Page 10 of Second Story

“You told me Mum would be home soon.” His chin lifts. “So I told him the same. You made me a liar.”

I look directly into eyes filled with pain instead of starlight, and the title of that book I once gave to Lenny tells no lies. Every scardoestell a story, and from where I stand, Isaac can’t hide that his is nowhere close to healing.

I can’t make that any better.

Worse than that, he wouldn’t let me.

All I can fix is his tie, like Dad taught Josh and me to do for each other before school every morning, acting as each other’s mirror. The only difference is that Isaac keeps his hands fisted at his sides, so tense he almost trembles the same way now as the night before his mother became another Wintergreen crime statistic. And what for?

I bet if I asked my brother, he’d struggle to explain how locking up a single mother with no previous convictions for this long before trial can be justice. Besides, I’m pretty sure Isaac wouldn’t listen if Josh tried to justify a legal no-bail loophole designed to keep high-risk gang lords off the streets between arrest and conviction.

Isaac is as closed off now as the very last time I saw him. And as brokenhearted. I hear it in his voice cracking.

“I swore I’d do my best for Len. So did you, Joe. I gave up on you when you walked away. I had to.”

He backs away, his tie perfect, but I don’t expect thanks from him for that. I can’t when he detonates a final truth bomb.

“I never broke my promise. You did.”

3

JOE

I see black sheep after black sheep after I leave that lay-by, and I’d blame them for making me late for my court-related visit if I didn’t know how bad it feels to be labelled. The training for my welfare role only hammered home that linking negatives to a colour is extra harmful. I’d never want to do that to another person. However, I can’t help identifying with this flock that blocks the road right when I need to hurry. They’re only doing what comes naturally by herding together.

I did the same when I was younger, which makes claiming that black-sheep label powerful these days. Owning it helps me to reach the teens I work with. The ones caught up in gang-related bullshit. Believe me, I know how easy it is to play follow-the-leader and to leap without looking like some of them have.

At least Josh can’t see me live up to that label by using my phone again while my engine is still running. He won’t care that I’m stationary in a narrow lane with no other traffic around, or that I won’t be going anywhere in a hurry until this farmer on a quad bike finishes moving his flock from one field to another. Josh will still spit legislation at me for taking my phone from itsholder to check the name of the contact I’m in danger of running late for.

Hugo Heppel-Eavis.

Thankfully, the only witness is that farmer who removes his crash helmet while I leave anI’m running latemessage with a local school. He waits until I stop speaking to raise a hand, still on the far side of a churning mass of woolly bodies. I guess he’s signalling at me to have patience. I get a different message. Or maybereminderis a better word for this view of flaming red hair and freckles.

They’re familiar.

I kill my engine and get out, because this guy is so similar to the photo of the kid I’m here to write a court report for that he must be related.

Noah Emerson lives with his brother, doesn’t he?

My mind flashes back to Lenny. And to Isaac. To how the last year must have left marks on both of them. I couldn’t stop that from happening to them. All I can do is stop that shitshow from repeating for some other family. That’s why I shove my way through sheep for the first time in my life, and they’re bigger than they look on the telly. This herd shoves back like they recognise a kindred spirit, not letting me through, and I have to shout from a distance.

“Hi. Are you Marc Emerson?”

“Who wants to know?” His accent sounds like home, which is a mindfuck this many miles from London, but it does explain his suspicion. No one from knife crime central willingly invites trouble, and, to be honest, he doesn’t need to answer—he really is the spitting image of the kid who has brought me all the way to Cornwall.

“I’m Joe da Silva.” I see recognition flicker at first, then deepen as I keep going. “Court-appointed juvenile liaison officer. I’m guessing you’re Noah’s brother. His legal guardian.If you can confirm that, I can talk with you.” And yeah, here’s another Isaac reminder—this country farmer with a city accent gets just as protective at me mentioning a little brother.

His freckled face shutters.

So did Isaac’s the first time I met him until I showed him skin-deep proof of my own that I’d survived what he was most scared of. Not for himself, for little Lenny, but I’m used to this closed-off reaction. Where we’re from, being a witness for the prosecution can be a death sentence or can buy a lifetime of silence.

Ask me how I know that.

Marc Emerson must have come to the same conclusion.

He’s gutted.

“They finally set a court date?”

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