The Apothecary Page 0,26

paper tied around it with string.

“He left us something,” I said.

“Take it,” Benjamin said. “Let’s go!”

I put the bottle in my pocket, and we climbed the fence to the outer garden. The trees seemed to loom and reach for us as we ran towards the outer gate, where we clambered over again.

On the other side, in the street, I got a stitch in my side from running. I slumped down against the stone wall and felt tears welling up. “They killed him because of us,” I said.

“For helping us.”

“Get up,” Benjamin said. “We don’t know that.”

“It’s true! Shiskin’s house was bugged, and I talked about the gardener there. It was so stupid!”

“We have to go.”

“We have to tell the police.”

“We can’t trust them.”

“We have to tell my parents, then.”

“Absolutely not,” Benjamin said. “There was a murder. They’ll have to call the police. And we can’t do that.”

“But maybe we should! A murder. Oh, Benjamin, it’s all my fault!”

“Here,” he said, fishing a handkerchief out of his coat pocket. “Take this.”

The handkerchief was white, perfectly pressed and folded into a square. His father must have ironed it: the kind, methodical apothecary. Benjamin was right that we needed to find him. He’d know what to do.

I wiped my nose and put the handkerchief in my pocket, where I felt the hard glass. “What about the bottle?” I asked.

“First let’s get somewhere safe,” Benjamin said.

CHAPTER 13

The Gardener’s Letter

I wouldn’t, under the circumstances, have described my parents’ flat as safe, but I had to get home. My parents were furious. “So you just waltz in here at ten o’clock at night?” my father demanded.

“Is it ten?” I asked. I would have guessed much later.

“Do you know how terrified we were?” my mother asked.

“I think so.”

“Where were you this late?”

Benjamin and I had agreed, after much debate as we made our way through the streets, not to tell them about the murder. Both the gardener and the apothecary had told us not to trust the police. But my parents could tell I was upset and had been crying, so we had to tell them something.

“It’s a really long story,” I said.

“So start at the beginning,” my father said. “And I want the truth!” He pointed at Benjamin. “Did your mother really die in the war?”

“Yes,” Benjamin said.

“Okay, that sounds true. Let’s go from there. Did your father go visit a sick aunt?”

“No.”

“I knew it! Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then we should call the police,” my mother said.

“No!” Benjamin said. “We can’t trust the police.”

“Have you done something wrong?”

“No,” he said.

“So why can’t you trust them?”

“I just can’t.”

“You don’t trust the federal marshals,” I reminded my father. “And you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“That’s different.”

“How do you know?” My father hated it when people jumped to conclusions about other people’s situations, and I wasn’t going to let him do the same.

He relented. “I don’t,” he said. “So tell me. Where were you?”

“At a friend’s house, working on a science project,” Benjamin said. “We made . . . a bit of a mess, and our friend’s father was angry with us.”

That was pretty much true.

“So you cleaned up the mess, and you didn’t think to call us, and then what?” my father asked.

“That’s it,” Benjamin said. “It took a long time.”

“What’s the name of the friend?”

Benjamin hesitated. “Stephen Smith.”

“You’re lying, Figment,” my father said. “I’ve worked in show business a long time, and I know what lying sounds like.”

“I can’t tell you his name,” Benjamin said, with stubborn dignity. We had promised Mr Shiskin we would leave him and Sergei out of it, and Benjamin wouldn’t budge on that.

“Then I want you out of my house.”

“He doesn’t have anywhere to go!” I said. “Let him stay one more night.”

“If he tells me the truth, I’ll consider it.”

“He can’t! He promised!”

“Promised who?” my father said. “I’m waiting.”

Benjamin was silent, his head stubbornly bent forward.

“Out, Figment,” my father said. “Now. And Janie, you’re going to bed.”

I begged my parents to reconsider, but it did no good, and I got into bed feeling helpless and trapped. The gardener was dead and Benjamin was out in the streets, in mortal danger, and there was nothing I could do. I was writing furiously in my diary about how my parents didn’t—couldn’t—understand anything, when I heard a tap at the window. I slid the window open, and Benjamin climbed in off the ledge, with his satchel slung across his chest, taking off his shoes before his feet silently touched the floor.

“How’d you get up