Splinter the Silence Read Online Free

this.’

His lips tightened but he said nothing.

‘I can’t quite believe it, you know,’ she said, needing to fill the silence. ‘It’s less than three miles from the end of George Nicholas’s drive to my front door. Three miles of road that goes from nowhere to nowhere. Talk about bad luck. What are the chances of that?’

‘You ran out of chances tonight, Carol,’ Tony said. ‘That’s because you’ve been taking chances for a while now. Going by the law of averages, you’re long overdue tonight.’

‘Bullshit, Tony. Really, bullshit. I know my limits, I know when I’m not safe behind the wheel. I never drive when I’ve had too much.’

‘You might think you’re safe, but you’d have been over the limit. Be honest. We both know you’ve spent most of the last few years over the limit. And I’m not talking about a one-off Saturday night out. Carol, this is your wake-up call.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ she exploded. ‘Just because I’m a captive audience doesn’t mean you get to preach a sermon.’

‘It’s not a sermon, it’s an intervention. Tonight’s made me realise I’ve been biting my tongue for too long. I can’t stand by any more and watch you destroying yourself, Carol.’

‘What? I’ve hardly seen you in months. You’ve not exactly been watching me do anything. And I’m not destroying myself, I’m trying to put myself back together. Which you’d know if you’d actually been acting like a friend.’ Streetlights again. Shop windows and traffic lights. Carol squirmed round in the seat so she could stare out of the side window. She didn’t want him to see her face. She didn’t want him reading what he wanted to believe.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’ve not been acting like a friend. I’ve been running scared. For too long I’ve been telling myself that if I told you the truth I might lose you for good. And I didn’t want to risk that.’

She could feel a lump in her throat, tears threatening to break through her armour. ‘Next right, past the chippie,’ she said.

Tony swung the car off the main road and drove between tall ranks of terraced stone houses, looming dark apart from the occasional dim glow from a stair light or an opaque bathroom window. And then they were back in open country. ‘You’ve got to stop drinking, Carol. It’s a wall between you and the rest of us. The people who care about you. The people who might care about you if you gave them half a chance. Look at you. You’re a brilliant woman. You’re tough, you’re tenacious, you’re beautiful and you’re bright as hell. And what are you doing with your life? You’ve cut yourself off. You’re using Michael and Lucy’s death as an excuse to focus on your love affair with Pinot Grigio and vodka. And where has it brought you? A Saturday-night police cell, along with the other drunks and the junkies and the terminally fucked-up.’

‘I’m not a drunk,’ she shouted. ‘Liking a drink doesn’t make me a drunk. You are completely out of order.’

‘I’m not. I’m back in line for the first time in a very long time. And this time I’m not walking away.’ He stopped at a T-junction. ‘Left or right?’

‘Left. Then a mile down the road, you take a right. Actually, no. Drop me at the corner. It’s only a mile from there. I’d rather walk.’

Tony gave a sardonic laugh. ‘In those shoes? My company must be worse than I thought. I’m driving you home, Carol. And then I’m staying over.’

‘What? What do you mean, staying over? There’s nowhere for you to sleep.’

‘There’s a whole barn. I brought my sleeping bag in case you don’t have a spare bed.’

‘No.’

‘Can we talk about this when we get there? Only, I need to concentrate.’

‘There’s nothing to talk about.’

‘You can pretend all you like, but I know you’re not happy like this. And I can’t ignore that any longer. Whether you like it or not, Carol, it’s time you took your life back from the