by Frances Vick
So she dimly registered Mum’s little hand squeeze, a squeeze that told her to go with the nice man and not to worry. Then she let her go, walked back to the hard benches.
‘I’ll be waiting here for you, all right?’ And she gave a little wave as Kirsty was led behind the big scarred desk, through some heavy doors, and away into the bowels of the building.
The corridor leading to the interview room smelled of faint bleach and fainter urine. They turned into a small room, painted sickly green, and on the scarred table was a telephone and a big tape recorder – both hearing-aid brown. The scratchy, hessian texture of the too-large chair dimpled her skin all the way through her leggings and her toes didn’t reach the floor. This made her feel silly, shy, impossibly young. The big tape recorder hissed loud as a collapsing tyre in the silence. The policeman said something then, it sounded prepared, officious, and full of words that Kirsty didn’t really understand, but when he asked if she understood, she nodded.
‘Can you speak for the tape, Kirsty?’
She nodded again, blushed, whispered, ‘Yes.’
‘And can you keep your voice up?’
‘Yes?’
And so it began.
It was the hiss of the machine that did it. Every time she left a silence, the noise seemed to grow. It embarrassed her – she could imagine the empty gaps on the tape, gaps she was expected to fill with FACTS. She imagined how stupid and brainless she must sound. She imagined all the policemen sitting together, listening to it, shaking their heads at how inarticulate she was. One would ask, ‘Does she have Something Wrong Her?’ And if they thought she did, then that would give them a reason to send her away from Mum, maybe to a Home for the Handicapped.
‘Just tell me about Lisa. Kirsty?’
And so she began to talk. She talked and talked and talked about anything and everything to fill the silence. She told Detective Shay about how Lisa wanted to be an air hostess and that she’d swum with dolphins in Majorca even though there weren’t any dolphins in Majorca, but Lisa said they must have got lost because they were definitely dolphins because she rode on their backs. But maybe she didn’t even go to Majorca anyway. She told him about how desperately Lisa had wanted to be Mary in the school play but Louise Langhorne was picked instead and Lisa cried all afternoon. She told him that Lisa said her house was haunted, because once Bryan had seen a long white hand push itself under the toilet door when he was having a poo. She told them that they were going to live together all their lives and always be best friends and live next door to each other when they were old ladies, and have dogs and… finally, she was stopped.
‘Tell me about the park. She was meeting her boyfriend, you said.’
‘She said she had a date,’ Kirsty whispered. ‘I thought she was lying. I got angry with her. We—’
‘Who was she meeting? The name?’ A touch of impatience.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You do, Kirsty.’ He put his glasses on and read something off a sheet of paper. ‘Toqueer Al-Balushi?’
‘I don’t know who that is,’ she told him truthfully.
‘Tokki. That’s what he calls himself. You know him?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘Toqueer Al-Balushi. Mohammed Oman.’ He threw the names down like heavy weights. The tape hissed like a threatening snake. Kirsty felt her heart stutter. ‘Do you know them?’ Kirsty shook her head. ‘You have to speak for the tape, Kirsty.’
‘No.’
‘But you’ve met them?’
‘No?’
‘No?’
‘They came to Harvest Festival,’ she muttered.
‘They came to your school?’ He sounded surprised. ‘Did the teachers know?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. I mean, they saw them but I don’t think they asked why they were there or anything.’
‘Tell me about them. Tell me about them and Lisa.’
‘I don’t want to,’ she whispered.
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t want to get Lisa into trouble.’
‘Why would talking about them get Lisa into trouble?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I think you do know.’
‘What?’
‘Is she with one of them? Kirsty? Has she gone off with one of them? Tokki? Was she meeting him when she disappeared? I know she was, because that’s what you told Mrs Cook, wasn’t it?’
‘I said she was meeting her boyfriend. I didn’t say it was Tokki though. And I think maybe she was making it all up anyway—’
‘Did you see him in the park?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
His eyebrows raised, his back stiffened. She’d disappointed him. She’d said the wrong thing.
‘Well, we’ll come back to that. Kirsty, I want you to tell me about Tokki, about what Lisa told you about him. You’ve got to tell me everything, without being silly about it, or I won’t be able to help, OK?’
And so she started telling him what they wanted to know. She stopped prefacing things with ‘She was making it up’ or ‘She was lying’ because that’s not what they wanted to hear. They wanted to hear everything Lisa had said and hinted at, about the engagement, about being princesses, about S.E.X. Kirsty told them everything, things she didn’t understand, things she only half remembered, things she only thought she remembered after the questions made it clear what they wanted her to remember. It all poured into the tape recorder and when the press got hold of some of the things she’d supposedly said, they made headlines.
Tragic Tot Told ‘You’re My Wife’, Given Booze
* * *
Missing Girl Shared BED with ‘Prince’
* * *
Lisa Cook ‘Watched Video Nasties with Lodger’
Detective Shay told her that she was being a Good Friend by Telling the Truth. He kept lollies in his desk drawer and gave them as rewards whenever she told him something he said was Useful, and Kirsty wanted to be Useful. You want her to come home, don’t you? Of course she wanted Lisa to come home. But every day Mum walked her to school with Baby Vicky in the pushchair, kissed her goodbye, and watched anxiously as Kirsty walked stiff-legged into the playground where the other kids stayed in distant eddies and stared at her. Her classmates kept a distance that they probably believed was respectful, but instead made her feel infected, alien, and so very lonely. She couldn’t wait to see Mum and Baby Vicky waiting at the gates every day at home time – couldn’t wait to feel Vicky’s sticky hand on her face, see Mum’s kind smile. They were the only people who wanted to be close to her, it seemed.
‘They’ll find her,’ Mum said. ‘They’ll find her and everything will be all right.’
‘Will it?’
‘I promise it will. I’ll make sure it is.’
She believed her. Mum could do anything. All they had to do was find Lisa, and everything would be all right. As soon as Lisa was back, everything would be back to normal.
A week later the news said that Lisa’s coat had been found. The man on the TV said it was by the canal.
‘They searched that canal though,’ Mum muttered to herself. ‘How’d they miss it?’
‘Her coat?’ Kirsty felt excited. If they’d found her coat then they’d found Lisa; she kept the notebook with the details of ‘Angels Times Two’ in her pocket, and there was no way she’d be careless enough to lose that. ‘Is she back home?’
And Mum had looked pitying, infinitely sad. ‘Not yet, love,’ she said.
That week was the last time Kirsty sat in that now familiar room, facing the hissing brown tape recorder. Detective Shay was there along with another man who told her he was Detective Chief Inspector Lepp. They smiled but there were no lollipops, and their attention strayed to the door, to the notes handed in after a respectful knock at the door. These notes commanded the same interest that Kirsty used to. There was a commotion outside. A crowd. It sounded like market day, or a sm
all crowd watching fireworks, except there were no oohs and ahhs. Another note, and one of the detectives turned off the tape recorder and they left the room without telling her why. When they came back they were wearing expressions of grim cheer, while outside, the crowd noise had coalesced into coherence, chants, shouting and Kirsty heard someone say the c-word… the bad c-word. Her face flushed with embarrassment but neither detective seemed to have noticed. They muttered something to each other, turned to her. Detective Lepp put one hand near to the tape recorder, but didn’t turn it on.
‘We’ve got him,’ he told her.
‘Who?’
‘Toqueer.’ His smile widened and Kirsty wished it hadn’t because his teeth were awful, big and long and brown as a rotten apple. ‘You don’t have to be scared of him any more.’
‘I’m not scared of him,’ Kirsty whispered.
‘You don’t have to be scared any more, because we’ve got him.’ He went on smoothly, ‘But we can only keep him here, and keep you safe, if you do the right thing and tell us when you saw him in the park, where he was, what he said, if anything? You’re going to do the right thing by your friend, OK?’
‘I didn’t see him at the park though.’
He looked annoyed. ‘You did. You told us so.’
‘Did I?’
‘Yes.’ His face was grim. ‘The date? You told us she was meeting him. Now’s not the time to start playing with us.’ His teeth were out again, but not in a smile, more of a grimace. ‘Think of your friend, Kirsty. Think of her and tell us what we need to know.’
He paused, fished in his pocket, found a pack of lollies. ‘I know you’re scared – here, have this, it’s the last one!’ He smiled. She smiled back, took the sweet. ‘You’re a good girl, Kirsty. You just have to do this one last thing and then everyone will know how useful you’ve been. OK?’
‘OK.’ Kirsty felt dazed at his sudden gentleness.
‘Now, don’t eat that lolly until afterwards, I don’t want you crunching all the way through the interview!’ His face told her that he was making a joke. She made her face respond in kind.
‘Good girl. Right, here we go,’ he said then, and pressed record.
DCI Lepp: Was there anyone else in the park? A man?
* * *
KC: Yes.
* * *
DCI Lepp: And what colour skin did the man have?
* * *
KC: Dark.
* * *
DCI Lepp: And did you recognise him?
* * *
KC: I don’t know. I think so.
* * *
DCI Lepp: And who was he, do you think?
* * *
KC: Tokki.
* * *
DCI Lepp: Toqueer Al-Balushi?
* * *
KC (crying): Yes.
* * *
DCI Lepp: And where did you see him standing?
* * *
KC: By the gate?
* * *
DCI Lepp: The gates of the park? The main gates on Queen Street or…
* * *
KC: The little gate, by Kwik Save.
* * *
DCI Lepp: And did Lisa see him?
* * *
KC: I’m not sure.
* * *
DCI Lepp: Think hard, Kirsty. She was meeting her boyfriend, you told us that, so did she see him? Walk over to him?
* * *
KC I think she did.
* * *
DCI Lepp: You think, or you know?
* * *
KC: Yes, she did.
* * *
DDCI Lepp: Do you know what time it was when you saw him?
* * *
KC: No.
* * *
DDCI Lepp: You’d been in the park for a while, so what time was it, do you think? About five?
* * *
KC: I don’t know.
* * *
DCI Lepp: Because there are two young ladies who say they saw you and Lisa in the park at four forty-five, and they saw Tokki at the little gate a few minutes later. Do you remember those young ladies? They remember you.
* * *
KC: What?
* * *
DCI Lepp: They saw you both, and then they passed Tokki just before the Kwik Save gate. They saw him go into the park. Did you see them?
* * *
KC: Yes.
* * *
DCI Lepp: Do you think you left Lisa at about five?
* * *
KC I think so.
* * *
DCI Lepp: We need you to be sure on this, Kirsty.
* * *
KC: Yes, five, because I heard the clock strike.
* * *
DCI Lepp: So if you said you saw him at five, and you know it was five because the clock struck. Kirsty? You have to speak up for the tape? Here, blow your nose. Better? Do you need to take a break? No? OK – so you saw Toqueer Al-Balushi in the park sometime between four forty-five and five. You saw Lisa approach him. Then you left, yes?
* * *
KC (crying): Yes.
* * *
DCI Lepp: And why did you leave?
* * *
KC: I was scared. I was cold and scared and I wanted to go home. I want to go home now. Can I go home now?
Kirsty couldn’t remember seeing any girls in the park, but after a while she started to think that maybe she could. Both detectives were very very concerned that she remember, and so she (almost) did. And if those big girls saw Tokki in the park, then he must have been there, he had to have been. And so, he was – logic dictated it. Both the big girls and the police thought it, and they would know, wouldn’t they? And if they had Tokki, they had Lisa! Maybe they’d eloped or something, but surely she’d be back at school tomorrow, or certainly by next week, and they’d be best friends again, and Angels Times Two would still happen, and…
‘Can I go home now?’ she asked again.
Detective Lepp turned off the tape recorder. Then he laughed as if she’d made a deliberate joke. ‘Yes, you can go home now.’
‘And when can I see Lisa? Is she here or is she at home?’
Both men’s faces closed. They didn’t answer, and she thought she’d said something wrong. When she was handed over to Mum in reception they asked for a quiet word. Kirsty saw them in the corner, watched Mum’s shoulders stiffen, then nod rapidly, jerkily. When she turned she kept her head down. She was crying, Kirsty could tell. They left through the back entrance (‘Why the back entrance?’ ‘Because there’s a crowd out front.’ ‘Why?’ No answer) and got into a waiting taxi. Mum held her hand very tight all the way home, and didn’t speak, so after a while neither did Kirsty.
At home the silence carried on. Kirsty began to feel that she’d committed some terrible error that she couldn’t yet fathom, but asking about it would only make it worse, and so she allowed herself to be bathed, dressed in fleecy pyjamas and tucked into bed, just like a baby, and she returned Mum’s long, tight hug and said goodnight, thinking that maybe tomorrow she’d understand what she’d done wrong.
Six
Kirsty woke confused. The room was too light, it was late – it was ten o’clock in the morning! She’d be late for school! Baby Vicky was on the landing, her face pressed up against the bars of the stair gate.
‘Mum sad.’ She grinned.
And Kirsty could hear Mum crying now, all the way from the living room. She managed to open the gate and escort Baby Vicky down the stairs, place her on her rocking horse and then hovered in the doorway, staring miserably at Mum until she was noticed, wordlessly beckoned over and again given that tight, almost suffocating hug.
‘You all right, my darling?’ Mum choked.
‘What’s happened? Why aren’t I at school?’
‘He just confessed.’ Mum took a long, shuddery breath, moved away slightly, wiped her eyes on her sleeve. ‘They just called me.’
Things went very still then. Who had confessed? And what exactly did ‘confessed’ m
ean? Was it a sickness?
‘What? Who?’
‘That bastard lodger of theirs. The police just called me.’ She wiped her face and took Baby Vicky into the kitchen, put her in her high chair in front of the telly. Back in the living room she closed the door, sat next to Kirsty, took her hand. ‘He won’t tell them what he did with her,’ she said softly, but with anger. ‘That’s what they said. He’s playing about with them.’
‘Playing?’ An absurd, almost funny picture entered Kirsty’s mind of Tokki and Lisa playing jump-rope in the park. She giggled, a slightly hysterical yip of a sound, and her heart pounded, her face flushed.
‘But where’s Lisa been then? Is she going to school today?’
Mum kept her face still, as if she was angry. ‘No.’
A pause. ‘Where is she then?’
‘She’s dead. He killed her.’
