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‘Nope. Her mother cried and her dad shook my hand.’ Jamie’s shoulders squared a little.
‘So how does it feel to be a good influence?’
Jamie dismissed the idea with a shrug, his mind obviously on something else. ‘I just keep thinking. Kirsty’s always been careful...’
‘There’s no safe way to take cocaine, Jamie.’
‘Yeah, yeah. I know. All the same, there must be something different on the streets.’
There was. Euan had already heard some talk, and the results of the police tests on the remains of the white powder found on Kirsty had confirmed it. Cocaine that had a higher level of purity than usual was very bad news. Euan decided not to go into the details with Jamie.
‘I still know some people. I could ask around, find out what’s going on...’
‘You think that’s a good idea?’ Euan asked with concern.
‘I have to do something. Kirsty’s not going to be the same again, is she?’
‘Don’t write her off. She’s already made much better progress than I could have hoped, and she’s still in recovery. If you really want to do something for her, she needs all the friends she can get at the moment.’
‘And when it happens again I’ll just go and make friends with that person, shall I? My social life’s going to expand no end...’ Anger was radiating from Jamie’s tense frame.
‘The drug agencies and the police are working on it, mate. What you need to do is to concentrate on helping Kirsty and on helping yourself. Let them do their jobs.’
‘And if they don’t...’ Jamie’s fists clenched. ‘I can’t just sit around, doing nothing.’ A glimpse of the angry youth who had come so close to ruining his life.
‘There are no answers, Jamie. Life’s a problem. It’s supposed to hurt, and to make you angry and to keep you up nights, staring at the ceiling.’
Jamie puffed out a sigh. ‘And the trick is to stay clean for today.’
‘You said it.’
Something seemed to whisper across the back of his neck. The breeze as the entrance door opened, perhaps. When Euan looked round, he fell into the dizzying depths of Sam’s luminous, thoughtful eyes.
Dragging his gaze away to steady himself, he saw the middle-aged couple talking to Liz. If they were who he thought they were, they were an hour late, but they’d come a long way to see him. Even if he doubted that he could be of any help in finding their daughter, he had to at least try. He acknowledged the couple and drew Jamie to one side, away from the people who were straggling through the door for this afternoon’s group session.
‘Call me, Jamie.’
‘I don’t need to. It’s Kirsty we’re talking about here, not me.’
‘You sure about that?’
Jamie stared at him and then shrugged. ‘Kirsty’s a friend, and I didn’t see this coming. What kind of a person does that make me?’
It was a question that Euan had struggled with for years. He’d been too blind, too busy to see his own wife’s addiction. He knew all about the corrosive quality of that kind of guilt and Jamie deserved better than that.
‘It makes you human. You’ve been a good friend to Kirsty, but you can’t take responsibility for what she does. You’re not to blame for what happened to her.’
Jamie’s small, wordless nod was enough to tell Euan that he was thinking about it and that he shouldn’t press the point further. ‘I’m going to the hospital later. I’ll call you and let you know how she’s doing.’
‘Thanks. Are you going to be okay?’ He searched Jamie’s face for any sign that he was thinking of doing something stupid.
‘Yeah. Go and sort someone else out. I’m fine.’
‘We’ll talk later, then.’ He waited for Jamie’s nod and then let him go.
* * *
He found Sam in the kitchen, making tea, while Liz watched the entrance door and chatted to Mr and Mrs Pearson. When she turned her face towards him, it was full of expectation.
