Silent Voices Read Online Free PDF

building. He didn’t like it in there. Apart from the fact that it was a spooky old building, and he was alone here at night, there was the part of his past that he never liked to think about. The time when he and two of his friends had come here, and everything since had turned sour.
    Everything.
    Sometimes he felt that whatever had happened to them that night had stained his life, each day that followed becoming steadily darker as a direct result of them coming here, to the Needle. And the end point, the final blackness, lay just up ahead, at the end of his days, waiting for him like an open mouth.
    Brendan’s throat was dry. He tried to swallow but it was difficult.
    There came another sound from deep inside the building: a short, sharp impact, like something being thrown against the wall.
    “Shit.” He said it louder this time, but the curse brought with it little bravado. Brendan was scared, and there was no way of ignoring that fear. So instead he embraced it, tried to take strength from his terror. For a second he could even pretend that it was working.
    Brendan had been inside the Needle many times since the childhood experience that even now he struggled to remember; he had fought long and hard to conquer his fear of the place, and had finally arrived at a state of compromise. He was physically able to enter the tower block, but he would never feel truly at ease within its walls: his psyche began to tremble whenever he walked there, and he knew the footsteps he heard echoing around him as he did so were not necessarily his own.
    Brendan pushed through the main doors, feeling as if he were taking a step backwards through time, drawing close to an event that he could never quite grasp and claim as his own. A soft breeze stroked his cheek; dust drifted in the dimness; tiny sounds seemed to move towards him from all sides.
    “If you don’t get the hell out of here, I’m calling the police. There’s a fast response time. They’ll be here before you can even get past me to the door.” He tried to sound brave, to make his words seem fierce, but all he felt was small and lonely, like a little boy trying to act like a TV tough guy. He didn’t even have his two-way radio; he’d left it back in the security cabin.
    More sounds emanated from the depths of the building. There was definitely someone else in there, moving around on the ground floor. He tightened his grip on the torch, the only weapon in his possession. It was heavy, rubber-coated, and once, on another job, he’d knocked someone unconscious with a blow to the head. He’d been trained in subduing an opponent, but wasn’t what anyone would call a natural fighter. He knew some basic technique, but that was all. If he came up against a hard man who knew what he was doing, then Brendan would have no chance.
    He peered into the dimness, trying to make out shapes. There was evidence of someone staying here: an armchair, a row of old television sets, all turned to face the wall, several heaps of what looked like clothing, a burst mattress, the remains of a kebab and its wrapper scattered across the floor. The walls, when he flashed the torch beam across them, were covered with graffiti: gang tags and obscure band names, phone numbers that you could call if you wanted a blowjob. The air smelled of hops and old cannabis fumes. The floor was covered with all kinds of loose material, and for a moment he caught a whiff of what smelled like shit.
    He stared at the doorway ahead of him, and it was only after the figure crossed the space from left to right that he realised he’d seen someone.
    Brendan twitched in shock; a delayed reaction, a strange little side-step because his body was unsure how to react. “I’m armed!” He gripped the torch even tighter, hoping that he would not have to use it – or if he did, that he managed to get in the first blow and it was hard enough to count.
    The figure crossed the doorway again, a dark silhouette moving this time from