent for a minute. 'Look, I think I should cancel the trip.'

'Cancel the-?' I moved across to him, resting my forearms on his chest. 'After all your work? Don't you dare! In the world outside our troubled family, there is an art festival waiting for a collection of Kit McNamaras.'

His arms wound around me. He was alert; I sensed the watchfulness in his body, the rapid breathing. 'If she's using again, those lowlifes may come back. You're going to be alone here with the kids. What if someone breaks in at night?'