school photos 68

The front door banged at an ungodly hour. No watch, no alarm clock, to tell him the time, John mashed gummy-sleep from the corners of his eyes with his knuckles. Dropping off to sleep had not come easily. There were too many thoughts whirling round his head, too much reality leaving him stranded in a field of what ifs. What if he’d been nicer to his mum, more patient, more kind, paid her more attention. What if he’d known? What could he have done? He stumbled cold footed down the hall and turned the Yale lock.

    Policemen barged in. A platoon of uniforms fanning out, taking over the house.  A swish of nylon clothing, a hand on his shoulder, swivelling his body into an arabesque loop, a bended knee to the back of John’s leg and his cheek squished and sliding down the Anaglypta, his arm roughly jerked up his back. ‘Who else is in the house, with you?’ screamed a voice in his ear. The lock on his arm, jerked higher and tighter to help him speak.

‘Nobody.’

He didn’t need to explain, Auntie Caroline had boxed up her grief and went home, couldn’t stay a minute longer in that house. Jo was with his Auntie Rose and it was unlikely she’d return. A slackening in the rigidity of his arm, a loosening of his wrist and the shuffling of feet meant the policeman was looking up, checking with the other cops that came out of the other rooms in the house.  A smack in the back was more of a shock than a pain, it was aimed at the kidneys and meant to hurt, but the voice spitting into his ear hurt more. ‘What did you do with those girls, you fuckin’ little perv? Where are you hiding your sister?’ He was dragged out of the house like a paper bag, still in his Y-fronts, and the rain teeming down.  

Flung into the back of a Panda car, still cuffed, he tucked his hands into his lap. His neck scrunched, the thin bones on shoulders poking out, like a cricket ready to hop, he made himself smaller in the back seat to stop from shivering.  The driver wore black leather gloves and his finger tapped a light beat on the steering wheel. He turned to study John, the face beneath his cap shiny and close-shaved. His heavy lips were a non-committal line, favouring neither a smile nor a frown. A movement outside alerted them to  a fellow officer leaving the house, and scurrying round the path, his head down, butting against the wind. A constable was left behind on guard, stationed at the front door, hands behind his back, as if he’d be there for the duration. The front door of the car clicked up and the senior officer folded himself into the passenger seat beside the driver, taking his braided cap off, flinging it against the windscreen, letting it settle on top of the dashboard, the hot air from the radiators wafting the damp smell of rain and Polo mints into the back of the car. They didn’t speak.  The engine kicked over and they rolled smoothly down the hill, leaving behind the convoy of Black Marias and other police vehicles.

The roads weren’t busy. It took only ten minutes to get to Hall Street Station, turning in off the cobbles of the side street, the car swallowed in the arched shadows of the entrance to the back. The engine kept ticking over, the heating on. The senior officer let in a blast of cold air as he left the car, his long coat flapping and the back of his cap disappearing into the blackened stone of the building. The driver twisted his neck, chair creaking as he leaned back, head sideways. ‘Don’t fucking move,’ he warned. A shipyard hammer clanked a steady thud, on and on it went, marking time.

Two cops strolled across the quadrangle to collect their prisoner. They were insiders, dark uniforms, but no hats against the rain.  He shuffled his bum across the seat to get out. The car door opened. Blunt squarish fingers reached inside for John, and although he offered no resistance, grappled with the cuffs on his wrist, gaining a handhold, pulled him stumbling out of the car. The sturdier cop, standing behind his colleague, came to his assistance. He grabbed John’s unsecured arm, pulling him in close to his hip, and securing the prisoner between them, he ground the heel of his Doc Martin  into his bare foot. John squealed, a high sharp sound that rang round the buildings, and he hopped and winged onto his uninjured foot, but the weight of the two cops carried him along, giving him no time to settle.

He was dragged through long stone corridors that sucked in light and heat to the booking desk and pressed up against the hatch.

‘Jesus, is this what all the fuss was about?’ The booking officer used a ruler to flip open a book on the counter which looked like a ledger. He looked across at John, his face blue and stubbly with new growth and flashed uneven teeth as he yawned. ‘Let’s get him fingerprinted and down to the cells.’

‘I’ve been fingerprinted before,’ John piped up, trying to be helpful.

A heel crashed down on his toes again. ‘Speak when you’re spoken to—Nonce.’

The sergeant’s voice bored as a parent at a children’s jamboree, warned his colleague. ‘That’s enough Linton.’