‘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.
