It’s an hour since Hunt left. As he backed out of my driveway earlier, I watched him smile at me and nod confidently with collusion. It was a signal that told me we’re in a secret conspiracy together, like two children who are planning not to tell their parents about a broken ornament. In the kitchen, I’m still peering out at the pool house, deciding what to do next. I need an ice-cold glass of water. The house is mausoleum quiet, and my children are more than likely plugged into electronics trying to forget the horror of two deaths in one morning – or at least the news of them.
Tony and Jeremy are jumpy when I go out to tell them all is clear.
‘What did he want?’ Jeremy asks me breathlessly.
I want to laugh out loud because they look as though I’ve caught them hiding like schoolboys and it reminds me of what they were like at university. Thick as thieves. I always used to dig them out of trouble then, too.
‘Relax, it was actually about the boy, Brandon Stand. They’re interviewing kids who knew him and might have seen him at the rec last night.’
‘What’s he doing on that case?’ Jeremy asks me.
He does this. He thinks I have all the answers. But then later he hates me for it.
‘Is Ewan in trouble?’ Tony asks.
‘No, I told the detective that I’ll speak to him in good time, we’ve all had a shock. I’m going to do that now. I’m sorry, Tony, I need to make sure he’s okay.’
‘Of course. Please, he’s much more important right now.’
Jeremy looks at us oddly and he seems out of place. He is. His best friend is more focused on his son than he is. But I don’t have time for his feelings as well. I leave without saying anything else.
They’ll no doubt get drunker and reminisce about the good old days. All Tony needs right now is reassurance from a pal, and that’s what he’s getting, he doesn’t need me. He will when he’s sober.
I’m relieved to be walking through the house and up the stairs to Ewan’s room, because the conversation I’m about to have will be infinitely lighter than the one I’ve just left. To Ewan, it’ll feel like his world is caving in, but he hasn’t lived enough life yet to understand measure. It’s tragic that a boy has died, but Brandon Stand was a vicious individual and these kinds of accidents happen all the time. To my son this is serious, and so I’ll treat it as such. He’s got me to make the problem disappear, unlike Jeremy or Tony, who only have themselves.
I knock, but there’s no answer and I’m not surprised when I push the door ajar and he’s under his duvet, headphones on, neck in an awkward position, fast asleep. I steel a glance at him for a second because it’s an opportunity I don’t get often. He looks like his father.
I sit gently on the edge of his bed and touch his shoulder.
‘Hey.’
He stirs. I take off his headphones.
‘Hi, Mum.’
‘Can we talk?’
‘Yeah, sure. What happened?’
Fear haunts his eyes, which are red from crying. He wipes them, not wanting me to work it out. His room is that of a child; painted blue, with trophies and shields boasting his sporting prowess littering his table, scarves from football matches he’s attended with Tony hanging on the walls, along with posters of beautiful popstars he’d love to meet, but wouldn’t know what to do if he did.
‘I need to talk to you about something important.’
He sits up. ‘Monika?’
‘No. Natalie Morgan.’
He shifts his weight in his bed and my body moves slightly with the motion.
‘I had a policeman come to the house.’ His eyes widen. ‘I want you to do one thing for me,’ I tell him.
‘What?’ he mutters breathlessly.
‘Tell me the truth.’
‘About the pills?’
‘About what we will tell the police.’ I place my hand on his cheek. ‘Everything will be okay. Tell me what happened last night.’
Since he was a baby, looking into my eyes for his world, he’d been the one who clung to me, the one who was what the textbooks call easy. I know it’s a label that’s thrown around when a child is compliant, but the bond between us is simple. He begins to speak and I listen quietly, non-judgemental in my posture, to every word. He tells me about the girl who’s dominated his school life for the last couple of years. His world with Natalie in it makes him feel as though he has a tribe. A world where he’s important and accepted. His voice is steady and sure, and I bask in the glory of him opening his heart to me. I don’t interrupt. I let him finish. He tells me about the rec last night, and what Natalie said about the bag of little blue pills. Her wink. His body freezing in time.
‘I knew what she was going to do, Mum. I didn’t stop her.’
He buries his head in my clothes and I can smell him. It’s an aroma of innocence. I hold him for a long time as he exorcises his anguish.
Finally, his sobs cease and I hold his head in my hands and take him to me, hugging him close.
‘Am I in trouble? What will happen?’ he asks. He’s terrified.
‘I don’t know.’ I’m telling the truth. Supplying Class A drugs at their age might land the girl a stint in juvenile rehab. If Hunt wants a head to roll and they’re after someone for manslaughter, Ewan might be seen as complicit, if he ever takes the stand.
His life will be ruined. Even a caution on his record will stay there until he’s eighteen.
‘What about Noah?’
‘He was there too, he didn’t know either, Mum. That’s not what he does.’
It’s a curious defence and I’m keen to know exactly what Noah’s hustle is if it isn’t the same as Natalie’s. I don’t need to verbalise a question, Ewan knows he’s rumbled. There’s something else.
‘Mum, I’m sorry, I…’
‘Hey, look, the only way I can help is if you tell me the truth. What happened after Natalie gave Brandon the pills? Did you see him take them?’
He shakes his head. I exhale inwardly. He wasn’t there when the lad imbibed the poison that would kill him, thank God.
‘We went to a house. Noah does it sometimes. He likes to take stuff.’
My gut travels to my toes, like it does when I’m on Tony’s yacht and he grins when he turns the mainsail so quickly that we all lunge to one side.
‘Other people’s stuff?’
A small nod.
‘You went to a house and Noah likes to take other people’s stuff. Are you telling me that you broke into a house?’
Ewan’s pallor is pale green.
‘We didn’t really break in; Noah disabled the alarm.’
‘You, Natalie and Noah were there? Who else?’
‘Just us.’
‘Did you get caught?’
He shakes his head.
‘I wiped everything clean.’
My son is an honest thief. Still, my face doesn’t change.
‘The police didn’t mention anything about a break-in. They’re interested in the drugs, let’s stick to that for now.’
‘But won’t they find out? Noah took a tonne of cash. We found a knife, it was a big one, but we left it.’
‘Wait, what? A knife?’
‘It was in the safe, wrapped up with the cash. It was some kind of weapon, Mum, it was massive.’
For a second, I fear I’m drowning and I can’t save him, but I quickly pull myself together. The wheels on this cart began turning well before Ewan broke into a house and stole somebody else’s cash. This was never going to be something that was sorted hastily.
‘Where was this house?’ I distract him.
He describes it and tells me that when he passed Tony and Monika’s the police were there.
‘Noah chose it because she sacked his dad. That’s why he took the cash. Mum, I’ve got everything and he has nothing. That’s why I hate the bikes. I don’t want any more.’
I nod.
‘What did you do with the money?’
‘Nat hid it.’
‘Where?’
He shrugs.
My body aches with exhaustion. Suddenly all I want to do is lie down. I smile at him.
‘What will happen?’ It’s all he wants, like any child. Reassurance.
‘Is there anything else?’
He shakes his head and I believe him.
‘I’ll talk to the police, everything will be all right, I promise. Brandon’s death is not your fault. Let me worry about the burglary. They’re two separate things.’
He looks at me oddly, as if he expects to be beaten, or locked away. His shoulders droop with the unburdening of anxiety, and my job here, for now, is done.
‘You need to tell me exactly where you’re going from now on and you need to stay away from Noah and Natalie until this is all over, do you understand?’
He nods.
‘What will you tell the police?’
‘Let me worry about that.’
I stand up.
‘Fancy some ice-cream?’
He nods.
‘I’ll get it.’
I close his door gently and want to kick something hard, but then pull myself together and go downstairs. The kitchen is a mess from breakfast and I decide that my anger is best taken out on the dishes. Jeremy and Tony will be no company now, and I need a clear head. There are leftover strawberries in a bowl and they’re going brown and warm, their delicate life withering away already. They’re so vulnerable to the heat. I can’t save them and so I go to put them in the bin but I knock the bowl against a glass of cranberry juice and the damn thing falls onto the floor. There are pulverised strawberries and red juice everywhere and I gaze helplessly in horror at the mess. I stand still in the middle of a crimson puddle and don’t know which shard to sweep up first. Juice drips off my fingers.
A distant memory from long ago jumps into my head.
Sarah, at the bottom of the library tower, broken and pulped on the concrete, making gulping noises, like a scared animal. Paramedics kneeling, trying to talk to her and tell her to hang on. A crowd gathering to ogle at the spectacle. A woman screaming. Tony and Jeremy, nowhere to be found.
‘He loves you…’ she’d told me two days before we were due to leave.
I push the apparition away and rush to the sink to get a cloth and start wiping up the chaos. Tiny shards of glass have been fired at speed like missiles, all over the kitchen, and the sparkling disaster seems endless.
I recall the police interview and the aftermath of Sarah’s suicide. I also remember that it was pronounced a suicide by the coroner after the police ruled out the presence of someone else on the roof.