Try Not to Breathe: A Novel

by Holly Seddon

  “I can’t keep sharing you, J, not like before. Not now.”

  “I know you can’t. I don’t want you to. I just want to be with you and this guy. I don’t even want to go to the loo without him.”

  Fiona smiled. “You don’t have to not see her again, but just, I don’t know, just from time to time. What do you think? Can you do that?”

  “I think I should have done that a long time ago.”

  “Listen,” Fiona said, propping herself up. “You’re here in the hospital anyway. He’s sleeping now and won’t be doing much of that soon, so why don’t you go and tell Amy your news while you have the chance? Tell her about the baby and explain that things need to change. Explain that you won’t be back so often…like maybe only a couple of times a year.”

  “I don’t know, Fi, I think I need to make a clean break. Alex is visiting Amy regularly and trying to get some kind of justice for her. I can’t help with any of that so I should just leave Amy in her hands. Amy doesn’t actually need me, but you both do.”

  Jacob lay his tiny baby in the transparent cot at Fiona’s side. A burst of warmth in his chest nearly knocked him over. He kissed Fiona on the lips for longer than he had in months, maybe years.

  “I love you so much,” he said.

  “We love you too,” she answered, already half-asleep.

  Alex called Matt from the train to Tunbridge Wells. Please answer, please answer, please answer, she chanted silently.

  He didn’t seem entirely surprised to hear from her.

  “I spoke to Caroline,” she said, excitedly.

  “Alex,” he whispered, “be careful with that name, please.”

  “But you need to hear this, Matt. I know who did it. I know who did it for sure.”

  “Is this another hunch?”

  “No. This is cast iron and I’m certain that the same person who attacked Amy also attacked Caroline. Caroline’s willing to identify him but only if you’ll handle the case. She doesn’t want anything to do with the local police; I’ve convinced her that she can trust you.”

  A door clicked, the sound of the outside came whistling down the line.

  “Okay,” he said, “tell me everything.”

  —

  Matt was due to come to Tunbridge Wells the next day once he had taken Caroline’s statement. Now Alex had to reach Jacob and fill him in before anyone else did.

  She’d called Jacob’s mobile six times and left three messages, but no reply.

  There was only one place he could be. Alex got in her car at the station and broke every speed limit on the way to the hospital.

  Jacob took the steps two at a time up toward Bramble Ward, adrenaline pumping through his still wonky leg. He passed the spot where he’d fallen a month before and rushed on.

  Amy’s cubicle curtains were closed and there were no nurses on reception. In the background, the radio babbled with the sounds of old pop music. It was No Doubt or someone like that, someone he wasn’t sure at the time if he should like, and hadn’t had Amy around to ask.

  The office door was shut tight and Jacob was about to knock when he saw a man’s black shoes and black trousers through the gap under Amy’s curtain. His heart thumped and his head spun a little, thick with the exhaustion of a new parent.

  He coughed but no one came. He watched the black legs and feet. No orderly or nurse wore black, he slowly realized, they all wore scrubs of different colors. Suddenly he saw the feet walk quickly in the direction of Amy’s head. Jacob instinctively strode over and pulled back the curtain to see a dark-haired man leaning far too close to Amy, his hands denting the pillow heavily on either side of her face.

  I’m still running over the dream in my head when a familiar voice breaks my thoughts.

  It’s low, too deep to be a boy’s voice but soft for a man. At first, I can’t make out what he’s saying. I want to say to him, “Take a deep breath and speak clearly,” but I can’t. So I have to concentrate really hard to cut out background sounds like swooshes and beeps that I’ve barely noticed before.

  Coating everything is the sound of music, a song I don’t know, with lyrics that are interfering with the man’s voice and crowding out my own thoughts.

  I finally manage to focus a little on what he’s saying, I think I must have missed the most important bit—the bit that explains what on earth he’s on about.

  “I shouldn’t have let it happen,” he’s saying. “It should never have gone that far.

  “Can you hear me? I don’t know if you can hear me,” he adds, sounding worried but still whispering.

  Who are you? I can’t place you.

  “Amy, I’m just…I’m so sorry I didn’t stop it before it went that far,” he’s saying. “I knew deep down what would happen, I just didn’t want to face up to it. And now look where we are.”

  I wish someone would turn the bloody radio off. He stops talking for a bit, and even over the radio, I can hear him breathing. His breaths are almost louder than his words.

  “You still look like an angel,” he says, “but—” he whispers the last words so I can’t make them out.

  Maybe I should concentrate on his breathing instead, try to make sense of that. Why is he breathing hard? Why do people breathe hard? Exertion—maybe he ran here? Or excitement; but he doesn’t sound excited. Fear? Why would he be scared? I’m not scared. Maybe I should be scared.

  “They said you might be able to talk soon.”

  Who are “they”? And how do they know I can’t talk? Oh God, I really can’t talk.

  “And I wanted you to know that, if you can talk, you should say…”

  Why can’t I talk? Why the hell can’t I talk?

  “Amy, you need to tell…”

  I can hear curtains whooshing open and a man starts to yell loudly.

  But what do I need to tell? Who do I need to tell it to? What the hell is going on on the other side of my eyes?

  “What are you doing?” Jacob said, grabbing the man’s shoulder and twisting it round.

  “Jacob!” said his brother Tom, openmouthed and red-faced.

  Jacob staggered back and repeated the question. “What the fuck are you doing? What were you doing to her?”

  “I wasn’t doing anything to her, I was just talking to her, I needed her to understand.”

  “Understand what?”

  “How sorry I am.”

  Jacob’s stomach lurched. “It was you,” he said quietly. “Holy shit, it was you!” Jacob pulled Tom up by his black jacket, nearly knocking him onto Amy’s bed. He took a wild swing, which missed. Tom covered his face and ducked, knocking the chair so it sat tangled in the curtain.

  “My own brother!” Jacob yelled as Tom cowered in the corner. The curtains opened suddenly and Dr. Haynes and a nurse were standing aghast. The radio had been abruptly switched off, and after a second or two, Dr. Haynes said loudly, “Out, now, or I’ll call security.”

  Tom scrambled to his feet and ran toward the door. Jacob stumbled after him, calling, “Don’t you dare, don’t you dare run away again.”

  The brothers burst out into the corridor and Tom headed for the stairs but Jacob grabbed him and pulled him back, holding him above the stairwell so his dark hair flapped over the steep drop below.

  “You tried to kill her,” Jacob spat, tears streaming from his eyes and hands tightening on Tom’s shoulders.

  “Tried to kill who?” Tom cried. “What are you talking about?”

  “Amy! You bastard, you jealous little bastard, you tried to kill Amy.”

  Tom’s eyes widened, his pale face clammy. “No, no, you’ve got it all wrong.”

  “Did someone help you? Who was she seeing? Was that you as well?” Jacob’s words ran into each other as Tom shook his head furiously, mouth open but wordless.

  “You were jealous. You wanted a girlfriend like Amy, you always wanted whatever I had.”

  “You’re so wrong, it wasn’t me, I swear!”

  “You’re a liar!” Jacob’s ha
nds were creeping further around his brother’s neck when he heard the lift doors judder open and a voice cry: “Stop, it’s not him!”

  The brothers looked dazed and Jacob was panting heavily. Tom slumped to the floor in front of Alex’s feet and sat with his back to the stairwell balustrades, head in his hands.

  “He was trying to kill Amy,” Jacob spluttered, swaying on the spot lopsidedly.

  “No I wasn’t,” Tom said quietly. “I was talking to Amy. I was apologizing to her.”

  “Apologizing for what?” demanded Jacob.

  “You knew all along?” Alex asked Tom, walking a few steps to put her hand on Jacob’s arm to try to calm him down. He shook it off.

  “Are you Alex?” Tom asked.

  “Yes, how did you know?” Alex answered, looking between the two men.

  “My mum told me,” Tom said. “She said you were close to figuring it out.”

  “Mum?” Jacob repeated, staggering back. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Jacob, Tom didn’t attack Amy,” Alex said. “But I think he knows who did.”

  Tom put his head in his hands and sobbed. Jacob crouched down next to him. “What the hell do you know, Tom? Tell me now.”

  “I didn’t know for sure but I don’t know who else it could be.”

  “Were you there?” asked Alex.

  “No. But I’d seen them together. I saw them together that afternoon and he took her away in his car. Then she never came back.”

  “Who?” Jacob yelled and pushed Tom into the balustrade. “Who?” he yelled angrily, teeth grinding.

  Simon. My Secret, Simon. So it’s true.

  It wasn’t Simon talking, I knew that. But it took a while to realize who it was and that Tom was talking about what had happened. About Simon going too far. Which is, really, the foulest understatement in the world.

  If it wasn’t for last night’s dream—nightmare, whatever—I would have thought Tom was wrong. That the “too far” he talked about was Simon flirting with me. Or me with him. Or maybe, just maybe, he was on the other side of the door or watching through the kitchen window when we had kissed.

  But no. Last night, the dream reached the end. At the time, I still thought it was just a dream. But that didn’t make it any less terrifying. It was still seeping away when Tom’s voice appeared in my ear.

  Everything is silent now. No one is here to explain what’s happening. No mum, no Alex, no singing woman who washes my face. I’m totally on my own again. Alone with my memories.

  If I could feel cold, I would feel cold. If I could have started to shake, I would still be shaking. Perhaps I am but there’s just no one here to tell me that. The dream, the memories, the inevitable ending. Why I hadn’t realized until now that it was a memory, I don’t know. There’s so much I don’t know. I think Alex might know. I think this might be why she’s been coming here. I’d like to hear her voice explain it to me. Mostly though, I just really want my mum.

  Jacob sat in the wingback chair of his wife’s cubicle holding his tiny baby son and staring into space. Tears welled slowly before skidding down his cheeks, all color drained from his face.

  Fiona kept one hand on Jacob’s arm while Tom sat at the very end of the bed.

  “You knew all this time,” Jacob said eventually, without moving his eyes from his son. “You knew that Simon had attacked Amy and you didn’t say anything.”

  “I wanted to tell you,” said Tom. “I wanted to say something but you were in pieces. I told Mum everything and she said not to say a word. She said there was no reason to think Simon was involved. Mum was convinced it was a coincidence that they’d been together and it would devastate you to think Amy had cheated. She said it would break up the family.”

  “And is that what you thought too?”

  “I didn’t want to break up the family but that’s happened anyway. Deep down I think I knew it was him, though I didn’t want to believe it. I thought he was the coolest guy, I looked up to him so much, I fucking idolized him. I didn’t want to accept the truth so I handled it all wrong. I let Mum take control when I should have stood up to her.”

  Jacob looked across at Tom, who looked down.

  “Even if you didn’t know for sure what happened at the end, you knew he’d swooped in on my girlfriend, my underage girlfriend, that he’d had it in him to do that,” Jacob spat. “That’s not what normal people do. Normal people don’t sleep with their brother’s fifteen-year-old girlfriend and then disappear without a trace just before she’s found almost dead.”

  “I’ve got no excuse, J.”

  Fiona sat up. “Why did you go to see Amy today, Tom?”

  “Mum said she’d started to communicate,” Tom said.

  “That’s not true,” Jacob said, looking at Fiona. “That’s not true at all.”

  “She didn’t say she was talking, just that she’d started to show signs of communication or something. She thought Amy might eventually be able to tell people what had happened with Simon.”

  Tom caught Jacob’s eye. “No, J,” he said, “she didn’t think Simon had attacked Amy. But she was worried people would jump to conclusions. She was worried how you’d cope.”

  “Huh,” Jacob muttered. “Right.”

  “I just wanted to tell Amy how sorry I was for not doing anything. I thought if she was in there somewhere, she might hear me and understand. I wanted to tell her that if she could hear and if it was Simon that hurt her, then she had to let people know.”

  “Did she respond?” Fiona asked.

  “No, not at all, but I had to say it. I came before,” Tom said, apologetically. “And I didn’t say a word to her. It was a couple of years ago, around the time you got married. I’d decided enough was enough, I had to tell the police what I’d seen and let them handle it. Mum brought me here to convince me that telling the police wouldn’t make any difference to Amy. I was weak and it worked. I lost my nerve.”

  “What exactly did you see that day?” asked Jacob. “I mean, really.”

  Tom looked up, rubbed his eyes and ran his fingers through his floppy dark hair.

  “I’d seen Simon looking at Amy, when she came over and things. I thought he liked her. Or fancied her, or whatever.”

  “Really? I never noticed anything,” Jacob said.

  “Amy noticed. I didn’t realize she had but then I saw them in the kitchen once. You were in your room and they didn’t know I was in the hall. I heard Amy and Simon laughing and I looked through the crack in the door. I don’t even know why I looked but she was standing really close to him, playing with her hair. His hand was on her waist and then I saw him kiss her. On the lips. Just really quickly, not a full-blown kiss, just…I don’t know, not an okay kiss.”

  “Seriously?” Jacob asked. “You saw Simon kissing my girlfriend and you didn’t say anything?”

  “I’m really sorry, I didn’t know what to do. I just crept upstairs and then walked back down really noisily so they’d hear me and stop what they were doing.”

  “Did you see anything else like that?”

  “Not until the afternoon she went missing,” Tom said quietly. “It was while you were at judo club. Simon said he had to collect something so I was at home in my room. After a while I heard Simon’s car pull up.”

  Tom took a deep breath. “I heard the front door go, and I could tell he wasn’t alone ’cos I could hear a girl’s voice. I heard them coming up the stairs but I didn’t realize who the girl was. He didn’t use her name, he just called her ‘his angel.’ ”

  “And what happened when they came upstairs?”

  Tom looked down. “They went into your room.”

  “My room?” Jacob’s face folded in shock.

  “Do you remember how messy Simon’s room was then? He was packing all his stuff and I thought he must have used yours because it was tidier. I still didn’t realize who he had with him, I just thought it was rude to go in your room, that’s all.”

  “Why was Simon packing?” Fio
na asked.

  “He was leaving, going to volunteer in Africa,” Tom said.

  “Simon’s such a good person,” spat Jacob. “Such a good person that he slept with my girlfriend and then beat her to a pulp.”

  “Did you know for sure that they’d slept together, Tom?” asked Fiona.

  “Yeah, I did. Jake, I’m so sorry. I heard Simon say ‘Amy’ but I hoped it was a coincidence. I crept out of my room and listened outside and I could hear them in there.”

  “In Jacob’s bedroom?” Fiona asked.

  Tom nodded, blushing. “I just hovered in my bedroom doorway, I didn’t know what to do.”

  “Tom,” Fiona said, reaching with her fingertips to touch his hand briefly. “You were both so young then, you were just a boy. This isn’t your fault.”

  Tom looked briefly at Jacob.

  “What happened then?” Jacob asked quietly, looking down at his sleeping baby.

  “Simon came out smirking and I saw Amy straightening her clothes. The look on her face.” Tom shook his head. “She just burst into tears. I scarpered back to my room, I didn’t know what to do. They went downstairs and I could hear them arguing. I couldn’t hear what they were saying but Amy was getting louder and louder. She said she’d made a mistake and that they shouldn’t have done this. She was getting more and more hysterical. I don’t know what he said or did but she grew quieter and then I heard the patio door go. I came downstairs and couldn’t see them anywhere so I went back up to my room and tried to forget about it.”

  “And then they were gone?” Jacob asked.

  “And then they were gone,” said Tom. “I’m so sorry.”

  Jacob kissed his son’s tiny nose. He looked at Fiona, and then finally made eye contact with Tom. “I know you are, mate,” he said, “I know you are.”

  Alex woke up early. The crisp spring day nibbled at her toes as she took a lungful of morning breath.

  The starched sheets were still tightly swaddled around her but she dragged herself out into the chilly air and splashed her face with warm water from the basin.