Split Second Read Free

the dust. The air full of death.
    And Lucas there, in the middle of it.
    Lucas. My brother. The terrorist.

Six months later . . .

Part One
Investigation
    (n. a searching inquiry for ascertaining facts)

Charlie
    I slammed the door and stomped away, into my bedroom. Outside, I could hear Aunt Karen sobbing. I felt like crying myself. Just for a moment. Then I forced the impulse away. I
never cried. Not anymore. After months when I did nothing but shed whole rivers of tears I had finally realised that it made no difference.
    Mum was dead. She was never coming back.
    And no-one was going to face justice for murdering her. A little known far-right group – the League of Iron – had claimed responsibility but no-one had been arrested for the crime.
The police insisted that they were still investigating but Aunt Karen was certain the officers in charge had turned a blind eye because so many of them actually supported the League of Iron’s
nasty, racist views. I thought it was more likely the police were just very busy. There were riots in the cities every few weeks and, since the latest round of cuts, fewer officers to deal with
them. The bomb that killed Mum wasn’t even the only explosion in recent months – though it had been the worst, leaving four dead and seventeen seriously injured.
    Afterwards, Aunt Karen had brought me to live with her despite the fact that she was even worse off than Mum had been. We survived on a series of tiny benefits and the kindness of our
landlord.
    A timid tap on the door. I turned to face Karen as she peered into my bedroom. I hated that room. It was basically a storage area which I had to share with the landlord’s spare china and
lots of Karen’s clothes. Racks of these filled the long wardrobe – ancient dresses and tops that she never wore but couldn’t bear to throw away.
    ‘What?’ I said.
    Karen wiped her tear-stained face. ‘I can’t cope with you anymore, Charlie,’ she said. ‘I’m at the end of my tether.’
    ‘What, because I junked you and your stupid friends earlier?’ I could hear how harsh my voice sounded and, inside, I felt bad for being mean. But I couldn’t seem to stop
myself.
    Karen’s lip trembled. ‘Please don’t talk about my friends like that,’ she said. ‘And I had them round for
you
. Because it was Friday and the weekend and
last
weekend you didn’t leave your room.’
    ‘So what?’
    She was right, of course. I hardly ever went out. Losing Mum hadn’t just meant moving to Karen’s tiny flat in Leeds but also leaving my old school and friends behind. Not that I
missed anyone. My friends all treated me differently after Mum died, like they were scared to come near me. The girls at my new school in Leeds, on the other hand, delighted in taunting me.
    I’d never been to a single sex school before and I hated how bitchy it was. The girls here teased me constantly about my London accent, the way I’d use a long ‘a’ when
they said it short and flat. They didn’t even know I was called Charlie instead of Charlotte. Not that I cared. I didn’t care about anything.
    ‘I cut back on cigs this week to make sure I could afford that pudding.’ Karen’s mouth trembled again. ‘I think the least you could do is say sorry.’
    I peered past her, out to the tiny kitchen, where the remnants of the chocolate trifle Karen had bought lay where I’d thrown it onto the grubby floor. Mum would have
made
a
trifle. Mum would have kept her kitchen floor clean.
    It suddenly struck me that of all the many reasons I felt angry with Karen, by far the biggest was that she simply wasn’t Mum. It was ironic, really. Karen and I had got on well once, when
Mum and I used to visit her. Karen was Mum’s younger sister, with no kids of her own. She had been fun back then, at least I’d always thought so. But Karen was also kind of scatty
– forgetful. Not about big emotional stuff, but about the small things that make life easy, like paying bills on