Saving Silence (19 page)

‘When the Guls’ shop was done?’

‘You got it,’ he spat with a humourless laugh. ‘It was the first time I’d bloody met them! They’d drunk a bit and were in a dodgy mood, but I had no idea they were
going to do a job until we were there and then I couldn’t get out. They told me to be lookout. Didn’t even think of not doing what they said. I was shitting myself.’ Ollie shook
his head. ‘I never wanted to help them do Nadina’s shop! I tried to get out of it – I even tried to warn Nads – but Josh and Dale blackmailed me. I felt trapped.’

‘What about Sam?’ I asked.

Ollie made a noise that if I hadn’t known better was almost a sob. ‘That was the worst. I saw him in the Guls’ shop. But I didn’t rat on him. And he didn’t rat on
me. He didn’t even tell you what I’d done, and you were with him that night! I thought he’d want to turn you against me. But then . . . that night at the chicken shop . . . when I
saw him with you
again
, I knew he’d changed his mind.’

‘Ollie, it was never like that at all! I wasn’t with him the night of the Guls’ shop. It was Sam’s bloody cousin.’

‘Well, she sure looked like you.’

‘It’s true, Ollie. It wasn’t me.’

With a sigh he finally looked me in the eye. ‘Put yourself in my shoes, the night at the chicken shop. The guy you know has seen you committing a crime comes along wanting to speak to your
girlfriend in private. You seemed pretty keen to go with him. I don’t care what you say – you’ve always had a soft spot for Sam. The idea that someone like him . . . not only knew
this stuff about me, but was seeing my girl behind my back . . . it just made me see red! I phoned Josh and Dale. Tipped them off about Sam. Told them where he was.’

He spoke over my exclamation. ‘I swear, Im, if I’d known they were gonna try to kill him and you’d get involved, I’d never’ve said anything! They were right round
the corner; I had no idea.’ He leaned back. ‘That’s all. The whole sodding sorry story. Now tell me how you knowing this makes it better.’

I ran a hand through my hair. It felt in need of a wash. Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of the bin again. I wondered if Ollie had torn up his posters because they reminded him of the
old him, the squeaky-clean prefect who wanted to be a sports star.

‘You put me in danger,’ I said. ‘And Benno. My
little
brother!’ I was surprised by how well I’d kept my anger under wraps. ‘You told them where I was,
gave them my number, told them the best way to get under my skin. To threaten me. They beat me up! How could you do that to me?’

Ollie looked miserable. ‘They made me. I’m sorry, OK? I didn’t think they were going to be that brutal.’ More softly he went on, ‘Believe me, I feel bad enough
already. I really didn’t want you or Benno to ever get hurt. And I never wanted to worry you like that during that whole stupid Essex trip either, but by that point they had me in it and I
had no choice but to play along. I thought, if they can get the video off Sam, then maybe this’ll finally stop.’

‘Why didn’t you dump me if you thought I was cheating on you?’ I thought aloud.

‘Immy. You were all I had left.’

It was a confused reason. But in an odd way it made sense. Ollie hadn’t intended me to be in the accident by the chicken shop. Now I looked back I realized that buying me chocolates and
taking me out the day after had been his guilty conscious speaking. He’d been angry and upset with me, thinking I might have something going on with Sam, but never quite sure enough to break
it off. The rest of the time he’d been scared witless by the McAllisters. Enough to make a whole chain of seriously bad calls.

I wasn’t furious any more. Instead I just felt sorry for him.

‘This is such a mess,’ I said. ‘Look, Ollie, you didn’t want this. You’ve never done anything like this before. You have to play that up to the police. You might
get off lightly. Please . . .’ I met his gaze, ‘don’t protect the McAllisters. I don’t care if they’ve threatened you or me or your mum if you speak up. Tell the
police. It’s your only chance, Ollie. You need to get out of this. For your mum, and for you. Hell, if you won’t speak up, I bloody will!’

Ollie gave me a funny kind of smile. ‘Guess you’ve made the decision for me, huh? You’re gonna give evidence.’ He didn’t need to add
against me
.

‘Have to, Ols.’ Suddenly I felt a bit choked up myself. ‘But this isn’t me against you. It’s us against the McAllisters. We’ve got to get Josh and Dale locked
up else they’ll come after me, Sam, you. Benno. Your mum even. You know how things work round here. You don’t speak out unless you’re brave, stupid or you’re bloody sure a
trial’s gonna go your way. There’s no wussing out now.’

‘Else we’re dead.’ Ollie stated it like a fact. ‘Some threats are empty. Josh and Dale’s ain’t.’

I ignored the shiver that went down my back. ‘It won’t come to that.’

I realized that Maria Paula’s phone call had ended. Hesitating just one moment, I leaned forward and gave Ollie a brief hug. To my surprise, he returned it.

‘We were good for a while, weren’t we, Im?’ he murmured.

I opened my mouth to ask what he meant. But then I realized I already knew.

‘Yeah. We were. Don’t you forget it.’ I managed a smile. ‘Good luck, OK, Ollie?’

I got up, the spring of the mattress sounding very loud in the sudden silence. As I crept out of Ollie’s room and then through the front door, half of me felt like I’d learned an
awful lot. The other half felt like I knew nothing at all.

NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER

In English literature this term we were doing
A Tale of Two Cities
. It was a Charles Dickens novel and I wasn’t too keen on it, if I’m honest, but it opened
with a famous line that really said something to me:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times
. That summed up perfectly the weird limbo period before the McAllisters’ trial.
Unlike Ollie, they were being kept in custody. So for the meantime we had every reason to feel safe.

He’d given their names to the police the day Imogen had gone round. She didn’t say much about how she’d got Ollie to speak up, but she did fill me in so that I knew exactly who
we were dealing with.

Dad came back from Copenhagen the same day I received the youth-court summons with the date of when I was expected to give evidence. I was upstairs with Jessie doing homework when I heard his
voice downstairs. Tamsin can explain, I thought, and waited for the inevitable. Sure enough, I heard him bellow, ‘Sam!’

Slowly I went downstairs. Dad was leaning against the counter in the kitchen, tie loosened. He looked tired and frazzled from his journey. He also looked furious. But when he gave me a hug, I
realized that it wasn’t at me.

‘You brave kid!’ he said. ‘Tammy’s filled me in; I’m proud of you for coming forward, Sam, dead proud! Tons of kids wouldn’t. Do you realize that?’

I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say to that. ‘Um, I guess. How was your trip?’

‘It’s all this fear of retribution,’ Dad carried on. Tamsin, who was sitting at the table, made a letter
T
with her fingers. I nodded, and she got up to fill the kettle.
‘That’s why law and order’s gone to pot round here – everyone’s so bloody scared that they just let scum get away scot-free. If more people spoke up, the police could
make a start on cleaning up our streets. As it is, gang crime’s out of control. Didn’t used to be this way when I was growing up here. Well, enough is enough. The turnabout starts
here!’

He banged his fist against the counter. Then he started talking about beefing up the house security system and how we were going to go into that hearing all guns blazing. This wasn’t
unusual – Dad liked to talk big and often got ahead of himself – but as Tamsin handed me my tea I began to wonder if he had missed the point.

I finally managed to get a word in. ‘Don’t you mind that I might have put us in danger?’

‘We shall laugh in the face of danger,’ Dad said, half humorously. ‘You did what you had to, kiddo, and we’re behind you all the way.’

Tamsin cleared her throat. ‘Yes. Both of us.’

There was something loaded in the way she said that. Suddenly having an inkling of what was coming, I started to gabble about very important homework. Dad shushed me. Then, with a big grin on
his face, he revealed that from next year I wasn’t going to be the only kid in the house.

So Imogen was right! I looked at Tamsin. She didn’t seem to be any bigger than usual, but then she had started wearing baggy sweaters so I probably wouldn’t have noticed even if she
was. She gave me a nervous smile. I realized I’d been staring and went red.

‘I hope you don’t mind, Sam.’

I didn’t know what to say. Was Tamsin so afraid of upsetting me she had to ask? What could she do if I did? Maybe best not to answer. For the first time I realized – she wanted me to
like her. It was stupid, but I’d never clocked how hard she was trying, what with giving me lifts, never asking awkward questions, even not telling Dad about my vanishing trick when really
she ought to have done.

And I never gave anything back. I had to be honest with myself. I ignored how nice she was because it was too difficult to deal with. I’d assumed before I even met her that she’d
want me out of the way. Even though it was clear she didn’t, I still acted that way. It was exactly like I’d written everyone at school off without giving them a chance, something I now
knew was definitely a mistake.

I made myself smile. To my surprise it wasn’t so hard. ‘Of course I don’t mind!’

‘See!’ Dad said. ‘Ready-made babysitter there! Let’s toast that.’

He went to the wine rack. Tamsin shook her head. ‘Phil, come on. I just made tea anyway.’

‘One tiny glass, Tammy. C’mon. The baby won’t complain, I’m sure. Sam, you have one too, go on.’

It suddenly struck me that Dad was going to be a bit useless with all this. I couldn’t imagine him around a baby. He had plenty of energy and enthusiasm, but he wasn’t patient
enough. Perhaps this was an opportunity for me to get to know Tamsin better. Helping her out while she was pregnant couldn’t be so different from being there for Mum when she’d been
ill.

‘Do you really not mind?’ Tamsin whispered. ‘Because I know you’d say you didn’t even if you did.’

I thought about it and suddenly realized that I really, genuinely, didn’t.

It was weird to suddenly be getting on better with Dad and Tamsin. I began spending more time downstairs with them in the evenings. Not too much, because I did still feel
self-conscious about it, but we watched the odd programme together, and perhaps it was my imagination, but Dad paid me a lot more attention. In the evenings if he was home early enough he even
tried some of my cooking. (His verdict on my chicken jalfrezi was that it was ‘bloody brilliant’ and I ought to be on
MasterChef
.) I couldn’t help but feel chuffed.
I’d avoided cooking much since moving here. It brought back too many memories of those last months with Mum. I could see now that that was silly. I couldn’t stop being reminded of Mum
any more than I could stop the sun from rising. Mum wouldn’t want me to give up something I enjoyed. And Imogen had been right; I didn’t need to worry about my weight any more. When I
was looking after mum, exercising and sticking to a healthy diet weren’t exactly top of my list of priorities. I was at home all the time; I cooked whatever she felt in the mood for and
always ate with her to keep her company, even when I wasn’t hungry. Now I was in a very different situation.

‘I’ve overlooked you, Sam,’ Dad said one evening as he was helping me load the dishwasher. ‘All this has made me realize how much I leave you to get on with things,
assuming you’re OK. You’d say if you were unhappy, wouldn’t you? If you wanted to leave?’

It took me a moment to realize what Dad meant.

‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘And it’s OK. Here, I mean. I don’t want to go back to my aunt and uncle, or my grandparents.’

‘OK? Or more than OK?’ Dad half smiled. Suddenly I realized how awkward this kind of thing was for him and felt a bit more at ease.

‘Maybe a bit more than OK,’ I said, and Dad laughed. Then he started reminiscing about the time he’d taken me to Ripley Castle when I was seven. He remembered everything in
such detail I was surprised.

‘Always enjoyed taking you out,’ he said. ‘There’ll be good times to come with the baby, but those trips you and me made, Sam – they were special.’

For all I forgot it, and for all that he was wrapped up in his new life, Dad did love me.

When there were leftovers from my cooking I took them into sixth form and shared them with Imogen and sometimes Nadina, if it was something she could eat. Everyone knew about
the youth court by now. The attention could get a bit much so we often hid away at lunchtimes.

‘You two are becoming like I was with these hidey-holes,’ I joked one day when we were sitting in the English classroom sharing some falafel I’d made.

‘Not our fault everyone here is a nosy prat.’ Nadina said. ‘Think it’ll be better or worse when court’s done with? If it’s worse, I’m out there playing
with the traffic.’

Imogen patted Nadina on the arm. ‘There are classier ways to go than being pulped by the 123. Resist. More seriously, this mess tells us something, right?’

‘What? Don’t mess with the bad guys?’

‘Nah, ’bout people. When stuff like this happens, it shows you who your mates are. I’m dead disappointed how some of them have reacted.’

We didn’t speak about Ollie at all. He wasn’t allowed in school until his youth-court date. I guessed he was studying at home.

In a funny way I didn’t want this good–bad limbo to end. But of course it did, because it had to, and the day came.

The day that would decide everything.

TUESDAY 10 DECEMBER

I’d read the leaflet we’d been given about preparing for court thoroughly, and I’d asked Angie, the support officer I’d been assigned, questions too.
None of this had quite prepared me for actually being here.

Grim, I thought, looking round at the red brick walls and plain ceilings. And youth courts were supposed to be less formal than the Crown ones! The building we were in had seen better days, with
dusty windows and furniture that looked like it had been there forever. Not great for making me feel at ease.