‘You listening? I’m destitute.’
And you just seem so trivial.
‘Go back to him Mum,’ I mumbled.
‘I can’t. I just can’t.’ She paused, for what seemed like an hour. ‘I need a place to stay.’
I didn’t own a suitcase, though as I glanced by Mum, I noticed a 1970s trunk-like thing placed just inside the front door. ‘Don’t you dare think… No – no way.’
She grumbled.
‘No.’
She was pained to say it: ‘Please.’
‘No. It took me nineteen years to get away – you think you can just swan back in here.’
‘I ditched the dancing for you, nineteen years that I cared for you – payback time sunshine.’
‘Get lost.’
She slapped me.
I held my face. ‘You bitch.’
‘If I had any other choice I would get lost,’ she screamed, ‘far away from you.’
‘So go.’
She thumped me, and again. ‘Show me respect I’m your mother!’
I pushed her away and she fell over the bed like a withered hag. As she struggled to straighten herself, the sun caught her through the window and I saw a tear glimmer in her eye.
I was disturbed. ‘You’re crying,’ I said.
She turned her head away.
‘You’re crying.’
Her sleeve wiped over her face.
‘I didn’t mean…’
She grabbed her suitcase and made for the door.
‘Wait.’
She ignored me.
‘Mum…’ I grabbed her arm.
She glared.
I looked away. ‘OK. You can stay – just for a while.’
It was quiet. Awkwardness embraced us. I could hear the blood in my veins, my guts squirm. Then, struggling as though it were her final breath, Mum said:
‘Thank you.’
I left for work an hour later, having scrubbed myself viciously. Out on the street, my pace was tentative, as though I’d trapped a stone in my shoe. The tree lined Boulevard was made of terraced villas, built for Victorian trawler owners, though a century-long greasy pole had landed the houses in a state of decomposition, carved up by cheap plasterboard to squeeze in the extra benefit cheques. A car pulled in ahead of me, the wheels still turning as the door opened into my path. I stopped. A man with a brown moustache climbed out and stared at me. I stepped aside, but he stared, a shadow falling as a body stood behind me.
Shit. According to last week’s chip paper, muggings have risen 10% in the past year. ‘I’ve got nothing.’ I trembled as I turned out my pockets. ‘Look – nothing. I’ve got nothing.’
He stared. ‘Mr Jones?’
I nodded. Hang on, how…?
He flashed me a badge. ‘Inspector Briggs, this is my sergeant.’ A tall man appeared from behind me. ‘Can we offer you a lift?’
This rendered little relief. ‘A lift?’
‘Yes, sir.’ The words accompanied a horrible sarcasm. ‘Running a little late?’
My eyes opened wide. ‘I over-slept. Thanks, but I need the fresh air.’
‘Don’t muck me about, sunbeam.’
‘I’m not…’
He swung open the back of his car. ‘Get in!’
I acquiesced.
Thirteen
I thought I had it sussed that
my life would just come good.
My short ride to the police station was uncomfortable and I huddled myself in the back. Beside me, the tall one turned intermittently and peered down what seemed like a thousand miles of spotty nose; while the other cursed at anyone for his own bad driving – it was as if both faces were attempting to manifest the word ‘unamused’.
To the rear of Redbourne Street Police Station, we pulled across the car park under the gawps of coppers on a fag break. A vault-like door granted access, and as I glanced skyward for some ethereal direction, I saw a sandstone lintel carved with the date 1885 – I shuddered and couldn’t help but imagine the figures as a prison sentence. Inside, I tried hard to restrain my trembling and was subdued to a downwards glance as the duty sergeant confirmed various details about myself and the circumstances surrounding my being there, before allowing the two policemen to escort me to an interview room.
‘Sit down,’ said the one with the moustache.
I obeyed, huddling into a plastic chair. Tash unbuttoned his suit jacket, letting a spare tyre sag over his belt, and gazed out of the window – sunlight caught his facial hair, a speckle of ginger bristles indicative of tobacco use.
‘Now then sunbeam,’ said Tash, observing me like I expected he did modern art – without affection. ‘We need to ask you some questions. Got the gist?’
I nodded.
‘You’re not under arrest – we call this an informal chat. Right?’ Tash gestured towards the table and a rather dated tape recorder. The plug was disconnected from the mains with cable strewn over the machine, somehow conspicuously. ‘’less you want legal advice that is, then we have to fill out forms, get a duty solicitor…’
Someone to stick up for me? So I don’t have to? Sounds perfect. I fidgeted in my seat, as though preparing to pass wind. ‘Well actually I think—’
‘What?’ Tash snapped.
‘That I need…’ His acute frown scrambled my thinking and the remainder of my sentence was lost.
The tall one sniffed, sat at a diagonal to me, his lanky limbs collapsed into the chair like a folding clothes horse.
‘Saying you want a shyster? Eh?’ said Tash.
Assuming he meant legal representation, I nodded, coyly.
He looked away in apparent disdain. From an inside pocket, he removed a Nicorette branded blister packet, chipolata-esc thumbs pressing at the gum much like an autistic kid with bubble wrap. He appeared to think hard, frown some more, and then return the gum to his pocket. ‘Sergeant Johnson,’ he said, addressing his colleague rather dourly. ‘Mr Jones here says he wants a shyster. That means we must oblige.’
The two policemen exchanged a glance and some sort of facial twitch, before Tash sauntered across the room, hands in pockets, kicking his feet into the floor. Standing by the table, opposed to me, he plugged in the tape machine and smiled. ‘You’re under arrest on suspicion of aggravated robbery…’
My holding cell offered a toilet, a bed and four walls, all in rather claustrophobic proximity – pretty standard stuff I reckoned. After an hour alone, staring at the ceiling, a lumpy mattress aggravating my back, there was heightened sense of event when a second man entered the cell. In fact, incarceration had stretched out the laws of physics to a degree that said hour could only be measured after the event and with the benefit of hindsight.
So, this man beheld the cell with a curious expression – he looked old, post sixty, old enough to pass as my granddad. His gaze swiftly settled upon the occupant and seemed to recoil a little before he nodded to me in acknowledgement. He appeared scraggly, his beard a week too long, his suit bed-creased.
I stared. Er… have you come to change the sheets mate?
‘Good morning dear boy!’ he said. The words emanated from his decidedly suspicious beard, the contents of which suggested he’d had beans for breakfast. ‘Mr Jones I trust?’
I nodded, kind of stunned, and pulled myself up to sit on the edge of the bed.
‘Good to meet you dear boy, good to meet you.’ There was a hobble to the couple of steps he took to shake my hand. His grasp was very firm. ‘I’ve heard much about you. I’m not interrupting I hope?’
Interrupting what exactly? A spiral into self-harm? ‘No.’
‘Good. Coffee? Get the brain in gear.’ There was a huff and a puff as he reached down for a paper cup I’d left on the floor.
‘It’s cold,’ I said.
‘Never mind. H
ow about tea? Hmm?’ He smiled, banged on the cell door and bellowed. ‘Tea in here please. Two teas.’
And why not Jaffa Cakes?
‘Now, dear boy, I expect you know why I’m here.’ He hustled me along the bed and sat beside me.
I only hope you do, dear boy. I shrugged.
‘Yes, well… first we should… sorry, er.’ He thought for a second, then took some papers from an inside pocket and fiddled with them. ‘Well, it would appear we have a pickle.’
‘What?’
‘Yes, quite a pickle.’
‘You’re him then?’
‘Pardon?’
‘The solicitor?’
‘Sorry! How rude of me… John Edmund, of Edmund & Associates.’
Ok. That is a name. And it kind of sounds like it should. ‘So you are?’
‘Six years in the game – have no fear.’
Mail-order degree was it?
John Edmund rested a hand on my shoulder. ‘I’m here to help, yes? You’re not on your own.’ He smiled, and I perceived it as genuine. ‘Now, let me say one thing.’
I nodded.
‘Guilty,’ he said.
There was a pause. A baked bean fell from his beard and as it hit the floor quietness made it almost a thud. There had been no bias to his tone, just a bland matter-of-factness that seemed to suggest some kind of deal had already been done.
I shrugged his hand away. ‘What?’
‘I’m aware I could stir mixed feelings, yes? But trust me, dear boy, making an admission from the very beginning will reflect well in court.’
‘But I’m innocent,’ I blurted. Well, not exactly, but I’m definitely not guilty.
‘Yes yes. Just consider, dear boy, that there’s more than one way to cook an egg.’
‘No way. I can’t…’
Yes this is a pickle isn’t it. Quite a fucking pickle.
‘Of course, it’s your prerogative,’ said John Edmund. ‘I merely advise you of the options.’
I gazed at the floor, unblinking until the grey concrete blurred my vision and then my thoughts. The options were trivial – a declaration of guilt, a declaration of innocence – neither could delay the blast-off of one fact:
I was fucked.
‘Right then,’ said Tash. ‘What time you usually start work?’
‘Half-eight,’ I mumbled.
‘Bit late today, eh?’
‘Yeh.’
Back in the interview room, four poker faces hunched over the table – a stack of cash and a nebula of cigarette smoke away from an illegal gambling den. Tash sat opposed to me, intermittently massaging his right temple; the tall one sat at a diagonal, watching silently but for the odd deep breath, picking at the perfect-storm of acne afflicting his nose; and John Edmund sat beside me, doing not very much. All the while, a whirr sounded from the cassette recorder, almost like a meditation mantra.
‘You’ve been conspicuous by your absence,’ said Tash.
‘Slept in,’ I mumbled.
‘Alarm clock bust?’
I shrugged.
‘Heavy night?’
‘Not really.’
I glanced to John Edmund, who gave a short nod, which was neither instructional nor reassuring. Indeed, before entering the interview room, there had been no consensus and no action plan. My shrugging and minimally syllabic replies were an ad-hoc remedy.
Tash sniffed. ‘So, last night, where were you?’
‘Work,’ I mumbled.
‘Time?’
‘Late-ish.’
‘How late?’
‘Ten, eleven.’
‘Notice anything unusual?’
‘Not really.’
‘That right?’
‘Yeh.’
‘Sure about that?
‘Like?’
‘Well, let’s say…’ Tash paused to rub his temple and perform an exaggerated eye roll. His gaze resettled over me, eyes widening and an aggressive tone to complement: ‘A bloody armed robbery!’
I stayed quiet, tummy turmoil threatening the expulsion of bodily fluid.
Tash appeared yet more unfriendly: ‘A man’s been viciously assaulted, fifty-thousand pounds is missing. You admit you were at the scene – we have a witness who saw you give the robber a lift on your bloody scooter!’ He leaned forward and pulled a face. ‘I want some answers sunbeam, or you’re in deep.’
He glared and I quivered.
‘I’d advise no comment,’ said John Edmund, a while later. His delayed response accompanied a smile that was rather peculiar and probably related to the daydream he’d awoken from.
My head slumped forwards and I offered little resistance as my face hit the table. I just don’t care. Leave me the hell alone!
‘Unless, that is,’ John Edmund continued. ‘Unless you’d prefer to comment?’
What? Does this bloke get paid in bananas?
I heard Tash readjusted himself, the chair seeming to groan under the weight of too many bacon butties. ‘Well?’ he said.
I hardly owe Ms Fish the loyalty of ‘no comment’, and this set of clowns can whistle for an explanation. Maybe I should be more concerned with which option gives me the least time in jail. Yes, quite a pickle.
I took a long, deep breath. ‘OK,’ I mumbled, sitting up.
Tash’s eyes were wide and attentive. ‘Ready?’
I nodded and cuddled myself. I wasn’t cold, in fact I was clammy, but still I cuddled – it seemed to give a certain security.
‘Right, in your own time,’ said Tash.
So I braced myself, and talked. I was nervous, but I clung to a little composure – like when Stephanie Fletcher lifted her top behind the boiler room at school – I was brave. ‘I fell asleep doing time-sheets,’ I said. ‘I woke up about half eleven. I heard something – I dunno what – so I looked around. I went into Mr Fish’s office, and that’s when I saw…’
He nodded for me to continue.
‘Well…’
‘Go on, you’re all right.’
‘I saw Willy Wonka.’
‘What?’
I paused for breath, my heart pulsating, before adding: ‘And an oompa-loompa.’
Fuck this set of jokers. I mean, either way I’m going to jail…
Tash appeared confused, an expression I reckoned similar to a demented grandma who’d forgotten that granddad was dead. ‘Say again?’
‘And then I saw the security bloke – he was bleeding. So I called for an ambulance, but the line was cut, and then—’
‘Hold on sunbeam. You saw who?’
‘The security bloke.’
‘Before that!’
‘Oh. Willy Wonka. He looked pretty cross – and the oompa-loompa had a gun.’
‘So the robber was dressed as Willy Wonka?’
I shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
Tash groaned, as though I’d delivered a terrible punch line, rubbed his temple and then frowned so hard I thought his face might turn inside-out. ‘Don’t do this sunbeam. Really, it aint clever.’
‘But I can describe the gun?’ I said, stumbling across the words impatiently.
He twitched.
‘It was black and gun-shaped,’ I said.
The room appeared decidedly unimpressed. Tash’s eyes had latched onto me with an almost bloodthirsty fixation; the tall one mirrored the sentiment, I imagined as a kind of menstrual sympathy; and John Edmund had turned away slightly, body language communicating ‘this cunt’s not with me’.
‘Are you for real?’ said Tash.
‘What?’
‘Do you think I’m gonna sit here and take that?’
I shrugged.
‘So,’ he tapped his fingers upon the table, making a galloping sound – if it had been legal I think he would hav
e wrapped said fingers around my neck, ‘we’re looking for Willy Wonka, an oompa-loompa and a gun-shaped gun?’
John Edmund stirred from his resignation: ‘I’d advise no comment to that.’
I hesitated, considered, and then looked Tash directly in the eye. ‘Yes,’ I said.
The two policemen exchanged glances, an unspoken communication that seemed to make them both more agitated.
‘I’ll say this once. Right?’ Tash snapped. ‘Save us all a lot of trouble – tell the truth.’
I fidgeted. ‘I don’t know what else to say.’
‘You acted as getaway driver – why?’
I shrugged.
‘Where’s the scooter now?’
My poor Lambretta, drowned in slime! ‘Dead,’ I said flatly.
‘What d’you mean? What happened?’
I shrugged.
Tash took a deep, seemingly soothing breath. ‘OK. So what happened to the gun?’
‘I dunno.’
‘The money?’
I shook my head. I don’t know much do I, Mr Policeman? I wish I did. Most of all I’d like to know the answer to actually giving a shit. And passion – you look like you wanna bite my nose off – where does that come from? How come I don’t do anything unless it’s under duress…
‘You said you had a witness?’ I said, the words bursting from my mouth with an elevated tone. ‘That saw me on the scooter?’
Tash nodded. ‘That’s what I said.’
‘The witness saw the gun?’
A reply was not forthcoming, Tash sniffed and broke eye contact.
‘So you know?’ I said.
‘We don’t know anything ’less you tell us,’ said the tall one, in what I reckoned a token contribution to get his voice on tape.
You know I was at gunpoint. You know I had no choice!
‘I had to obey or I was dead meat,’ I blurted. ‘Dead meat. He had a gun – no way was I going to argue against that. I did as I was told, I just wanted to live!’
Tash expelled his breath lazily, as though he anticipated a rigmarole and really couldn’t be bothered. ‘That right?’
‘Yes!’ Well, there or thereabouts.
‘So what about Willy Wonka?’
Strange Affairs, Ginger Hairs Page 7
