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.
‘Want a cup of tea?’ There was a clear, unspoken addendum to that, he realised. Are you ready to give me some of the time you promised?
‘Sam, I’m sorry, but there are some people here to see me and it’s important...’
She nodded gravely. ‘Okay. I’ll wait. Do you want the tea?’
It seemed churlish to take the tea and then desert her again. But on the other hand he could do with it. ‘Um...if there’s a spare cup in the pot.’
‘There’s enough to go around.’ She opened the cupboard above her head and reached for another cup.
‘Thanks, Sam. I’ll be as quick as I can. Why don’t you go and sit in the garden?’ The clinic’s garden was a place to relax. She shouldn’t be having to help out, much less make the tea.
‘That’s okay. I may as well make myself useful.’ She wouldn’t meet his gaze, looking past him as Ian, the leader of this afternoon’s group session, appeared in the doorway.
‘Euan, can you see Pete? He’s got some nasty cuts and bruises, looks as if he’s been in a fight.’
‘What, again? When was that, last night?’
‘Yep. And he still doesn’t trust the hospital enough to go there...’
‘Okay, I’ll be up in a minute.’ Euan was uncomfortably aware that Sam was listening intently to the conversation.
‘Does your group usually have tea?’ She flashed a smile at Ian, leaving Euan out in the cold.
‘Yes—that would be great, thanks.’ Ian obviously thought that she was one of the new volunteers.
‘Sam, there’s no need—’
She cut him off in mid-sentence, concentrating on Ian. ‘How many cups?’
‘Six, thanks. Is there any ibuprofen in the medicine cabinet?’ Ian turned to Euan.
‘No, we’re out.’
‘That’s okay. I’ll pop to the chemist and get some.’ Sam was obviously going out of her way to be helpful. Euan reckoned she was probably making a point as well. There was nothing for it at the moment but to let her get on with it and hope that Liz would rein her in if she started to do anything inappropriate.
‘Bring the ibuprofen to me. All medicines have to be accounted for.’
Finally she looked at him. For all of two seconds. ‘Okay. That’s good to know.’ Then she turned, opening the cupboards in search of more cups.
He’d done what he had to do then retreated back into the quiet of his empty surgery. Sometimes it was the looks on the faces of the families that were the most heart-rending. Mr and Mrs Pearson had given him their contact details, thanked him and left. They were probably sitting in their car right now, trying to find the words to comfort each other.
Euan picked up the phone, staring at the picture on the desk in front of him. He could at least make a few calls on their behalf, in the hope that someone had seen their daughter, Ellie. Maybe she’d even make it through the doors here, but somehow he doubted it.
He spent a fruitless fifteen minutes on the phone, and then made a note to circulate Ellie’s details among the case workers and volunteers at the clinic. It was unlikely that any of them had seen her, but he’d promised the Pearsons that the Driftwood Clinic didn’t give up on anyone.
His own words came back to smack him squarely on the jaw. Wasn’t that exactly what he’d done with Sam this morning? A quiet knock interrupted his self-reproach, and Liz popped her head around the door.
‘I’m on my way down now,’ he said.
‘It’s okay. Sam’s in the garden with Jamie. I gave them both lunch.’
At least someone had thought that she was probably hungry. ‘Liz, you’re a star. Thanks.’
‘That’s okay. You had to speak to those poor people.’ Liz’s face was strained with the knowledge that she could so easily have been in their shoes a few years ago. ‘Can you give them twenty minutes before you come, though? Sam’s just showing Jamie how to set up a blog for himself.’
Euan stood, craning his neck towards the window. They were sitting on a bench at the end of the garden in the shade of a massive tree, both focussed completely on their
