The Silent Ones by Ali Knight Read Free Book Online Page B

swallowed the saliva that was forming too fast in his mouth. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t do it. He was closer to Carly than he had been in ten years. The secret of his sister’s whereabouts was locked within the head of the woman sitting comfortably in that chair. What Carly had told her as she was held captive or begged for her life was unbearable to think about.
    ‘You’ve done that bit.’ She was looking at the small figure of eight he had mopped over and over in front of him. Darren looked down at the spot. Before him hovered the secret he was desperate to know, that he was convinced had made his mum sick, had made his dad an alcoholic shadow of the man he had once been. How could he get her to tell him, just a cleaner, when ten years inside and the finest psychological treatment hadn’t managed it?
    ‘You look stricken,’ she said. Darren felt like he was holding on for dear life to the mop handle. He couldn’t take his eyes off her face. ‘Come on, Biological, you look like you want to unload a burden.’
    Countless times had Darren lain as a teenager in his bed at night and wondered what he would say to the woman who had murdered his sister. If he just had that one moment … So many revenge fantasies had come and gone, been played out in his imagination until they were exhausted. Now years later, when he was grown and life had dulled the pain, he had the chance to actually do it.
    ‘Come closer.’ Her voice dropped to a scratchy whisper, a sly movement crossing her features.
    He could have reached out and touched her. He was fighting within himself, desperate to recoil from her, but there was something he had always wanted to know and he was acutely aware that this might be the only opportunity he ever got to speak to her. He had to use the moment wisely. ‘Are the girls together? It would be nice to know that they weren’t alone, that they … that they had each other.’
    Olivia had been leaning forward, Darren realised, because now she sat back. Her face had changed; the smile dropped instantly and a hard veil was drawn over her features. ‘You said that like you actually cared.’
    Darren took a step backwards. He had to get away from her; she scared him. He put the mop back in the bucket. The sick was gone, the floor clean. He had to go to the toilets in the corridor now to pour away the water and put in a fresh lot, and detergent.
    The loud nurse was coming towards them, having taken Linda somewhere more convenient. Darren pushed the bucket away towards the door. As he waited to be let out, he looked back at Olivia, still in the chair. She was staring at him.
    Once outside, he ran to the toilets and threw up.

11
     
    D arren’s sickness didn’t last long. When he had recovered and changed the water in the mop bucket, he rushed back to the recreation room to try to talk to Olivia again and was buzzed in by the nurse, but she was no longer there. The last of the women were filing out of the room through a far door. Nevertheless, Darren felt, now that his stomach was empty and his fear had subsided, a sense of euphoria after his conversation with her that carried him to the end of his shift, to the disrobing in the changing room, past the security checks and out to the car park. He saw Chloe sharing a fag in the sun with some other people, shouted out her name and waved. She frowned for a moment, trying to place him, then her face broke into a grin and she waved back. ‘How many people have you run over today?’ he shouted at her.
    She giggled. ‘None, but I’ll keep trying.’
    She turned away and he saw her holding court in their smokers’ huddle, retelling the story of his near accident, and he felt a wave of happiness crashing over him like surf. Bring it on. Such was the perfection of the world, he could have walked right up to her then and there and asked her out and he was sure she would have squealed with pleasure and accepted. But he didn’t. He cycled home and bought