By Any Other Name Read online

  When I turned the corner into Green Street, I paused, listened . . .

  Splish, splash . . . following me.

  Before the summer, I wouldn’t even have glanced over my shoulder. But that was before. Before Katya. Now I did look back. There was a man in trainers, his hood up to hide his face.

  I walked faster, my sprained ankle twingeing a little at the change of pace. Once I got to the end of Green Street, I’d be in Arnold Road. That would be busier . . . other people . . . and that bit closer to home . . .

  The footsteps splish-sploshed faster.

  I sped up until I was nearly jogging.

  I heard the hiss of a car’s tyres on the wet road behind me. I glanced back. He was closer, much closer, and there was a silver car cruising alongside, keeping pace with him . . .

  I dropped my violin case and bag, and ran. Pain shot through my ankle and I half hopped, half staggered, fighting back a wave of nausea. But I had no choice than to carry on: I couldn’t stop, no matter how much it hurt. He was too close.

  I slushed through puddles and swallowed rain in with air as I tried to run-hop fast enough to stay ahead.

  The slap of trainers behind . . . he was gaining on me . . . the hiss of tyres on the road . . .

  Then a hand at my neck, one over my mouth, jerking me to a stop.

  I tried to scream . . .

  Argh! Argghhh! Argghhh!

  I shoot upright, sweat running cold down my back. I can hear the screaming. It’s not me. Not me. My heart hammers against my ribs.

  Is it them? . . . Are they here? . . . Who’s screaming?

  My eyes adjust to the dark. I’m in bed.

  In. Bed.

  There’s a crash, like a door slamming back . . . feet pounding . . . a second crash . . .

  My head falls back on to the pillow. In bed. In the new house, and it’s Katie who’s screaming. Just Katie. And now I can hear Dad’s voice soothing her once she starts to quieten down.

  More feet on the landing, and my door opens a crack.

  ‘Mum? Is she OK?’

  ‘Yes, she’s fine.’ Mum crosses over to my bed and sits down. ‘She woke up and couldn’t work out where she was, that’s all. It was bound to happen. Did she wake you or haven’t you been able to sleep?’

  ‘She woke me.’ I swallow and my throat’s dry so I reach for the water by my bed. ‘I had another nightmare.’

  Mum’s hand finds mine in the darkness. ‘It’s moving, sweetie. It’s set it all off again. When you settle in, the dreams will stop. This will be the last time, I’m sure it will. Tim told us that when he arranged this, didn’t he? He said this’ll be a safe place. Darling, we’re a hundred and fifty miles from home with completely new identities. They won’t find us here.’

  I squeeze her hand. I don’t want her to go but I can’t tell her that. She’s tired. We all are.

  ‘We’ll go and look round your new school next week and buy your uniform. Then we can go to Paperchase and get some new pens and folders. That’ll be something to look forward to, won’t it?’

  Or dread.

  A new school. At least I hadn’t had to face that before. The last two moves weren’t long enough to involve school. Transition moves, they were called. A short stay and then change location again. Confuse the enemy. And give the police time to set up our new identities, which is way more complex than I imagined: all the documentation that’s needed and the lies they had to coach us in.

  ‘Yes, something to look forward to.’ I let go of Mum’s hand so she can go to bed. If I’m lucky, I’ll sleep through until the sun comes up. I feel safer in daylight, though that makes no sense at all. They can get you anywhere.

  On the day after the move, Mum says we should go out and explore. Katie claps her hands as if we’re about to go on an adventure. I’m tired and my arms ache from lifting boxes. I want to lounge around, not go out and be stared at like the new elephant in the zoo. Dad’s warned me about that: ‘When you first move into a village, everyone talks about you and everyone stares. You’ll get used to it.’

  But I don’t want to get used to it. I want to be an anonymous face in a city crowd, living in a place that feels alive.

  However, when Katie grabs my hand and pulls me off the sofa, I can’t say no to her. She won’t understand and she doesn’t notice how people look at her anyway, so I let her haul me up and drag me to the door with Mum.

  The street’s quiet. Katie walks along the pavement between me and Mum. She holds our hands and swings her arms, tugging ours up and down, up and down. She’s wearing her little backpack, and Charlie Cuddles, her toy monkey, sticks out of the back like a baby in a papoose – so he can see properly, she says.

  An old woman is weeding her garden a few houses up. She’s bent over, digging at the ground with a trowel, but she straightens up as we pass. I can almost hear her back creak.

  ‘Hello! Settling in?’ she calls. Her voice is croaky like an old person’s, but demanding too. The voice of someone who expects to be answered. It’s unsettling – Dad did say people are more inclined to talk to strangers up here, but it still takes me by surprise. Mum too, from the look on her face.

  ‘Have you moved far?’ Our geriatric interrogator gets her next question in before Mum can make an escape. The !Caution! alarm sounds inside my head. We have our prepared history ready of course, but when the questions actually come, our story sounds unreal to my ears and I’m scared that shows in my face.

  ‘Gloucester,’ Mum replies. Katie opens her mouth to protest, but Mum yanks her hand so hard that she squeals instead. Mum nods to the woman. ‘Nice to meet you. Must hurry. Busy day,’ and she charges off, towing Katie. I risk a look back once we’ve passed the next garden and the old woman is staring after us, mouth open wide.

  So that went well. We didn’t come across as at all suspicious. And snow is coal-black.

  Mum sighs as we get to the path leading to the main street. ‘It’s harder than you think, isn’t it?’ She shakes her head. ‘They talk you through it all, but when you actually have to do it for real, that’s quite another matter.’

  ‘She was nosy.’

  ‘Dad says we’ll have to get used to that – neighbours wanting to know our business. Apparently even strangers at bus stops will do it.’

  ‘Really? That’s just weird.’

  Mum laughs, rubbing Katie’s hand because my sister is still whimpering faintly and gazing at her in confusion. ‘When your father first moved south, he couldn’t get used to how unfriendly he found people there. I used to tease him that he was the oddball and that it was all down to a diet of black pudding and tripe when he was a kid. You don’t remember his mother of course, but she was the type of woman to force-feed a child offal.’

  ‘Ew!’

  Katie’s ears prick up. ‘Ew!’ she says. ‘Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew! EW!’

  Mum rolls her eyes at me and I mouth, ‘Sorry.’ But Mum lets Katie Ew all the way to the shops because at least now she’s forgotten about having her hand yanked.

  I scan the main street: two bakers, a butcher, a couple of hairdressers and a beauty salon, three cafés (one also moonlighting as a restaurant), a couple of general stores, a post office and a pet shop. And that’s just the shops on this street. There are more on the road leading up to the church, but I can’t tell what they are from here.

  The village looks very clean. I notice that immediately. There’s no sign of litter and the pavements look almost scrubbed. The main street is like a photograph from a country magazine. There aren’t many people about, but the ones I can see also look scrubbed, and freshly pressed too. Wholesome somehow, like the seeded, uber-nutritious bread Mum used to buy before Katie mutinied and decided she didn’t like bread with ‘bits’ in it and we had to go back to the flabby white stuff. Katie screaming at her toast at 7.30 in the morning is much worse for us than a few slices of white bread.

  ‘EW!’

  The whole queue in the baker’s shop turns to look at us as Katie yells when we wa
lk in. Even the woman serving at the counter looks up. My cheeks flush hot as they stare at us.

  ‘Yargh!’ Katie squeals at them. It’s a friendly noise, a kind of hello, but I’m not sure they realise that. Mum keeps a firm hold on her hand, but I let her go so they can join the queue.

  ‘Cake!’ Katie spots them straight away: slices of gateaux, carrot cake, chocolate fudge, Victoria sponge. Her face shines with excitement, but the queue frowns as one.

  ‘Yes, cake.’ Mum points to the shelves. ‘And bread.’

  ‘Bread!’ Katie points too. Then she squints at the loaves until she finds what she’s looking for and her pointing finger tracks her find. ‘No bits!’

  ‘Correct. That’s white bread.’

  ‘White!’ Katie grins. ‘No bits.’

  The frowns on the faces around us deepen. They don’t know what to make of this horrible, spoilt child. I stand behind Mum and Katie, my face sour. Who do they think they are to look down their noses at us?

  The woman at the front of the queue picks up her carrier bag from the counter, casts a last scathing look at Katie and leaves. We all shuffle forwards.

  ‘Doughnuts!’ Katie says in her too-loud-for-a-shop voice. She’s spotted the contents of the glass case under the counter. Her favourite is there, with custard filling and chocolate icing on the top.

  There’s a definite tut from the queue, and a cool wave of disapproval – I can almost feel it freeze my hot cheeks. And then I get a prickle of hate over my skin. How stupid are these people?

  We move forward again and Katie squeals. We’ve edged closer to the doughnuts and she wants to share her joy about that with the rest of the shop. And now, finally, there’s a flicker of doubt on their faces – Is there something wrong with her? Well done! Round of applause for you all, and a fat ring doughnut with sugar sprinkles for being the bright sparks . . .

  ‘Eeee . . . eeee . . . eeee . . .’ Katie bounces on her heels as we get closer still. Mum smiles, vague and placid. She’s better at this than me. I’m still bubbling with anger as the rest of the stupid queue start to get it. They glance down, then turn away. They turn towards anything, look at anything rather than us. I glare at all of them, even though they won’t know it because they’re not watching us now. I glare at every single one in turn.

  I guess the awkward thing about Katie is that she looks completely normal and she’s just young enough to pass for being badly behaved at first, especially when she has a tantrum. This is how it usually goes: stares, frowns; sometimes they say things to each other; sometimes they even say things to us in the case of the really rude ones. To be honest, the rude ones are easier to deal with because you can look at them with contempt and say, ‘Actually she’s autistic,’ and then watch them squirm. Mostly they don’t say anything though, but stand there and look disgusted. Either way, the result is the same. They duck their eyes down, ashamed of what they were thinking before they knew she has autism, and then they turn away. That’s how ninety-nine per cent of people react around Katie.

  Then there’s the other one per cent. The ones who hate. Who believe they’re so much better than her that they have the right to shout insults or throw things. They make me so mad that I can’t speak and the breath chokes inside my lungs just thinking about them.

  The woman directly in front turns to face us. She’s older than Mum with smartly cut grey hair and she winks at Katie. ‘I like doughnuts too.’

  ‘Eeee!’ Katie says in delight.

  I don’t know why my sister makes these noises because she can speak perfectly well when she wants. I guess she must like the sound.

  Mum’s looking at the woman with a half-smiling, half-wary expression. And the woman looks back at her with a question in her eyes – What’s wrong with her?

  Suddenly I hate, hate, hate the stranger for that. Even though she’s the one being nice when the others aren’t. Even though she’s right and there is something wrong with Katie. I hate her for being able to understand what Katie can’t and never will. I hate her for being normal when Katie isn’t. And I hate her for not having to live the way we do now, memoryless and past-less. And of course, that’s to do with Katie not being normal too. Because if she had been normal she would never have noticed what she did and we wouldn’t –

  It all boils up in my throat and I know I’m on the verge of screaming, so I hurry out of the baker’s and across the road to look in the window of the gift shop opposite. I’m still shaking when Mum comes out. Katie’s chewing on her doughnut. Waiting is another of those things she can’t understand, no matter how hard we try to teach her.

  ‘OK?’ Mum asks.

  ‘Yeah, just got . . . you know . . .’

  She nods. ‘But one good thing about being in a village is that they’ll all know who she is soon and they’ll stop staring.’

  I know she’s right, but the hate is still lodged in my throat like unchewed bread.

  Later that afternoon, I’m hanging out in my room trying to sort out where to put my stuff when Dad calls up, ‘Holly, she’s here!’

  I want to pretend I haven’t heard but Dad will only come up if I do so I abandon the pile of shoes and trudge down the stairs.

  ‘Hi, Holly.’ There’s a woman with a fakely bright smile sitting in the kitchen. ‘Here to see how you’re settling in.’

  One of the witness protection mob who’s been assigned to check up on us here. I prefer our guy from home. OK, I’ve not even met this woman properly, but I still prefer our guy from home. It’s one of those knee-jerk things – as soon as I see her, I don’t like her.

  I raise an eyebrow at her and sit down at the table without a word. Dad’s glaring at me as if he can glower me back into good behaviour.

  Mum ignores me and tactfully changes the subject. ‘So everything’s set up for Katie at St Antrobus?’

  ‘Yes, we’ve managed to get her records transferred with her previous school blanked out. The Head’s been very discreet – as soon as we told her it was a child protection issue and a police matter, she stopped asking questions. I’m happy we’ve got that angle covered. It’s such a small school that she’s the only person who’ll have access to those records anyway.’

  ‘Oh, well done!’ Mum says. ‘That’s a major weight off my mind.’

  ‘Yes, just a pity we can’t do the same for Holly. But too many people have access to a school file in a comprehensive and I think we’re safer sticking to the cover story you agreed with your Liaison Officer in London.’

  She turns to me again. ‘You are quite happy with that story, Holly? Because you’ll have to maintain it.’ She smiles – patronisingly, I think. ‘I don’t know if they told you this, but most witness protection placements fail because the people involved find it too difficult to keep to their stories and they begin to share things they shouldn’t with friends.’

  Really? No way.

  Dad glares again.

  ‘Yeah, they mentioned that.’

  ‘And the people who find it hardest are the children. We recommend no use of social media. It’s simply too risky with the potential for posting photos and –’

  ‘Yes, like I said, they already went through that with me back in London.’

  ‘Oh.’ She deflates a bit. ‘Good. Well, if you are having any difficulties and need to talk things through, your parents have my number. You can give me a call. How’s that sound?’

  ‘Great. Thanks.’

  ‘She’s finding settling in hard,’ Mum cut in. ‘Not feeling quite herself yet.’

  ‘Oh, of course.’ The patronising smile came back. ‘It must be very difficult. I would have hated it at her age.’

  Yes, you would. You really have no idea how much.

  As soon as I can escape, I run off back upstairs and put my earphones in and turn my iPod up high.

  Dumb woman. I mean, who wouldn’t want to spend the rest of their life spinning a web of lies and looking over their shoulder the whole time?

  I don’t have to be asleep. Th
e nightmares follow me into the daylight some days. I can sit on my bed and smell the wet earth like I’m lying face down in the forest again, the scent of the trees like it’s all around me. They’re out there searching for me. The gun’s in his hand. And I wonder if it hurts, being shot in the head. Will I know or will it be over too quickly to feel the agony? How will they explain to Katie that I’m dead? How will they get her to understand?

  My breath comes in short pants like I’ve been running. My skin’s icy like I’m lying on cold winter ground, even though I’m curled up in a ball, face buried in my pillow. I’m choking on tears and I just want it to stop.

  Wednesday morning, 8.30 a.m., and I’m walking down the road to Daneshill High School. There’s tons of people in front of me going the same way in twos, threes and bigger groups. I trail behind on my own. That’s fine; walking along here alone is fine, as long as I don’t look as if I’m trying to latch on to the others like some desperate case.

  Ahead at the school building, all glass and steel front with shabby Portakabins tucked at the rear, the coaches pull up and bodies in uniform stream off. The bus bays turn into a sea of black sweatshirts pooling out over the tarmac.

  I don’t want this flutter of fear to be here inside me, but it is all the same.

  I expected to have time to get ready for this day. Mum took me into the school on Monday to look around and somehow, an hour later, I was signed up to start immediately. They even sold us a sweatshirt and polo shirt on the spot. No escape – a uniformed Holly, signed, sealed and ready for delivery. It was the Head’s fault. Because the exams are so close, she said I should start straight away.

  Lots of the girls appear to be wearing skirts. Really short skirts, some just a few centimetres below the hem of their sweatshirts. My last school would have sent me home for dressing like that. Good thing Dad doesn’t know – he’s already been bitching about how low the exam results are here, even though Mum reminded him we don’t have much choice because of having to be near a special school for Katie. He’s a total uniform fascist though, as if having a blazer and tie makes you better at exams. Fortunately Mum’s a bit more chilled, though she won’t allow me to wear make-up for school. She did give me a manicure last night to cheer me up – soaked my hands, pushed my cuticles back and rubbed oil into them, buffed my nails until they shone just as much as if I had clear varnish on them. Gave me a facial too, to make me feel better about her no make-up rule. I told her the other girls would be wearing it, but she wouldn’t give way, except for letting me apply a tiny stroke of brown mascara. I hate my eyelashes – way too blonde – and she knows that.