‘This girl came to the party, she had them. She went round seeing what people wanted, I wasn’t that bothered but…’
‘Go on,’ Janet said gently.
‘Olivia really wanted to try something. She wanted me to buy some Ecstasy.’
‘You bought them?’ Janet said.
‘I had the taxi money,’ she said in a small voice. For the mythical taxi home. Except they’d intended staying out all night. And Olivia wouldn’t have had extra cash with her parents unaware of the party plan.
‘I wasn’t sure about it,’ Elise said, ‘but the girl said she’d got some Paradise. Legal. It would be like taking an E.’
Ade’s face drained as he heard the casual reference. Janet shot him a warning look.
‘It was legal,’ she said, ‘that’s why we picked it.’
‘It was bloody stupid,’ Ade growled, ‘that’s what it was.’
‘I know that now!’ Elise cried. ‘But Olivia was so… she really wanted to take something and everybody else was.’
‘Who was this girl?’ said Janet.
‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen her before.’
‘Not in school?’
‘No.’
‘Was she there when Olivia got sick?’ Janet said. ‘No, she went, she wasn’t there long, just while she was selling things. Will they arrest me?’ She looked terrified, fists clenched together, mouth wide with panic. Shaking.
‘No,’ Janet said. She had moved closer and held her daughter by the shoulders. ‘But they will want to talk to you and you must tell them everything, OK?’
‘Bought you some crisps,’ Rachel said, breaking Janet’s train of thought. ‘Keep your strength up.’
‘They’ll do the job,’ Janet said sarkily.
‘Be grateful,’ Rachel said, ‘or I’ll eat them.’ She studied her friend. ‘Do they know what she took?’
‘Not yet, probably some variant on meow meow. Elise described it as a small white tablet with a palm tree on, called Paradise. Sound familiar?’
Rachel nodded. ‘Like we found at the Perrys’. Town’s awash with it, according to the drug squad, it’s new on the scene.’
‘She kept saying it’s legal. I said to her so’s bleach and caustic soda and ground glass – it doesn’t mean it’s safe. They’d have been safer with something illegal. At least people know what to look out for, how to deal with it, and if there’s a dodgy batch around word gets out.’
‘Elise took it too?’
‘Yeah, she felt weird,’ she said, ‘but you would, wouldn’t you, when your mate-’ Sudden tears robbed her of speech. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said eventually.
‘Don’t be daft,’ Rachel chided.
‘What’s so awful is there is nothing, nothing Elise can do to make it right. It’s final. And she’ll have to live with that for the rest of her life.’
‘It wasn’t her fault though,’ Rachel said.