‘I asked what was going on here. You might as well tell me. I’m going to find out anyway. Have you been excluded from school? What?’
‘Ask her.’ Sophie’s face was mutinous. She gave her aunt a baleful look. ‘She’s the one who’s been poking around in my things.’
Paige didn’t make the mistake of letting go of her arm. ‘I asked you,’ she reminded her shortly, although her heart sank at the thought that Sophie might have some justification for her complaint. Casting a silent appeal in the older woman’s direction, she added, ‘This is Aunt Ingrid’s house, not yours.’
‘Ask her what she’s got hidden in her underwear drawer.’
Aunt Ingrid’s voice was frail and unsteady, and for a moment Paige wanted to smile. Dear God, what had Sophie been hiding? See-through bras; sexy knickers; what? Then, the reluctant admission that Ingrid shouldn’t have been looking through Sophie’s belongings anyway wiped the embryo grin of amusement off her face.
‘Yeah, how about that?’ Sophie broke in before she could respond. ‘The old bat’s been prying into my drawers, in more ways than one. Nosy old bitch! I told you that we had no privacy here—’
‘She’s a drug addict, Paige.’ The older woman’s voice trembled now. ‘An addict, in my house. I never thought I’d live to see the day that my own sister’s child—’
‘What is Aunt Ingrid talking about?’ Despite the fact that the old lady had been known to exaggerate at times, her words had struck a chill into Paige’s bones. ‘Why should she say you’re a drug addict?’
‘She’s lying—’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘She is,’ insisted Sophie scornfully. ‘She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘I’m not an addict. For God’s sake, I doubt if she’d know one if she saw one.’
‘I know what marijuana smells like,’ retorted her aunt tremulously. ‘You’re not the first generation to discover illegal substances, you know.’
‘So?’ Sophie sneered. ‘You’re no better than me.’
‘I didn’t use heroin!’ exclaimed Aunt Ingrid, with evident disgust, and Paige’s jaw dropped.
‘Heroin?’ she echoed weakly, turning to stare at her sister. ‘Oh, Sophie, is this true? Have you been using heroin?’
‘No—’
‘Then what was it doing in your drawer?’ demanded her aunt, and Paige endorsed her question. ‘Oh, I should have known that you’d take her side,’ muttered Sophie sulkily, without answering. ‘Whatever I say now, you’re not going to believe me.’
‘Try me.’
‘You don’t have to take my word for it,’ persisted the old lady. ‘Go into your bedroom, Paige. You can smell it for yourself. Marijuana has a most distinctive scent: sweet and very heady. That was why I looked though Sophie’s belongings. I was expecting to find a pack of joints.’
Paige shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t recognise marijuana, Aunt Ingrid. It may sound stupid, but I’ve never smoked a joint in my life.’ She frowned. ‘But I thought you said you found heroin in the drawer?’
‘I did.’
Sophie snorted. ‘She has no right to criticise me. She’s obviously familiar with drugs or she wouldn’t be accusing me.’
Paige caught her breath. ‘You admit that you’ve been smoking marijuana?’ she exclaimed, horrified, and Sophie gave her a pitying look.
‘Where have you been living for the past ten years, Paige?’ she exhorted. ‘Not on this planet!’
‘Don’t you dare try and justify it,’ cried her aunt, but Sophie wasn’t listening to her.
‘Everyone uses these days,’ she said, and Paige stared at her with disbelieving eyes.
‘I don’t,’ she said, but somehow that wasn’t enough.
A sense of panic gripped her. What was she going to do now? When she’d accepted responsibility for Sophie, she’d never expected anything like this.
Her aunt shifted in her chair. ‘Aren’t you forgetting something, Paige?’ she asked. Then, after fumbling in the pocket of her trousers, she declared, ‘This.’
‘This’ was a tiny plastic packet of white powder and Paige could only guess at what it was. ‘Oh, Sophie,’ she exclaimed, feeling sick to her stomach. ‘Where did you get it? What is it doing in your drawer?’
Sophie hunched her shoulders. ‘That’s my business.’
‘Not as long as you’re living in my house, young lady,’ retorted her aunt sharply, and Paige wanted to groan aloud when her sister answered back.
‘We won’t be living in your house much longer,’ she announced triumphantly. ‘Paige is going to find us a decent place of our own, aren’t you, Paige? Somewhere better than this shoebox, without any crazy old woman telling us how to live our lives.’
‘Sophie—’
Paige’s protest was useless. There was only so much their aunt would take, she knew that, and Sophie had tried her patience for the last time. Struggling to her feet, she pointed a trembling finger at the younger girl. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘I’ve had enough of you and your insolence. I don’t care what Paige does, but I want you out of here tonight!’
Two weeks later, Paige stood at the window of their room in the small bed-and-breakfast, watching somewhat anxiously for the taxi that was going to take them to the airport. It was already fifteen minutes late and her palms were damp with the realisation that if they missed the flight they would also miss the ferry that would take them to Skiapolis.
Behind her, Sophie lounged sulkily on her bed, making no attempt to gather her belongings together. She had left her sister to do all their packing, and Paige had had to bite her tongue against the urge to tell Sophie that this was all her fault. But it was. And Paige could have done with some reassurance that she wasn’t making yet another mistake.
Glancing round, she met the younger girl’s defiant gaze with some impatience. If only Sophie were older: if only she could have been relied upon to pull her weight, they might have got through this. Aunt Ingrid wasn’t a monster. With a little persuasion on Sophie’s part, the older woman would have come round.
As it was, with no other job in prospect and bills to pay, Paige had been compelled to call the number Nikolas Petronides had given her. At least working for him would give her a breathing space, she’d consoled herself, and if she saved every penny he paid her there might be enough to put the deposit down on a small apartment by the time they came back to England.
It had been a relief to find that someone other than Nikolas had answered when she’d rung. A man, who had introduced himself as Donald Jamieson, and who was apparently Nikolas’s solicitor, had been left to handle the details. He’d explained that Mr Petronides had had to return to Greece, but he’d issued instructions to the effect that if Paige should decide to take the
