by Penny Bates
A couple of months later, Tom was on the train to Laura’s when his phone vibrated. It was a new phone with a new number (the police had kept the old one as evidence). He had a text. He looked at the number. It wasn’t in his contact list, and he didn’t think he recognised it. He took a deep breath, steadied himself, went to options, scrolled down and pressed delete. Then he sent Laura a text to order the takeaway.
He could murder a curry.
An Open and Shut Case
by Anne Rooney
An Open and Shut Case
by Anne Rooney
‘This case is closed,’ said Inspector Bayliss. ‘There is nothing to find out. You’ve been wasting police time again, young man. That’s the only crime here. Don’t call about this again – or any other crime you’ve imagined.’
The policeman handed his empty teacup to Farooq’s mum.
‘Thank you, Mrs Akbar. I won’t take up any more of your time. And I don’t expect you to take up any more of mine,’ he said, frowning at Farooq.
As the door closed, Farooq flopped on the sofa.
‘Idiot,’ he mumbled.
‘I’m sure he knows his job,’ Mrs Akbar said. Her lips made a tight, thin line.
Farooq wasn’t so sure. A policeman who knew his job would see that using a chainsaw indoors was a bit odd. He would think a man dragging a heavy suitcase to his bin, leaving dark stains on the ground, was maybe hiding something. A policeman who knew his job would follow a lead like that.
‘Well, have you seen Mrs Armitage?’ grunted Farooq.
‘Amanda has gone away. Mr Armitage said so. Poor man. He’s so upset about her leaving him. It really doesn’t help, you sending the police round.’
‘He killed her and cut her up. I know he did. It’s so obvious. He put her in the suitcase. Then he dumped her in his wheelie bin.’
‘Farooq, you watch too many of those far-fetched police series,’ his mother said. She went back to the kitchen, but carried on talking. ‘Your imagination runs away with you. The police say he was cutting up wood to make a floor in his loft. He showed them the wood and the saw. It had no blood on it. Only sawdust. There’s no law against cutting up wood, even at night. He threw out her clothes and books. And the foods that only she liked. The liquid must have been from them. Don’t jump to conclusions, Farooq, it only brings trouble.’
Farooq stared at the television. It was turned off.
‘I’m off out,’ he said. He slammed the door as he left.
Outside, the street was quiet. Mr Armitage’s house was opposite. It was quiet, too. Quiet as the grave, Farooq thought. But there was a face at the window. Mr Armitage was staring at him. He looked angry. He’d never liked Farooq. So what? Farooq thought. I don’t want to be liked by a murderer.
He kicked a can along the path. So, the police had asked Mr Armitage questions. They had been to the dump. They hadn’t found a suitcase with a dead body in it, cut into pieces. They had found one suitcase that Mr Armitage said was his. It had been mashed up by the rubbish lorry. He said he’d put his wife’s books and clothes in it. Why had he thrown them away? Because she had left him for another man, and had said she was never coming back. Where had she gone?
‘Who cares?’ Mr Armitage had shrugged.
No evidence, Inspector Bayliss said. No evidence of wrong-doing, no evidence of murder, and no body. But Farooq knew. He just knew Mrs Armitage hadn’t run away. She was too scared to leave. He’d seen her in the garden with her friend, Mrs Martin, just before Mrs Martin went on holiday last week.
‘He’d kill me if he knew, or if I left him. He would really kill me. He’s a cruel, hard man,’ Mrs Armitage had said. And she had hidden her face in her hands, while Mrs Martin patted her shoulder helplessly.
Farooq looked over Mr Armitage’s fence. If she wasn’t cut up in a suitcase, perhaps she was buried in the garden. He could hardly dig up the garden in broad daylight. But he could dig it up at night.
Farooq went to bed in his clothes. He got up at one o’clock. He opened the back door. Everywhere was quiet. It was raining a bit. He shivered. Then he went to the shed and took the spade. In a few minutes, he was in Mr Armitage’s garden. Farooq peered at the muddy ground. He wished he had brought a torch. He couldn’t see anything.
That wasn’t quite true. He could see a bit. He could see a light through the bushes, in the house. Had Mr Armitage heard him? Farooq held his breath. No one came out. He heaved the spade over his shoulder. Then he moved towards the house as quietly as he could. The rain made a noise on the leaves. When he got closer, he could hear another noise, too. Sawing. Mr Armitage was sawing something in his kitchen. This time he wasn’t using a chainsaw – he was using a handsaw.
Farooq listened: saw; pause; saw; pause; saw; pause. He was making hard work of it. But it wasn’t a body. It sounded like wood.
Farooq crept close to the window. It was dark outside and light inside. If Mr Armitage looked out, he would see his own reflection on the window. Mr Armitage was sawing up planks. He had cut six pieces already. Maybe they were shelves. But why cut shelves in the middle of the night? The ends were splintered and broken. It was old wood, with bits of paint on it. They wouldn’t be nice shelves.
Farooq stepped back to think. He didn’t want to go home and call the police again. He knew what Inspector Bayliss would say. It’s not a crime to cut up wood. Wasting police time.
Mr Armitage put the saw down. He picked up four planks and left the kitchen. Farooq moved closer. Mr Armitage went through the hall and up the stairs. Farooq saw the landing light go on upstairs. A moment later, Mr Armitage reappeared in the kitchen. He picked up the other two planks. Then he picked up a hammer and went back upstairs. Farooq tried the back door. It was locked. That was a good thing, he thought. Otherwise he would have gone in. Who knows what would happen then? Maybe Mr Armitage would attack him.
Then Farooq heard another noise. Sobbing. Very, very quietly, someone was crying. The noise came from above. He only heard it for a moment. Then Mr Armitage began hammering furiously. He was much quicker at hammering than at sawing. Farooq couldn’t hear the crying any more, just the hammering. And he heard his own blood pulsing in his head. He couldn’t separate the sounds. His heart was going as fast as Mr Armitage’s hammer. When Farooq tried to think, his brain wouldn’t work. Should he try to get in the house? Call the police? Go home?
He took a deep breath. If Mrs Armitage was crying, she wasn’t dead and buried in the garden or cut up at the dump. What was Mr Armitage doing to her with a hammer and some planks?
The police had searched Mr Armitage’s house. The house was the same as his own. There were two bedrooms upstairs, and a bathroom. One bedroom was at the front of the house. She couldn’t be in there. He wouldn’t hear her from the garden. One bedroom faced the back of the house. So did the bathroom. Farooq stepped back into the garden and looked up. Enough light came from the landing to show a dark shadow in the back bedroom. A very tall shadow. Like a person on a ladder. In the back bedroom, there was a hatch to the attic. The attic! That’s where she must be! And Mr Armitage was nailing wood over the hatch. She was still alive. He was trapping her in the attic, like a prison. Or a living tomb.
There were two things Farooq could do. He could call the police. Or he could break into the house. He was in the garden with a spade. How hard could it be? Farooq hurled the spade through the glass of the door. It made more noise than he expected. The hammering stopped. Mr Armitage came downstairs. He was carrying the hammer. He held it up high. Farooq saw him come into the kitchen and look at the spade. He thought Mr Armitage would come for him. And now he didn’t have the spade. He ducked down out of sight. But Mr Armitage didn’t come; he just stood there.
All was silent for a moment. Then Farooq heard the sobbing again, ever so quietly.
‘Shut up!’ muttered Mr Armitage. ‘Shut the hell up.’
Farooq took his phone out of his pocket. He dialled the police. He waited till they answered. ‘I need help
here,’ he said. ‘14 Willesden Gardens.’ He ended the call immediately. Surely they would come? He keyed a text message into the phone, but didn’t send it. He laid the phone on the floor by the back door. Then he hid in the bushes and waited. Five minutes passed. Ten minutes. Then he heard a car pull up at the front of the house. The police hammered on the front door. Mr Armitage didn’t answer. A policeman came round to the garden with a bright torch. He shone it at the windows, then the door. The broken glass sparkled. The officer used his radio to call his companion from the front of the house. As Farooq watched, the policeman trod on the phone. Farooq and the policeman both heard the case crack.
‘’Ere, Gavin,’ he said, as the second officer arrived. He shone the torch on the phone. ‘Look at this. And this.’ He flashed the torch at the broken glass. Gavin picked up the phone, using a cloth to save any fingerprints. He pressed a button.
‘She’s in the attic,’ he read. ‘OK. Radio the station, tell them we’re going in.’
Farooq slipped backwards through the bushes and home.
From his bedroom window, he watched another police car arrive, and then the ambulance. The sirens woke his mother.
‘What’s happening?’ she asked Farooq.
‘The police are taking him away,’ smiled Farooq.
At lunchtime, Inspector Bayliss came to the door.
‘I’d like a word with Farooq, Mrs Akbar,’ he said.
Farooq followed the policeman into the living room.
‘Take a look at this, young man,’ he said, handing Farooq the early edition of the evening paper.
There was a large picture of Mrs Armitage. Her face was strained and she was wrapped in a blanket, just as Farooq had seen her getting into the ambulance.
‘RESCUED FROM HELL-HOLE,’ the headline said.
After a week hidden in an empty water tank, Amanda Armitage was freed by police. ‘There’s no doubt about her husband’s guilt,’ commented police spokesman Roy Bayliss. ‘It’s an open and shut case.’
‘I believe this is your phone,’ said Inspector Bayliss, showing it to Farooq. It was in a plastic bag. Farooq could see it was badly scratched and the plastic was broken. He held out his hand. ‘You can’t have it back yet, I’m afraid. It’s needed as evidence,’ he said. ‘But, er …’ the Inspector coughed awkwardly, ‘I think I was a bit hard on you. I’m sorry. You were right all along. You’d make a good policeman. Thanks for your help.’
Farooq smiled. Inspector Bayliss fumbled in the pocket of his police jacket.
‘You might need this,’ he said, pulling out a box. ‘If you’d like to have it. It’s a little thank you from me and Mrs Armitage.’ The policeman coughed again and handed Farooq the box. It was the latest camera phone, ultra-thin, ultra-slick – the model everyone wanted. ‘It does video, too,’ Inspect Bayliss went on, ‘in case you see something suspicious. Collect some evidence next time, eh?’ And he shook Farooq’s hand.
In a Hot Place
by David Belbin
In a Hot Place
by David Belbin
They grab you outside the airport. They put a bag over your head.
‘Why are you doing this?’ you ask.
But if they can hear, they do not answer.
‘Where are my friends?’ you ask.
You were with two mates. Your plane leaves in an hour. Will your friends go home without you?
They put you in the back of a van.
‘Why don’t you search me?’ you ask. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve been on holiday.’
They don’t reply. They take off the bag and put on a blindfold. They put you on a plane.
When you get out of the plane, you are in a hot place.
‘Where are we?’ you ask.
Nobody answers. They take off the blindfold. It’s dark. They put the bag back on your head. You find it hard to breathe. At least they can’t see you crying. You are hungry, but you’re too proud to complain. Now and then they give you a sip from a water bottle. The water tastes old, bitter. The drinking straw hurts your dry mouth.
They put you in a cell. You do not know if it is day or night. All the time, you hear shouts and screams. You do not understand the words. You begin to shout too.
‘I was on holiday! I did nothing wrong!’
Nobody comes.
‘I didn’t have a bomb!’ you protest. ‘Why did you take me, not my mates? Or did you take my mates too?’
Days pass. They take off the blindfold. At last, the questions begin.
‘Why were you there? What did you do? Who do you know? Why were you there? Who did you see? What did they ask you to do?’
The room used to be white. Now the walls are covered in stains. The stains look like blood, sick, urine and worse. The room smells like a toilet. They tie you to the chair and put plastic cuffs around your wrists.
‘What am I doing here?’ you ask.
‘We ask the questions,’ they say.
‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ you say.
‘Then you have nothing to worry about,’ they say.
‘I’m only fifteen,’ you say. ‘I want my parents.’
‘Were your parents with you?’
‘No. I was with friends. Are my friends here too?’
‘No. Did your parents send you?’
‘They paid for my holiday,’ you tell them.
You want them to know this was all a mistake. You were on holiday. It was only a holiday. You are not a terrorist. You do not want to be a terrorist. You did not meet any terrorists. You do not want to overthrow anybody. You only want to go home.
‘Your parents paid, did they?’ they say. ‘Then maybe we will bring your parents here too.’
‘What am I supposed to have done?’
‘You tell us.’
You don’t know what to say, so you say, ‘No comment.’
This is the wrong answer. More men come. They put the hood back on. They begin to hit you. They hit you on the heels. They hit you on the head. They punch you in the tummy. They are hitting you in places that will not bruise. It hurts so much, you wish they would ask more questions. You beg them to ask more questions.
‘I’ll tell you anything you want to know,’ you say.
But they do not believe you. Their questions are always the same.
‘Where did you go? Who do you work for? What did you do? Where did you do it? What do you believe? Who do you plan to kill? Who are you working with?’
‘I don’t want to kill anybody!’ you say.
‘We all want to kill someone,’ they say.
‘Why won’t you let me go? I’ve done nothing.’
‘We’ve all done something,’ they say.
‘I want a lawyer!’
They laugh.
‘You don’t have any rights here,’ they say.
‘Where am I?’ you ask.
‘Nowhere. Tell us who you work for.’
‘I don’t work for anyone,’ you say.
They do not believe you. They take your clothes off. They tie you to a wooden board. They put a plastic bag around your face. It has a hole in it. They pour water through the hole. You begin to gag.
‘I’ll tell you anything!’ you say.
They take the bag off. You make things up. You tell them what you think they want to hear.
They do not believe you. They tie you to another board. They put the bag back on.
‘I did it!’ you say. ‘Whatever you say I did, I did it!’
A lawyer comes to see you. You tell her what happened. ‘You have no bruises,’ the lawyer says.
‘They are very good at not leaving bruises,’ you say.
‘It took your parents months to find you,’ the lawyer says. ‘They thought you were dead. What did you do?’
‘I did nothing,’ you say.
‘That’s what everyone says,’ the lawyer says. ‘But they usually have their reasons. What did you do?’
If you knew the answer, you would tell her.
‘
Nothing,’ you say.
‘I’ll try to get you out,’ the lawyer says.
‘Don’t I have rights?’ you ask.
‘Nobody has rights here,’ the lawyer says.
She goes away. She does not come back. They leave you in a cell for weeks on end. You speak to no one. But you dream. You have bad dreams. You dream they are right. You really are a terrorist. In your dreams, you understand why people become terrorists. Because you hate people like them.
You are about to turn sixteen, but are not sure when. There are no clocks, no calendar. Then they give you a birthday present. It hurts a lot. You ask to see a doctor. They give you one.
‘You seem healthy to me,’ the doctor says.
‘This is healthy? I can’t move my arm.’
‘You still have your eyes, and your feet are still at the ends of your legs.’
‘Are you really a doctor?’ you ask.
They hit you again. They ask more questions. They hurt you again. They ask more questions. They hit you with questions. They ask more hits. They question your hurt. They ask you again. You question their hurt. They hit you.
‘You are not one of us,’ they tell you.
‘I am not one of them,’ you tell them.
After a long while, a different lawyer comes.
‘You have human rights,’ he says.
You do not believe him.
