Chapter 20
20
SEVEN YEARS AGO
Sudden unexpected death. That’s what the police and medical ambulance crew called Noah’s passing. Pretty much summed it up. A post-mortem had to be carried out and, much as it broke my heart to think of it happening to my boy, my need for an explanation helped avert my mind from the medical procedure and kept me focused on the answers coming my way. Had he been ill and not told us? Did he have some sort of medical condition we hadn’t been aware of?
When the phone call came through from the coroner, Dr Coates, I put it on speaker and placed my phone between Flynn and me on the sofa.
‘Heart failure?’ I said, glancing at Flynn beside me who looked equally surprised. ‘That can’t be right.’
Eighteen-year-olds who exercised and ate well didn’t just drop down dead of a heart attack. Unless it was congenital.
‘Was there something wrong with his heart?’ Flynn asked, his voice husky.
‘No. In this case, your son’s heart failure was the result of amphetamines.’
Beside me, Flynn did a sharp intake of breath but I hadn’t quite taken in what the coroner had said.
‘Amphetamines?’ I repeated, the word sounding alien to me. ‘You mean drugs?’
‘Yes.’
‘But Noah doesn’t do drugs.’
Silence.
‘He doesn’t!’ I insisted. ‘He’s really anti-drugs. Tell him, Flynn.’
‘Could there be a mistake in the report?’ Flynn asked.
‘No mistake. I’m sorry.’
Dr Coates finished running through his findings and I felt numb as I disconnected the call and sank back on the sofa. Amphetamines? Speed? It made no sense. Noah was a good kid with nice friends. He’d had a few drunken nights out, like most kids his age, but drugs? He just wouldn’t.
‘Drugs?’ I murmured, staring questioningly at Flynn, but he shook his head slowly, confusion clear on his face.
Feeling restless, I wandered into the kitchen and boiled the kettle on autopilot, a stream of questions in my head. Why had he taken drugs? How didn’t we know about it? Had it been his first time or was this a regular thing? Where’d he got them from? Who’d done this to my son? I took two mugs of coffee through to the lounge but Flynn wasn’t there. I called his name but there was no answer. There was no sign of him downstairs but I could hear faint noises upstairs.
‘Flynn?’
The noises were coming from Noah’s bedroom and my stomach clenched. I’d only been in there once since the day I found him and I’d had to rush out and slam the door behind me because all I could picture was my beloved son on the floor, slumped against the side of the bed, lifeless. But now my husband was in there and he needed me. Swallowing back my fear, I edged nearer Noah’s room on shaky legs, desperately trying to push that terrifying final vision from my mind and focus instead on Flynn.
He was sitting on our son’s bed, head bowed, the small red teddy bear Noah had loved as a baby clutched between his hands. His shoulders shook as he sobbed, his anguished cries echoing round the room. I ran to him and knelt in front of him, cradling my hands in his.
‘Drugs?’ he whispered, his eyes red as he looked into mine. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I don’t either,’ I whispered back and, at that moment, the red mist came down. Somebody had given drugs to my innocent young boy. They’d killed him and they needed to pay for it.
‘But I’m going to find out,’ I said, my voice strong and determined as I squeezed Flynn’s hands and rose to my feet.
‘How?’
But I didn’t respond because I’d just put two pieces of the puzzle together. I hadn’t realised it until now but Noah’s girlfriend Jessie hadn’t been round to see us. Helen and Guy had but not her and was it any wonder? She’d been at the New Year’s Eve party with Noah so she clearly knew something and couldn’t face us because of it.
I shot out of the house and ran over to The Byre, anger fuelling me to bang on the door knocker way more times than was necessary.
Helen answered the door, frowning. ‘Mel? What’s going?—’
But I didn’t let her finish the sentence, stepping into the large entrance foyer. ‘Where is she?’
‘Who?’
‘Jessie, of course!’
‘Mel, I think you should calm down.’
‘Calm down? Really? I’ve just found out that my son died of heart failure from taking speed. Would you calm down if that was Trent?’
‘Oh, my God, Mel! I’m so sorry. Drugs? I had no idea Noah was?—’
‘Neither did we but I suspect your daughter did.’ I strode to the foot of their stairs and shouted her name.
‘Why would Jessie know anything?’ Helen asked, looking perplexed.
Jessie appeared on the stairs, clocked me and stopped.
‘Jessie, honey, can you just come downstairs for a minute?’ Helen said, her voice gentle.
Jessie looked afraid and I reminded myself that she was still only sixteen, her seventeenth birthday not being until April, and me standing in her house yelling her name had to be pretty terrifying, especially when she was grieving.
‘I need to ask you about the party,’ I said, trying to keep my voice light but not succeeding.
She stayed where she was on the stairs. ‘What party?’
I bit back a tut. ‘The New Year’s Eve party.’
‘I wasn’t there.’
‘Of course you were! You went with Noah.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Don’t lie to me!’
Helen glared at me, her body stiff, her arms crossed. ‘She’s not lying and I don’t appreciate you speaking to my daughter like that.’
I glared back. ‘Noah said they were going together.’
‘Then you need to look a bit closer to home and ask your son if…’ Helen gasped, her eyes wide. ‘I can’t believe I just said that. I’m so sorry.’
I barely registered her slip. I’d come here wanting answers and now I had even more questions.
‘Why didn’t you go to the party?’ I demanded of Jessie.
She was gripping onto the banister, looking close to tears. ‘Because I’m not his girlfriend.’ She closed her eyes for a moment, her voice weak as she corrected her tense. ‘ Wasn’t his girlfriend.’
Not his girlfriend? Was she winding me up?
‘Since when?’ I demanded.
‘Since November.’
‘That’s a lie! Noah would have told me.’
‘Mel!’ Helen snapped, but I ignored her.
‘Why did it end?’
Jessie shrugged, which inflamed me further.
‘There has to be a reason. Bloody hell, Jessie, you were together for two years and friends before that.’
‘I think you’d better go,’ Helen said, attempting to shoo me towards the door.
‘I’m not going without a straight answer.’ I sidestepped her and stared up at Jessie. ‘If you weren’t at this party with him, who was?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I don’t buy it. You must know something.’
‘That’s enough!’ Helen shouted. ‘You need to go, Mel. Jessie, go back to your room.’
‘You must know something!’ I cried.
Helen was physically pushing me towards the door now.
‘He must have got the drugs at the party,’ I called up to Jessie. ‘I need to know who gave him them. You must know who he was hanging around with.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t. We went to a Halloween party. He was hanging out with some kids there who I’d never seen before and they weren’t good. It might have been them but I don’t know who they are or where they live. I don’t know anything.’
‘She’s told you everything she knows.’ Helen opened the door.
‘Did you know they’d split up?’ I asked.
‘I found out recently.’
‘And you didn’t think to say anything to me?’
‘Goodbye, Mel.’
I’d thought we were friends – close friends – but there was no warmth in Helen’s voice. No words of comfort. Just a door slammed behind me.
I turned and stared at their house, trying to absorb what I’d just learned. Noah and Jessie had split up in November, he’d lied about going to the New Year’s Eve party with her and he’d started hanging round with some wrong ’uns. They had to be the ones who’d given him the drugs, but who the hell were they?
His phone! It hadn’t been in his jeans pocket or by his bed but it had to be in his room somewhere and it would surely give me answers. I raced back to The Bothy and took the stairs two at a time. Flynn was still sitting on Noah’s bed but he’d stopped crying and the red teddy was on the duvet beside him.
‘We need to find his phone,’ I said, taking my phone out of my pocket and dialling Noah’s number. It rang out but I couldn’t hear it ringing in the bedroom. It could be on silent but it was more likely to be out of charge. I hung up before it connected to his voicemail message, unsure what hearing his voice would do to me.
‘Why do we need his phone?’ Flynn asked, his voice weary.
‘Jessie says they split up in November and he was hanging out with some bad kids. I need to know who they are.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I need to know which one of them gave him drugs.’
‘Why?’ he repeated.
I flashed my eyes at him. ‘Do you really need to ask?’
I opened Noah’s bedside drawers one at a time and rummaged through them. I moved over to his bookshelves and shifted a few things around, blowing my hair out of my face in exasperation.
‘Are you just going to watch me?’ I snapped.
‘No.’
I assumed that meant he was going to help, but he left the room instead. Fuming with him, I pulled the bed out to see if the phone had been knocked underneath. It hadn’t. The more I searched the room, the more frenzied I became, yanking clothes off hangers, tipping out the contents of his drawers until the room looked like it had been ransacked by a burglar.
His old school PE bag from primary school was at the back of the top shelf in his wardrobe. There’d be no reason whatsoever for him to put his phone in there but I pulled apart the string fastening anyway and tipped the contents onto the floor. I shook out each item – polo shirt, shorts, plimsolls – and gasped as a small plastic bag containing three white tablets fell from one of the plimsolls. I closed my fist around the bag and shut my eyes tightly. I hadn’t wanted to believe what Dr Coates said but here was the evidence hidden inside a plimsoll pushed to the back of my son’s wardrobe.
Opening my eyes, I unfurled my fist and stared at the tablets. I raised my gaze to look round the trashed room, my eyes finally resting on the red teddy lying on the duvet. How had my baby boy become a drug user? Under my roof. Without me having any idea about it.
* * *
From that day, I was like a woman possessed. I had to know what had happened and why. I needed to speak to his friends and, with a date arranged for the funeral, I had a valid reason for contacting them but, without his phone, I had no way of getting in touch. He’d always cycled to their houses so I only had a vague idea of where they lived – no exact addresses. Social media might have been an option but he’d never shown any interest in Facebook – joked it was for old people like me – and I wasn’t on any of the apps he used, so the only route I could think of was school.
I made an appointment with the principal and was shocked to discover that, after the summer break between his first and second year, Noah had returned to sixth form quiet and withdrawn. Across the autumn term, his attendance had slipped and his grades had dropped.
‘Why’s this the first I’m hearing of it?’ I demanded.
‘We’ve sent you several emails. Let me see.’ He clicked into something on his computer and rattled off a series of dates on which I’d allegedly been contacted.
‘I haven’t received any of those. Are you sure you have the right email address?’ It was fruitless me asking that as I’d had enough emails from school then sixth form over the years to know they had the correct details.
‘Is there any chance Noah could have accessed your email account and deleted them?’ the principal asked.
‘He’d never do that!’ I declared vehemently. ‘He’s not the sort to…’ I tailed off. I didn’t know what sort he was anymore. He’d split up with Jessie without telling me, was hanging around with some lads I didn’t know and taking drugs. Why should it even be a surprise to hear that he was dropping out of college too?
‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news at what I can imagine is already an incredibly difficult time,’ he said. ‘Is there anything else we can do for you?’
‘I, erm… I wondered if I could speak to his friends. I wanted to let them know the date of the funeral and ask them about the party he was at on New Year’s Eve. He was…’ I couldn’t bring myself to say taking drugs when the principal presumably already had a low opinion of Noah from his poor record. ‘Erm… his phone’s missing and I wondered if he might have given it to one of them.’
‘His friends will be in lessons at the moment but if you can let me know their names, I’ll see what I can find out.’
I removed a piece of paper from my handbag and handed it to him, having noted down their names before I set off in case my mind went blank once I got here.
A couple of days later, I received a call from the principal with the news that Noah’s friends had been spoken to but the message was the same from all of them – Noah had pulled away from them across the summer and they’d barely spoken to him when the new academic year began. Another thing I didn’t know about my son.
None of it made sense and the only person who could give an explanation was lying in the chapel of rest at Trenham & Sons Funeral Directors.
I was so angry all of the time – angry that Noah was gone, angry about the cause of his death, angry that I had no idea what was going on in my son’s life, angry that he hadn’t confided in me about any of it, and angry at Flynn. So very angry at Flynn. Because Flynn didn’t need answers like I did. He’d wanted to know the cause of death but that was enough for him.
‘I don’t see where it’ll get us,’ he told me after pleading with me for the umpteenth time to let it go. ‘It’s not going to bring Noah back so what’s the point?’
‘How can you say that?’ I cried. ‘The point is we’ll know who’s responsible for our son’s death.’
‘Who? There’s no who. There’s a what and we know the answer to that already.’
‘But somebody gave him the drugs.’
‘Do you really think you’re going to find out who that is? Every question you’ve asked so far has only triggered more questions. Where’s it going to end? This isn’t doing you any good, Mel. You’re going to have to let this one go.’
If only I could have.