HE WENT ON A NIGHT OUT, AND NEVER CAME BACK

Safina Powell will never know the truth about what happened to her son

- CATHERINE JONES

Sitting on my mum’s sofa, I was nursing a cup of tea and chatting to my cousin when I got the news. Two uniformed policemen arrived at the front door, reeling off a stream of words that didn’t make sense. ‘It’s your son, Joe… an accident… a train… it was fatal.’ I felt nauseous at that word. Fatal. Were they saying my son, my Joe, was dead? But how could he be?

That weekend, Joe and his brother James were staying at our home in south-east London and had planned to go out with friends to celebrate Joe’s 23rd birthday. My husband, Nigel, daughter, Annie, and I were heading to Eastbourne for a few days to stay with my mum.

‘We’ll be back,’ I’d joked, doing my best Arnold Schwarzenegger impression as we said goodbye. How could I know they’d be the last words I’d ever say to my boy? Now, at Mum’s house, the news just didn’t seem real.

Nigel, then 62, started uncontrollably crying. My cousin Anne bustled about making endless cups of tea and Annie, then 19, quietly hugged me, her body shaking with sobs. When the police explained their colleagues had told James, then 27, the news, I went straight into mummode. Where was he? What must he be going through? What on earth had happened?

I called him to see if he was OK and asked my sister-in-law to drive him to us. He arrived, shaking and shell-shocked. The next few days were a blur of tears and phone calls as the news spread and we tried to piece together what had happened.