Don’t Turn Around: A heart-stopping gripping domestic suspense

My laugh catches in my dry throat. ‘Oh, I see. You’ve been protecting me too.’

‘If Meg had wanted you to know everything, she’d have told you everything.’

‘Maybe she tried,’ I reply as I picture a torn scrap of yellow lined paper. Meg’s suicide note, or at least a remnant of it.

‘No, she didn’t,’ he says with finality. ‘Christ, Jen, didn’t you know her at all?’

‘She was my best friend. Of course I knew her!’ I tell him, raising my voice to camouflage the doubt.

‘Not like I did,’ he says in a whisper.

A door swings open three flights down and shrieks of laughter ricochet off the walls as a group of raucous, and possibly drunken friends race to the ground floor. Their giddiness reminds me of times lost, but I can’t trust my memories. How many of Meg’s smiles were a disguise for unfathomable pain?

When another door slams shut and stillness returns, I hear the whisper of stealthy footfalls. I scan the reflection of the empty landing and glimpse movement on the small section of the stairs that are visible to me. I spy a pair of black boots and legs clad in dark jeans. I twist my body towards him.

‘I said, don’t turn around.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I can’t …’ He curses under his breath. ‘I won’t do this if you’re looking at me.’

1 (#u83005bf5-6f3b-5604-af07-afed4b746c48)

Jen

Two months earlier …

As I watch the TV crew setting up the interview, I stand as close as I dare to the floor-to-ceiling windows to give myself the best view across the office. The intensity of the summer sun reflecting off the white Portland stone of the neighbouring Port of Liverpool Building forces me to shield my eyes as I follow what the camera sees.

A banner for the Megan McCoy Foundation, set up by Ruth and Geoff set up in their daughter’s name three years after her death has been strategically placed to obscure the logo of McCoy and Pace Architects. It looks a little worn but better than it did this morning when I unearthed it from the bottom of the stationery cupboard. I used a Sharpie to cover up the scratches and I’m hoping the camera won’t pick up where I went outside the lines on the telephone number for the Lean On Me helpline. There’s half a roll of duct tape holding it all together on the back, but if the relaunch goes as well as we’re hoping, I can order new banners.

The cameraman points his lens over the reporter’s left shoulder while she asks, ‘Perhaps you could start by telling us a little about Megan.’ The camera zooms in on the middle-aged woman sitting at one of the two helpline pods that represent the sum total of the foundation’s resources.

Ruth’s long, slender body is tense but I see the lines creasing her brow soften as she begins to build a picture of her daughter in her mind. ‘She was my youngest – I have a son, Sean, who’s two years older – but Megan was the baby of the family. I know we spoiled her but that didn’t spoil her, if you know what I mean. She was no trouble, always did as she was told and she couldn’t have been more thoughtful and caring. Not a day went by without her doing something that was sweet, or funny, or just made my heart clench with love.’ Ruth’s smile broadens as she adds flesh to her daughter’s memory.

The spider’s web of wrinkles around her eyes that mark the ten years Ruth has lived with her heartache cut a little deeper and her smile falters. Her short, dark brown hair emphasises her paling complexion.

‘What went wrong?’ asks the reporter.

Ruth’s eyes flick towards me. ‘She fell in with the wrong crowd.’

I know my aunt better than I know my own mother. The look she gives me is not one of reproach. I’m no more responsible for Meg being led astray than she, but we carry our own guilt. I shift uncomfortably, aware of the wall of glass next to me that seems suddenly fragile.

‘Megan had been doing extremely well at school. Eleven A star GCSEs,’ Ruth continues. ‘Sean had gone off to university and we expected her to follow suit, but when she went into sixth form, everything changed. In those last two years, she went from being able to talk to us about anything, to not wanting to be in the same room as me or her father. I thought our relationship with our daughter was unbreakable but it was as if someone had hacked into her mind and completely rewired it. Geoff and I tried everything to get her back on track, from cajoling, to bribery, to threats, but nothing worked. As a last resort, we grounded her, something we’d never had to do before, but when she wasn’t barricading herself in her room, she would sneak out as soon as our backs were turned. We could see what was happening and were helpless to stop it.’

Ruth pulls at her polished fingernails and I find myself looking through her and into the past. I spent more time with Meg than I did my own sisters and of all the memories I have, the one that rises quickest to the surface is our last trip to school to pick up our A Level results. I have a vivid picture of standing with a cluster of friends as we tore open our envelopes. I had the grades I needed for my first choice uni, but my joy was short-lived as I became aware of other people’s reactions, and Meg’s in particular. She was deathly pale but her cheeks were pinched crimson as she watched Lewis Rimmer punch the air. She screwed up her envelope and flung it at his smug face.

‘What did I do?’ he asked as she stormed off.

It’s a question I still ask myself.

I wonder if Ruth is thinking of him too as she curls her fingers into fists. ‘Meg was devastated when she failed her exams. Uni had been her escape route, I think. It would have given her the chance to distance herself from the bad influences in her life.’

‘Was there substance abuse?’

‘No, but there was abuse,’ Ruth says carefully.

Shock forces me back a step and my shoulder thumps against the window before I can right myself. What is Ruth doing?

‘When Meg died,’ Ruth continues, her gaze remaining fixed on the reporter, ‘there was evidence of self-harm and a previous attempt to take her life that we knew nothing about. She hurt herself and I believe that was because someone was hurting her more, emotionally if not physically. Through my years on the Lean On Me helpline, I’ve learnt that an abuser’s greatest weapon can be the mind of his victim.’

A frown forms as the reporter checks her notes. She’s done her research and knows there was no mention of abuse in the coroner’s verdict. The foundation’s website simply states that Meg took her own life less than two weeks after failing her exams and that it was a senseless loss. That’s always been the official line and the abuse that we as a family know Meg endured has gone unrecorded and unpunished. Up until today, Ruth has kept to a carefully edited version of her daughter’s death to avoid litigation, and I don’t understand why she’s chosen now to speak up. Or perhaps I do.

Despite our best efforts, there has been little interest from the media in our cause. Press releases have gone unread and the handful of press interviews we’ve been able to secure have resulted in minimal column inches. This pre-recorded interview is our last-ditch attempt to draw in new callers and keep the helpline open, but there’s no guarantee that it will air this evening. It’s been a slow news week after the August bank holiday weekend but if something more newsworthy comes along, our story will be shelved. Ruth wants to make sure that doesn’t happen, and she certainly has the reporter transfixed.

‘It’s no coincidence that one of the foundation’s principal aims is to give young people the tools to recognise when they’re in toxic relationships,’ she continues. ‘Tools that could have saved Meg’s life.’

The reporter leans in closer to ask the question Ruth shouldn’t answer. ‘And who was it that hurt your daughter, Mrs McCoy?’

My fingers dig into the flesh of my arms – surely she won’t do it. Naming the man we all loathe might grab the headlines, but a lawsuit would follow and my next press release won’t be to promote the helpline, it’ll be to announce its closure.

‘There was a boyfriend,’ Ruth explains, skirting dangerously close to the truth. ‘I’m sure part of the attraction for Meg was that she knew we wouldn’t approve, but I’d been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Geoff was less accommodating and, as it turned out, his instincts were better than mine. To understand what this man took from us, you would need to have known the person Meg was before she met him. When she was at her best, my daughter could light up a room. Pick a memory, any memory, and there was Meg right at the centre of it all, bright and beautiful.’ Ruth’s eyes light up, only to dim when she adds, ‘But in the space of two short years, he took every last spark of life she had and stamped it out. It was as if my sweet girl had been hollowed out. I lost her long before the day she died.’

I close my eyes, feeling a tension headache creeping up my temples. Even without a name, there are plenty of viewers who will know exactly who Ruth is talking about. I have to hope that Lewis won’t be one of them.

‘And that was three days before her eighteenth birthday,’ the reporter adds.

‘Ten years ago this coming Thursday.’

‘And the note Megan left. Did it mention anything about what she had been through?’ the reporter asks as she refers back to her notes.

‘The scrap of a note we were left with explained nothing,’ Ruth replies, choosing her words carefully.

When she looks at me, I shake my head urgently. The police investigation had found no evidence that someone else had been there when Meg hung herself, or that the note she had left had been tampered with, despite never finding the missing half to the page taken from her notepad. No matter what we might think privately, our suspicions can’t be made public. Acid burns in my stomach as I watch Ruth return her gaze to the camera, her eyes blazing with fury.

‘Meg told us she wanted her shame to be buried with her, but no child should be buried in shame. She was seventeen years old. If there’s any shame, it’s mine. I didn’t see what was in front of me, and I can never change that.’

‘You have nothing to be ashamed of,’ the reporter tells her.

‘Tell that to the people who go to extraordinary lengths to avoid mentioning how I lost my daughter,’ Ruth hits back. Her voice softens when she adds, ‘But if we don’t talk about suicide and the pain it causes families like mine, how can we open up the conversation and reach out to those struggling with suicidal thoughts? Meg thought she was sparing us. I wish I could have told her that whatever she was going through, or whatever she thought she was putting us through, it wouldn’t last. It’s the grief that goes on forever. I didn’t simply lose her that day, I lost an entire future. I’ve recently become a grandmother but I’ll never see the children Meg might have had, or celebrate countless other milestones in her life.’

‘You’ve created a wonderful legacy in her memory. She would be very proud of you,’ the reporter says gently.

‘As I am of her. The Megan McCoy Foundation wouldn’t exist without her. Our daughter thought she had run out of options and our job is to make sure that young women, and men too, realise there are always options. I’ll never know what Meg would have made of her life if things had been different, but thanks to the Lean On Me helpline, I know quite a few young people who were on a similar path and are now enjoying lives they never thought possible. It’s a lovely feeling when they get back in touch to share good news.’

‘Perhaps you could tell me about some of the people you’ve helped.’

‘I didn’t do it alone. It’s been a group effort,’ Ruth says as she catches my eye. There’s a hint of a smile. She’s back on script.