Strangled Silence

by Oisin McGann

  Table of Contents

  Title

  By the Same Author

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 0

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 7

  Acknowledgements

  SMALL-MINDED GIANTS

  ANCIENT APPETITES

  STRANGLED

  SiLENCE

  www.rbooks.co.uk

  Also available by Oisín McGann:

  SMALL-MINDED GIANTS

  ANCIENT APPETITES

  THE GODS AND THEIR MACHINES

  THE HARVEST TIDE PROJECT

  UNDER FRAGILE STONE

  Books for younger readers by Oisín McGann:

  THE BABY GIANT

  MAD GRANDAD'S FLYING SAUCER

  MAD GRANDAD'S ROBOT GARDEN

  MAD GRANDAD AND THE

  MUTANT RIVER

  MAD GRANDAD AND THE KLEPTOES

  MAD GRANDAD'S WICKED PICTURES

  THE EVIL HAIRDO

  THE POISON FACTORY

  WIRED TEETH

  STRANGLED

  SiLENCE

  Oisín McGann

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  ISBN 9781407046099

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  STRANGLED SILENCE

  A CORGI BOOK 978 0 552 55862 4

  Published in Great Britain by Corgi Books,

  an imprint of Random House Children's Books

  A Random House Group Company

  This edition published 2008

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Text and illustrations copyright © Oisín McGann, 2008

  The right of Oisín McGann to be identified as the author of this work has been

  asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This electronic book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,

  electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,

  without the prior permission of the publishers.

  ISBN: 9781407046099

  Version 1.0

  Set in Bembo

  Corgi Books are published by Random House Children's Books,

  61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA

  www.kidsatrandomhouse.co.uk

  www.rbooks.co.uk

  Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found

  at:www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

  THE RANDOM HOUSE GROUP Limited Reg. No. 954009

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  For my agent, Sophie,

  who tells it like it is

  36

  Ivor McMorris was on his way to buy some milk when his blind eye started hurting him again. As the first dart of pain lanced through his socket, he instinctively pulled a soft cloth from his pocket to wipe the discharge that sometimes seeped from the corner of his right eye. But that was only a reflex; his eye was fine. It just wanted to hurt him.

  It normally happened in bright sunshine. This time it was after nine in the evening and the street was dark. This was an area of council estates and blocks of flats and the streetlamps were poorly maintained. With the fingers of his right hand pressing against his eyelids, Ivor lowered his head and continued towards the convenience store in the small arcade of shops at the end of the street. There was a wind blowing but most of the litter on the street had been pasted to the pavement by the recent rain. A beer can rolled noisily by his feet. Rectangles of orange and yellow glowed out of the wall of terraced houses on either side of him.

  The pain always started the same way. The eyeball felt swollen in its socket, even though the doctor had told him it was, in fact, smaller than the left eye. It throbbed, the warm twinges gradually growing in strength, getting sharper and hotter. A particularly vicious one made him grunt in pain.

  He had to get the milk and get home before the agony took hold. Ivor had talked to people who suffered from migraines and they said the pain was similar, but he didn't believe it. When his eye wanted to, it could paralyse him. Sometimes he cried like a child.

  Ivor didn't like leaving his flat. He knew he would be followed – he was getting used to it now. There were other people on the street, but he could not tell which of them might be there for him. The watchers, wherever they were, seemed content to observe in their unobtrusive way. But there was no way of knowing when that might change. He was afraid that some day they would stop watching and do something to him again.

  A gang of eight teenagers, none older than sixteen, sat on a low garden wall wasting the evening away as only teenagers could. A stereo buzzed a caustic tune. Kids didn't normally bother Ivor – he was not one of those adults who had forgotten what it was like. That said, he was only in his twenties and already they seemed like they were from a new era. He ignored them as he walked past. He minded his own business, so they should mind theirs.

  But it wasn't that type of street. These kids were looking for entertainment and they were the type who expected others to provide it.

  'Hey! Problem with yah eye, man?' a black boy with a skewed baseball cap shouted out.

  Ivor kept walking. Another boy, pale and acnescarred with movements that mimicked an LA gangster, stood up and jogged out onto the road to overtake Ivor. His perfectly white tracksuit and cap said his mother still did his laundry.

  'Mah bro' asked you a question, man,' he barked, walking backwards to face Ivor while he talked. ''S rude to ignore 'im like tha', y'know.'

  Ivor stopped as he found his path blocked, his hand still pressing against his eye. The darts of heat were getting worse. He just wanted to get some milk and get home. He couldn't make his hot chocolate without milk and he couldn't face an evening without hot chocolate.

  'Yes,' he replied. 'I've a problem with my eye. Now, get out of my way.'

  There was discharge seeping from the corner of his eye now. That happened when the socket got irritated. He wiped it away with hi
s little finger.

  'I seen you around,' the boy said to him. 'Ain't we seen him around?'

  There was a chorus of affirmatives from the others, who were gathering behind Ivor to follow the proceedings. They had indeed seen him around. Ivor wondered if he was supposed to commend them on their powers of observation. He decided against it and went to walk around the boy in front of him. A hand stopped him.

  'Stay 'n' talk wiv us, bro',' the boy urged in a voice that spoke to the others as well.

  'Excuse me.'

  'Nah, man. Ah know yah face now. Yah da hermit. Ain't he da hermit?'

  The chorus confirmed it. He was the hermit. They'd seen him around. The pain was white-hot now, and he knew it showed on his face. It seemed to burn like acid along his optic nerve. Soon his whole head would be bursting with it. To hell with the hot chocolate – he had to get home.

  'Hey, Lucas, ain't he rich?' the black kid asked his pasty pal.

  'Word is that you won da lottery, man,' Lucas persisted. 'Is that true? Is you rich?'

  'I have to go . . .' Ivor hissed through gritted teeth.

  'No, you don't. You gonna answer mah question, man.'

  'I have to— Uurrrgh!' Ivor's voice gurgled into a growl as the pain blinded his other eye. It was unbearable now. It was as if someone had planted a white-hot industrial ball-bearing in his eye socket. He screamed. It made no difference but he screamed again anyway.

  Lucas stepped back as Ivor's face clenched up, the older man's breathing coming in harsh gasps. Ivor's skin was glossy with sweat, his brown hair hanging lank over his forehead. His fingers moved with a will of their own, forcing the eyelids of his right eye open. As the fingers dug clumsily into the socket, he jerked his head down once . . . twice. He gave another shriek and his movements became more frenzied.

  'Dude's goin' ape, man!' Lucas cackled. 'Someone check his pockets!'

  'You check his pockets,' another voice retorted. 'I ain't touchin' the freak!'

  Lucas reached round to slip his hand into Ivor's jacket pocket. And that was when Ivor finally succeeded in plucking his eyeball out of its socket. With an agonized roar, he struck out at the young mugger, slamming the eye against the kid's temple.

  It hit with a dull crunch and Lucas fell backwards onto the wet ground, stunned. Blood trickled from his temple into his hairline. A shard of glass was embedded in his skin. Ivor looked down at the palm of his hand in dismay; that was the fourth eye he had wrecked. Dr Higgins was going to give him another lecture about that. He tossed the remains of the glass ball away and stared down at Lucas. Parting the scarred, sagging eyelids of his right eye, he gave the kid a good long look at the empty socket.

  'Get out of my sight, you little cretin.'

  Lucas didn't need any more telling – he didn't even stop to pick up his baseball cap. The rest of the gang were already running. Lucas took off after them.

  Ivor sighed and pressed a tissue against the shallow cut in his palm. The army had stopped giving him the more expensive plastic eyes after he'd ruined the second one. Glass eyes were a little cheaper. The pain was already abating – it always did after he got the eye out – but now he felt embarrassed about how he looked. He really needed his hot chocolate. Ever since getting off the painkillers he had avoided alcohol and medication, but he still had to have his little comforts.

  Scanning the street, he saw that there was nobody else around now. If there was somebody still watching him, they were doing it from a window or a rooftop somewhere. Let them watch, he was past caring.

  Walking the last hundred metres to the shop, he kept one hand over his empty socket while he got the milk from the fridge. As he passed the shelf of newspapers, he spotted the front page of the National News, which had a large, blurred photo of what could be either a flying saucer silhouetted against the night sky, or a dustbin lid thrown into the air. The headline read: WE ARE NOT ALONE. The story was about a 'mysterious shape' seen over a suburb of the city the night before.

  'Christ Almighty,' he muttered. 'Can't they find any real news?'

  Ivor paid for the milk and then he walked out. He always felt self-conscious about the gaping hollow where his eye should be. Higgins was right; if he was going to keep breaking his eyes, he would have to start carrying spares.

  The newsroom clattered with activity as journalists and editors worked to make the deadline for the Friday morning edition. Amina Mir could feel the excitement like static in the air, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Voices called for copy, people argued over headlines and layouts, a woman yelled down the phone at a photographer to email in the shots that were due an hour ago and somebody somewhere was cursing at their computer again.

  Tomorrow was going to be a big news day and everyone wanted to be finished with this edition so they could harry their contacts in the government, the police and the city council to get a sense of which way things were going to go. Every newshound in the city wanted to know if there were going to be riots.

  Amina loved it all. The Chronicle was one of the country's top newspapers and she was getting to see how it all worked. This was where her mother had started years ago. Get a foot in the door doing work experience and if you got lucky, you could make an impression. And Amina was good at making an impression.

  She was due to start her second year of university in September – journalism, of course – but her mother had told her that this was how careers were made: getting into a good newsroom and making photocopies or making coffee for the editors. As a favour to her mother, the managing editor, a grizzled old soak named Joel Goldbloom, had even given her some minor human-interest articles to write.

  They were the usual tripe that papers used to fill in the side columns: ELVIS MUSIC CHEERS UP DEPRESSED GORILLAS, or HEDGEHOG MAKES IT DEPRESSED GORILLWAY, or MUGGER FOILED BY CHIHUAHUA. Amina wanted to make the front page before she was twenty-one, but for now she'd settle for writing about human beings . . . and not getting stuck in the horoscopes.

  Tomorrow might be her chance at a real break.

  She eyed the door to Goldbloom's office. He had her sifting through one of the paper's email inboxes for spam, but he had hinted that he might have another story for her to write. There was going to be a massive protest march tomorrow, calling for an end to the controversial war in Sinnostan. Hundreds of thousands of people were expected on the streets and most of the paper's reporters were going to be occupied in covering various aspects of it.

  Amina was sure they'd be able to find her something to do.

  'Amina!'

  She popped her head round the computer monitor at the sound of Goldbloom's voice.

  'Yes, Joel?'

  'In my office. Now.'

  The editor's office was a large, cluttered space with a beaten-up old desk and a worn leather chair. There were a couple of more modern pieces of furniture in the room but they were littered with paper and treated with thinly disguised contempt by their owner. You had to have spent time in the world before you earned Goldbloom's respect. A wall of glass allowed him to look out on the newsroom and level his evil eye at anyone who appeared as if they might be giving the paper anything less than their best. Amina entered and stood in front of his desk like a schoolgirl before the headmaster.

  'I have a story for you,' he grunted at her as he flopped back into his chair.

  Amina's face lit up with an eager grin. She was an attractive girl; her dark hair and Arabic skin came from her father, but the rest she got from her mother, and she had a gift for smiling in a way that made most people smile back. But not Goldbloom. His red, slightly bloated face showed no sign of reflecting her delight.

  'It's a human-interest piece,' he told her.

  'Oh,' she said, trying to convey her disappointment without sounding ungrateful. 'I . . . I thought you might need more people out on the streets.'

  'The streets are covered,' he retorted. 'And besides, you haven't made nearly enough cups of coffee to earn that kind of credit yet.'

  'R
ight. How much coffee will I have to make, then?'

  'Oceans of it,' he said, sifting through some piles of paper. 'And your mother was able to take the photocopier apart and put it back together before she was allowed out on the streets. You can't even change a cartridge yet. Still, you'll be glad to hear there are no animals involved in this one . . . so far as I know. Here, this is it.'

  He handed her a piece of notepaper with a name and address on it.

  'Young fella – used to write articles for us a few years back,' Goldbloom added, running his hands through his thinning, yellowy-white hair. 'Got on to me recently. He's living on a disability allowance now – was serving in Sinnostan and got wounded in action. But get this: a few months ago he won a couple o' million on the lottery and he's hardly spent a penny. Word got out about his win and now he barely sets foot outside his flat. He says there's more to it than just the pests and the begging letters but he wants to talk to someone in person. That's you, sweetheart. He's expecting you tomorrow morning.'

  Amina gave her boss another smile. The story wouldn't be quite as dramatic as a riot, but it was a definite step up from hedgehogs. She looked down at the name: Ivor McMorris.

  'Thanks, Joel! I really appreciate this.'

  'Thank me by turning in a good story. On time. Now get your big silly grin out of my office.'

  20

  Amina stared down the street before her and looked back at the address on the notepaper: 143 Winston Street. This was definitely it. Ivor McMorris lived in flat number five. She blew out her cheeks and continued walking. The Underground station had been grotty enough, but this area was a dump. That didn't put her off. She regarded places like this as hives of social issues such as poverty, drug abuse and domestic violence, buzzing with great stories. She expected to see much worse than this as her career progressed.

  The block of flats was a relatively small, damp-looking concrete-cast building on the corner of the street. It wasn't a complete slum – the window panes had obviously been cleaned recently and the bars on the windows were freshly painted in a pale mauve.