Shallow Be Thy Grave by A. J. Taft Read Free Book Online

A month’s holiday seemed excessive to Lily’s brain.
    “Yeah.” Jo opened one of the drawers in the chest by the bed.
    “Weird that they didn’t think to lock the kitchen window then. They could have been burgled.”
    “There’s not much to nick.”
    It was true. There wasn’t even a telly. “Even so,” said Lily.
    “You know what we need,” said Jo, stepping over the mattress and coming out of the bedroom, her presence forcing Lily back into the small corridor. “A cup of tea and a spliff.”
    “Funny,” said Lily, in a voice that suggested it was anything but. Her heartbeat increased slightly at the mention of the word spliff. It wasn’t that she was addicted. Just that life was infinitely nicer through the slowed down haze of spliff, and she couldn’t allow herself to think what she was going to do without it. She felt her palms grow sweaty. “I need the toilet.”
     The world’s smallest bathroom contained a shower, a sink and a toilet. The room was completely tiled, and there was a plughole in the centre of the room. Lily had never seen a bathroom that didn’t have a bath.
    She stared at herself in the mirror in the bathroom. Her dreads were looking a bit unruly, she tried to pull them so they all headed in one direction. She saw her sister in her own eyes. She washed her hands and went back to find Jo, who was in the kitchen pulling things out of her small rucksack.
    “So, shall I skin up?” asked Jo.
    “Will you quit keep doing that?” said Lily, her temper fraying. She’d never wanted a spliff more. “It’s hard enough as it is.”
    “Doesn’t have to be hard, Lil.” Jo held up a bar of Imperial Leather.
    Lily had the feeling Jo was waiting for her to say something. “I don’t get it.”
    “It’s a trick my brother told me.”
    “What is?”
    Jo took off the cardboard and pulled the bar of soap out of its packaging as the light started to dawn for Lily. “You didn’t?”
    “I fucking did.”
    “You didn’t.” Lily clapped her hands. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “Coz I know what you’re like, Lil. You’d have probably been confessing by the time the customs guy had asked to look in your bag.”
    “But he did look in our bags.” A sudden dread swept into her system as she remembered her cockiness. “Shit, what would you have done if he’d found it?”
    Jo shrugged as she pulled the cellophane wrapper off the bar of soap. It had been opened before so the cellophane wasn’t stuck together, but the only way of finding that out would have been to remove the soap from its cardboard box and luckily for them the customs official hadn’t thought to do that. “She didn’t even open my wash bag.”
    Jo removed the brick of soap from the cellophane and tugged gently at it. It came away in two pieces, cut through the middle. In the centre of each half was a carved-out middle, and sticking out of the carved-out middle of one half was a small lump of cellophane filled with grass.
    Lily’s first feeling, once she’d got over the fact they weren’t now languishing in a Parisian prison, was one of elation. No need for sobriety. Hurrah. She needed to clear her mind, calm her thoughts. Maybe then she’d know what to do.
    “You know what else we need, Lil?” said Jo, as she busied herself with the business of preparing a spliff.
    “What?”
    “A notebook.”
    Lily stood in the doorway to the kitchen. From there she could see right down the hall and into the small, unattractive bedroom. She turned to face Jo. “Why d’we need a notebook?”
    “We need to make a plan.  See if you can find something.” She shoved Lily in the direction of the bedroom. “And a pen. I’ll see if there’s anything to drink.”
    “There’s coffee,” shouted Jo a moment later. “I’ll make us a brew.”
    Lily hesitated at the threshold of the bedroom. Instead, she turned and examined the rest of the rooms. The flat was tiny, Lily realised when she opened the last door off the hallway to