The Silent Friend by Diane Jeffrey

Author:Diane Jeffrey [Jeffrey, Diane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2020-09-25T17:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

4 MONTHS AFTER

Laura

There wasn’t a lot of food left in the fridge and cupboards. Laura would have to go out and buy some groceries. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had any appetite. She hated going to the supermarket at the moment. She wasn’t inspired and bought very little.

Laura knocked on Mrs Doherty’s door to see if she needed her to run any errands. The elderly woman handed Laura two envelopes.

‘Would you pop these into a letterbox for me?’ she asked Laura. ‘They’re for my granddaughters. Both at university now, at Trinity, so they are.’

‘Of course, Mrs Doherty.’

‘I took evening classes, you know,’ Mrs Doherty said, peering at Laura over her glasses, ‘but I couldn’t get my old head around this Internet yoke. So I’ll stick to snail mail – that’s what they call it, isn’t it?’

Her neighbour’s talk of the Internet reminded Laura of the forum. She was keen to see if anyone had posted a response to the message she’d written. As soon as she got back from the supermarket, she booted up her laptop and logged into the support portal.

She’d received four replies. The first was from another concertgoer who had had a seat near the back of the arena. She and her boyfriend had both escaped and were safely outside minutes after the first round of gunshots had burst out.

The second was from a man who had played dead in the pits and managed to leave the venue once the terrorists had taken the hostages – including Laura – to the corridor on the floor above. As she read his words, Laura’s mind flashed back to her own ordeal and the moment when she had lain immobile on the floor, willing herself not to move, so that the gunmen would assume she was dead.

The memory made her shudder. She tried to shut out the images projecting themselves in her head, but they kept coming, one after the other. She remembered thinking that they would see her shaking and that would give the game away. In the end, one of the terrorists had kicked her in the side, catching her out, but instead of shooting her, he’d hauled her to her feet.

Her mouth felt dry and her hands were clammy. She was shaking now, feeling cold all over, just as she had that night. She fetched herself a glass of water, then sat back at the computer. She should stop. This was too much for her. Perhaps she shouldn’t read the other messages at all.

She reached out to close the lid of her laptop, but her hand hovered over the computer. You wanted to hear from people who had similar experiences, she told herself. These people have been through the same thing. She felt she owed it to them to at least have a look at what they had to say. Plus, it might help her, as she’d hoped. She took a few sips of water and looked at the screen again.

The next one was written by a father who had taken his son and his son’s friend to the concert.

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