Don’t Say a Word: A gripping psychological thriller from the author of The Good Mother. A. Bird L.

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      ***

      Chloe. Sitting on a sofa. Her hair a wild loose mane, frizzing out to the side of her head. Eyes bright and wide and dark, made darker by the liquid eye liner surrounding them. Knees hugged up to her chest. I’m sitting next to her. On the other side of her, my knees bunched up too, touching almost like mirror images of each other. My hair tied back, not wild at all. We’re holding hands.

      ‘We’ve got to do it; you know that,’ says Chloe.

      ‘How? No one will believe us.’

      ‘They will. We’ll make them. We’ll be safe then. As long as we never ever tell anyone. They won’t know who to blame then, will they?’

      I pretend to shake her hand, like I’m making a pact. Except I find I’m not shaking her hand at all. I’m shaking Josh’s hand. He’s there, in a nappy (except he’s as old as he is now), sitting in between us. Chloe gradually fades away, disintegrates into the light.

      ‘Wait, Chloe! What will I do without you?’

      She doesn’t answer. She pretends to be gone. But she’s not gone. I can feel her. I know she is still there, watching.

      ***

      I wake up in cold water, shivering. What the …? Christ, I didn’t know life malaise had spread to day-to-day tiredness. My fingers are shrivelled, my hair is wet, and the flat has a too-quiet feel. I clamber out of the bath and, shivering, grab my bathrobe from the back of the door. Push the recurrent Chloe nightmares to the back of my mind (‘it will take a long time for your subconscious to move on’ I was told).

      What’s happened while I was sleeping? Hugging myself, I pad along the dark corridor to Josh’s room, and put my head round the door. There he is, sleeping sweetly. Of course, what else?

      I’ve left his curtains open, though. Silly. I must have been so engrossed in him that I forgot the more basic maternal requirements. Still Disney print – Mickey and Minnie Mouse are separated by glass (you get what you’re given; we haven’t replaced them yet, now I’m earning). I’m about to reunite them when I see the car outside. My car. But with the inside light on.

      Odd. Why would I have done that?

      Maybe when I was hunting round for my bag earlier?

      Do I need to go down and turn it off?

      I look down at my bare, soggy feet.

      Surely not.

      But if I don’t, the battery will be flat, we’ll need to call the AA, Josh will be late for important playground business deals again … Urgh. Bloody adulting.

      I pull the curtains shut and Josh stirs slightly. At least these days I don’t need to ‘shh’ him to sleep and rub his back, like when he was little. Tiny. In that first place. Jesus, what were they thinking, placing us there …? And maybe the back-rubbing was more for me than for him. Clutching him, facing the door, ready to dodge a bullet at any moment. ‘It will all be OK, Jen.’ All very well for you, love. You’re not the one who’s done this to yourself – to you and your newborn. Had this done to you, rather. We were the victims.

      Josh is really stirring now and I don’t want him to think I’m watching him in his sleep (again) so I pad out of the room. I slip on some jeans, a sweater, and some trainers, find the key and pull the door gently shut. Even now, even when he’s a big boy, I worry about leaving him in the flat alone. That’s why I put the rubbish out in the mornings when we’re together.

      There was that case, once, about a woman who popped round to her neighbour’s house while her kids were playing inside. While she was out there was a freak gas explosion. The kids died. How do you live with that? At least if she’d been in the house, they’d all be dead together. If all you’ve got are your kids, what do you do if they’re gone?

      Outside, I open the car and flick off the light. As I’m doing so, I see the slip of paper on the windscreen that I’d noticed earlier when I was rushing to pick up Joshua. Shutting the car door, I pick up the bit of paper and read what it says.

      I inhale sharply.

      Because on it is written: ‘WE KNOW YOUR SECRET.’

      What? The paper shakes in my hands. Shit. First the text message. Now this. We need to move again. I should go up and grab Josh now, put him in the car. Flee.

      Then I turn the paper over.

      ‘… Even if you don’t. We’ll find the secrets in your family tree and share them. Look www.secretancestor.com today!’

      Oh for fuck’s sake. Jen, it’s fine. It’s an ad. ‘We know your secret’ is a marketing slogan. You’re safe. Josh is safe. For once and for all, get over yourself.

      I stuff the paper in my pocket and let myself back into the block of flats.

      ‘Go to bed and get a life,’ I mumble to myself as I climb the stairs.

      I almost don’t notice the package on the doormat.

Chapter 7

      ‘I don’t live here, I don’t live here!’

      ‘You do. You have to stay!’

      ‘I don’t want to be friends with you. I have other friends, back in the other home.’

      ‘No you don’t. I know. No friends, no friends, no friends.’

      The chanting, from everywhere. No friends, no friends, no friends.

      Then the spitting, then the kicking. The hair-dragging. The head held out of the window, the ground too far but also too close below.

      No friends, no friends, no friends.

      ‘Stop it! Stop it! Let me go!’

      ‘You’re sure? You want us to let you go?’

      Her voice. The ringleader. Her, who I’d seen at another home, once before. Back again to torture me.

      ‘What’s going on? Chloe, what’s happening?’

      A loud voice, an adult voice.

      ‘Stop this at once!’

      And so they stop. She stops. I fall to the floor. People peel away.

      All is calm. The rest of my first evening passes without episode.

      But then, when I go to bed, there it is. An envelope on my pillow. One of those jiffy bags. I open it, thinking it might be a settling present from the home. But no. It’s shit. Literally. The envelope is fully of shit. A little welcome present, from my new friends.

      ***

      Josh is shaking me awake. I open my eyes to find myself sitting at the kitchen table with a half-built Lego spaceship in front of me.

      ‘Your package arrived,’ I tell him. Because it was addressed СКАЧАТЬ