The Silent Ones (ARC)

by K. L. Slater

  Josh will be beside himself with excitement when Tom collects him later. He’ll be bubbling over with exaggerated stories of how brave he was in the forest survival tasks.

  We have no worries about Josh, but Maddy… well, she’s a different story.

  Her behaviour has been somewhat challenging at home lately. She seems to suddenly have a smart answer to everything, whether it’s a request to tidy her bedroom or a suggestion that she get her homework done before tea.

  On top of that, she’s not been sleeping well for the last few weeks. I’ve been meaning to take her to the doctor, just for a general chat and check-up, although I wasn’t too concerned until the other night, when I heard her moving around in her bedroom past midnight. When I got up to see if she was OK, I found her bed empty. She was sitting downstairs in the living room, in the dark.

  ‘What’s wrong, sweetie?’ I sat on the arm of the chair and stroked her hair.

  Usually she’d lean into me, talk about what might be bothering her, but not this time.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong, Mum,’ she told me in an irritated tone. ‘I just can’t sleep, that’s all.’

  Tom didn’t think there was anything in it when we had a quick chat about it in the morning, but it was the main reason we agreed to spend some quality time together as a family this summer.

  Now we’ve landed the big contract with Van Dyke’s, I can’t really take a full week off for a holiday abroad, as Tom initially suggested. But we’ve agreed to organise more days out to National Trust attractions, and we’re going to try and book a long weekend at the coast at the end of August.

  Tom has been really busy in his new job, too, working extra hours voluntarily to get up to speed with the infrastructure at the vast distribution centre where he’s trying to make his mark.

  Between his new career and my business, it hasn’t left a lot of time for us as a family or a couple. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d had a night out, just the two of us.

  I stare at my phone screen again, at the missed calls that could be from school. But then that theory implodes as I remember with a jolt that Maddy’s not even at school, because they’re having yet another of those blasted staff training days.

  I dropped her off at Mum’s this morning to spend the day with her cousin, Chloe’s daughter Brianna. It’s a measure of where my head is at the moment, that it slipped my mind at all.

  BANG, BANG, BANG.

  Someone is hammering on the side door of the unit that we always keep locked.

  BANG, BANG, BANG.

  They knock harder still.

  ‘Police! Open up,’ a deep male voice yells.

  I rush out of the kitchenette to find Chloe already standing by the door, her hand pressed up against her throat. Our eyes meet, and in that single glance, the shadow of a thousand terrible scenarios flashes between us.

  BANG, BANG, BANG.

  The noise is deafening, urgent. It infuses my entire body with a primal sense of terror that sets every nerve ending on edge.

  ‘OK, OK, I’m coming,’ I call, rushing over to the door. My hands shake as I fiddle clumsily with the latch. When the door flies open, I stagger back.

  There are two uniformed officers there, both male and wearing grim expressions.

  ‘Mrs Juliet Fletcher?’

  I nod, and they look at Chloe questioningly.

  ‘Chloe Voce,’ she offers faintly.

  ‘We need you both to come with us to the station,’ the taller one says, looking around the interior of the unit. ‘I take it you have the means to secure this place?’

  ‘Yes, but… what is it?’ I say. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘There’s been a serious incident and we need you both to come with us right away.’ The other officer sounds as if he’s been rehearsing the line.

  ‘Why both of us?’ Chloe says, and I can hear the fear crackling through her words like a burning wire. ‘Is it our parents? Has something happened to Mum or Dad?’

  ‘Is it our girls?’ I say, my voice faltering.

  ‘It’s your daughters, ma’am,’ the taller officer confirms. ‘There’s been a serious incident and we need you to come with us to the station.’

  ‘Oh God!’

  Chloe gasps and I press my back against the wall. An unwanted vision of Maddy running into the road, chasing a ball into the path of a racing vehicle, clouds my mind.

  ‘Are they… are the girls OK? Has there been a car accident?’ I don’t want to hear the answer, but I have to know.

  ‘It’s not a car accident,’ the shorter officer confirms.

  ‘So nobody’s hurt?’ Chloe blows out air. ‘Thank God for that.’

  ‘Your daughters aren’t injured, but as I’ve already said, there has been a serious incident. Rest assured you’ll be told everything when you get to the station.’ He coughs. ‘I’m afraid we can’t answer any more questions at this point in time.’

  The officers glance at each other, and I feel a blistering heat settle over my chest. It creeps up into my neck and face and scorches my flesh from the inside.

  Whatever has happened, it’s bad. I can feel the weight of it bearing down on us. Police officers aren’t usually this brusque or evasive. Especially where kids are concerned.

  Chloe grips my forearm as I reach wordlessly for the key hanging on the wall hook. She’s blinking back tears of the same raw panic and dread that are currently forming a huge knot in the pit of my stomach.

  But I can’t say anything to make her feel better, because as I grab my handbag, pull the door closed and check that it’s locked, I somehow instinctively know, deep in my bones, that once we leave the lock-up unit and go with them, things will never be the same again.

  Two

  The interior of the police car is stifling, and the pungent odour of hot plastic from the equipment-crowded dashboard irritates my throat as I try to take calming breaths.

  The driver opens the two front windows slightly before driving out of the industrial park. Our lock-up unit is so close to home, I walk there and back every day. It takes me no more than fifteen minutes each way.

  My throat and mouth feel bone dry and my head is thrumming with a thousand possibilities, none of which make any sense. It’s hard to reconcile what the officers are saying: that the girls aren’t hurt but they’ve both been involved in a serious incident.

  Relief and panic squashed together in one sentence.

  I text Tom rather than call him. It’s a big day for him, and I’m hoping this problem with Maddy can be resolved quickly.

  On way to police station… Maddy ok but involved in some kind of incident. Will call when I know more but come if you can x

  The car passes the familiar streets my sister and I used to play on during our own childhood. We move smoothly past the village library, staffed mainly by volunteers and open only three days a week, where I’d go to research my homework. Further down the road, the primary school sits neatly fenced and squat in its position set back from the street. It’s the safe place our girls would usually have been on a Monday afternoon.

  The police radio crackles periodically with unfathomable voices, and each time it does so, Chloe squeezes my hand and I look at her and press my lips together.

  ‘It’ll be OK,’ she mouths, just like she’d reassure me when we were kids if Mum was on the warpath or I’d lost something I needed for school.

  I used to believe everything my older sister said then, but now… now I’m not so sure it really is going to be OK.

  We approach Conmore Road, which is about a ten-minute walk from Mum’s house. I sit bolt upright as we pass it, lengths of blue and white police tape fluttering in the light breeze like wedding ribbons. Uniformed officers place bright orange cones strategically to close off the road to pedestrians and traffic.

  There are police officers clustered past the tape at the far end of the road, next to police vehicles and a stationary ambulance with flashing blue lights. A couple of photographers loiter on the edge of
a group of local rubberneckers, pressing up against the tape.

  ‘What’s happened up there?’ Chloe gasps, but there’s no response from the front.

  She pats the pockets of her jeans and pulls out her phone.

  ‘It can’t be anything to do with the girls,’ I whisper as Google’s home page loads on her screen. ‘They wouldn’t stray that far from Mum’s house.’

  She doesn’t respond, and I look down and see her fingers gripping the phone so tightly, her knuckles have turned white.

  ‘Is our mum at the police station too?’ Chloe’s tone is frosty as she addresses the two officers. ‘Have you told her what’s happening? She’s supposed to be looking after the girls today.’

  Hesitation from the front, then: ‘I’m not sure, ma’am. We can establish that once we get there.’

  ‘Mum will be beside herself if nobody’s told her where they are.’ Chloe presses her fingers to her forehead and closes her eyes. ‘She’s got enough to worry about.’

  She clicks into her contact list and calls a number. After a few seconds, she rolls her eyes and speaks quickly to what is obviously our parents’ answerphone.

  ‘Mum, Dad, it’s me. The police came to the lock-up unit; apparently the girls are at the police station, so we’re on our way there now. I’ll call as soon as I know more.’ She ends the call. ‘Just in case no one’s told them yet.’ Chloe sends a withering glance to the front of the car.

  I wonder what she meant when she said Mum has enough to worry about. She could be referring to her health problems, but it sounded like it was more than that.

  Mum doesn’t confide in me the same way she does Chloe. I don’t know why; it’s just the way it’s always been – perhaps something to do with our ages and the fact that Chloe is two years older than me. Mum’s firstborn, her unofficial favourite.

  Two years shouldn’t add up to the difference it has made in our lives, shouldn’t carry the extra weight our mother silently attaches to it. Yet the realisation and the unquestioning acceptance of it has always been there inside me like a bone-deep ache.

  ‘Sounds like some kind of break-in and attack on Conmore Road,’ Chloe murmurs, staring at her phone screen. ‘You’d think the police would need all their resources there, instead of rounding us up.’

  I realise I have another text to send. I’d arranged for Beth to come over at 2 p.m. to look through some new footwear samples with me.

  I tap at my screen.

  Hi Beth, sorry, something’s come up, can’t make our appt now. Will be in touch soon. J x

  ‘Who are you texting now?’ Chloe whispers, leaning in to read my message. Her face darkens. ‘Not her again. Why do you have to involve her in everything?’

  I ignore her, pressing send and tucking my phone back in my handbag. To me, Beth is like another sister; to Chloe, she’s an irritation she’d rather not have around. And the feeling is mutual.

  Sometimes I feel like I’m caught between a rock and a hard place with the two of them.

  The police car bears left and we pass the row of small shops – the butcher’s, a hair and beauty salon, the off licence – before continuing along Forest Road.

  My house stands about two thirds of the way down on the left. It’s a red-brick semi with a long, narrow back garden that Tom and I stretched ourselves to buy twelve years ago. When Tom lost his job, we had to face the fact that we might lose our home too. Thankfully it never came to that.

  Later, when this mess has been sorted out, I’ll relish walking into the cool, airy hallway with the new wooden floor we had laid earlier this year. I’ll slip my shoes off at the door and head directly into the spacious kitchen with its oversized island that I’m always grumbling has become a dumping ground for dirty dishes, junk mail and a hundred other things that get parked there instead of being put away.

  Perhaps I’ll open the French doors slightly and stand there for a few moments enjoying the breeze on my face, feeling grateful that normal life has been resumed.

  It’s those little routines that reassure me, anchor me, and it’s what I’m craving right now. Ironically, it’s also the exact same stuff I sometimes take for granted when I find myself wishing life was just a touch less mundane.

  Another few hours at work today and I’d have been back home, having picked Maddy up from Mum’s. I’d put tea in the oven and try and get a bit more work done so I’d be ready to ask Tom all about how his interview went.

  Finally, the management promotion he’s been waiting for since taking a job several levels below his last position is here. Today is his big day, his chance to shine before a panel and increase his salary by a hefty eight thousand pounds a year.

  The houses begin to blur as the police car speeds up a little.

  I check my phone, but there’s no reply from Tom yet, and when I open the message, I see he hasn’t read it. He’s probably still in his interview, as he said he’d let me know how it went.

  But Beth has sent a quick reply.

  No worries. See you tomorrow. B x

  When we first left the unit and they told us the girls were unhurt, I thought I’d be fine dealing with whatever has happened, but the longer we’re in the car, the more I can feel the tightness between my shoulder blades. I really hope Tom can get over to the police station soon.

  My hurried text message will probably panic him, but I had to let him know what was happening. There’ll be plenty of time to tell him how it all came about later, when both Maddy and Josh are tucked up safely in bed and his interview is behind him.

  ‘Which station are you taking us to?’ Chloe demands, her voice brittle. She sounds upset, but I can tell she’s festering angrily underneath that, silently convincing herself that the police have got it all wrong. ‘Are you allowed to tell us that at least?’

  ‘We’re heading for Hucknall station.’ It’s the officer who is driving who replies. ‘They’re holding your daughters there for the time being.’

  ‘Holding them? At ten years of age?’ Chloe says scathingly. ‘Haven’t you lot got enough crime to keep you busy without herding up little girls? I thought this country was supposed to be in the grip of a knife crime epidemic.’

  ‘Chloe, just leave it.’ I can’t see the sense in riling the only two people who know anything about the situation, and I’m feeling more jittery by the second.

  But I do know what she means. What can two ten-year-olds have done that’s so bad, really? Thrown stones at a passing bus? Shoplifted sweets from a local store?

  Hardly a reason to detain them at the police station.

  Maddy and Brianna are essentially good kids. Granted, when they’re together, they can get up to mischief just like any other children their age.

  Shutting Mrs McKinney’s grumpy cat in Mum’s old coal shed overnight when it scratched them, and flooding the dance school toilets with two older girls last year crosses my mind. But those were hardly serious incidents. They let the cat out the next morning when they heard that Mum’s neighbour had been up all night searching, and another child reported the flooding before any real damage was done.

  On both occasions, they were full of apologies.

  The two of them are more like sisters than cousins. They’ve grown up together; there’s only a couple of months between them in age. They go to the same primary school in the village, are even in the same class. I think even poor Josh feels the odd one out when the three of them spend time together at Mum’s house.

  I take pleasure in witnessing their closeness. I hope they can enjoy their sibling-like relationship without the complications that have blighted Chloe and me in the past.

  They must be so upset right now. Terrified, in fact.

  Thank goodness they’re together and have each other’s support until we can get there to end this nonsense and bring them home.

  Three

  The police station

  The police car had swiftly become a suffocating vortex of tension and unspoken words. Chloe’s temper was being severe
ly tested now. She could feel herself teetering on the edge of giving the two uniformed tossers who had been sent to find them a piece of her mind.

  She had enough drama in her life right now without all this malarkey to deal with, but at least the staggering incompetence of the police was a welcome distraction from her troubles.

  Who on earth turned up at someone’s workplace unannounced to tell them they were holding their young daughters, and then refused to say why? It was an absolute farce.

  The local newspaper would have a field day with the whole sorry tale, and Chloe intended making sure the Herald knew every pathetic detail once she had Brianna safely back home again.

  She knew her colour was up because her cheeks were hot to the touch. The tendons in her neck felt like guitar strings stretched to breaking point. It was a sure sign that the mother of all tension headaches was on its way, and she’d had more than her share of those over the past few months.

  Truthfully, she’d been stressed out even before the police had arrived at the lock-up.

  After reading the last text message that had come through just before they almost battered the door down, she’d finally admitted to herself that she had no option but to talk to her sister.

  She’d exhausted all other options and it had to happen soon, before things spiralled completely out of control.

  But how would Juliet react? How would Chloe herself react if the situation was reversed? She really didn’t want to think about that.

  They’d enjoyed a much more supportive relationship since they’d started working together, and despite her mother’s cynicism about Juliet’s business capabilities, Chloe didn’t want to threaten that.

  Juliet was complex; who knew how her mind worked? It was in her nature to attempt to control every detail, trying too hard to make things perfect for others.

  Chloe had felt a twist of irritation when she’d spotted her sister texting Beth Chambers. Beth had hung around their family like a bad smell since they were kids, formed some pathetic kinship with Juliet because she’d lost her brother in a car accident when she’d been fifteen.