A boy watches the sinister goings on of an urban estate. A computer specialist in a hospital witnesses a disturbing incident on the roof. The crime career for 'Hot Little Danny' - a teenage tearaway with a teacher girlfriend - is inexorably upward. Infidelity, old friendships and passions haunt the drifting lives of Beard's characters, fuelled by drugs and alcohol, dogged by uncertain employment. You Don't Have to Say is downhearted but finds warmth in people on the edges of the urban landscape, skewering adversity with uncanny empathy and insight .