The Silent Ones

by Knight, Ali

  The noise of the protestors was growing louder, fast, and the guards at the swing door needed extra support, but that meant Olivia’s room would be out of view to Tracey and Alan. They had prepared for her trying to escape, not for others trying to get in, and uncomfortable scenarios were beginning to yawn in front of them.

  Alan drew his baton, dancing slightly from foot to foot, a sheen of sweat on his upper lip. He was listening on his radio. ‘Five minutes away,’ he said, referring to the police backup.

  A panicked nurse came at pace round the corner, pointing. ‘They’re in the outer corridor.’

  They both strode round the corner. Alan looked through the square of glass in the swing door and gritted his teeth. The two extra guards were out in the corridor facing down the crowd, batons at the ready, but the crowd was at least fifty strong, high on righteousness and the flouting of rules. The big American was in front, sweaty and glassy-eyed. Alan and Tracey took up positions by the swing doors.

  ‘Be ready,’ Alan commanded. Tracey nodded.

  Darren took the stairs three at a time. He reached the second floor, ran to the door to the empty wing and looked through the small square of glass. The corridor was empty.

  He swiped the security card across the door and it clicked open. He could hear the protestors nearby. He walked quickly past two rooms with their blinds down. The third door he came to had the blinds up. He opened the door. Olivia was in there, looking at him. He could see that her hands were chained to the rails running round her bed.

  He was across the room to her in two strides. He saw himself putting the pillow over her face, stifling the voice that had set up home in his skull, that had destroyed the fragile peace he had built over the years since Carly had gone. It wasn’t about finding Carly now; it wasn’t even about saving himself.

  Their relationship had shifted – he was now strong and she was weak and he was going to make the most of it – terrorise her into telling him the truth. He saw the fear in her eyes and the tables were finally turned: he would mete out to her the same treatment she had to his sister.

  Steps sounded in the corridor, someone in a hurry to check and control. He couldn’t get round the bed to the bathroom in time. He froze.

  ‘Under the bed.’ Her voice was low and urgent, like a command.

  He did what she said just as a man burst through the door, radio crackling. He stepped towards the bed. ‘We’re clear,’ he said into the radio. He walked to the bathroom and glanced inside.

  ‘Tell me what’s happening,’ Olivia said.

  He didn’t reply and Darren saw part of the sheet that had lain across her body begin to unfurl over the side of the bed, helping to cover him.

  More people arrived and Darren overheard urgent talk about procedure and safety protocols.

  ‘There’s a room in the basement, with only one way in or out.’

  ‘What else is down there?’

  ‘Storerooms. We only have to worry about the one door, we can shut off the lift.’

  There was intense crackling from the radio and codes being repeated. ‘Let’s do it,’ a man’s voice said.

  Darren could see nurse’s shoes near the head of Olivia’s bed, and the black and shiny boots of the guards moving back and forth. The bed rolled out of the room towards the elevator.

  The sound of chants and jeers echoed from somewhere nearby. A mini stampede of black shoes came from the corridor to Darren’s right and headed off towards the noise. ‘Securing the corridor downstairs. Wait,’ someone said into a radio.

  There was a long wait outside the lift.

  ‘Someone’s going to fucking fry for this,’ a man’s voice said.

  ‘Move!’ The bed was wheeled into the elevator.

  Darren was lying prone under the bed, a central column supporting the wheels between his legs, his feet jammed up under the mattress and his hands holding on near his head. His arms were trembling and he knew he couldn’t hold on much longer. He counted six people in the lift.

  ‘Corridor clear.’ The bed bumped along uneven lino, round a corner and into another lift, down one floor and through a set of doors. ‘Clear.’

  The bed moved through another door and into a room where a light was switched on.

  Three of the pairs of feet left the room.

  ‘OK guys, good job,’ a voice said, less urgent now.

  Darren felt the sweat dripping down his temples. Tears squeezed from his eyes. The veins in his forearms stood proud like ropes.

  ‘I’ll reconnect you now,’ the nurse was saying to Olivia. Crackle came through on the radio.

  ‘Jesus, that was a close call,’ someone muttered.

  ‘There, your drip’s back in.’ There was the sound of pillows being puffed up and the nurse tried to adjust the sheet.

  ‘No thank you, it’s fine like that,’ Olivia said.

  ‘We’re good to go,’ the nurse said. ‘I’ll be back shortly to take your temperature, Olivia, OK?’ Normality was returning.

  The door opened. Everyone left, and it swung shut behind them.

  Darren collapsed on to the floor under the bed, then scrabbled out and backed away to the wall.

  55

  The room was large, heating ducts criss-crossing the ceiling, collapsible tables stored in one corner and a stack of chairs; no windows or bathroom.

  Darren looked around, desperate to find a hiding place. Could he move a table and construct something? His moment of madness when he had wanted to harm her had been overtaken by fear about how he was going to get out.

  ‘You’re in a pickle. One door in and out, guards everywhere.’ Olivia lay unmoving in the bed, her face pale, her hair lank, the drip snaking away from the back of her hand.

  ‘Why are you in this hospital, anyway?’

  ‘I’ve got a weak heart. And now they say it’s mended.’ Her voice was quiet and croaky.

  He walked towards the bed, which seemed like a grotesque shrine containing something small and frail and old.

  ‘Under the bed’s still your best bet if you want to stay out of jail.’

  He tested her handcuffs, then pulled back the thin sheet that covered her hospital gown. He put his hand round her neck. She gasped slightly, straining under him. He could smell her, feel her skin, the way her bones and muscles moved. Here was his chance to ask all the questions he wanted. He would never get another. He stared down into her dark eyes. ‘Where’s my sister?’

  ‘When your mind drifts off down long passageways and into dark basements searching for her, you end up with me, don’t you Darren? I’ve got you, in my hands.’ She held up an arm until the handcuffs clinked. ‘It’s been ten years. There will be many more. We will grow older, together.’ She paused. ‘That’s a tear, Darren. Just the one?’

  ‘Why did you tell me about Rollo? Who is he? What is he?’

  She didn’t respond and he wondered if she couldn’t remember now, whether her thoughts ebbed and flowed in no coherent order, whether most of what she said was the babblings of a madwoman. ‘Carrick bend knots. They’re such beautiful little trifles.’

  Darren snatched his hand away as if her neck was scalding. ‘What did you say?’

  Her eyes focused on him, seemed to hold him tight. ‘Carly told me about that time on the beach, that afternoon when you got lost. What was it she said to console you? This is me—’

  ‘And this is you,’ Darren finished. Olivia might be insane, but her ability to invade the memories he shared with his sister was unparalleled. It was as if she had pissed and shat inside his skull.

  Carly used to make bracelets from strands of coloured string, ribbon or plastic. She would join two strands together with a Carrick bend knot, which when pulled tight formed a beautiful woven lattice of colours. One summer when he was young, probably no more than seven, he had got lost in the dunes behind a beach in Devon. Hot, thirsty and disorientated, he had wandered for what seemed like hours before he was finally reunited with his family. What he had felt, trudging up t
hose mountains of sand, was a searing sense of abandonment. He had become convinced that his adopted family didn’t really want him, because he was tainted and unlovable. When his parents finally found him he had cried inconsolably, and nothing they offered, from ice creams to beach balls, made him feel better. Until Carly had picked up two strands of seaweed, one a bluey purple, the other russet, and knotted them together in a Carrick bend. ‘Look, Darren,’ she had said, flipping the russet strand over and under, ‘this is me,’ and she looped the deep blue under and over, ‘and this is you.’ She had tied the ends of the two strands under his wrist. ‘You know we’re family. We can’t ever be parted.’

  Darren looked down at Olivia, felt hot and bitter tears in his throat. He put his hand round her neck again, tighter this time, and she gasped for air. ‘I know about your son.’

  She stiffened. He felt it under his hands. ‘You think the clue to who I am lies with my son?’

  ‘How did it feel, Olivia, when they took him away? Was it the worst pain you have ever known? When you lie alone in the dark, is it him who comes to you?’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘I would have hoped that you could think beyond clichés. Extend yourself beyond conformist little boxes. The mother figure, her lost son, blah, blah. But then maybe you really are someone who believes that stuff. You’re one of the good ones, aren’t you? You’ve won your battle to stay on top of your basest desires. It’s a shame so many fail even at that.’

  ‘You never managed it.’

  Her eyes narrowed more until they were almost slits. ‘No. I didn’t. It took me a long time to turn my desires into action.’

  ‘Molly never did anything to deserve that.’

  ‘Being deserving doesn’t come into it—’

  ‘It should!’ He lifted her head by the neck and slammed it back down on the pillow. He had to whisper, afraid that his voice would be heard in the corridor.

  Her eyes flared with anger. ‘You think the world is as you see it, but you’re wrong! People can drop through the wormholes, into a world of horror you can’t even imagine—’

  ‘I can imagine, and I have!’

  ‘No—’

  ‘Carly was a child! She was so young!’ He grabbed her skull and slammed her head down on the pillow, the secret he was so desperate to know suspended in there. If he could pull it out with his bare hands he would. ‘Just give her back, just tell me where she is. My sister didn’t deserve it!’

  ‘Neither did mine!’

  Their eyes met. He dropped his hands from her head and she stared up at him. He fancied he saw alarm. ‘What happened to your sister?’

  Her Adam’s apple danced as she swallowed. ‘She died.’

  ‘I know that. But what really happened to Lauren?’

  She couldn’t speak; a tear slid from her eye. Darren felt something was giving way, like an avalanche finally collapsing down a mountain to reveal what had lain buried for years. He pressed on. ‘She killed herself and left you with so many what-ifs, with a feeling of impotence that lasts a lifetime. You loved Lauren, more deeply than you can ever express. You feel grief at her loss, a pain so acute you can’t believe you can still breathe.’ He put his fingers to the side of her face, caressed the soft skin on her cheek, his voice slow and calm. ‘I know how that feels, Olivia. You’re looking at one of the few people who really knows.’ But I’ll tell you something – there’s a pain even worse than that unleashed by death. Missing is worse than dead. Olivia, find it in your heart to end this pain for me.’

  He had said the wrong thing. Her emotions moved like quicksilver, and now her tears dried up and were replaced by hard, narrow eyes. Her voice came out in a low, bitter rasp. ‘I have given up everything for Lauren. And I’ll give up you.’

  She screamed. Her voice was loud, full strength even after her operation. ‘There’s someone here!’

  Darren was off the bed and at the door in two seconds. The corridor had two right angles, and he ran blindly round the right-hand one and saw three doors leading off the corridor, and a grey cement and brick wall straight ahead.

  The first door was locked. He tried the second and it opened on to a storeroom full of boxes and chairs and obsolete medical equipment. He heard the sound of running feet behind him, the crackle of radios. ‘Check the room,’ someone called. ‘You two, the corridor.’

  He had less than a second to decide whether to try the third door. He raced for it and pushed it open, closing it behind him just as two policemen rounded the corner.

  He was in the furnace room. To the left of the incinerator were large laundry hampers, to the right a desk with the control panel for the incinerator, a console covered in buttons and large metal bins with yellow symbols on them, and a chair. He raced for the laundry bins; dirty sheets lay at the bottom of one, the other was empty. He only had seconds before they opened the door. He got his arms on the metal rim of the bin and was about to hoist himself over and try to hide in the soiled mess at the bottom when he saw the door of the incinerator.

  He raced towards it, pulled it open and crawled in.

  When Alan and Tracey came through the door, Alan thought for a second that maybe one of the hampers was just spinning to a stop on the right-hand side of the room. Son of a bitch, thought Alan, maybe the witch in the bed was right. Tracey took the right-hand side of the room, Alan waited by the door. Tracey carefully pulled the hampers aside, nice and easy so no one would get a shock, and began poking the contents with her baton. She did all five. They were all empty.

  They glanced at each other and walked over to the huge metal bins where hospital waste was kept before being burned.

  Alan opened the large hatch. Tracey shone a torch in. The foul smell of old blood wafted up. The second hatch they approached in the same way.

  ‘Maybe she’s yanking our chain,’ Tracey said. But they didn’t stop. The door opened and they were joined by two more guards. ‘Corridor and patient’s room clear,’ one of them said. Tracey and Alan nodded.

  ‘Can you believe this bullshit?’ said one, as they watched Alan reach in and prod the two yellow sacks in the last bin with a grappling pole he’d found in the corner of the room. No one was inside. All four of them moved to the incinerator door.

  Darren could feel the still warm grate below him, cooling down from the day’s burning. He stifled the urge to cough, ash and dust and something oily coating the inside of his nose and his throat. He moved as quietly as he could to the back of the furnace, feeling around him in the pitch black.

  He could hear muffled voices in the room, could feel the cold sweat of fear on his back. Above him was the flue that took the fumes and smoke up and away. Darren was a big guy, rangy and long-limbed, and only back here he could unfold and actually stand up properly, his feet in the incinerator and his body in the pipe. Darren put his hands on the side of the flue and pulled himself up, anchoring his body with his trainers against the sides.

  Tracey counted down from three silently on her fingers before opening the incinerator door, Alan standing ready with the baton and a torch. Alan shone the torch in. The space was small, blackened and scorched from a thousand sad things and redundant or poisoned body parts being seared within. Tracey and the others leaned over his shoulder and shook their heads.

  Everyone relaxed a little. Alan shone the torch beneath the grate and around the small space again. He was about to stand up and close the door, put an end to this attention-seeking charade, when something made him stop. He squinted and frowned. At the back of the furnace something had caught in the light of the torch. Alan leaned in closer.

  It was a shoelace, hanging down from the flue.

  ‘Suspect in the furnace, come out now!’

  Darren knew it was hopeless, that there was no way out, but he did the only thing he could do. He carried on, like they had done when Carly went missing. Every day then was like crawling through the darkest hole, the horror of what had gathered them up never-ending. He began to climb the flue, pushing outwards with his han
ds and feet to give him traction.

  Alan didn’t hesitate to crawl into the incinerator. In the torchlight he could see a figure making rapid progress away from him. But Alan did think twice about climbing after him; he was a big guy who liked his pies and his pints and he knew when he was beaten; when a big round object wouldn’t fit. This guy was trapped like a badger in a hole, anyway. He scrambled back out and they began to organise.

  Darren kept going blindly in the pitch dark, up, up, up, because going back was worse. The pipe turned a right angle and now it was easier to pull himself along horizontally, but soon the flue turned to vertical once again. He climbed on up, his thighs burning and his arms cramping. He was soon gasping for air, a foul burning sensation at the back of his throat. He lost his sense of time and direction, and his panic began to build. After what could have been minutes or hours he came to an obstruction and, after feeling around for a moment, realised that the flue divided into two. Left or right? He chose the left tube and crawled on. The space was smaller than that he had been climbing until now but he groped on, his shoulders straining and his legs screaming.

  He hit his head on the roof of the tunnel and nearly fell back down the pipe he had so laboriously climbed.

  He couldn’t go on. The pipe was squeezing the very breath out of him; he would die and he would have failed his parents and Carly. Tears stung his eyes, something acrid and stinging draining into them.

  He came to another twist in the pipe, scrambled round another corner and crawled along horizontally. He came to another right angle that bent upwards, but the angles were smaller here and he couldn’t get round to stand up in it. The metal was clamping round his chest as he scrabbled for a way through. He started to scream. He was stuck in a pitch black tube, unable to go forward or back. Yawning chasms of terror overwhelmed him and he nearly blacked out.