The Silent Ones Read Online Free PDF Page A

prisoners?’
    ‘With the inmates?’ Kamal narrowed his eyes. ‘They won’t stop you working.’
    Darren sat in the chair expecting more, more grilling about his life, more opportunity to back out. But nothing happened, so he stood up and retraced his steps, making his way out of the building back to the car park and his bicycle. He almost burst out laughing as he unlocked it. What was he thinking of! He could never work here! It would become a mad story he’d tell his mates when he saw them later.
    He got on his bike and coasted round the car park to the exit gate. He only saw the car screeching round the corner of the line of parked cars at the last minute. The driver jammed on the brakes as Darren clipped the car’s bonnet and half fell off his bike, ending up with his bum on the tarmac.
    The driver’s door opened. ‘God I’m so sorry, are you OK?’ A girl with bouncy blonde curls and a tight white T-shirt jumped out. Before Darren could say anything she continued. ‘I drive too fast, I know, I’m really sorry. Are you sure I didn’t hurt you? I’ve knocked you off.’
    ‘I’m fine I think.’ He stretched his legs and checked his bicycle. ‘The bike’s OK.’
    ‘This piece of crap car!’
    He looked at her clapped-out Mazda, dented and scraped on every corner, but he really wanted to look at her. She had big blue eyes and sounded breathy, as if she had been running rather than sitting still.
    ‘I’m Chloe. I like your hair. They let you get away with that in there?’ She lifted her chin and thrust it at the building behind him.
    Darren waited for the funny and clever reply that never came. ‘So you work here, yeah?’ he managed, eventually, getting to his knees on the concrete.
    ‘Kitchens. Shit I’m late, sorry, sorry, I need to run.’ She bent down and pulled at his hand. Her grip was tight and he got to his feet. He didn’t want to let go of her hand so he shook it instead.
    ‘I’m Darren.’
    ‘I owe you. Ride safely.’ She winked at him and ran back to the car. He watched her screech off to a parking space near the low red building, slam the door, run towards the entrance and disappear inside.

7
     
    D arren slept easier for the next two nights than he had for a long time. He felt his boil of curiosity about Olivia had been lanced; but then it began to grow again, larger and more intrusive, and he spent increasing amounts of time on the internet reading every scrap of information he could find about Olivia.
    After breakfast one morning, he knew he needed to look at something. ‘Mum, I want to see Carly’s stuff.’
    Darren felt Dad stiffen, tea mug frozen an inch away from his face. ‘Your mum and I were going to go to visit Auntie Jackie …’
    ‘You don’t have to be with me when I look at it.’
    Darren knew that the attic in the house was Carly’s space, where all that was left of her was stored, a makeshift mausoleum pressing down on their lives. No one was allowed to go in there unless Melanie was present; it was like she was guarding it, protecting the pathetic remnants of her daughter from being rifled over by family or police or, God forbid, journalists.
    ‘Well, I can help you when we get back from Jackie’s,’ Melanie said, ‘but I need to clear the bedroom so we can spread things out. Andy needs to move the blanket box – I can’t do that on my own, it’s too heavy, and I’m just too tired at the moment.’
    ‘Mum, I don’t need your help. I just want to … look at her things.’
    ‘Melanie, does it matter if he has a look at it?’ Andy asked.
    ‘I don’t want him to, not without me. I don’t want anything damaged.’
    ‘Mum, please!’
    She rounded on him. ‘Is this about the dog? Chester’s death has got to me too, it unsettles a person, that sort of thing.’
    ‘I just want to – just look at what’s left.’
    He saw his mum’s face go stony. She picked up one of the pillboxes that had appeared shortly after the cancer diagnosis and shook it