Saving Silence (2 page)

Who on earth would want to kill him – and why?

SATURDAY 9 NOVEMBER

I hate hospitals. As in really, really hate hospitals. I spent far too much time in them when Mum was ill. All the whiteness and the serious-looking people marching down
corridors, the horrible watery vending-machine coffee and the rattle of trolley wheels, and knowing that, nearby, people are dying and there’s nothing you can do. Hospitals bring back a whole
load of bad feelings, and remembering was the last thing I needed right now.

‘Don’t worry, Sam,’ the paramedic kept saying as the ambulance sped towards Whipps Cross. ‘We’ll be at the hospital in a jiffy, and the doctors are going to patch
up your chin. It’s going to be OK.’

It wasn’t my chin that I was worried about. I was a bit freaked by all the blood, and my wrist was throbbing – sprained, fractured, even broken? – but there was only so much I
could take on board, and at this precise moment, I was far,
far
more worried about
them
.

There was no going back from here. They’d worked it all out. Who I was, what I’d seen. They knew. They’d tried to
kill
me. And if Imogen hadn’t been there, the
police would be scraping my remains off the pavement. I’d be chalked down as just another hit-and-run victim and at my funeral people would be saying things about what a short and tragic life
I’d led.

Another even more frightening thought, one that turned my entire body cold, crossed my mind.

They’ve tried to kill me once. What’s to stop them trying again?

I hadn’t thought tonight out properly. I’d thought I’d be safe. Next time I couldn’t bank on getting away with it. Not with people this ruthless on my back.

Next time
.

I might as well be dead.

‘Where’s my phone?’ I struggled up from the stretcher-bed. ‘Please. You need to give it to me.’

‘I didn’t see a phone in your bag, Sam,’ the paramedic said.

Of course! I’d left it at home. My brain wasn’t working properly, but the one thing I did know was that I had to say nothing, nothing at all, until I figured out what on earth I
could do to get myself out of this mess. Myself, and Imogen too. She needed to know about what was going on. She wouldn’t thank me for it, but she’d be safer if she knew.

I realized that there were tears in my eyes. I brushed them away angrily. I shouldn’t be in this situation, on the way to hospital, stuck with this awful dilemma about what to do. As if I
hadn’t had enough crap to deal with over the past couple of years.

The ambulance finally arrived and the paramedic took me into A & E. She said something about plastic surgery and sedatives but all I could hear was the voice in my own head.

They tried to kill me and they’ll try again
.

SUNDAY 10 NOVEMBER

When I sat up in bed my whole body screamed. Man, these bruises were going to be a right pain. I scrabbled on the bedside table for my glasses. The display on my mobile showed
midday. Great. So much for making my ten o’clock volleyball practice. I had – crazily – set my alarm. Maybe that was the kind of thing the ambulance staff had meant when they said
I might be in shock.

We’d got home at about 2 a.m. ‘We’ meant me and Nads, who’d managed to wangle us a lift from one of the police officers. She’d called Mum on my behalf but Mum
hadn’t been able to make it over. Perhaps she hadn’t understood what had happened or perhaps coming out that late had been too much bother. I wasn’t surprised either way. This
wasn’t the first time.

My mobile also showed a text from Ollie.

U OK? Feeling better? Been worried. Proper glad u weren’t hurt bad. Will come over later & cheer u up. X

Despite myself, I smiled. Ollie hadn’t been so great at texting me recently. I’d wondered if he had something on his mind. Although we weren’t usually soppy, it was nice to
know he still cared.

I wondered if Sam was OK. I wondered what it was he’d come to tell me yesterday and why it was so important. Had someone really been trying to kill him? In the cold light of morning it
seemed too insane to be true.

They were waiting in the kitchen when I finally made it downstairs, Mum, Nadina and Benno. From the number of cups on the table it looked as if they’d been waiting a
while.

‘Here’s the hero!’ Mum sang. I was almost surprised there weren’t party poppers – but then there was hardly space for them. Though the open-plan kitchen/dining area
was the biggest room in our tiny council house, it became full very quickly when more than two people crammed around the fold-out table. Not that it mattered. My family rarely ate meals together.
Mum worked days and Dad worked nights, and even when they were in the house at the same time, they were too shattered to cook. Most of the time I put together meals for me and Benno, which usually
meant sandwiches. As in the rest of the house, paint was beginning to flake off the walls, and the wooden cupboards crammed with mismatched plates and cutlery had seen better days.

‘So how are you feeling?’ Mum asked.

Wrecked, I thought. ‘Fine,’ I said.

‘Let’s get you some nice strong tea and toast. I know it’s lunchtime, but never mind that. Benno, pop something in the toaster and fill the kettle, please.’

‘I can make my own tea,’ I said, though I knew no one would listen. ‘Don’t make a fuss.’

Mum squinted at me. ‘Are you sure you feel fine?’

‘Yes. Absolutely. Just ache a bit.’

‘Hmm, paracetamol might be in order then. And honey. Honey’s good for shock. We’ll put a spoonful in your tea.’

I don’t want honey in my tea, I thought. All this attention isn’t making the fact that you didn’t come to help last night any better. I needed you then, not now. You
weren’t there. I didn’t say anything though. What was the point? Mum would only get self-righteous about how hard she worked and how tired she always was and how I ought to be able to
look after myself. Sometimes I wondered how true that was. Mum managed to turn out pretty well for someone so overworked. She looked a good deal younger than forty, but not quite enough that people
thought we were sisters, thank God. We did look very alike. I’d inherited Mum’s slightly pointed chin and dark blonde hair which I usually also wore up. At least our glasses were a
different shape. Mum’s friends teasingly referred to me as her ‘mini-me’, which I couldn’t stand. Benno was turning into a bit of a mini-Mum too, though he was a boy and
only eleven.

Sometimes I felt sorry for Dad. His genes seemed to have got lost somewhere. But then in some ways Dad did seem like a bit of a nothing person. Thanks to his night shifts I didn’t see much
of him. Even when I did, he never had much to say. He was probably sleeping right now. For all I knew, he didn’t even know what had happened yet.

I rolled my eyes at Nadina as Mum carried on fussing. She grinned. Sometimes I thought Nads liked my parents more than I did. Sometimes I thought my parents liked Nadina more than me too.

‘Are the police going to get the bad guys?’ Benno asked, bringing over my toast and tea. He’d put too much milk in and it was lukewarm. I didn’t say anything though.

‘Don’t think they’re optimistic.’ Some big sisters would have lied and said yes just to make Benno feel safe, but we didn’t do stuff like that in my family.
‘No one got a decent look. Unless there’s a star eyewitness with laser eyes that see through stuff, or magic CCTV, I have a feeling it might be difficult.’

‘That officer said there were a lot of conflicting descriptions,’ Nadina put in. ‘Like, even you and me can’t agree what colour the car was.’

‘It was too dark to make out properly.’ It was so frustrating. I normally had a good memory for facts and faces.

‘Police never get to the bottom of anything like this,’ Nadina said. ‘You know what that officer said? That stuff like that wasn’t unusual here, like Walthamstow was a
ghetto or something.’

‘Well, it’s no Chelsea. Stuff does happen.’

‘True, but we could do without the cynicism,’ Mum said, and started talking about what she called ‘the gang angle’. She had it all worked out. The guys in the car were
gang members. We were on their patch and they’d been in the mood for trouble. Nadina joined in. I finished my breakfast-cum-lunch. Benno kept trying to get a word in – he loved crime
stories – but after being talked over a couple of times he trailed into the living room and I heard him switch on the TV.

I sighed. I wasn’t sure what to believe. Motiveless crime did happen, but not usually to kids like me and Sam. We weren’t connected to any of the local gangs. At least, I assumed Sam
wasn’t in with a gang. Maybe he led a double life. It wouldn’t surprise me. He hadn’t let anyone at school get close to him. And I was pretty sure that someone in the car had
called his name. I hadn’t mentioned that to the police though. For some reason I hadn’t wanted to. I remembered the nervous spark in Sam’s eyes. Had he suspected someone might be
after him or had he simply been anxious about talking to me? He’d had something to say that I ‘wouldn’t like’. But how could he know that? We were practically strangers.

And if Sam had known he was in danger . . . whatever it was had to be pretty damn important to risk leaving the house for.

When Nadina headed home I walked with her. I’d changed into my tracksuit so I could go for a run.

‘You’re not superwoman, y’know,’ Nadina said as we crossed the green towards the high street. Her family owned a shop there. ‘Working out? Seriously? After what
you’ve been through?’

‘Need to do something. Running makes me feel better.’

‘Chocolate does it for most people.’

‘And Superdrug’s haircare aisle does it for you.’ Nadina’s obsession with hairspray was a longstanding joke. I’d known Nads since Year 7. I had never, not once,
seen her without her hair styled. She always carried a mirror and was never satisfied until it was perfect. Currently she was wearing it curled and tied to one side, her fringe dyed blonde.
‘Making the most of what I got going for me, innit,’ she had said when I’d asked why she bothered so much. This wasn’t true – Nads had the kind of smile that lit up
her face and a curvy figure that suited her perfectly. But I guess no one sees themselves as others do.

‘Gotta shoot,’ Nadina said, taking a packet of chewing gum from her jeans pocket and slipping a piece into her mouth. ‘My cousins are coming over.’

I nodded. Nadina had a big extended family and spent a lot of time with them. She also helped out at the shop several days a week after sixth form. Sometimes that left me lonely, but I was used
to it by now. ‘Any news on Hamdi Gul?’

‘Same, last I heard. Everyone in the mosque is praying, but it ain’t doing much good, is it?’

I almost said I was sure things would be OK. But I wasn’t sure and Nads knew it. Hamdi Gul was the son of a couple who ran a minimart a couple of roads from Nadina’s family’s
shop. He was doing an IT degree at the local uni and worked in the shop part-time. I didn’t really know him, but Nadina did. She knew everyone in the local Turkish community. Several nights
ago some guys had run into the shop and demanded that Hamdi open up the till. Exactly what happened, no one knew, but there had been a scuffle and Hamdi had picked up a serious head injury.
He’d been in hospital ever since. At first it had looked like he was going to regain consciousness, but his condition had worsened on Friday to critical.

Even thinking about it made me angry. It was so pointless! I couldn’t get my head round why anyone would go so far for a couple of hundred quid and some bottles of booze. Hamdi was no
threat and he’d already given them the cash. They’d just wanted to beat someone senseless.

Compared to Hamdi, Sam and I were well lucky. When I said so, Nadina half smiled.

‘C’mon. Just cos there are worse things out there doesn’t mean you’ve no right to feel chewed up. Way you talk sometimes, it’s a surprise there’s not a halo
round your head. Cut yourself some slack.’

‘Wasn’t brought up to cut myself slack,’ I said. ‘There’s no time for my unimportant problems.’

‘Hey, your parents are OK, Im. Your mum cares, even if she’s not that hands on.’

I ignored that. ‘Are your parents scared? The kebab place two roads along got done the week before Hamdi’s. All the shopkeepers must be on red alert.’

Nadina shrugged. ‘Closing up’s not an option. I told Dad he should keep a baseball bat behind the counter, but he just laughed. God, listen to us, Im!’ She grinned.
‘Prematurely old or what? We should be talking about manicures, not this heavyweight crap.’

I laughed. ‘We suck, don’t we? We’re just not proper teenagers. Maybe we should embrace it. Get into knitting and stuff.’

‘No chance. I’ll take heavyweight crap over knitting any day. You meeting Ollie later?’

I nodded. Nadina hesitated a moment then said, ‘Advance warning – he seemed pretty mad about you going outside like that with Sam. He tried to go out after you but I stopped
him.’

I pursed my lips. ‘I didn’t have him down as the jealous type. OK. Thanks.’

‘Just thought you oughta know. And now I really gotta go. See ya, grandma. Text if you need to.’

Waving her goodbye, I began my run. I started to feel more like myself again. Running felt so natural to me. When I was on my feet, nothing and no one could get me. I could forget about all my
worries. Running was what had made the worst patch in my life, when we’d lived in Kent, bearable. It was impossible to run away from who you were, but I felt I got close.

No point thinking about everything I didn’t like in my life right now though. In just under two years I’d be able to escape to university and start over, away from all this
grief.

Instead I thought about what Nads had said. It had been a joke, but she had a point. Nadina spent her free time working at the shop, on family commitments or volunteering. She wanted to be a
social worker. My free time got eaten up by running, volleyball, babysitting Benno or stuff around the house. Teachers often complimented us on how responsible and mature we were. Until now
I’d never thought we might be missing out.