Strangled Silence (5 page)

He was already breathing hard as he turned the
corner and made for the park. Dodging around
pedestrians who had no idea they were witnesses to
a chase that could affect the course of their nation's
history, he sprinted through the gate and over the
grass towards the trees on the other side. Behind
him, Gierek was wasting his breath shouting abuse
at him, but it didn't seem to be slowing him down
much. His face was flushed red and screwed up in
rage. His meaty hands were curled into claws that
promised unrestrained violence. Chi could hear the
man's army boots beating a relentless rhythm that
was steadily gaining on him.

Chi dug into his pocket and pulled out a
padlock. He was into the trees now, dead and dried
foliage crunching under his running feet as
he pushed himself to keep up the pace until he
reached the three-metre-high wall on the far side of
the park.

Gierek's shouts drew closer, his boots running
over the same soft ground now. Chi staggered to a
halt at the wall, yanking open the gate in the low
doorway he found there. He stepped through, bolting
it shut behind him, fumbling with the padlock
before finally snapping it closed just as Gierek
crashed into it. The enraged man wrenched helplessly
at the gate and then tried to reach through,
snatching at Chi's clothes.

Chi gave him an apologetic smile and tapped
his temple as he struggled to get his breath back.

'Brains over brawn, my friend. They win every
time.'

And then, deciding that he was pushing his
luck, he started running again.

It took Amina over two hours to get home. The
bomb scares had thrown the city into chaos as all
the people ejected from the Underground emptied
onto the streets. It had already occurred to her that
the whole thing might be a hoax.

She and her younger brother, Tariq, had gone
through a phase of ringing up taxi companies in the
evenings and sending cabs to imaginary addresses
on their street. It was a laugh, watching the unfortunate
cabbies drive up and down the street
trying to find a house that didn't exist. After a
while, she had started to feel ashamed of what they
were doing and stopped it. Tariq and his mates had
kept it up for a while longer.

The terrorists could well have done the same
thing on a bigger scale to a city easily spurred into
fear. With the way things were now, a single phone
call warning of a bomb could bring the whole city
to a standstill. Just one phone call.

Her father was making dinner when she got in;
her mother was upstairs in the study, still working.

'Be ready in five minutes!' her dad called as she
hung up her coat. 'You OK, love? You weren't
on the trains, were you? Go and prise your mum
from the telephone. I'm starting to think it's
become welded to the side of her head. And call
your brother down too.'

'Mum! Tariq!' Amina yelled up the stairs. 'Dinner!'

'I meant go
up
and tell them,' her dad sighed. 'I
can shout just fine myself.'

Martin Mir was a tall man with the upright
posture of a career soldier. Despite his trim
physique, he had a chubby face that regularly split
into an easy smile. It wasn't unusual to see him
cooking. His wife couldn't cook if her children's
lives depended on it (and some would say that it
had once been a close thing) and he took pride in
providing them with a good square meal. When
Martin wasn't there, the housekeeper would do the
cooking or the kids would feed themselves. Helena
Jessop – she still worked under her maiden name –
had little time for mundane chores such as feeding
her family.

Since he had been posted to the Ministry of
Defence, Amina's father had been travelling less and
had started working civilian hours, so his children
got to see a lot more of him. He and his wife were
both in their fifties – they had started their family
late in their lives – but neither showed any signs of
slowing down.

Some families bonded by praying together,
others by gathering round the dinner table; the Mir
family watched the news. Taking their customary
seats around the living room, they sat before the
television, eating their dinner of lamb kebabs, falafel
and spiced basmati rice off plates resting on their
individualized lap-trays. Amina and Tariq shared the
couch, leaving the two armchairs free for their
parents.

Martin had timed the serving of dinner exactly
so that they were sitting and ready as the seven
o'clock news started. Helena appeared just as the
headlines were being announced, expressing her
appreciation of her husband's cooking by giving
him one of her impish smiles as he gave her the tray
and a napkin.

The coverage of the peace protests was overshadowed
by the bomb scare on the Underground.
This was just as well, as Amina was far more
interested in the latter.

'Typical,' Martin commented, as he tore some
lamb from a skewer with his teeth. 'It's always the
bad stuff that makes the headlines. It was probably a
false alarm too – to put the wind up all those
protesters. Not that it's needed.' The screen showed
a marching crowd waving banners. 'Look at them,
it's daft! Some of 'em don't even know which
direction to march in.'

'I don't see why they bother going on these
marches anyway,' Amina snorted. 'It's not like it does
anything.'

'No, that's not true,' Helena said, shaking her
head. 'A protest march is a bit like swearing.'

Amina and Tariq glanced at each other and
then gave their mother their full attention. She
could swear better than anybody they knew, even
their dad – and he was a career soldier.

'How is it like swearing?' Tariq asked with a
straight face.

At fifteen, he thought he knew all he needed to
about the art of cursing, but he was willing to take
advice from a master.

'It's important to know when to use foul
language,' Helena declared. 'Swearing is an excellent
way of emphasizing an expression, but if you do it
constantly, it loses its effect. It's like shouting all the
time – in the end, you'll just irritate people and
they'll stop listening to you.'

She put down her knife and fork so she could
gesture with her hands, as she did when she was on
television.

'Sometimes, it's not enough to use rational
debate when you're having an argument. There are
times when you need to throw a bit of a tantrum
. . . or
swear
to show how angry you're feeling.
Because if the object of your anger is failing to
listen to what you're saying, then they need to be
shocked into realizing that.

'And if you save it up for the appropriate
occasion, a swear word can have a great effect. But
you have to use it right. And a protest march is like
that. It's like the nation throwing a little tantrum. So
sometimes, when the government doesn't seem to
be listening, and the people are really,
really
pissed
off, they have to give up rational argument and get
out on the streets. They have to stand out there in
their thousands, block the traffic, give their leaders
the metaphorical finger and say "FUCK YOU!"'

Having made the accompanying gesture, she
picked up her cutlery again, pausing before pointing
at the television with her fork.

'But these people have gone about it all wrong,
because they don't know what they really want.
Half of them haven't a clue what's actually going on
in Sinnostan and the ones that do can't agree on
what to say about it.' She tucked into her food once
more. 'This lamb is lovely, darling. What did you put
in the marinade?'

The phone kept ringing. Tariq was awake and as
dressed as he was likely to get on a Saturday morning,
but he kept on reading his movie mag by the
light of his bedside lamp. After waiting long enough
to see if anyone else was going to get it, he grunted
and emerged from his black-curtained room like a
cave dweller, blinking in the light. He didn't know
why he was bothering. It was hardly ever for him,
and not one of his few friends would be awake this
early on a Saturday. It was barely past eleven. In fact,
the term 'Saturday morning' was not a term they
were at all familiar with any more. The phone was
all the way downstairs, in the hall.

'Hello?' he said.

'Hi, can I speak to Amina please?' The voice
had the sweetest Edinburgh accent he had ever
heard.

'Dani?' he asked, his face brightening up. 'Hi,
it's Tariq.'

'How's it goin', Tariq? Is Amina there?'

'She's in the shower . . . hang on . . .'

He held the phone to his chest.

'Amina!' There was no answer. 'AMINA!' he
roared again.

The bathroom door at the top of the stairs
opened and some steam drifted out.

'What? I'm in the bathroom!'

'It's Dani!'

'Oh. Tell her I'll call her back in a few minutes.'
The door closed again.

This presented the kind of opportunity Tariq
had been waiting for, but now there was every
chance he would lose his nerve. Dani was one of
Amina's best friends and he had been eyeing her up
for the last year or two. She was more of a character
than most of Amina's crowd, more alternative,
favouring fashions that suggested she studied as
much witchcraft as the social science she was doing
at uni. She and Mina had met at school, at an
Amnesty International meeting back when Amina
was into that whole anti-establishment student
thing. But Dani still took her campaigning pretty
seriously – Tariq had always found fanatical girls
appealing.

The fact that she was drop-dead gorgeous
didn't hurt either. Although she was a bit on the
cuddly side, her natural sandy-blonde hair, laughing
eyes and big, juicy lips gave her an unconventional
beauty. He had chatted to her at Amina's last birthday
party and thought he was in with a chance,
despite the age gap of three years.

His heart started thumping so loudly he was
worried Dani might hear it over the phone. He
lifted the receiver from his chest.

'She'll be down in a minute,' he lied. 'So how's
life?'

'Life's good,' Dani replied cautiously. 'Y'know
. . . full of experiences. Just can't believe I can cram
so much excitement into each day. How about
you?'

'Great, great,' he said, nodding even though she
couldn't see it. 'So . . . eh . . . eh . . . listen, you want
to go out for a drink sometime?'

'Mmmm,' she said in that I-had-a-feeling-this-was-coming
type of way. 'I'm . . . I'm flattered,
Tariq, really. But I have a boyfriend, you know? You
met him at the party?'

'Oh . . . I didn't know that was still on,' he said,
the lead weight of embarrassment and failure
settling in his stomach. Then he added lamely, 'Hey,
you could bring him too!'

'Yeah. Thanks anyway,' she said in a voice
intended to be kind, which just made him feel
worse. 'Ehm . . . is Amina going to be long? I could
call back.'

'No, seriously,' he persisted, with a recklessness
born of having no more pride to lose. 'He could
come along. I'd like to meet him; I don't have
enough friends anyway. We might have a lot in
common – we both like you; that's a good start.
What's he into? Does he play any games?'

'You have things in common all right,' she
chuckled – Tariq loved the way she could chuckle
with a Scots accent. 'He doesn't take "no" for an
answer either. And I am afraid, my dear, that you
both love games more than you love me.'

'Really? What's his highest score on Tech-Shot
Extreme?'

'He doesn't play it.'

'Dump the swine. Really, dump him. He
obviously can't handle a real game and he's just, like,
going out with you because your scrumptiousness
helps prop up his fragile self-esteem. He'll end up
snapping and . . . y'know, finding God or something.
You should go out with me instead. I have a
much more interesting set of inadequacies.'

'Is that right?' Dani asked, and he could almost
hear her arch an eyebrow. 'And in what
fascinating
ways are you inadequate?'

'I live life in a . . . y'know, like, a virtual fantasy
world because real life has little attraction for me,'
he told her in a serious voice. 'I seek the shelter of
darkness, away from prying eyes, so that, like, my
sensitive nature won't be bruised by human
contact.'

'My, aren't we articulate all of a sudden – now
that we've been rejected by the bonny lassie?' Dani
retorted, and there was a smile in her voice. He had
won a smile, even if it was over the phone. 'And
how can I save you from this virtual oblivion then?'

'Your intelligence, your wit and your kindness
can be the shining light that will guide me out of
the darkness,' he crooned. 'And your breasts will
give me something to hold on to.'

Dani burst out laughing, pulling the phone
away from her head to try and muffle the sound.
Tariq bit his lip, knowing he had scored a point. She
came back a moment later, trying to stop laughing.

'They're not
handlebars
, Tariq!'

He was in with a chance after all. Make them
laugh and you were halfway there. Clenching his
fist in victory, he was framing his next remark when
the phone was grabbed from his hand.

'Hey!' he exclaimed.

'I said I'd call her back!' Amina said, prodding
him in the arm and giving him her big-sister smile,
then enunciating each word with a prod: 'Stop.
Trying. To. Chat. Up. My. Friends. It's embarrassing.
And you're soiling the phone with your dirty
adolescent mind.' Then, into the phone, she added,
'Hi, Dani? Yeah, yeah, I know. I think I just saved
you from a fate worse than death. You're in danger
of becoming my little brother's next obsession.
Yeah? He did, did he?'