“Dickie! That’s right!”
Gran turned to Noah. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I think people are changing their names to confuse me!”
Noah shook his head. “But Gran, that money is yours.”
“Money? I don’t need it. I’m fine as I am, Noah. Any money I have is for you and young Eric, that’s what. But I tell you now, you can have all the money in the world, you can have the five-bedroom car and the fast house, you can have the clothes and the bling and the—”
“Nespresso machine?”
Gran nodded. “All of that! You can have it all, and you still won’t ever be truly happy if you don’t have friends. And I don’t mean the type of friends that magically appear when times are good and you’re successful and you’ve got a bit of cash. I’m talking about ‘thick and thin’ friends. The ones who are there no matter what. The ones who don’t want you to buy them fancy cocktails in trendy London bars, but who are happy with an Ovaltine and a digestive.”
“Like Harry, you mean?”
Gran smiled. “You worked it out for yourself, Noah.”
“If you were me, how would you make amends?”
Dickie cleared his throat. “I recall, I must have been nineteen, I think, and I’d upset a charming young lady by the name of Edith. And do you know how I won her back?” Dickie leaned forward in his chair. “Bought her a horse.”
Noah rolled his eyes. Even just a fish had backfired. And anyway, Harry had a fairly big garden, but not really big enough for a horse.
“Dickie, that’s ridiculous,” Gran said.
“I can’t buy him anything,” Noah said. “My wallet was stolen, and even if it hadn’t been, all I had was a few quid on my Superdrug loyalty card, so at best I could have got him a pack of own-brand antiseptic wipes.”
“Well, like I was saying,” Gran said, “before Dickie interrupted with his conspicuous consumption, it’s not all about the money!”
“Then what?” Noah said.
Gran put her finger in the air, like she’d suddenly had the best idea.
Noah waited with bated breath.
“No, it’s gone,” she said.
“What do young people like nowadays?” Dickie said. “Avocados?”
“I’m not going to get Harry an avocado,” Noah said.
“Two avocados?” Dickie suggested. “In the fifties, I bought a young lady a Johnny Cash long-playing record, and two months later, we were married.”
“And six months after that she’d run off with an ex-RAF officer!” Gran said.
“Damn flyboys,” Dickie replied, shaking his head.
Noah sighed. “OK, well, thanks for your—”
“Sit your little tush back down right now!” Gran said. “I have the solution, and it’s this: you must show him both how you feel and that you’ve changed, by making the grand gesture. If we’ve all learned nothing else from romantic comedies over the years, we’ve learned this.”
“Gran, Harry’s not into all that showy stuff, and I’m certainly not.”
“Blah, Noah, blah, I’m sure. It’ll work. Everyone’s a sucker for it. Trust your old gran.” She smiled at him. “Oh, put that sullen face away, else the wind will change and you’ll stay like that!”
“What am I supposed to do, though?”
“You’ll think of something,” Gran said, raising herself unsteadily to her feet. “You’re a perfectly bright boy. Now! I must get to my rehearsal! Got to lay down some bare bangin’ tracks with ma squad.” She waddled out of the room.
CHAPTER
FORTY-EIGHT
“Good morrow, Mrs Lawson,” Noah said as Harry’s mum opened her front door. “Is Harry within?”
“He doesn’t want to see you.”
Noah nodded, swallowed and did his best to smile. “And I understand that. Yet I am here to make amends.”
“Go home, Noah, I’m sorry,” she said, closing the door in his face.
Noah stared at the polished chrome knocker and stained-glass panels. Fine. Be like that. But he would not be giving up that easily. He walked round the side of the house to the back garden, looking up at Harry’s bedroom window.
“Haz? Harry? HARRY?! HAZZA?” he shouted up. “Please!”
The back door opened. Harry’s mum again. “Noah! I just told you, he doesn’t want to see you!”
“But I want to see him!”
“And what the hell are you wearing?” she asked.
“This is the hoodie that Harry gave me,” Noah said. “It’s so nice, it’s my favourite thing.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean on your legs.”
“A woman’s linen culotte,” Noah explained. “They’re the only item I could find that was … roomy. I had an accident, see. But not that kind! Another … accident.”
Harry’s mum shook her head. “I’m sure Harry will call you, if and when he’s ready to.”
Noah sucked his cheeks in. “How’s Timothy?”
“Who? Oh, the fish? I’m sure it’s fine.”
“No, but is he OK? Maybe … he is my fish, so maybe I should take him back?”
“Noah, the fish is fine. Harry changed the water and gravel over earlier.”
Noah froze. “What do you mean? What do you mean ‘changed the gravel’?”
“No one told me I was supposed to turn the tank light off at night, so the whole thing had become infested with algae. But it’s fine now, it has new water and new gravel.”
“WHERE’S THE OLD GRAVEL?” Noah bleated.
Harry’s mum screwed her face up. “In the bin, I expect.”
“Bin? What bin?”
“The green bin.”
“Green? Green bin for recycling? Why would you, oh never mind, oh … God … oh shit. Pardon me. OK. Um … I need some of that gravel back. It’s precious to me. I have to get it. I need permission to get it out of your bin, Mrs Lawson? Please?”
She shook her head as she went back inside. “I can’t even.”
That was, he supposed, a yes. He darted back round to the side of the house where the three bins were kept, and narrowed his eyes at the green one. He chewed his lip. It might be bad if Harry were to come out and find him rummaging through the rubbish. It would be weird. Noah glanced back towards the garden, then back at the bin again, then reached out and very quickly lifted the lid a bit, just like he was popping a bit of litter inside or something. No alarms went off. No sign of Harry. He glanced around again, lifted the lid, heard a noise, slammed it shut.
OK. It was OK. Just a crow.
He turned back to the bin. Reopened it and cast his eye over the contents. It was very different to Noah’s bin. Noah’s recycling bin had sleeves from ready meal cartons and pizza boxes. Harry’s had empty glass bottles of extra virgin olive oil, jars of something called “chorizo jam” and a paper bag from a takeaway sushi place. La-di-bloody-da! But where the hell was the gravel? Would it have worked its way down to the bottom? Or would it be lodged in amongst all the other detritus?
Another quick glance towards the garden, and Noah gingerly lifted an empty plastic pot of what once contained “coconut milk yoghurt” from the bin and shook his head. “This type of plastic is not currently recycled in this area,” he tutted, checking it thoroughly before sorting it into the black bin instead. “What is wrong with people, it isn’t hard!”
“What the hell are you doing?”
Noah spun around. “Harry! Hello, Harry!”
“Why are you going through our bins?” He crossed his arms and gave Noah a cold stare.
“Um … no, I was just … a bit bored, passing the time, hoping you might come out.” Noah glanced at the bin, then back at Harry. “I came to talk to you. I’m not here about bins.”
Harry just stared.
Noah swallowed. “I’m wearing the hoodie you gave me, Haz. I was missing you, so I wore it.”
Silence.
“OK,” Noah said. “So, the thing I wanted to tell you, firstly, is that I’m sorry…”
&n
bsp; “I’m not looking for an apology, Noah.”
“No, but –” he glanced at the bin again “– I have made a mess of things, and for that…”
“This won’t work if you don’t trust me.”
“But I do, see, because…”
“No, Noah, you don’t, because you didn’t trust that I wouldn’t cheat on you with Pierre, and you don’t trust that I love you for who you are, and you don’t trust that it’s you I want and no one else. What, do you think I’m just with you because there’s no one better right now?”
Tears welled in Noah’s eyes. “I don’t know why you like me, though. I just can’t see it, that’s all. Everything screws up for me, and I drag you down with it, and I’m not good at kissing and I’ve no idea about … sex stuff. I’m a mess.”
“But you’re my mess,” Harry said.
Noah managed a small smile. “Thanks, Harry.”
Harry nodded.
Noah sighed, eyes flicking momentarily to the bin again.
“Why do you keep looking at the bin?” Harry asked.
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
“OK, so, quite by chance, and that’s not the reason I came here because I would have come anyway because I wanted to sort things out with you, but, turns out that Eric swapped the diamonds. The goose ate fakes. He put the real diamonds amongst the gravel in the fish tank. I didn’t know.”
Harry stared at him. “You didn’t come round here to make up with me at all, did you? All you’re interested in is your stupid diamonds? Screw you.”
“Ha—”
“No, Noah! SCREW YOU! And get off our property! Go on! Piss off out of it!” Harry grabbed Noah’s arm, pulled him away from the bins, and pushed him towards the front of the house. “You know, this tells me all I need to know. Honestly, I thought maybe you’d come here to actually say or do something meaningful for once. But it’s just more of your shit. More stupid drama. I don’t care.” Harry was actually sobbing now. Noah instinctively reached out to him, but Harry batted him away. “No! Go. Don’t come back. I don’t want to see you or talk to you.”
He gave Noah a final push towards the pavement, tears streaming down his face, then turned and went back in his front door, slamming it behind him.
Noah stared at the space where Harry had once been. If he hadn’t screwed things up enough before, he certainly had now.
And he’d underestimated how upset Harry was about everything.
He hadn’t fully understood.
But now he did.
And it hit him like a ten-tonne truck as he crumpled to the ground. “Oh God,” he gasped, curling up, face in the soft hoodie. “Oh, Harry…”
And the tears started streaming down his face too.
And then he saw the Black Vauxhall Astra parked up the street.
The blood drained from his face.
“Oh fuck.”
CHAPTER
FORTY-NINE
Noah ran along the pavement, stomach knotted, legs weak, mind spinning.
He stopped dead as he saw the police cars outside his house, up ahead. What the hell was this?
“Keep walking,” Eric said, suddenly behind him. “I need you in the back garden. Now.”
“What’s happening?” Noah bleated, staring straight ahead as they approached the house.
“Just act cool, everything’s fine,” Eric said.
They walked down the drive and slid around the side of the house into the back garden as Eric unlocked the padlock on the shed.
“Help me out here, mate?” Eric said. “We’re in this together, yeah?”
“In what together, Eric?” Noah said, frantically looking between the shed and the back door of the house. “I don’t like this, I don’t want to be—” He stopped talking as he eyed the contents of the shed. There must have been several hundred plastic tubs of it. Protein powder. He looked at Eric. “Explain.”
“Long story short,” Eric said. “I’m running the protein shake business.”
“Oh, Jesus, of course you are!”
Eric sucked in a breath, glancing quickly at the back door. “Thing is, it was going great, but I reckon someone grassed. Found out someone signed up that nasty Year Seven kid, Jack Hooper, to be a rep.”
Noah rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh, right?”
“Kid’s too big for his boots. He’s been trying to get rid of the other reps so he controls the patch. Reckon he pissed someone off and they grassed to get their own back. Must be!”
“I can’t be implicated! I’ll never be made head boy if—”
“You already are,” Eric said. “I know you’re one of the reps. There’s documents at the back in the folders – shred ’em. And then help me tip the shake down the drains. Gotta get rid of some of it at least, then act like I’m one of the victims who just bought a lot.”
“Eric, this won’t work!”
“Do it, Noah!”
“Oh!”
“Do it! Christ!”
Noah set to work, ripping up the various documents in the folders at the back of the shed, which had clearly been doubling at Eric’s HQ. Great. Now he was destroying evidence in a high-profile criminal investigation. What was next, plagiarism?!
Eric was busy unscrewing the tops off the tubs and pouring the contents down various drains. Damn Eric. One minute he was some sort of saviour who had come up with an excellent plan, and then the next, an utter masturbation tissue who was going to ruin everything. Noah slapped his forehead. Why had he even thought this would be a good idea? Easy money? Ha! No such thing.
“Hurry up! The powder!” Eric hissed.
Noah grabbed two tubs of powder, which was about all he could carry without straining something, and walked towards one of the drains, just as a policeman came out of the back door. He froze, tubs in hand, as Eric looked up from the far drain and muttered a single “fuck”, which pretty much summed things up.
“Hello, Officer,” Noah said, doing a small curtsy, a tub of protein powder in each arm, like some sort of Swiss milkmaid.
“Are you Noah?” the policeman asked.
“Uh, am I Noah?” he repeated, stalling.
“Yes. Are you Noah Grimes?”
“I … am. Yes. I am Noah Grimes,” he said, whimpering as he saw the man and woman from the black Vauxhall Astra over the policeman’s shoulder. That was it. All hope was lost. They must have all been working together to gather evidence. He was ensnared. No way out.
“Well, it turns out your young French exchange student has been dealing all the time she’s been here,” the policeman said.
Noah took a sharp intake of breath. “Dealing? Dealing what?”
The woman walked up to them. “Weed, mainly,” she said. “Some pills too. Bit of coke.”
“Drugs?!” Noah said, a little laugh bubbling out of him. “Eva’s a drugs dealer?!”
The woman nodded. “She’s been at it over in France too, and she smuggled a load over here in her guitar case. We’ve been doing a bit of covert surveillance on her ever since she arrived. Thing was, we didn’t know if she was working alone or if any of you were in on it, hence why you may have seen us around.” She offered Noah her hand. “DS Carpenter, nice to properly meet you.”
Eric put the tub he was holding down and exhaled loudly.
Noah licked his lips. “I had no idea. I mean, I knew she was a bad sort. She used to hang out with people who smoked cigarettes. I suppose the signs were there, when you think about it.”
“We’re taking her in for questioning anyway,” DS Carpenter said.
“If you need anyone to back up your case, I will literally say anything in court to support her prosecution,” Noah said.
“Thanks,” DS Carpenter said, a small smile playing on her lips.
“Did she have any accomplices?” Noah asked, eyes lighting up. Noah racked his brains, going over everything. “There’s a mechanic called Ryan who works for a firm called Garfield Motors near Newark. I now suspect he receiv
ed drugs from Eva, so you can arrest him, maybe? And there’s a load of feral kids who hang out in the park. They too can be arrested.”
DS Carpenter raised an eyebrow. “Thanks; like I just said, we’ve been monitoring her closely, so I think we’re on top of things, and we’re not really interested in a bit of personal use – not in this case.”
“Oh,” Noah said. “Seems a bit slack,” he muttered.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing, Detective Sergeant.”
The policeman looked at the shake Noah was still holding. “That good stuff?”
“Fine, it’s fine,” Noah babbled, stifling a scream.
The policeman eyed it. “All natural, is it?”
“Er, it is. It is,” Noah confirmed, struggling to maintain his grip on the tubs with his suddenly sweaty hands. “All good, natural ingredients in this. Anyway…”
“What you doing with it?”
Noah blew his cheeks out, attempting nonchalance as his pulse hit somewhere around two hundred. “Don’t … need it any more… I mean, I’ve been going to the gym and, um … reached my goals, so … was going to bin it, basically.”
“It’s in date?”
“Yeah…”
“I’ll take it off your hands. How much you want?”
Noah’s mouth hung open, as he stared at the policeman. “A … tenner? No! Twenty! It’s twenty a tub, I … bought it for thirty, so…”
The policeman took two twenties out of his wallet. “Nice one. This stuff is pricey – I appreciate it.” He took the tubs from Noah.
“I doubt you’ll see Eva again,” DS Carpenter said. “Once we’ve questioned her, she’ll be extradited back to France, where they want a little chat with her too. Wanna say goodbye to her?”
Noah shook his head. “Nah, I’m good.”
DS Carpenter shrugged. “OK, then.”
The policeman smiled. “Thanks for this.” He held up the tubs. “Take care now.”
They disappeared back into the house.
“Fuck my life,” said Eric.
A moment later the door swung open again and Noah’s mum appeared, a glass of wine and a half-empty bottle of Echo Falls Summer Berries in one hand, a cigarette in the other. “Bambi’s moving in,” she said.
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