‘As long as you don’t mind if I pray. That definitely helps.’
So, slowly at first, I backed the truck out and swung it around. Picking up speed as we headed down the drive, I decided to ditch the singing and joined Dylan in praying instead.
When you think your brother’s life is at stake, a two-mile drive through a rainstorm is nothing, however inexperienced a driver you are. What you do when you reach him is another thing altogether. When I came to a juddering stop outside Sam’s flat, there were no police cars outside. The lights were on in the windows above our heads.
Dylan and I exchanged glances. I knew he wanted me to stay in the truck, or at the very least to stay behind him. He knew better than to tell me that. I did feel a moment’s reassurance that there were worse people I could be sprinting up the shabby staircase with than a Northern ex-gang member with God on his side.
As we rounded the top of the stairwell, we could hear it. Thuds, scuffles, a deep, rasping voice dripping with menace. My brother’s garbled cry. I burst in through the open door. Sam flailed against one wall, Kane’s vengeful hands around his throat.
Screaming, I leaped towards him. Strong arms pushed me aside. Dylan threw me onto the sofa as he moved in front of me. He called out. Kane tightened his grip. Sam’s face turned a hideous purple. His eyes bulged as his legs kicked and bucked against the wall. It must have been seconds – less than a second – before Dylan picked up a plant pot – a recent addition from April’s garden centre job – and smashed it into the back of Kane’s head. Kane dropped like a marionette with snapped strings. Sam slid to the floor behind him. I scrambled off the sofa and fell to his side.
That was how the police found us, a few minutes later.
Sam, choking and sobbing, cradled in my arms. Dylan with April, trying to assess the damage to her unconscious body, sprawled out by the fireplace.
Kane, motionless, a pool of blood as black as his heart creeping across the carpet. After all these years, all the phone calls, the middle of the night emergency visits, the job losses, the shopping, the cleaning, and the dropping everything to be there for Sam: after all this, I hadn’t been there when he really needed me. I hadn’t saved my brother.
My debt remained unpaid.
After a few hours and numerous tests, the doctors discharged Sam from hospital. Bruised, hoarse, battered, there was no physical damage time wouldn’t heal. A nurse brought me to his bay to help gather his things together – a ripped shirt, a box of painkillers, the loose change from his pockets. I took his hand, leading him out towards the exit, but he stopped a few paces down the corridor.
‘April?’
‘She’s been taken for a scan. They’ll keep her in tonight, at least.’
‘I want to see her.’ He turned back towards the direction we had come.
‘We can’t see her now. The doctors are doing tests. We can come back first thing in the morning and see her then.’
He looked at me and my insides withered at the dead light in his eyes. ‘I can’t leave her.’
‘You’re no good to her hanging around here, Sam. The best thing you can do for April is go home, clean up, get some sleep and visit her in the morning when she’s woken up.’
‘I won’t leave her alone.’
Letting out a long sigh, I began tugging him in the direction of the waiting room.
‘Look, Dylan’s down the hall. He can stay with April until we get back. And they’re trying to contact her mum, so she’ll be here soon, too.’
‘She hates her mum. And she barely knows Dylan. He won’t protect her from Kane. He doesn’t get it.’
‘Doesn’t get what? Kane is in another hospital under police guard. We don’t need protecting from Kane any more.’
Sam laughed, shaking his head. It sent chills through my bones.
We reached the waiting room where Dylan sat in one corner, nursing a cup of brown sludge.
After another five minutes’ weary discussion, we agreed a compromise. Dylan would take Sam back to his house. I would stay with April overnight, protecting her from both her mum and Kane.
Sam made me swear to watch April, to take care of her. He muttered something about how April would be better off without him, that he was the problem. I remembered those words from the day he had packed my bag for London. However, too exhausted to understand what they meant, I hugged my brother and told him goodnight.
Why did I decide to trust someone else with my brother’s welfare at his weakest, most vulnerable moment?
I may keep asking myself that question until the day I died.
The cavalry arrived at nine the next day. I un-crunched my aching muscles, tried to wipe the sleep from my eyes, and accepted the freshly ground coffee, steaming doughnut and warm embrace from Mags, Melody and Rowan with gratitude that brought fresh tears to my eyes.
I had forbidden Marilyn from coming to the hospital, vowing to ditch her as my matron of honour if she left her husband’s side the day after his return.
