The Quality of Silence Read Online Free PDF

never abandoning a search and rescue mission while there was any hope left. People said it was ever since his son had died in Iraq.
    Yasmin had fallen silent. Still not saying anything, she got up and left the room.
    My bracelet vibrates which means there’s a loud noise. It’s like a James Bond gadget for deaf people so I know if someone’s shooting at me (the man in the special shop said that and I thought it was pretty funny). It’s meant to let you know if a car’s coming, in case you forget to look both ways.
    Mum comes in with our suitcases; it must have been the door banging shut behind her that made my bracelet vibrate. She doesn’t smile at me. She always smiles at me when she sees me, even if I’ve only seen her five minutes before; like every time she sees me she smiles because she’s super-pleased to see me again. Some people think she’s aloof. I’ve lip-read them saying that. The mean words are easier to lip-read than the soft warm ones. I think if she didn’t look so beautiful they’d see her better.
    She tells me that Dad is OK but there’s been a terrible fire at Anaktue. She says the police are being idiots and slowcoaches so we’re going to have to go and find him ourselves .
    They left the police station, dragging their suitcases across the compacted snow. The cold felt sharper now. She and Ruby were wearing liners inside their arctic mittens; their face masks pulled up.
    Where was he?
    She had to think it through, calmly, rationally, as the scientist she’d once trained to be.
    Captain Grayling had searched the airstrip thoroughly and it would presumably be a flat open area, so relatively easy to spot someone. Captain Grayling was probably right and Matt wasn’t there.
    So where was he? Think. Logically. Forget the cold and Ruby’s face looking at her. Focus.
    If Matt was at Anaktue when the fire started, what would he do? He’d try to help and, when he couldn’t, he’d go to call for help. In his haste she imagined his phone dropping from his pocket and falling silently onto the snow. So, not noticing, he trekked on through the storm for two miles then climbed the icy ridge to get a satellite connection. And then what happened? He felt in his pocket for his sat-phone and it wasn’t there. Maybe he started retracing his steps, looking for it, not knowing he’d dropped it right back at the village. How long did he search for it? Perhaps he then tried to walk to get help. He’d have been desperate. There were children in the village. Corazon. If he walked too fast he’d sweat and his sweat would freeze against his skin and he’d get hypothermia. But he understood the danger of hypothermia. It wouldn’t help him for her to worry. Focus. But she saw his eyes as he realised that there was no town or village or house to go to, no help for a hundred miles, but he kept walking anyway as if he could make it different, before finally knowing it was futile. She wanted to put the warm palm of her hand against his face. Focus. And all the time the police were searching Anaktue and the airstrip and it was dark, stormy, and their lights never spotted him because he wasn’t there. How long till he returned to Anaktue, to find it deserted and the police gone?
    Ruby was patting her arm; her suitcase had got caught in frozen slush at the edge of the pavement. Yasmin helped her to right it.
    There was a better explanation. He’d gone on a filming trip, just like she’d told Captain Grayling. There were in fact all sorts of animals to film, the Alaskan winter wilderness teeming with them. She’d been wrong not to believe him. And then something had delayed him; a dog getting injured, or the sled breaking. It didn’t matter. The point was he was nowhere near Anaktue when it was on fire . And, just as importantly, he’d have his emergency kit with him . And the phone? As he’d set off with the huskies he’d dropped it and didn’t notice; silencing snow again, lost objects dropping into it and