Don't Say a Word

by A. L. Bird

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me Mick was out?’

  ‘Sorry, who is this?’

  ‘It’s Jen Sutton. The woman whose life you’re in charge of keeping safe?’

  ‘Oh, Ms Sutton, hi. Listen, now isn’t a great time, I’m –’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me Mick was out of prison?’

  ‘He isn’t. He’s still inside. He’s got parole coming up, but we haven’t received anything to say he’s out early.’

  ‘Is that “he’s still in prison” or “I don’t know if he’s still in prison”? It matters.’

  ‘Well, I’d have to check with the prison authorities to be one hundred per cent sure, but as far as I’m aware, he’s still inside; otherwise we’d have told you.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what I know – I’m getting messages under my front door telling me my son is going to be kidnapped.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m getting messages threatening my son. He knows where we live. We’re not safe. You need to sort it out.’

  The music in the background fades. I guess my news now sounds important enough for her to have come up for air.

  ‘What exactly happened, Ms Sutton?’

  ‘I’d left Josh in the flat with the child minder and –’

  ‘Wait, back up, Ms Sutton. The child minder? I don’t recall us going through an authorization process for that?’

  ‘You’re right, we didn’t. I’m sorry.’

  ‘So this child minder …’

  ‘Forget about the child minder. The child minder is not the point of the story.’

  ‘So you’d left your son in the care of an unverified stranger and then –’

  Oh fuck her. Fuck little prissy Sarah and her blinkered, rule-ridden little world. I want to hang up, but I can’t.

  ‘I went out to dinner with my date.’

  ‘And who is this date? Is this someone you can vouch for? Have you revealed your background to him?’

  Fuck this. Like it’s all my fault. ‘He’s a criminal barrister. He doesn’t know I’m in witness protection. He just thinks I have nice tits and probably wants to shag me.’

  ‘And will you be bringing this … gentleman back to the apartment you live in with your son?’

  ‘Look – listen. The restaurant had an M. Hardy who was meant to be there at 7.30. M. Hardy? Mick Hardy, right? But he never showed. I was anxious, so I asked the hostess. She said he’d called and left a message about being nearby but having to look after his son. So obviously I legged it home and –’

  ‘What makes you think that was suspicious, Ms Sutton?’

  ‘It was a threat, don’t you understand?’

  ‘It could have been a –’

  ‘So we rush home and –’

  ‘We? You took the man with you?’

  ‘He volunteered. He’s a good guy. I was worried about my son. He got me a cab and checked the apartment was clear.’

  ‘And was it?’

  ‘Yes, it was fine.’

  ‘OK, well, I’ll record your call, but I really think –’

  ‘And then I got a note under the door saying that next time my son would be gone.’

  There’s a silence at the other end of the line.

  ‘What did it say exactly?’

  ‘It said, “Next time, he’ll be gone.”’

  ‘Not your son, just “he”?’

  ‘Who else would it be? I’d just had a message at the restaurant about my son. Then I get a note under the door. It’s going to be about my son. About my Josh.’

  ‘OK, I can understand your concern. What would you like me to do?’

  ‘Make it safe! Tell me Mick hasn’t randomly escaped from prison! Confirm you haven’t leaked our address somehow. That Chloe hasn’t caught up with us. Jesus, I’d like you to protect me – that’s your job, isn’t it?’

  I can hear an inhalation of breath. But I’m the client, right? The service user? The one who gave over their life so the man they wanted could be behind bars (well, that should be their take on it, anyway)? I get to set the terms, now, surely.

  ‘Well, Ms Sutton, my options for you are a bit limited, it being a Friday evening. But what I’ll do is, I’ll see if there’s some temporary hostel accommodation available over the weekend for you to be moved to, and we can speak again on Monday. OK?’

  Oh, not a hostel. I feel tears form in my eyes. Not one of those horrible, horrible hostels again. I don’t want that. We’re beyond that. I want a bubble round our flat. Armed guards. Something like that. Not a hostel.

  ‘Is there no other way? My son, he’s asleep, and all our stuff, it’s –’

  ‘If you’re concerned about your son’s safety, Ms Sutton, either we move him into temporary children’s accommodation or we move you both into a hostel, and we review again on Monday.’

  Temporary children’s – No. No.

  ‘No. You are not taking my son. He stays with me. We’ll go to a hostel. Together. Then on Monday you work yourself out and we make a fucking plan.’

  ‘Of course, Ms Sutton. I’ll see who and what is available and they’ll be with you as soon as possible. In the meantime, I’d recommend you don’t contact anyone who isn’t verified by us.’

  And she hangs up. The bitch hangs up. She threatens to take my son, to tear us out of our home. She doesn’t know if one of the key people she’s protecting us from is out of prison.

  I’m back. I’m back again in those fucking children’s homes, no control over anything. I’m back, later than that, ten years ago in those shitty shitty conversations with the witness protection team, eight months pregnant, being told the best option to keep my unborn child safe is to give him away as soon as he is born – we’ll be less easily identified that way – and me pleading, pleading to keep him with me.

  And being told I can never contact anyone I know again. I can’t speak to my mum. My mum is an unverified person and I can never never make that call. Even when they told me my dad had died, I couldn’t phone her. I wasn’t allowed to tell.

  I try to cry quietly so Josh can’t hear me but the sobs, they come and they come and they come.

  How could I ever have thought this was a good thing to do?

  Why didn’t I just run? Hide under my own steam? Not mess up Chloe and Mick? Not get myself enmeshed in further State bureaucracy that I spent my childhood trying to flee?

  BECAUSE I WAS DESPERATE, screams a little voice in my head, sticking up for my past decisions. Because I was desperate and I thought there was nothing I could do. Until Chloe came up with her plan – and went for it. Do not apologize for going along with that. More than you have to. It was right for Josh at the time.

  But now we’re ten years on. Despite internal protestations, it’s hard to believe, without the threat of Mick’s punches spurring me on, that there really was no other way. Because here, today, what do I possibly say to Josh? What do I possibly, possibly say?

  Chapter 19

  It’s 1 a.m. when the door buzzer rings.

  ‘Hello?’ I half-whisper into the speakerphone. Let Josh sleep peacefully as long as he can.

  ‘It’s DS Jefferson and DC Frost here. Sarah Peterson called us?’

  ‘You’d better come up.’

  Here we go, then.

  I unlock the door and wait for them to come up the stairs. Up they plod. I expect to see them holding a body bag or a big drag net to carry us away in. Instead, they just have badges that they are keen to flash. It all looks OK. I invite them in.

  ‘Are you ready to go, then?’ the DS asks me. He is looking around. ‘Got your bags?’

  No. I don’t have bags. Somehow, it didn’t occur to me to pack.

  ‘It’ll just take a minute,’ I say. ‘I didn’t know how long you’d be. And it’s just for the weekend.’

  The policemen exchange looks. ‘Well, let’s see, hey?’

  Then the DS says, ‘And what about your son? Is he ready?’<
br />
  My son is asleep and thinks he will remain there, happily dreaming, until he wakes up peacefully in his own bed, before watching morning TV. I start crying again.

  The DC offers me a tissue. ‘I’m sorry, Ms Sutton. I know it’s a difficult time. But the sooner we get going, the safer you and your son will be.’

  I nod stupidly. ‘Where are we going?’ I ask.

  ‘There’s a refuge with a bed free,’ they tell me.

  ‘Just one bed?’

  ‘It’s a double. You’ll be sharing with your son for now. We hope to sort out something better in the morning.’

  ‘There isn’t a B&B, or a hotel?’

  ‘Protocol is that we go to a refuge first,’ the DS tells me. Of course, protocol – my old friend.

  ‘You’d better go and get your son and your things,’ the DC says, looking at his watch. Presumably he has his own bed he wants to get back to.

  I nod. I go and gather my things first. I can’t find anything though. My brain is wool, my hands are shaking, and my legs are jittering. What do I say to Josh?

  I’ve got to be strong. I’ve got to not worry him. I go into the bathroom and splash away the redness from my eyes.

  Then I walk across the hall and very slowly open the door to Josh’s room. I can hardly hear him breathe, he is sleeping so deeply. I have to do this. It’s for him. I turn on his sidelight. He shifts slightly, but carries on sleeping. I’ll pack his things before I wake him, then. I grasp around for some essentials – underwear, some clothes, his Lego spaceship, his current book.

  DS Jefferson appears at the door of the room.

  ‘How are you doing, Ms Sutton?’ he asks, not so gently.

  I hold up my finger. ‘One minute,’ I say.

  Then I have to do it. ‘Joshy,’ I whisper, sitting on the edge of his bed. ‘Josh.’ I shake him gently.

  He rolls himself over to look at me, eyes blinky and glary.

  ‘Mmwurr?’ he asks.

  ‘Josh, we’re having a midnight adventure. Come on, get up, put on these clothes.’

  He pushes himself up on one elbow and looks at the glow-in-the-dark clock on his wall.

  ‘It’s 1 a.m.! What’s going on? What are we doing?’

  His lower lip starts to quiver. This is not the routine.

  ‘Don’t worry, sweetie. It’s just because of that message I told you about earlier, when I thought there was an intruder. The police want to look into it, so we’re going to have a weekend away.’

  ‘But there was nobody here earlier!’ he says. Which is very very true.

  ‘There’s been new information,’ I tell him. ‘It’s just a precaution, but we have to go now.’

  Again, in the cosiness of his room, it is hard to believe in these outside monsters.

  But there was no mistaking the note under the door. Whatever Sarah may think.

  ‘Come on, sweetie. Up you get. I’m sorry, but we’ve got to.’

  I help him out from under the bedclothes and stumbling, still bleary-eyed, he dresses himself.

  ‘You’ll need a jumper too,’ I tell him. ‘It’ll be cold out. And bring your pillow.’

  ‘Won’t they have pillows where we’re going?’

  ‘You might want your own,’ I tell him.

  Maybe things have got better over the last decade. Or maybe they haven’t. Better safe than sorry.

  I lead Josh out into the living room. He blinks at the two policemen. They blink back. Suddenly, perhaps, they get it.

  ‘All right, son?’ says DS Jefferson.

  Josh nods mechanically.

  ‘Here, let me help with your bags,’ says the DC. He tosses the pillow onto the sofa. ‘You won’t need this,’ he tells Josh. ‘They have their own.’

  ‘I told you,’ Josh says to me.

  I pick the pillow back up from the sofa.

  ‘We’re taking it.’

  The DC shrugs.

  I scoot back into my room, and pick up a few sundries. My pillow too. As I pick it up, I see the bad old mobile that I quickly hid there this morning. Should I leave it? I stare at it for a second. Then I snatch it up and put it in my pocket. As much as I hate hearing what it says, at least if I know what it’s doing, I’m forewarned. In case it says she’s found me. Except she wouldn’t do that. She’d just turn up. The note under the door …? No. She wouldn’t have done that herself, would she? Not her style. I don’t think. But I don’t know. So we have to go.

  Back out of my bedroom again, I put one arm around Josh and follow the DS out of the door. I take one look behind me into the living room. I don’t know when – or if – we’ll see it again.

  Chapter 20

  The journey in the police car is quiet. There’s no siren in our wake. We are not an emergency. We are routine domestic Friday night disturbances, bed hopping from State-sponsored bed to State-sponsored bed. The policemen focus on the road and the subtle babble of their radio. In the back, Josh hugs his pillow to him and stares out of the window. I try to hold his hand. He pulls it away.

  Outside is a world Josh has never had to see. I look at my watch. So I thought. Approaching 2 a.m. The worst time. The time I was telling Dan about just a few hours ago, as though it were a historical artefact. Now, here it is. The street vomiters are out, drunkenly projecting their vileness into doorways filled with sleeping bags. I don’t know whether we’ll sleep through the night. I don’t know what the morning will bring. I don’t know where we’ll shower. I don’t know what I’m doing exposing my child to any of this.

  We turn off the main drag, away from the revellers, into the backstreets. I think we’re getting towards Bury Park, what I’ve heard people describe as the Islamic Quarter. I got lost here once, a few years ago, when Josh and I had gone to seek out a mosque for one of his school projects – got caught up in a demo (I don’t know who was protesting against or for what, but there was some kind of clash). The streets get less and less familiar, the signs less and less readable. We’re lost again now, so far as I know.

  But no: ‘We’re here,’ says DS Jefferson. He points at a terraced house.

  Josh and I crane our necks to see. There’s no sign or anything on the house. I guess the women and children don’t want to be found.

  The DS gets our baggage out from the boot of the car. The doorbell is rung and we are ushered inside. It’s too dark to see by whom.

  ‘This is Jen and Josh Sutton,’ the DS says. I don’t know why he feels the need to share our names so openly. We are in hiding, after all. A woman comes into the light. She is middle-aged, skin darker than mine, her hair in jumbled cornrows.

  ‘Welcome to your refuge, your home from home,’ she tells me with a broad smile, a pat on the shoulder. ‘You’re safe here.’

  I feel a little hand in mine. It will take more than pats and smiles to make us safe.

  The woman, who introduces herself as Caroline, takes us up a narrow staircase. ‘You’re in here,’ she tells me. ‘The others are already asleep, so quiet as you can, please. Your room is on the last on the right. The bathroom’s down the hall. Get some sleep now; we’ll save the admin for the morning.’

  And then she leaves us.

  Josh looks up at me imploringly.

  ‘The others?’ he whispers.

  ‘I don’t know, sweetie,’ I tell him, whispering.

  We walk past two other rooms. The doors are slightly ajar. One has a cot next to the bed. I make out the shape of a tiny baby. The other, I can’t see into properly; I’d have to stand and stare.

  Then I push open the door to what must be our room. I flick on the light.

  The room is tiny but bright. There’s a single bed – not a double, as promised – its head under the window. There’s a set of shelves on the other side of the room. I put our bags next to it. I turn to close and lock the door – but there’s no lock. We’d be sharing a bed even if there were two, then. I don’t know this place enough to trust it. I lead Josh over to
the bed.

  ‘It’s not so bad, hey?’ I say to Josh. ‘Let’s try and get some sleep.’

  Josh stares at me. He’d be wide-eyed if it weren’t for lids made droopy by sleep.

  ‘Come on, pop in,’ I tell him, lifting up the covers. I put a hand on the sheet. Cold. There’s a draught excluder, but the gaps in the window let the unwanted cold air in. Great if Josh gets a cold on top of all this.

  I climb in and gesture for Josh to get in beside me. He places his pillow at the head of the bed (a good job he brought it – there is only one pillow) and climbs in next to me. I pull the duvet over us. He starts off with his back to me, but in an instant he’s turned, burrowing into my chest. I can feel him shivering. I don’t think it’s just the cold.

  From along the corridor, there’s a sound of a baby crying. Followed swiftly by the sound of a woman crying, and another groaning. Neither of us speaks. There aren’t the words.

  I hold him to me, and I stroke his back, up and down, up and down, like I used to do when he was a baby. Slowly, slowly, I feel his body relax into a sleep. I keep my eyes open. I’m on watch. I keep them open, I keep them open, I keep them …

  ***

  Going into a shadowy room. Two sidelights keeping out the darkness. I have a bird’s eye view, floating around on the ceiling, watching three people in the room below.

  ‘This is your room,’ a woman dressed in blue is saying. ‘Come in, come in. Say hi to Chloe – you’ll be sharing with her.’

  ‘Hi, Chloe.’

  A nod in return. Maybe the girl has known too many room-mates. She’s in her pyjamas, probably didn’t expect a visitor so late. Or maybe she did.

  ‘I’ll leave you two to get to know each other, then. Try to get some sleep.’

  The woman leaves. Two girls staring at each other. They stare and stare and stare until the room is in daylight again. And still they stare and stare. People come and leave the room. The girls age – first a year, then two years, then they are women. The women both hold babies. They rock them, nurse them, croon little songs to them. Then Chloe snatches the baby from the other woman.