By Any Other Name (12 page)

Fraser frowns at me but says nothing . . . yet. I sense there’s a ‘yet’.

‘Katie’s autistic.’ I hate saying that in front of my sister. She knows of course, but to say it in front of her feels wrong, like I’m saying
she’s
wrong for
being that way.

‘Oh,’ Cam says, looking at Katie like she’s something in a Victorian freak show. The others change the way they look at her too, including Fraser.

I swallow hard. ‘She doesn’t understand why she shouldn’t say things like that.’ I could have told her off to mollify them, but I would never do that to Katie. She gets
so upset if you’re cross with her and she doesn’t understand why.

Cam shrugs. She clearly doesn’t believe me. ‘Yeah, well, whatever, I have to go now. Bye.’ She turns and walks off. The others mutter a goodbye and follow her off up the field.
I wonder where they’re going. Once again, I haven’t been invited to hang out with them after school.

Fraser turns and watches them. ‘I should go too . . . er . . .’

‘Yeah, see you at school.’ I get it in quickly and breezily before he can come up with some pathetic excuse why he doesn’t want to be with me now.

If we are together, this is the weirdest together I’ve ever known.

‘Text you later.’ He flashes me his melting grin, but it doesn’t turn me to goo this time.

I smile and turn away and walk Katie over to the swings. After I make sure she’s settled in the middle of the seat, I look back. Fraser’s jogging up the field after Cam and Crew
who’ve disappeared from sight down one of the back lanes.

Am I ever going to fit in here?

Then again, I don’t want to fit in with people who look at my sister the way they did. I watch Katie’s face as I make the swing fly – she’s so innocent of all the
complications that make the rest of us shitty people sometimes. How can anyone look down on her for that? Sometimes I don’t understand people at all.

When I’m lying in bed later that night, I think about how Cam and the others looked at Katie again, and then I remember how Katya looked at her the first time we met her.
Because it’s different. So very different.

Katya. Who’s ruined my life.

But I can’t hate her for that, because hers has been ruined worse.

I’d got up early to go for a swim on the beach, but just as I was about to leave the cottage, Katie appeared on the stairs fully dressed and grinning. ‘Me too,
Boo-Boo.’

I shushed her with a finger on my lips. ‘Don’t wake Mum and Dad. They’re having a lie-in. OK, but you have to promise to sit nicely on the beach while I swim and then
I’ll take you for a paddle.’ She wasn’t a good enough swimmer to go more than knee-deep in the sea yet.

She made a silent squeal of joy at me and ran to get her costume.

Ten minutes later, we picked our way down the steep cliff path, my hand holding tightly to hers in case she stumbled. The sound of sea swooshing on sand as we descended gave me such a rush
– there was something magical about it, especially in the early morning light. In the same way that there was magic in the air at Christmas when the streets were lit up with stars, and shop
windows were full of glitter and tinsel. The way that makes your blood fizz with excitement at how amazing it is to be alive in that moment.

I got Katie to sit on a rock where I could see her and I slipped into the cold sea, shivering and teeth chattering at first until I’d splashed around enough for my muscles to work and heat
the rest of me. After the initial bracing cold, it was like a fire slowly warming me through. So good.

When I got out, I wrapped a towel round my shoulders and stripped Katie’s jeans and sweatshirt off so she was just in her cossie, then I took her to paddle.

She flinched at first at the chilly water on her toes.

‘Ha ha, Popsicle – is that freezing? Deep breath before the wave comes again. Ready? Wheee . . .’

‘Wheeeee!’

‘OK, next time we’re going to run in a bit.’ I grasp her hand. ‘Now!’

Once she was in, she forgot the cold and splashed about, scrunching her toes in the sand. I bent to scoop water over her with my hands and she giggled happily and kicked some back at me. Then I
chased her down the beach, in and out of the shallows.

When I realised we’d been there nearly an hour, just messing about, I decided we’d better go back and get breakfast. My tummy had begun to complain. I called Katie to come back and
pulled my jeans and hoody on. When I looked up from lacing my trainers, there was a girl standing at the bottom of the steps watching us. I hadn’t realised from seeing her in the little
cottage window that she would be so tall, model tall and slim, with sleek hair around her shoulders and those exotic cheekbones and eyes.

We walked over to her. ‘Hey, you’re from next door, right? I’m Lou.’

‘Yes. Hello. I’m Katya.’ Her voice was accented a little, but her English was flawless. ‘I met your mother. She was very nice to mine. Very welcoming. This is your
sister?’

‘Yes – Katie.’

Katya smiled at her. ‘Hello, Katie, you are very pretty.’

Katie beamed. ‘Thank you.’ And she turned to me. ‘I like her, Boo-Boo. She’s nice.’

Katya laughed. Even her laugh had a Russian accent, which made me giggle inwardly, but it really, truly did. ‘Boo-Boo?’

‘Yeah, she couldn’t say my name when she was a baby. It was the closest she could get and it’s sort of stuck. Now she won’t stop. It’s Louisa really, but everyone
calls me Lou.’

She nodded. ‘The girls at my school call me Kat. I like that.’

‘It suits you with those eyes.’ I smiled to show her it was a compliment.

‘Yes, they said that. Is the water cold?’ She had a towel in her hand.

‘Very, but it’s worth it.’

‘I am looking forward to it. In Russia, swimming outdoors in winter is a national hobby. This will be nothing compared to the crazy people who break the ice and jump in.’

‘Wow! That sounds mental. How long did you live in Russia for?’

‘Until I was thirteen and then Papa moved us to London. It is good there, but I miss Russia also.’

I didn’t know what to say to that really – her eyes looked so sad when she talked about home – so I smiled. Katie tugged my hand. ‘I’m hungry!’

Katya smiled and cupped Katie’s face with her hands, long slim fingers with immaculately polished pink nails. ‘Then you must have your breakfast, Katyenka. And I have been keeping
you from it. That is very bad of me. Do you know we have the same name, you and I? Katie in Russian is Katya.’

Katie giggled adoringly and Katya gained a new admirer.

The Russian girl moved aside to let us pass. ‘Enjoy your swim,’ I said as we started up the steps.

She smiled and nodded. ‘Enjoy your breakfast!’

We left each other without offers to meet later. I sensed a reserve behind her initial friendliness and didn’t want to push further. When we got to the top of the cliff, she was wading out
into the sea, apparently immune to the coldness of the water as it didn’t seem to cause her to pause when the waves washed into her. She had a strange aura of sadness wrapped round her like a
cloak. She cast if off briefly to talk to my sister, but now she’d shrouded herself in it again.

Why was such a beautiful girl so unhappy and so alone? Her solitude was almost tangible. She was on holiday, yet she was holed up in that cottage and scarcely came out. They’d been there
three days and this was the first time I’d seen her outdoors.

And she had the saddest eyes I’d ever seen.

F
raser 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.