Saving Silence

by Gina Blaxill

The next morning I awoke to find that my phone showed no messages. As Sam and I trudged out of Harrison’s house, I said, ‘They must still have him. It’s the only explanation. We did what they said, and they double-crossed us!’

  Sam had shadows under his eyes. I hadn’t slept well, but he looked wrecked. We were both shabby and untidy in yesterday’s clothes. People on the bus and the train were going to think we were living rough. ‘Let’s get back to Walthamstow,’ he said. ‘If Ollie’s not at his house, we’ll know it was a lie. And then we really will need to go to the police.’

  I felt stupid when I thought of how eager I’d been to surrender our only evidence. Why had I believed what those thugs had said? Sam probably couldn’t stand me for ‘making the wrong decision’ now. Somehow he seemed less friendly this morning, more wrapped up in his own thoughts. Like I cared what he thought. We weren’t mates, never had been, and after this was all over and done, we’d probably never speak again.

  But I did care. I hated being thought badly of. Even by Sam. I couldn’t put my finger on why his opinion mattered to me. Maybe it was those odd little moments we’d shared. Like when he’d offered to help. Who knew?

  We got the bus to Colchester station and then the London train. We didn’t say much. Today was the first day I’d ever skipped school.

  Was it safe to go home? They’d got what they wanted from me and Sam. But then there was Ollie. I had a nasty feeling that this was far from over.

  When we finally reached Walthamstow tube and came up the escalators into the bus station I stood for a moment, taking in the sights and sounds and smells around me. One day. Yet it felt as if I’d been gone forever. After checking my phone – no messages – I looked at Sam.

  ‘Are you coming with me to Ollie’s?’

  ‘I have somewhere to go.’ Sam gave me an apologetic smile. Then he turned and walked away, turning left by McDonalds.

  I frowned. Wherever he was going, it clearly wasn’t home. Oh hell, I thought, feeling exhausted all of a sudden. Sam Costello and his funny ways had always been a mystery to me.

  SAM

  MONDAY 18 NOVEMBER

  I felt exhausted, physically and mentally. As I walked along the high street I thought about how it had made me feel last night, lying there next to Imogen, uncomfortably aware of how close our bodies were. She’d fallen asleep with her head on my shoulder, the warmth of her breath on my neck. If I’d known how distracting sharing the bed would be, I’d have slept on the floor – no, that was a lie. Despite everything, it had felt good to be so close to another person – good to be so close to her.

  I only had a vague idea where Nadina’s family shop was, so it took me a while to find it. It was one of those stores that seemed to be thick on the ground round here, the crowded grocery-cum-minimart-cum-newsagent that sold a bit of everything. To my surprise it was open. I guess the police must have finished doing their stuff. The family probably can’t afford for it to be closed too long.

  Nervously I stepped inside. The interior reminded me uncomfortably of the shop Hamdi Gul worked in – same packed shelves, long aisles and a similar section of Turkish specialities. I wondered if anyone had been shopping here when the break-in had happened. Had they stuck up for Nadina’s family? Or had they been just as scared as I had?

  A guy I guessed was Nadina’s brother was at the till. He didn’t seem to think it strange when I asked to see her and texted Nadina to come down from the flat above the shop. Can’t be hurt too badly if she’s home, I thought, reassured.

  When Nadina came through the door behind the till she raised her eyebrows but didn’t ask why I’d come. She took me up a narrow staircase and into a sitting room. It was one of the most stuffed rooms I’d ever seen, three long sofas covered by colourful throws and cushions squashed between heaving cupboards and cabinets. Most of the wall space was crammed with enlarged photos of people I guessed were family. Nadina flopped down on one of the couches, muting the telly.

  ‘What d’you want?’

  The words came out sounding raspy and considerably quieter than Nadina’s usual voice, which was loud enough to hear from the other side of Walthamstow. Although it was less obvious than I’d expected, I could tell that her jaw was wired up.

  ‘Yeah, I can talk,’ Nadina said, picking up on my surprise. ‘Poor everyone else, eh?’

  I smiled self-consciously; I didn’t know Nadina well enough to feel comfortable about laughing. ‘I’m glad you’re back home.’

  ‘Yeah, well, beats hospital, but I ain’t staying in with daytime telly tomorrow. I wanna see how everyone at school is gonna take the mick out of me. You coming in too? We can be a club or something. Walking wounded united, innit.’

  I realized she was talking about the injuries I’d picked up from the car incident. Neither had given me much trouble at all. I really had been lucky. ‘I guess so. I can’t skip school forever.’

  Nadina picked up a glass from the table by the couch and sucked in a mouthful of the gloopy-looking contents through a thick straw. ‘Mmmmm, lunch. Mashed banana and milk. It’s like being a baby with this wired-up jaw, I’m telling you. I don’t even like sodding milkshakes.’

  I thought about it. ‘You could always mash up veg and potatoes with stock to make a thick soup. Or you could make a bean chilli and blend it?’

  Nadina’s eyes lit up. ‘Nice one! You got some tricks up your sleeve. Starting to see why Im finds you so strangely intriguing. Not that she’d admit it.’ I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. ‘Now look, Sam, not being rude or nothing, but why’re you here? We’re not mates, right, so this ain’t a social call.’

  I was beginning to understand why Nadina and Imogen got on.

  ‘I wanted to ask how much you and your dad saw of the attack on your shop. I mean, would you be able to identify who did it? How many people were there? Did the police find any evidence they seemed to think was useful?’

  Nadina gave me a searching look. ‘Haven’t got a clue why you’re asking, but I don’t mind. This is what you’re meant to do with trauma. Talk about it, innit.’

  That wasn’t what I’d done, but then there wasn’t really anyone I trusted enough to open up to. I ignored the fact that Nadina was talking to me, someone she had no reason to trust.

  She explained that three guys had robbed the shop. All were young, around a similar height, but beyond that pretty unidentifiable, especially the one who’d acted as lookout. Nadina had barely got a glance of him. The others had worn hoodies and scarves over their faces. Knowing what had happened to Hamdi, Nadina and her dad hadn’t put up much resistance when they were told to open the till, but they’d still been roughed up before the guys had legged it.

  It sounded exactly like what I’d witnessed – enough for me to be fairly sure it was the same people. I sighed. I’d been hoping Nadina might have given the police enough information to put them well on the way to catching these lowlifes, but it was too vague.

  As I got up to leave, Nadina said, ‘What’s all this to you anyway?’

  I swallowed. ‘The difference between doing something and not doing it.’

  IMOGEN

  MONDAY 18 NOVEMBER

  Both buses I needed to get to Ollie’s took forever to come. I tried ringing, but my calls went straight to voicemail. Either his battery was dead or something had happened to the phone.

  What can I do? I thought. Apart from going to the police after seeing if he was home, I couldn’t think of anything else. Not after we’d wiped the video.

  It occurred to me that I’d never asked Sam if the video identified the gang. He’d not even got round to showing it to me. Had that been deliberate? He’d been so cagey with information that I was beginning to wonder . . .

  When I reached Ollie’s estate it was drizzling. Some kids were hanging by a block’s stairwell about a hundred metres away, kicking a football to one another. Going to school clearly wasn’t something they’d fancied today – or most days, according to Ollie. He sometimes jokingly call
ed this place No Hoper Homes. ‘Getting in’s easy. It’s getting out that’s tough.’

  Ollie would move on to better things one day though. He’d been putting in the work for it the whole way through secondary school. I desperately hoped his future wasn’t going to be messed up because he’d tried to help me.

  They wouldn’t have harmed him, would they? They’d been prepared to kill Sam, but that was different. He really was a threat. Ollie didn’t know anything.

  I wasn’t expecting the door to Ollie’s flat to be opened when I pressed the bell, but it was, by Maria Paula, Ollie’s mum. At first I couldn’t work out what she was doing here early afternoon on a Monday. Then I clocked that she was wearing a blue and white uniform and remembered that she worked part-time at Boots. She must be about to leave.

  ‘Hi,’ I blurted. I’d only met Maria Paula a few times. Ollie was funny about his friends talking to his mum. I got the impression he was ashamed of her. He’d once said something about her accent being embarrassing. Trying to control my shaking voice, I asked, ‘Don’t suppose Ollie’s in?’

  Maria Paula smiled. She was quite a young mum and pretty in a petite, doll-like way. The only thing about her that was never neat was her hair, which was thick and curly and a little wild. ‘Of course, please come in. He’s watching TV.’

  I gaped at her. After all the fear and worry I’d been through, Ollie was home in front of the telly! I’d thought he was still in the gang’s clutches. I’d been terrified he might even be dead! Had that even been him on the phone last night at all? It was starting to feel like I was going insane.

  ‘Is he all right?’

  Ollie’s mum chuckled. ‘A bit sore, but his arm is not badly hurt. These things happen. He won’t be playing the good guy like that again – I made him promise. Still, I’m proud of him. Osvaldo!’ she called. ‘Imogen’s here.’

  What the hell was she talking about? I closed the front door behind me just as Ollie appeared at the doorway to the front room. I stared at him. Apart from the bruise around his eye and having a bandage round his arm, he looked fine. When he saw me, Ollie went very pale.

  Maria Paula glanced between us, looking amused. ‘Have you fallen out? Need me to referee?’

  ‘Not funny,’ Ollie snapped. ‘Can you leave us alone?’

  Maria Paula raised an eyebrow, but she went into the kitchen, humming under her breath. Ollie grabbed my arm with his good hand and pulled me into the living room, kicking the door shut.

  ‘Told Mum I broke up some kids fighting,’ he hissed. ‘Don’t tell her how this really happened, all right?’

  I shook him off. ‘Ollie! Why didn’t you call me? I was majorly freaking out!’

  There was something guarded about the way he was standing, something tense, as though he thought something would happen at any moment. ‘Couldn’t. They took my phone.’

  ‘Why didn’t you get my number off somebody else? I was terrified for you – oh, never mind. Just glad you’re OK. Tell me everything.’

  I moved to sit on the couch, then stopped when I realized Ollie hadn’t shifted. ‘What?’

  ‘Mum will be able to hear. Thin walls.’

  ‘Jeez!’ I didn’t mean to sound angry, but I’d been on a total roller coaster of emotions and I just wanted answers. ‘Why are you so down on your mum the whole time?’

  ‘Shut up!’ Ollie’s eyes blazed. ‘You don’t know anything about me and my mum. I know what you’re going to start saying and it’ll upset her. So just keep a lid on it until she heads to work. Talk about volleyball or whatever. OK?’

  I’d never seen him this wound up. A little afraid of Ollie for the first time ever, I shuffled backwards. Then Maria Paula opened the door.

  ‘Work is calling,’ she said in a breezy tone that told me she’d overheard at least some of what we’d been saying. She stood on tiptoes and gave Ollie a hug. ‘You hope the school fixes the boiler for tomorrow, Osvaldo. Else I’ve lots of nice household things you can be busy with.’

  I tuned Maria Paula out. Another lie. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Luckily the doorbell shrilled. Maria Paula went to answer it.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I demanded.

  Ollie stared at me. Slowly he said, ‘He really didn’t tell you . . . show you . . . anything? You don’t know?’

  ‘Ollie, can you start talking to me in a language I understand!’

  From the hallway I heard the front door click. Maria Paula started to say hello – then stopped. A male voice said, ‘Are you Maria Paula Moreno? Is your son Osvaldo here?’

  ‘Yes. What’s happened?’

  ‘Can we come in please, madam?’

  There was a shuffling and the sound of footsteps. I glanced at Ollie. From the look on his face I knew immediately that something terrible was about to happen.

  Maria Paula came through. Behind her were two uniformed police officers. They looked like twins, both strapping guys with very short hair. Neither was smiling. But Maria Paula was, in a fluttery, hopeful kind of way.

  ‘You are here about the fight my son broke up perhaps?’ she said, a bit too brightly. ‘I’m not sure there is too much we can tell you.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not the reason for our visit, Ms Moreno,’ one officer said.

  ‘Is it a burglary on the estate? Always someone has their flat broken into.’

  The other man stepped forward. ‘Ms Moreno, I’m sorry to inform you that we’re here because of your son.’ He cleared his throat and turned to Ollie. ‘Osvaldo Moreno, I am arresting you on suspicion of participating in the murder of Hamdi Gul. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?’

  I blanked out. I was vaguely aware that the officer was running through what would happen down at the station, and the other standard spiel. Ollie had gone very pale. He made no effort to argue, or run. He didn’t make any effort to do anything.

  Maria Paula went to Ollie and grasped his hand, squeezing it hard. She was shaking her head violently. ‘This is a mistake!’ she cried. ‘My son would never be involved in violence. Never! You have the wrong boy. This is a horrible mistake and I want you to leave, now!’

  ‘Ms Moreno, you’ll need to accompany your son to the station. We can’t talk to him without an adult present. If you’d like a solicitor, we can supply one.’

  ‘I don’t need to accompany him. He isn’t going.’ Maria Paula looked at Ollie, her face pathetically hopeful. ‘Osvaldo. Swear to me this is wrong. I know you didn’t do anything. You’re a good boy.’

  Ollie swallowed. His eyes flickered to me, but it was his mum he looked at as he whispered, ‘Sorry.’

  SAM

  MONDAY 18 NOVEMBER

  I felt peculiarly calm as I left Nadina’s. I noticed far more of what was around me than usual – the smell of frying, the different languages spoken by people I passed, the bluish grey of the clouds. Maybe that was what happened when you finally decided to face the world.

  I walked straight into the police station, took out a memory stick from my pocket and laid it on the counter where the officer on reception duty was sitting. I cleared my throat.

  ‘There’s something on here you need to see.’

  Explaining everything to the police wasn’t as straightforward as I expected. For starters, they wouldn’t speak to me without calling Tamsin. She sort of deserved to hear this from me, not in the police station, I thought, feeling bad that I hadn’t even rung to let her know I was back. I felt even worse when she started to cry the moment she came through the doors.

  ‘Where were you?’ she cried. ‘I was worried! I was this close to reporting you missing!’

  ‘Didn’t think you’d really care.’ Yet again I wished that I’d thought things through, but I hadn’t, and as Imogen might say, I had to deal with that now.

  When Tamsin had calmed down we were invited into an inter
view room. It was cold and dimly lit, with uncomfortable plastic chairs either side of a table that wobbled. I could tell from the expressions of the two officers waiting for us that they were taking this very seriously. Not a surprise, considering what was on the memory stick.

  ‘So there’s just the one copy? You’ve not backed it up anywhere?’ the guy with the gravelly voice had said on the phone. He’d sounded amused. Thinking what a loser I was, no doubt. And believing me when I said I hadn’t.

  The joke’s on you, I thought, and I almost felt good. Of course I’d backed the video up. I might have been terrified, but I wasn’t stupid. Speaking to Nadina had finally persuaded me to do what I was doing now. I couldn’t carry on living my life in fear. Hamdi was dead, but I could at least see that he got some justice. I knew it was dangerous to accuse people, but I’d been overlooking the fact that I had hard evidence in the video. This was the best chance anyone was ever going to get to see that these thugs got what they deserved. The police wanted to know everything. They remained poker-faced when I described how I’d filmed the attack, but I did wonder how much they judged me for hiding when a man was being pummelled to death just metres away, especially as I’d stayed long enough to film most of it.

  I also filled them in on what had happened since. This meant I had no choice but to bring Imogen into it. Sorry, I thought. I hope you can understand why it has to be this way.

  ‘Thanks, Sam,’ one officer said when I was done. ‘I know it takes guts to speak up. This is very valuable evidence. It would have been more valuable still had you come to us earlier. There was another attack on a shop on Saturday night and we believe it’s the same group responsible. If you’d spoken up, we might have been able to prevent that incident.’

  I squirmed. ‘I know that now. Sorry.’

  ‘However,’ the other officer flashed me a smile, ‘thanks to this footage, we should be able to crack this. Just to double check – you say you can definitely identify one of the three young men you filmed in the shop.’