Just following orders... (3)

            Eight years on from that time, the events of those next couple of hours only come back to me in flashes - like a series of random bits of film.  But they're as vivid as if they happened this morning. 

            I remember going down to the boiler room and getting something out of the freezer.  Then I remember turning to the back door.  It was glass-panelled, like all the outside doors in the building.  Safety glass, with a network of wires running through it.  Outside, it was the darkest night.  I remember suddenly wanting to kick out those glass panels.  So I did.  It was satisfying to feel that glass smashing, to see the crystals flying out into the dark, to feel the rush of cold air that came in.  I carried on kicking and smashing.  I was chanting, too - over and over:

            HE SHOULDN'T HAVE DIED... HE SHOULDN'T HAVE DIED... HE SHOULDN'T HAVE DIED...

            Next, I went for the windows, and the useless vents with the washing-up brushes still wedged in them.  I smashed the vents.  They'd never worked, anyway.  What I was doing was far more effective.  I thought I heard a voice then, outside.  I saw Phil's face appear at the window.  He shouted something, but I couldn't hear him.  My attention turned elsewhere.  I saw the boiler and attacked that next, swinging a broom at it.

            HE SHOULDN'T HAVE DIED... HE SHOULDN'T HAVE DIED...

            Suddenly, I was in the hallway.  Phil and Mandy were there.  Mandy was screaming at me:

            "STOP IT, HARRY!  THIS ISN'T HELPING ANYONE!"

            Scream for yourself!  It was helping me!

            Phil tried to wrestle me to the ground.  He was a big lad and had a karate black belt.  I shook him off like he was nothing.  I saw the glass panels of the front door.  I lunged forwards and kicked at them.  The entrance light came on.  The path outside glittered with diamonds.

            HE SHOULDN'T HAVE DIED...

            I was in the street.  People were watching.  I was running in the night.  I heard voices shouting.  There was a flat across the street full of young people.  They sometimes played their music too loud, and I'd complained about it.  I made for their back door and pushed it open.  They were sitting there in the dark, smoking.

            "What the fuck?" a voice said.

            "I'm sorry," I said, and started running.

            Someone was chasing me.

            "What the fuck's your game?"

            I ran over to the house next door to ours.  The people there were standing at their door, watching.  I knew them a bit - Laurie and Gail.  They let me in.  Laurie led me upstairs and I sat at their kitchen table.  I started to bang my head on it. 

            HE SHOULDN'T HAVE DIED...  HE SHOULDN'T HAVE FUCKING DIED...

            Laurie stopped me.  He put his hand on my shoulder. "We're on your side, H," he said.  "Don't beat yourself up over this."

            At some stage while I was sitting with him, the police arrived.  They handcuffed me, led me down, put me in a car, drove off with me.  I looked back at our house - the people outside, the lights on in my flat, the smashed window panels downstairs.

            "He shouldn't have died," I said to the officers in the car.

            "No, he shouldn't," one of them said.  "Just try to keep calm now, Harry."

            At the station, I was finger-printed.  I started to bash my head against the wall and the officer had to restrain me.  He sat me down.  He spoke to me calmly and clearly.

            "I shouldn't say this, but you have my sympathy.  I know what you're going through.  I'm on your side."

            I looked up at him.

            "Thank you," I said.

            Then another officer came to join us.  I stood up and they got either side of me, one on each arm.  They marched me out of the room into a brightly-lit corridor.  They led me along it.

 

            That was all I remembered until the next morning.  I woke up and saw an odd ceiling above me.  It was painted grey.  There was a huge metal vent cover set into it.  Concentric squares.  I counted the squares - outside to middle, middle to outside.  Then I sat up.  I was on a concrete floor with a blanket over me.  There was a toilet and a wash basin in the corner.  The walls were painted in pebble-dash: brown, with white and black flecks.  Institutional.  Like the paint on the landings of the council flats I lived in as a kid.  There was one narrow barred window, at ceiling height - way out of reach.  The sky beyond it was a grey wash.  The door was a row of vertical steel bars.  Outside it, a female police officer was sitting in a chair - a book on her lap.  She was looking at me with a tired expression. 

            "Where am I?" I asked her.

            "You're in C********y Police Station.  You were brought in last night.  You're being detained."

            Memories slowly came back to me, like Polaroid photos developing.  I was suddenly overcome with a wave of shame.  I bowed my head.  I was wearing orange overalls that didn't belong to me.  My shoes had been taken.

            "Why are you there?" I asked the police officer.

            "Because you said you were a risk to yourself.  I've been here all night."

            The shame became stronger.

            "Thank you," I said.  "I'm so sorry." 

            It sounded feeble.  But it was all I could think of.  She kept looking at me.

            "What time is it, please?"

            "Just after nine," she said, without checking anything.  "Do you still feel like harming yourself now?"

            "No," I said.  "I just want to go home."

            "That can't happen just yet.  You need to wait to be questioned first.  A solicitor will be coming to assist you.  That probably won't be until this afternoon.  Is there anything you need?"

            I wasn't hung over, surprisingly.  But I had a raging thirst.

            "Could I have a cup of tea, please?"

            "I'll see what I can do," she said.  She got up then.  She picked up her chair and carried it off down the corridor.  I could hear voices down there.  Phones ringing.  Life going on.  I got up and rinsed my face at the basin.  Then I sat and waited for my tea.

 

            It never came.  After about an hour, someone else was taken into the cell next door.  I called out.  I heard the door slam shut, then a police officer showed his face.  Fifties.  Short grey hair.  Grey moustache.  Impassive expression.

            "Could I have a cup of tea, please?" I asked him.

            "Cup of tea," he said.  Then he turned and walked off.

            It still never came.  I heard the chap next door talking to himself.  It was a foreign voice.  It sounded like Arabic.  He shouted something.  Footsteps approached.  He was told to keep quiet.  I looked out.  It was the same police officer.  I asked again if I could please have a cup of tea.  He glanced at me, then walked off.  The man next door was quiet again.

            The tea never came.

 

            I sat there all morning and waited, staring at the walls, thinking over what I'd done.  It was mum's birthday in a few days' time.  I hoped she hadn't heard anything about this.  I hoped no one had told her.  I wondered what was going to happen to me.  Every now and then, the stern police officer came along and glanced in at me.  I no longer asked for a cup of tea.  There didn't seem any point.

            At what must have been lunchtime, he came down again with a plate of curry and rice.  He passed it through the letter-box slot in the bars.  His thumb was planted firmly in the edge of the rice.  There was a plastic spork with it.

            "Thank you," I said.

            The curry was foul.  It tasted of nothing but spice.  But I ate a fair bit of it.  I stayed wide of the thumb-mark.

            A good while later, I got a visit from another police officer.  He was younger.  He seemed more humane.

            "Shortly, you'll be taken to another room where you'll be asked some questions about last night.  You'll have a solicitor there.  Your interview will be recorded.  After that, it's likely you'll be released."

            "Can I go home?"

            He pulled a face.  "That might not be possible.  It depends on what your landlord says.  As you know, he's in custody.  We'll be in touch with him.  Is there anywhere else you can go if he refuses?"

            I shook my head miserably.  "No.  There's only my mother, but she can't put me up.  Everything I have is in my flat."

            He shrugged.  "Again, all we can do is wait and see what he says.  It's up to him.  I'm sorry, but that's how it stands."

          

            The interview was recorded at ten-past-three.  The police officer I'd spoken to earlier conducted it.  The solicitor was a cheerful, engaging chap of around sixty.  He smiled a lot, and his eyes glinted confidently behind his spectacles.

            "I'm hopeful we can soon clear this all up and be on our way," he said.

            The officer switched on the recording equipment.  He reminded me of my rights and I said I understood.

            "Tell us what you remember about last night."

            I told him as much as I knew.  A few windows smashed.  Some other damage.  He looked at me.  Then he told me the full extent.

            "Back door glass panels completely smashed out.  Two Vent-Axia window vents destroyed.  Boiler room windows smashed.  Boiler chimney broken off and badly damaged.  Boiler damaged.  Landlord's office door kicked down.  Utility room door kicked down.  All front door and window panels smashed."

            I couldn't believe it.  I bowed my head and started shaking.  The tears came.

            "Don't you remember all of that?"

            "No," I said, wretchedly.  "Not all those things.  I've never been violent in my life.  Never.  I can't understand it.  I wouldn't hurt a fly.  I don't know where any of that came from, I swear.  You have to believe me."

 

            The interview was actually pretty short.  Most of it focussed on recent events at the house.  I told them how Carl's death and the subsequent news had affected me.  I said it had profoundly shaken me up - particularly the thought that I could have died, too.  But I said that I'd actually been feeling sorry for the landlord, and still did.  He'd always seemed a decent bloke.  I meant him no harm.  They asked me about my history of mental health problems, and my drinking.  I said I'd had depressions in the past, and more recently, but I'd been managing.  I'd been sober for two months, too.  I'd only drunk last night to settle myself down. 

            At the end of it, in the light of extreme extenuating circumstances, the solicitor recommended a caution rather than a prosecution.  The police officer agreed.  He said that they'd been informed that Graham wasn't going to prosecute, either.  He was also allowing me to return to my flat, under strict conditions of bail.

            "You are not allowed to enter any other part of the premises, except your flat, plus your usual route of entrance and exit.  Under no circumstances are you to go to the boiler room.  Any breach of these conditions will result in arrest.  Do you understand?"

            "Yes," I said.  The relief was overwhelming.  "Thank you so much."

            They both shook my hand as we stood up.

            "If you come and sit outside now, I'll get a police officer to take you home."

(to be continued)