And she had the saddest eyes I’d ever seen.
Fraser does text me after we get back from the park. To ask me out. He wants to take me ice skating at the weekend. I’ve been to ice rinks before and I’m good enough not to make a total fool of myself so I say yes. Maybe he’s one of those boys who don’t like to mix time with his friends with time with the girlfriend. Is that why he blows hot and cold?
I feel like saying no and telling him to forget it permanently after the way he looked at Katie, but I hardly know anyone in Daneshill who isn’t associated with him and I don’t feel brave enough at the moment to have no one to talk to in school.
I can live with them leaving me out of stuff away from school because I’ve got my family and it’s not like being left out by my old friends. I don’t feel anything for these guys. There’s no connection.
I want to open my Facebook account so badly. Just to see their photos again – Tasha and Co. of course, not Dan. But it won’t make it any better. We’re never, ever going back.
They told me that. This is a forever thing.
Three days after the policewomen visited me in hospital, the doctor pronounced me well enough to be sent home. My head wound was healing and the headaches had stopped. They were still sedating me at night for the nightmares but no one seemed surprised at that. I was collected by a detective and she took me to a police station just outside London where a man came to meet me and told me he was the Witness Protection Liaison Officer. ‘Just call me Tim,’ he said, the original name he introduced himself with being something long and unpronounceable that sounded Polish, but he said it so fast I wasn’t sure. Mum and I nicknamed him Tim W-P eventually, like it stood for a double-barrelled surname or something. He had a nice smile and a face I wanted to trust, and for the first time since I walked home from my music lesson over a week ago, I felt safe.
‘How’s your head?’
‘OK now, I think.’
‘You’re a very lucky girl. And a very brave one. I hear you put up quite a fight.’
‘I didn’t have much choice. Is there any chance of them being caught?’
‘We’re trying. But you’ve got to understand, these men are working for a powerful group in the criminal world with a lot of connections. That’s why we’ve advised your parents that the safest option for all of you is to go into witness protection. They’ll stop at nothing to remove a witness who could link them in any way to the Chernokov kidnapping.’
‘Where are Mum and Dad?’ In retrospect, I wonder why this didn’t freak me out. But after witnessing Katya’s kidnapping and then escaping from an attempted murder, I didn’t feel very freaked by the idea that the police wanted to keep us safe.
‘In a hotel in Norfolk waiting for you. As soon as you can join them, we’ll move you to a holiday cottage in Devon. It’s all arranged. You’ll stay there until we can set up your new identities, which will probably be January now that Christmas is so close, so your story will be that you’re having an extended family break over the holiday season.’
‘And when the new identities are ready? What does that really mean?’
‘Then you’ll be moved again. Gloucester, we think. We use these short transition moves in the beginning to prevent you being tracked, and the one after Christmas will be for a couple of months so that you have the chance to get to know a town well enough so that when we do move you on, you can sound as if you came from there. You have to be convincing enough to fool anybody who knows the place.’
‘Oh.’ It was all getting a bit much to follow. I needed space to think.
‘As to what the new identity means, well, basically you cease to exist as Louisa Drummond. We give you a new name and passport, set up doctored records for you when and where you need them and give you a new life in another place. You won’t have any contact with anybody you know from your life now. After the trial, we’ll consider letting you exchange letters with relatives, but they’ll have to come through us. Until then we recommend total non-contact, with the exception of one letter to very close relatives to let them know you’re safe and not to worry.’
I cease to exist . . .
‘What will my name be?’
‘You can choose. Your parents picked the surname Latham already, so choose something to go with that. I need to go and arrange the cars and the concealed escort so maybe you can choose a name while I’m away doing that. We’re going to move you in a couple of hours, once it gets dark.’
‘Will I have to change my appearance?’
‘Not drastically. We usually recommend a change in hairstyle, but to be honest, given the situation with your little sister, our approach is going to be to put you in a location where they will simply never track you down.’
Katie . . . I hadn’t given a thought to her. She must be terrified. This would be a living hell for her.
‘Is she OK?’
‘A bit unsettled and upset, your mum said, but I bet she’ll cheer up once she has you back. It sounds like she’s missing you.’
They took me to a room when he went and they gave me a book to choose my new name, along with a cup of hot chocolate. And then they left me there alone.
When I remember Katya holding my sister’s face and smiling at her, calling her Katyenka, I also remember why it has to be this way. Why I can never back out, no matter how much I want to.
I have to try to make my life here now. Maybe if I could have said goodbye it would have been easier.
Something kind of strange happened later that night after I got back from the park. Dad was out late working, and Mum wanted the oven cleaner from the garage. She had her head in the oven, attacking it with wire wool, so I was sent out to get it. Typically for this stupid house there’s no back door to the garage so you have to go in through the main up-and-over thing, which I hate. It’s heavy and shakes when you lift it and it always feels as if it’s about to come off. The wind was gusting up into a gale and whipped the front door closed behind me. I fought with the garage door to get it open and then ran inside to pick up the bottle Mum wanted. Then I had to try to get the stupid thing shut again. I wrestled with it for a moment, dropping the oven cleaner on the ground as the wind slammed the door back up out of my hands. Swearing, I took the bottle indoors before I went back to try and wrench the door down.
But the wind was too strong and it battered the door up out of my grasp again, slamming it against the top of the mechanism with an echoing crack that made me think it was going to come off its hinges. It shook violently and I took a step back, sucking my fingers. It felt as if my fingernails had been wrenched off. ‘Stupid, stupid thing!’ Now what did I do?
Someone walked round me, who reached up and grabbed the door. I took another step back as I recognised him – Emo. He was with an older boy, who stood behind, waiting for him and looking at me with interest.
Emo pulled the door down with annoying ease and settled it back into place. He gave me a brief nod and walked off back to his friend without a word, and they went off together down the street.
I couldn’t decide how to feel. Part of me was mad that I’d needed his help, especially when he was so . . . GRRR! But then part of me was pleased I wasn’t still there trying to get the stupid door to close either. Like I said, kind of strange.
That boy is so, so weird.
The next day after school, Mum sends me to the baker’s to pick up some French bread to go with dinner. On the way back, there’s a knock on the glass as I pass the coffee shop. I jump a mile until I see Lucy inside. She waves at me. Gemma’s sitting beside her and smiles, though I think she looks unenthusiastic about it, and Cam is with them, with her back to me.
Lucy beckons me in, waving her coffee cup as if she wants me to join them. I manage to slow my breathing as I go in, but my heart’s still thumping from the shock. So many little shocks make me jittery still. Maybe they always will.
‘Hi, Holly,’ she says as I go over to their table. ‘Want a latte or a cappuccino or something? My big
sis is working here this afternoon so we get free drinks while her boss is out.’
‘Oh, thanks. Cappuccino then, please.’
‘So what are you up to?’
I wave the loaf in its paper bag as I sit down, noticing Camilla is stirring her latte too loudly not to be making a point that’s she unhappy about me being here. Gemma looks a bit sour too, probably to keep in with Cam. She was perfectly fine with me in school earlier. ‘Went to the shop for my mum. How about you?’
‘Just met Cam for coffee and then I’m going home for dinner. I’m grounded tonight because Dad thinks I’m not working hard enough.’ She makes a glum face at me. ‘If I worked any harder I think my head would explode.’
I remember what Fraser said about her dad being strict and nod sympathetically. ‘How about you, Gemma?’
She shrugs non-committally as Cam stirs the spoon so it clanks against the coffee glass. ‘I don’t know really. Not sorted it yet. We’ll probably go out later. Hang out around the village or something.’ She hesitates when Camilla glares at her. ‘Are you doing anything?’
Judging by Cam’s face, she’ll suffer for that later. Has that girl really got enough power to stop everyone wanting to be around me after school? No, she can’t have. Power like that over Gemma perhaps, because Gemma seems to idolise her, but not the rest. Surely? They have minds of their own. They must do.
‘I don’t know,’ I reply, keeping a careful eye on Camilla. ‘Revising, I guess.’
‘Yeah.’ Gemma grins and looks relieved. ‘I’ve got a load of homework I have to do before I go out. My mum’s getting really naggy about checking my planner and making sure I’ve done it all.’
Camilla snorts and finishes her coffee. ‘I’m going across to the playing fields later. Revision can wait.’ There’s a challenge in her voice to me, daring me to invite myself where I haven’t been invited. Nobody wants you there, she says with her eyes.
‘I should make it there eventually,’ Gemma says, casting nervous looks between us while Lucy fidgets uncomfortably.
‘So how do I find you on Facebook? I keep meaning to add you,’ Lucy asks. I guess it’s to make me feel better because you can’t miss the negative vibes coming off Cam. Is her change in attitude just about Katie? How pathetic. But . . . oh! I focus on what Lucy actually said and my skin turns cold.
Facebook?
Um . . . how do I get out of this one?
‘Oh, er, I’m not on Facebook.’
It’s impossible. To suddenly activate an account for Holly Latham with no friends, no past. No messages on her page. No posting history. It couldn’t be done. Way too suspicious. And that was one of the things I’d been warned against by Tim W-P.
‘Oh! Have you got Twitter then?’
‘No.’ They stare at me and I feel myself flush. ‘I’m not really into all that stuff.’
They’re still staring at me, like I’m a bearded woman in a freak show.
‘I prefer to text or do my social life face to face.’
‘Jeez,’ Camilla drawls. ‘How twentieth century.’
I sniff. ‘You think?’
She curls her lip in return. ‘It’s kinda weird.’
‘Yeah, well, whatever. People should just do what they think and act how they feel. Live how they want and not do what everyone else expects. That’s what I think.’
Camilla gives me a sickly-sweet smile. ‘Of course you do.’
My heart is pounding in my chest with the effort of lying and it’s making it harder to breathe. I get up. ‘I should get back with the bread. Thanks for the coffee, Lucy. And you two have a good time tonight if you do go out.’
‘Any time,’ Lucy says, and Gemma gives me a placatory smile. But Cam glowers.
Why is she suddenly being like this? It can’t just be Katie. There must be something else going on.
I shrug at her and smile at the others, then leave.
It takes until I’m home for my heart to calm down. Why wasn’t I better prepared for that question? Stupid, stupid, stupid.
But no matter how witness protection prepares you, the first time something happens you never do know how to deal with it. I guess that’s where the danger lies. Why so many people mess this kind of deal up, or at least that’s what they told us. Too many people get careless and compromise their identity.
I don’t think they realise how hard it is. They might be professionals, but they don’t have to live it. I remember that first day we were in the hotel in Norfolk and we had to be our new selves . . .
We were getting ready to go out. There was a supermarket within easy driving distance, we’d been told. The new driving licences weren’t ready yet, but if Mum or Dad got stopped by the police they were to tell them to contact a certain number and that would deal with the problem. We put coats and gloves on, all being very careful to use the correct names and ignore Katie’s utterly bewildered face. ‘Boo?’ she said.
‘No, angel – Holly,’ Dad corrected.
She frowned. ‘Boo!’
‘I did tell you,’ Mum said to him, wrapping a scarf round Katie’s neck. ‘You’re wasting your time. She won’t understand.’
We got into the car and Dad drove us to the supermarket. I sat in the back with Katie. ‘Where’s our car?’ she grumbled.
I don’t know, Katie. ‘This is our car for now. We’re having a change.’
Predictably, she screwed her face up.
Mum skewed round in the seat to glare at me and distract her before she cried. I bit my lip and looked out of the window at the strange streets flashing by.
When we walked round the supermarket, nothing was where we expected it to be. It took ten minutes to find the eggs and in the end Mum had to ask an assistant where they were. Katie’s face crumpled when the sweets weren’t where they should be. And I knew exactly how she felt. Every time we turned down an aisle and it didn’t have the produce that our usual shop at home did, I felt like crying. It was stupid – when we went away on holiday I didn’t feel this way. When I looked at Mum, there were tears glistening in her eyes. Dad strode ahead, filling the trolley stoically. ‘It’s so stupid,’ Mum whispered, ‘to get upset over a strange supermarket, but . . .’ She didn’t need to finish.
Dad took us in the café for coffee and cakes, the way we always did at home if Katie had been good and not whined. The white cups were the same as the ones in our supermarket at home. Such a stupid little thing but . . . Mum and I gripped our hands round them gratefully. I saw her do it and I knew she’d seen me too when she gave me a tight smile and then looked away out of the window, blinking hard.
Fraser recruits his dad to act as chauffeur and drive us to the ice rink, which is on the outskirts of the city, about half an hour away. I suffer his father’s stony face all the way. He doesn’t approve of me, I can tell, from the moment he picks me up outside my house. I’m not quite their kind of people.
I feel cold inside with a shame that I shouldn’t have to feel because it’s not my fault we live here. A tiny, quiet voice tells me I shouldn’t feel ashamed anyway and I’m being a massive snob for caring what he thinks about my house at all.
Outside the rink, the buzz of city hits me. And it’s awesome. I close my eyes and let the traffic noise and the voices batter my ears.
So good.
Like home.
I’ve missed this so badly.
The foyer of the rink is busy and we have to queue for skates. Fraser slips his arm round my shoulders and then as we wait and wait, he slides it down my back so his hand rests on my bum. It feels like an invasion of my space. I tolerate it to examine the strangeness of this. Uber-hot boy getting touchy with me . . . and nothing . . . I’m just not interested.
I wish I could speak to Tasha’s sister about this. She’d know the answer. Or maybe Mum would? But that would be verrry strange, talking to her about boys like that.
We collect the skates and make our way to the rinkside to change. ‘So when you said you could skate a bit, how much is a bit
?’ Fraser asks, looking suddenly worried that I might eclipse him on the ice.
‘I can not fall over too much. Don’t worry, I’m not going to start racing you round the rink. How good are you?’
He laughs. ‘I’m not bad. I used to play ice hockey before it started messing with my cricket because I was picking up too many injuries.’
He holds my hand while I edge on to the ice. ‘Hold on to the side until you find your balance again,’ he tells me and pushes off to glide along, before he whirls round in a loop to come back to me.
A few staggering steps and I let go of the rail and try to skate. His hand hovers under my elbow in case I fall, but I don’t, and after another few attempts I find my ice legs and take off properly. When he sees I’m stable, he relaxes and takes my hand. ‘Hey, you’re not bad at all,’ and he sounds proud. I’m not as good as him so that’s OK, but I’m not going to make him look bad either.
Was it like this with me and Dan? All about appearances and power play?
I know it was, deep down, and I’m not sure I’m happy with that. It seems so . . . oh, I don’t know. Tasha and I used to think we were so great for keeping a boy dangling. We loved the game.
When you’re not operating at the top end of the league though, it’s a lot less fun. A little voice in my head suggests it might have been less fun too for the ones that Tasha and I played with.
I never meant to hurt anyone. It was just a game. Being tough. Being in control. The buzz of having a new power and using it. The power of being a girl that boys wanted.
Fraser laughs as a fat girl loses her balance and crashes over. ‘How did she not crack the ice?’ he says with a snigger. I laugh with him but I don’t find it very funny.
We skate around for a while and it’s kind of fun. Or is it? It’s like I feel it should be but it just isn’t making the grade. Once I’d have flirted like crazy with Fraser because he’s cute, but I’m just not getting any buzz from it. I keep remembering how he looked at Katie and I can’t bring myself to smile at him in that way.
By Any Other Name Page 9