by Kate Blair
I stand still for a moment. I feel sick in this gorgeous garden, set in the sky above the Barbican.
“I thought he was going to hurt her,” I say.
Galen holds Tig tightly. “I get that,” he says. “And he was getting more violent, getting out more often. I was meeting a contact at the hospital, getting some supplies, and couldn’t leave Tig alone with him, so I brought her.” He kisses his sister on her head. “He knocked over the bookcase from this side. Got a cleaver from the kitchen, and followed us. When I saw him, I left Tig in the foyer. I thought she’d be safe there. I tried to talk him into going home, but he ran off. I don’t know what was going on in his head.”
Tig turns her face into her brother’s chest, and he pats her on the back.
“I’m so sorry. If I’d have known ….”
Galen shrugs. “We lost the dad we knew a long time ago. And if you hadn’t knocked him out, those bloody security guards or the cops would have murdered him.”
Of course. It’s shoot-to-kill at hospitals, after all.
I sink down to the floor, too overwhelmed to stand. “Why didn’t you tell child services you’re her brother?”
Galen wraps his arms tighter around Tig. “I’m only eighteen, and they think I’m a drug dealer. They’d never let me look after her. Probably wouldn’t let me see her.”
The two of them clutch each other on the couch, and I realize how unfair that is. How would I have felt if someone tried to separate Rebecca and I?
“She belongs here,” I say.
Tig peeks out through her brother’s arms. She gives me a little smile and I return it as warmth floods through me.
“What’s in your lap?” I ask.
She holds up the threads; blue, white and black. “Friendship bracelet.”
“It looks lovely. Is it for someone special?”
Tig nods, emphatically. “Someone who looks after me.” She grins up at her brother.
I wave a hand around the room, at the plants. “How did your dad do all this? Create this space without people knowing?”
“Some floors only have four or five flats, so it looks normal to outsiders. Dad took on two flats, and knocked a hole through the wall.” Galen gestures around the space. “Then Dad knocked down the other walls, and opened it all up for the plants.”
“What plants are they?” I ask, although I already have an idea.
Galen pats his sister on the head. “Tig,” he says, “Can you go to the bedroom for a mo?”
Tig gives us a funny look, but she jumps off the couch, taking the half-finished bracelet with her. She heads through the gap in the wall, and into the other flat. Galen stays seated on one side of the sofa, and I stay on the floor.
“You mean it?” he says. “You won’t call the pigs?”
“No, I promise.” I pause. “These are medicinal plants, aren’t they, Kieron?”
He runs his hand over his hair. “Call me Galen, please. I prefer it. Some are food,” he gestures to a corner, where tomatoes and courgettes grow. “We grow our own here. Benefits don’t stretch far.”
“But the others?”
Galen points at the plants on the other side of the room. “Sweet violet, mint, catnip, sage, quinine, and a load more. Not illegal to grow.”
“But they’re illegal to use.”
“Sort of. Except as flavoring. Bit of a gray area.”
I can’t imagine any judge considering this a gray area.
Galen runs his tongue over his lips. “You lost your sister, didn’t you? Wasn’t she about Tig’s age?”
“That’s why I had to do something when I thought she was in danger. I did mean to help.”
Galen picks at a loose thread on the armrest. “Can you tell me about ….” He points to my head. “I mean, I saw it on the news at the time, everyone did. But things are different from how they are on TV.”
I know what he’s asking. He wants to hear the story of how I lost my sister and my mother. I hate talking about it, hate reliving that day. But I can’t say no to Galen, not after ripping his family apart. And there’s something about those green eyes that makes me want him to understand who I am, where I’m coming from.
“Dad was a lawyer before he was an MP,” I say. “He prosecuted a lot of people. Thomas Bryce was just another criminal.” He didn’t look dangerous, either. Mid-forties, a little plump around the middle, clean shaven. And while Dad had become an MP by the time Thomas Bryce decided to take revenge on us, he was only a backbencher. It’s not like we had security or anything. We didn’t think we needed it.
Galen is listening, chin in his hands.
“Bryce worked in a bank until he was caught embezzling funds. Dad won the case, but Bryce blamed Dad for the severity of his sentence. He got tuberculosis. He said his life went to hell after that. After he ended up in the Barbican.”
“So he came for your family.”
I nod. “He said he was from the council and needed to check our basement. Had a fake ID. Mum let him in and left him to it. He must have been getting the gun ready. Psyching himself up. We were in the bathroom.” My voice breaks.
Rebecca had begged Mum to teach her how to put on lipstick. We were sitting on the floor in a little circle. Rebecca smeared it when she tried to apply it, so she had clown lips, and we were all laughing.
“I didn’t even see him. Didn’t hear him come through my parents’ bedroom. I heard a loud crack from my right and saw Mum jerk. Then she was slumping over, and blood was pooling on the floor.”
And I just sat and stared at my mother, trying to work out why she’d stopped laughing, why she was bent over, in a puddle of red. Thomas Bryce was standing in the doorway, still in his workman’s clothes, rage in his eyes. It didn’t make sense.
Then I saw the gun hanging limp in his shaking hand. He was staring at Mum’s body, like shooting her wasn’t enough.
Normalcy bias. Those long seconds where you don’t react. Where your brain can’t make sense of your situation. I didn’t have a chance to save Mum. But if I’d jumped to my feet the moment he shot her, I could have got between Rebecca and him. I could have grabbed the gun when it hung loosely from his hand and turned it on him.
But I didn’t. I just sat there as he tightened his grip and raised the gun again.
“He shot Rebecca next. Right through the heart, they said. I didn’t see it. I was looking at him. She was nine.”
I’ve imagined it so many times, the bullet entering her little body, the shock and pain on her face, still smeared with lipstick. I was already on my feet, already running at him. Too late.
“I was trying to stop him, but I didn’t move fast enough.” My cheeks are wet. I wonder when I started crying. Galen’s eyes are wide.
“I remember the handgun pointing at me, at my face, and then I was staring at the white tiles of a hospital ceiling.” I lift up my hair a bit on the left side. Galen gets up from the couch, and comes closer. “Here,” I take his hand, trace his fingers along the scar. “That’s where the bullet hit. He must have thought he’d killed me too.”
Galen’s touch is gentle, and tears glisten in his eyes. He takes his hand away, slowly, and sits down next to me on the floor.
“He blew his own brains out after that. A neighbor heard the shots, called the police, so help was there quickly enough to save me. I should be glad Thomas Bryce didn’t check me for a pulse.”
I didn’t feel glad in the weeks that followed.
“It wasn’t like the movies when the person wakes up as good as new. There were operations. Months of agony. Months of physio, of speech therapy. I had to relearn a lot.”
In the shapeless time that followed, I often wished I’d died there in the bathroom with my family. Or I wished Thomas Bryce was the one suffering. Wished I didn’t have to lie in my bed through the long hospital nights, unable to sleep for pain, mentally replaying the attack, thinking of what I should have done differently. Even when I drifted off, I woke to the grief crashing in on me, fresh as
if it had just happened.
“Dad spent most of that time in the hospital with me. He blamed himself for not protecting us — that’s driven his career ever since. He wants to make sure people like that face justice, wants to prevent it happening to others. He wants to make the UK safer.”
It’s harder to speak now. Harder to shove the words out ahead of the tears I know are coming. “He was the only one who understood. Everyone else kept telling me how lucky I was to survive. My mother and my sister were murdered in front of me and everyone kept telling me how lucky I was.”
I start sobbing, and hide my face in my hands, in the medicinal smell of the bandage on my palm. My back shakes and Galen wraps his arms around me, pulls me into the warmth of his chest, and holds me. I cry for my family, for myself. I let out the pain of my time in hospital, years ago, and the fear from the attack in the foyer. I lean into him, surrounded by his scent, earthy and fresh, like his flat. Finally, when the tears stop coming, I pull away gently.
He’s looking at me differently now. Like I’m no longer the alien he can’t work out.
“I guess you never know someone until you know their story.”
He wipes at my tears with his sleeve, and smiles.
CHAPTER TWELVE
PENTHOUSE FLAT, BANKSIDE, LONDON
FIFTEEN DAYS LEFT
GALEN LETS ME USE his shower. It’s clean enough, but the tiles are chipped, the paint peeling from the walls. I try not to touch anything, just in case. Galen lends me some of his old clothes. I tell him to keep mine. When I return home the doorman does a double-take.
“Costume party,” I say as I head up to our flat.
When I get there, I pace around. I turn on the big gas fire and sit in front of it, watching the flames as they warm the room. It’s good to be home. Good to be clean, and safe. I message Dad and he says he’s looking forward to seeing me at the Justice Gala.
I’d forgotten that was tonight. It’s a fundraiser for the National Law Party. As I pass the mirror by the front door, I catch sight of myself, and the state I’m in. I’d better rush if I’m going to be ready in time.
Mike drives me to the gala. Dad is there to greet me as we pull up, flanked by Special Protection Officers. No Alison in sight, I notice with relief. I’m wearing a floor-length plum gown and my mother’s jewelry. Elbow-length gloves cover the bandage on my palm.
Dad gives me a hug. “You look wonderful, as always.” He takes my hands in his. I flinch, and he obviously feels the bulge of the dressing under the satin. He turns my left palm up.
“What’s this?”
“Just a bandage. I cut my hand making a sandwich.”
Dad sucks in air through his teeth in sympathy, gives me a hug and asks if I’m okay. Once he’s established that it’s not a mortal wound, we walk toward the entrance. The gala is at the Banqueting House on Whitehall, a gorgeous neo-classical building, all white rectangles and tall windows.
“There’s something I want to tell you,” Dad says.
He must see me frown, because he shakes his head. “Not about Alison. She’s not coming tonight. We thought it would be best if she stays away for a bit. While you get used to things. And to let you and I have some more time together. But I’ve got some good news.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t want to think about Alison, But I know he’s trying to make things right.
“Give me five minutes when we get in to circulate, then I’ll explain. I’m looking forward to hearing your speech.”
I stare at him. “My what?”
Dad’s brow furrows. “Piers said he’d talked to you about this. That you’d agreed to speak.”
“That’s tonight?” I’ve read the emails, of course. But I can’t remember any of it right now.
Dad reads my terrified expression correctly, and pats the back of my hand reassuringly as we walk through the narrow doorway.
“It’ll be fine. Piers will have notes for you. And this is a friendly crowd. They’d lap it up if you stood on a table and did the chicken dance.”
We enter the main hall, with its soaring columns and chandeliers. People advance on my father from all sides. Soon he’s lost in the crowd of friends, donors and other well-wishers, and we’ve been separated and swept up into a maelstrom of small talk.
I forgot to ask him about the law on children running away from the homes.
People congratulate me on my exploits at St. Barts. I’m hemmed in on all sides by strangers who want to touch me, talk to me, say they’ve met me. The buzz of the conversation is too loud, like a plague of insects filling the room. This is a bad place for Dad to try to tell me anything.
He’s chatting to the Lord Mayor of London. I catch his eye and he winds up the conversation. They finish on a handshake. Dad grabs my arm and leads me off to the side before anyone else gets a chance to talk to him.
He leans in, right by my ear, so I can hear him over the chink of glasses and the laughter of the crowd. “I’ve spoken to my advisors about the Barbican, as promised.”
He checks there’s no one nearby. “Keep it under your hat, but as soon as we win, we’re sending in the army; clean the whole place up, arrest anyone with an outstanding warrant or who’s keeping weapons or drugs.” He leans back. He looks proud, like he’s brought me a present. “What do you think?”
I swallow. They’ll find Tig. They’ll find Galen’s plants. He’ll go to Quarantine, and she’ll be back in the home, with a disease and a criminal record. I shake my head, I’m already trying to think of how to tell Dad to change his mind when I hear my name. I ignore it.
“Dad …,” I say.
But there’s my name again. It’s Piers, and he’s heading toward me as fast as his leg will allow. He grabs my arm. “I need you by the stage. Where have you been? I hope you’ve been practising your speech.”
I was meant to be at home all day. What excuse do I have?
“Of course,” I say.
Piers pulls me through the room to the side of the stage. He shoves some cards into my left hand. I flinch as they hit the stitches, but he doesn’t notice.
“Quick recap, but it’s simple enough,” he says. “You’ll be great! Good luck.”
Then he’s gone. I try to focus on the cards. The first one is straightforward: how much my father and I appreciate their support. The second one talks about the importance of justice, and fighting corruption in government.
Then there’s a female voice, amplified, saying my name. I turn around. There’s a woman on stage, her blond hair sprayed into a bouffant so stiff a hurricane wouldn’t shift it. She’s holding a microphone and staring straight at me. She beckons.
“Talia Hale, everyone; our hero, and soon to be Britain’s First Daughter!” That gets a huge round of applause, but it makes me cringe. We’re not America, we don’t have first families.
Hands pat my back, encouraging me forward. What can I do? I head toward the stage, trying to get my thoughts under control, glancing at the third card. Something about vaccinations.
I pull my smile a notch higher and step onto the stage. I take the mic the woman offers and nod to acknowledge the applause until it calms down enough for me to speak.
I raise the microphone to my mouth. “Thank you,” I say. “Thank you so much.” There’s another round of applause, thank goodness, because I have no idea what I’m going to say next.
I spy a TV camera in the audience. The news must be covering this gala. I wonder if Galen is watching, if Tig can see this on the TV in that beautiful green room. I stare out at the upturned faces, arrayed in the latest outfits from top designers, and I think of the cheap pink jacket and denim skirt, and how that stood out in the Barbican. What would they make of this crowd? All this money, when they have so little?
Galen would think we were the enemy. Planning to raid their homes, give them our diseases, and turn them out on the streets, then go back to our nice homes, congratulating ourselves on a job well done.
My mouth opens and closes like
a goldfish.
The blond woman is still on the stage, clutching a microphone herself. She walks over, puts a hand on my shoulder, and I’m enveloped by her perfume, so floral I want to gag.
She turns to me, her blond locks as unmoving as a helmet, and raises the microphone to her lips. “So, Talia, we’ve all seen your exploits. Who’d have thought Malcolm’s daughter would be such a crime-fighter herself!”
The crowd cheers, and I take a step back, but her arm prevents me going further. Would they still think I were a hero if they knew Jack’s odd behavior was due to brain damage, and the girl I “saved” was his daughter? Probably. They’d think he deserved it. For dealing drugs.
The woman keeps me in her grasp. “And so modest, too!”
Her hand is like a clamp on my shoulder, she swivels me toward the TV camera. “Can you tell us a bit about the attack at the hospital? And how your father will deal with criminals, and keep us safe from incidents like that?”
My microphone is limp in my hand, so she shoves her own at my face.
“I don’t think things are always as simple as they seem.” I sound lame. The woman nods, clearly thinking I’m going somewhere with this.
“Good people make mistakes. Sometimes they end up in situations they don’t deserve to be in.”
The room is quiet, frozen faces staring at me. A door at the back opens, and two police officers come in, a man and a woman. I wonder what they’re doing here. Maybe they’re giving a speech later, too.
“Perhaps we could go a little easier on some people who commit minor crimes. Not write them off, but give them a real chance to be a part of society again.”
I catch sight of Piers. His hand is over his mouth, eyes fixed on me. He gestures frantically at the cards I hold. Next to him is Dad, his brow furrowed.
“It’s rare, but some of the complications of disease can ruin people’s lives. That’s not fair.”
Dad starts walking toward the stage, the corners of his mouth turned down. The policemen are making their way through the crowd, too, from the other side. Two paths clear in the spectators, each leading their way to me.