‘Up at the war memorial,’ Amber answers, then looks up the road at the sound of heavy tyres coming over the brow of the hill. ‘About bloody time.’ She reaches inside her cropped Puffa jacket for her pass as the bus swings in next to them. Sometimes Amber dresses in whatever clothes she dumped on the floor the night before (and still manages to look good). Other times she goes to a huge effort – make-up, curling wand, fake eyelashes – and today is one of those days. It usually is when Sean’s involved in her plans.
‘Isn’t that a bit out in the open?’ Jess asks, falling in step behind Amber and then dropping her pass against the reader. The memorial has a garden area with benches and trees, but it’s still adjacent to the main road coming in from Chinnor.
Amber shrugs. ‘It’s just mates catching up. Why does it matter if people see? No one’s going to notice us swapping bags when we leave.’
‘I suppose,’ Jess says, narrowing her eyes in thought as she winds up the stairs after her sister. Sean is verging on psycho about secrecy, so the war memorial must have been Amber’s idea. Did she choose somewhere public for insurance, in case Sean has found out about them skimming a bit extra?
Is that why she wants Jess with her too? Safety in numbers?
Or one of those human shields?
The dot-to-dot of realisation must show on her face because Amber reaches for her hand as they drop onto the seat. ‘You don’t have to come, you know,’ she says. ‘If you’re too scared. I can meet Sean by myself.’ There are always two sides to Amber, Jess thinks. The sister who talks about it being them against the world. And the resentful orphan who gets her biggest kick out of putting Jess down.
‘It’s fine,’ Jess says, sounding as flippant as her shallow lungs will allow. ‘It’s not like he’s still pissed off with me, is it?’
‘Yeah, exactly,’ Amber agrees. Jess searches her face for any signs that she’s lying, but she knows it’s pointless. Amber is too good a liar to leak clues. She leans back against the cushioned seat and stares out of the window. When the bus slows at a mini-roundabout, her pulse starts to quicken, because it means their stop is next.
‘I got Lucy’s phone number by the way,’ she spurts out.
‘Awesome.’ Amber smiles. ‘One night soon, we’ll get her out. You know, maybe I should take a knife, wet her,’ she adds in a low, teasing voice. ‘Sean would think I’m fucking cool if I did that, wouldn’t he?’
An image suddenly appears in Jess’s head. Blood pooling on the carpet. Stillness. Fear and indecision. It’s a bad memory that she’s supposed to have blocked out. She shakes it away. ‘I don’t think,’ she stutters. ‘It’s not a good …’
‘All right, chill out.’ Amber clicks her tongue. ‘I was only messing with you. Come on, this is our stop.’ Amber stands up, and Jess follows suit.
When they arrive at the memorial garden, Sean is already there, taking up a whole bench with his arms spread across the back. He looks like a drug dealer – black Puffa jacket zipped up to his chin, fat joggers, white trainers, and a black cap pulled low over his eyes – but so do most teenage boys around here. And anyway, he looked like that when she and Amber first met him, when his mum was still healthy, and he didn’t sell drugs for a living.
‘Hey, Sean,’ Amber calls out. She’s trying to sound chill, but she’s not fooling anyone.
‘Hey.’ Sean’s voice is deep and lazy, but Amber still beams at him. She drops her bag on the ground – a cheap mini backpack from Decathlon, identical to Sean’s – and sits onto the bench sideways, curling her knees up under her chin. Jess hovers a few metres away, Sean ignoring her like he always has.
‘How’s business?’ Sean asks Amber, pushing his cap up a notch so that his face is on show. Brown eyes, taut jawline, neat scar above his eyebrow. No denying he’s good-looking.
‘Same as usual,’ Amber says. She’s still smiling, but there’s a tremor in her lips now. And a slightly higher pitch to her giggle. ‘The pills all went. Got a few tens of skunk left, but I’ve written it all down. In code,’ she adds quickly. ‘Like you said.’
Sean nods. ‘Sounds like trade’s good to me. Maybe we should increase the price now you’re mixing with all these posh countryside kids. What do you reckon?’
Amber looks away, but Jess forces herself to observe Sean’s face, to try and read his expression. Is he making a point? Does he know what they’ve been doing? Or what Amber decided to do without telling Jess, she silently corrects – although of course they’ll both suffer the consequences if he ever finds out.
But Sean doesn’t know anyone in Thame, she reminds herself silently. So there’s no way he could have found out.
‘Yeah, maybe,’ Amber murmurs.
She’s still looking at the memorial, and Jess decides to follow her gaze. It’s a big stone structure with a cross on the top and a bronze plaque with loads of names engraved into it. She’s not close enough to read them, but she supposes they’re dead soldiers. It makes her think about her own dad, and how there’s no memorial for him because he’s still alive, but also lifeless. She wonders which is worse.
‘But they’re not all that posh really, or rich,’ Amber goes on, her voice getting a bit stronger. ‘And there’s a big party in the village next weekend. A girl’s eighteenth. I’ve already had a couple of orders placed, and I’m going to wait outside the girl’s house to see if I can sell some more. It might be a problem if we change the price now.’
Sean removes his arms from the bench and rests his elbows on his knees. His head drops low between his shoulder blades, hiding his face. ‘A party,’ he murmurs into his jacket collar. ‘In Chinnor?’
‘Yeah,’ Amber says. ‘A massive house off Lower Road. There’s going to be one of those big tents in the garden.’
Finally Sean looks up. ‘Okay, if you want to stick at ten, we’ll stick at ten. I guess I’m going to have to trust you on this.’
‘Of course you can trust me,’ Amber whispers.
‘Really?’ Sean’s voice hardens, and his eyes narrow, drilling into Amber’s.
He still hasn’t acknowledged Jess. She wonders if she should make a run for it. And if she did, whether Amber would follow.
‘So why did you choose this place to meet then? It’s hardly discreet, is it?’ Sean’s voice is lazy again. Jess releases a sigh as quietly as she can.
‘Just a couple of mates hanging out,’ Amber says, repeating her logic from earlier. Then she shakes her head, and suddenly the sassy Amber is back. ‘And there was another reason I chose here. I’ve got a surprise for you.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Sean starts looking around him, suddenly furtive. It must be exhausting being him, Jess thinks. Always checking over your shoulder, expecting the feds to turn up at any moment.
‘It’s nothing bad,’ Amber says, lifting her palms. ‘I just want you to meet someone. A friend of mine, and he works near here. He’s due to finish around now.’
Jess shifts on her feet. She’s got no idea who Amber’s talking about. Sean is surprised too because he pushes up off his knees, slides along the bench until he reaches Amber’s shins and glares at her. ‘What friend? Who the fuck have you told about me?’
‘Calm down,’ Amber says, giggling at Sean’s reaction. She must feel on stronger ground now. ‘He doesn’t know about our arrangement. He just thinks you’re a mate from my old life, which you are, remember, so it’s not exactly a lie. The thing is …’ she looks triumphant, or defiant maybe ‘… he’s my new boyfriend.’
Jess draws in a silent gasp. She’s not sure whether the shock is more down to Amber having a boyfriend she didn’t know about, or her flaunting him in front of Sean. Amber has kept quiet about whether she’s ever done stuff with Sean, which probably means she hasn’t, but it’s always been obvious that she wants to. Is this about making him jealous?
‘So what’s that got to do with me?’ Sean asks, not showing much sign of jealousy.
Amber shrugs. ‘I thought you might want to check out who’s fucking me.’
Jess flinches. She knows it’s old-fashioned, being squeamish about sex, but it was fucking the wrong guy that got their mum killed. Amber is only 14. If she’s already doing it, what are her chances of getting into the same trouble as their mum?
