‘Honestly? Yes. But, you know, she and Harry have only just got together, it’s new, and the three of them have been friends for years. She said she wanted to give it a bit of time before she upset the dynamic. And people are strange, aren’t they? I think that all the time. They do things totally differently from how you ever would.’

‘What did you make of her? Lucy.’

‘I thought she was all right. Sweet. Straighter than Becca.’

‘How so?’

‘Just …’ Robin imagined her frowning on the other end of the phone. ‘It’s hard to put a finger on. She came out with us a couple of times, she was always fun, but not … I guess she just felt a bit more … conventional.’

‘Becca isn’t?’

‘Not in the same way. She still lives with her mum, obviously, and all that but she has her wild side. It’s not even that wild, to be honest. Just … freer. Less limited. I don’t know, it’s hard to describe. I guess it’s just a mind-set thing, attitude.’

Robin got the impression she was choosing her words carefully. ‘Tarryn, I don’t want you to feel like you’re betraying her confidence but we heard that Becca was using prescription drugs.’

She’d expected her at least to hedge but instead she said frankly, ‘I knew she did a bit last year, yes, she told me. But she wasn’t doing it any more.’

‘Really? When did she stop?’

‘Some time in the autumn. October? Yes, it was – “birthday present to myself”, she said.’

‘Do you know why? I mean, what changed?’

‘She bumped into the friend she did it with the first few times and she said he looked like shit, excuse the language. Like he was letting it get out of control. That wasn’t the road she wanted to go down, so she stopped.’

‘Just like that? Morphine, opioids – they’re extremely addictive, as I’m sure you know. Just to be able to stop …’

‘She said she’d smoked a lot of weed to compensate.’ A little snort, half a laugh. ‘That’s what I mean about her being different. She’s – surprising. When I met her, I wouldn’t have guessed she’d be someone who’d even try painkillers in the first place but she said she was curious – she wanted to know what it was like. Then, like you say, how many people can just stop? That’s the thing about her – she’s got a will of iron.’

Chapter Sixteen