I didn’t know where we were. I hadn’t been paying attention and it was dark. But we were on a motorway. The M1, I think. Mum was ranting, saying how they were wrong, that Gary was innocent, that she wanted a lawyer, that it was barbaric how we’d all just been chucked out of our own home.
I looked out past my refection in the window. Nothing made any sense. I thought, how could Gary have taken Alice? How could he, if you were the one that took her? Then I thought, does Gary know you? Did Gary and you take her together?
I turned my head away more so DC Edwards wouldn’t see me whispering. I imagined the people in white overalls going into my bedroom and opening my cupboards and drawers. Then I thought of Alice’s Box and thank God how it wasn’t sitting there in my cupboard, because if they found that and figured out it was Alice’s stuff, they’d think I was a freak. They’d think I’d taken her, because even though it isn’t really that weird keeping a box of someone’s things, the police would think it was, wouldn’t they? And with Katy and everyone telling them I was stalking her, the police would say Alice’s Box proved it.
We parked and got out in front of a modern, low building with a lit-up entrance and sign over the door that said Bricket Wood Police Headquarters. I remembered I had a friend at junior school that lived in Bricket Wood. I think I went to a party at her house.
Mum had been quiet for the last part of the journey, but she started up again as we were led across the tarmac. ‘Where’s Gary?’ she kept saying and when one of the policemen took her by the arm, she snatched it away, going, ‘Get off me!’
It was bright with strip-lighting inside. We were taken down a corridor. A man in a suit came out of a door and told Mum, ‘You’ll be free to leave the station once we’ve questioned each of you separately. Do you give your permission for us to interview Yasmin? She’ll be in the room right next to you. There’ll be a social worker present.’
Mum nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘Yes, alright. Whatever. Whatever you need . . .’ Then, when they led me further down the corridor, she called out, ‘Just tell them the truth, Yaz!’
There was a table in the room with a recording machine on it and four chairs tucked in, two either side. That was it. Nothing else. Not even a one-way mirror.
‘Someone will be right with you,’ DC Edwards said. I sat down and waited for a minute, then DI Burke came in with a clipboard and a man in a brown suit.
‘Have you found Alice?’ I said. ‘Did Alice say Gary’d done something?’
She didn’t answer. She just sat down, waited for the man to sit next to her, then turned the recorder on. He smelt of BO mixed with cigarette smoke and I glanced at DI Burke to see if she could smell it too. She must have done because it was disgusting and she was nearer him than I was, but she didn’t wrinkle her nose up or anything. She said, ‘Interview with minor, Yasmin Laksaris. DI Burke and Social Worker, Mr Derek Jeffries, in attendance. Bricket Wood station, April 8th . . .’ She pushed up the cuff of her suit jacket, looked at her watch and said the time. Then she crossed her legs and put the clipboard on the table. She looked exactly like she had every time I’d seen her – same suit, same hair scraped off her face, same gold stud earrings. The only thing that was different was her shirt, blue this time. And, like every other time, she was watching me steadily. ‘Yasmin, this is Mr Jeffries,’ she said.
The man put his hand out, looking at me over his glasses. I think he wanted me to shake it but I didn’t. I didn’t want to touch him.
‘Why’ve you arrested Gary?’ I said.
She looked at me a bit longer. I think she was deciding whether or not she was going to tell me. Then she said, ‘We’ve found some evidence that indicates that Alice may have been in Gary’s van.’
‘What d’you mean?’ I said.
‘We’re waiting on forensics for confirmation.’ She rolled her earring between her finger and thumb and looked at me for a second. Then she said, ‘Yasmin, has Alice ever been in Gary’s van?’
I pulled a face. ‘No.’
‘Has he ever given you and Alice a lift anywhere, into town maybe or home after school?’
‘No.’
‘Did Alice ever talk about your stepdad? Did she know him at all?’
‘No,’ I said, but I remembered Mum saying he’d done a job at Alice’s house.
‘You’re certain of that.’
I shrugged. ‘Yeah.’
She glanced down at the clipboard, looked up at me again and licked her lips. ‘You and your mum moved into Gary’s house the year before last, is that right?’
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘How’s that been, living there?’ Her voice was softer than usual, like she was concerned about me, except I knew it was only for show because the social worker was there.
I shrugged. ‘Alright,’ I said.
‘Do you like him?’
I thought that was a bit of a weird question, because if Gary took Alice, why did it make any difference if I liked him or not? ‘He’s OK.’
‘How would you describe your mum and Gary’s relationship? Do they get along well?’
I thought about Mum rubbing her hands all over the bronzed six-pack on the Adonis cooking apron she got him for his birthday and going, ‘Oooh Gary, I never knew you had such a body!’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I suppose.’
‘Do they ever argue?’
‘Not really.’
‘Has he ever lost his temper?’
I looked at the social worker. He was picking at a thread in the knee of his trousers. ‘Sometimes,’ I said. ‘Sometimes he shouts, like if I’m late and he’s giving me a lift. He doesn’t like waiting.’
She was looking at me like she wanted me to go on, so I said, ‘He wasn’t very happy after you’d questioned him.’
‘You mean yesterday afternoon?’
I nodded.
‘What did he say?’
‘That it’s my fault he got taken in because of what Katy and the others said.’
‘And what do you think?’
I shrugged.
‘Do you think it’s your fault?’
I looked at her. I wasn’t sure what she meant, but because she was staring intently at me, I said, ‘No, not really.’
She didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then she said, ‘Has Gary ever struck out at you or your mum? Hit either of you?’
I shook my head.
‘For the recording please, Yasmin.’
‘No.’
‘Your mum works, doesn’t she?’
‘She’s a mystery shopper,’ I said.
‘Does that mean you’re sometimes alone in the house with Gary?’
‘Yeah, sometimes,’ I said. I could guess where this was going.
‘Has he ever done anything that’s made you feel uncomfortable in any way? Made any sexual advances?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Gary’s not like that.’ I couldn’t even picture it. But an image did jump into my head. It was Gary in Alice’s kitchen, lying under the sink with a spanner in his hand and looking at Alice’s legs disappearing up into the darkness of her short school skirt as she reached into a cupboard.
DI Burke was looking at me like she was still waiting for an answer.
‘No,’ I said again.
Then she leant forward, pushing the clipboard to one side and interlocking her fingers. ‘Yasmin, you can tell me the truth.’ Her lips were pressed together and she was frowning, like she was all heart. ‘It can feel very frightening to tell someone if a person – especially a person that lives in the same house as you – is behaving inappropriately, doing things they shouldn’t. But you have my word that you would be looked after, get the best support there is.’
I thought about playing along – saying, OK, Gary has been doing things he shouldn’t. He’s been coming into my room when Mum’s out, telling me if I tell anyone I’ll be sorry . . . but I didn’t. I said, ‘I am telling you the truth.’
She kept on staring at me. Then she said, ‘Is Gary t
he man you were talking about when you told the girls at school you were trying to protect Alice?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I never even said that.’
She was looking right into my eyes. ‘Yasmin, I’m trying to help you here, but one way or another it’s clear you’re not telling the truth. We know, for example, that you said in front of a number of your classmates that you were the last person to see Alice before she disappeared on Sunday.’ She waited to see if I was going to say anything, then went on. ‘And if that’s true, then both you and your mother must have been lying when you told DI Grayson and myself that you were home all day Sunday and only went out to go to the fish and chip shop on Belmont Road.’
I thought it was obvious I’d made that up. Alice’d been with her singing teacher and the police had CCTV of her walking home on her own, so I couldn’t have been the last person to see her. DI Burke just wanted to make me say I’d lied out loud for the recording. ‘OK,’ I said, ‘that wasn’t true.’
‘What wasn’t?’
‘I wasn’t the last person to see Alice. I said it to get back at Katy. I never said anything about Mr Faraday, though. That’s what they said – Laura and Chelsea.’
‘You also said you and Alice were close,’ DI Burke said, ignoring what I’d just told her about Mr Faraday. ‘You implied the two of you had some kind of secret relationship. Was that also untrue?’
I looked at her big brown eyes. I didn’t want to say I’d made that up. I wanted to say it was true, that me and Alice were close, that once we’d even gone into town after school and eaten strawberry tarts in the John Lewis café. But I knew if I did, she’d make me give all kinds of details and she’d find out I was lying, so I shook my head. I looked down at my hands. ‘No,’ I said, ‘we weren’t friends.’
She sat back in her chair. ‘And are you telling me absolutely everything you know regarding Alice?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘You and Alice were not friends?’
‘No.’
‘Alice has, to the best of your knowledge, never been in Gary’s van?’
‘No.’
‘You never said that you were trying to protect Alice from a man?’
‘No.’
Then suddenly, out of nowhere, she got up and banged her hand down flat on the table. It made me jump. Then she dropped forward so she was right over me, staring down on me, her nostrils flared. ‘We have three witnesses,’ she said. ‘Three witnesses that all say you clearly told them that you were protecting Alice from a man. And still you deny it?’
She was scaring me. I started to panic. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I didn’t think it mattered . . .’
‘A girl has been taken,’ she shouted, bits of her spit hitting my face. ‘A girl that might be somewhere at this very second having God knows what done to her, and you think it doesn’t matter?’
‘I didn’t mean that!’ I said. Tears were filling my eyes. ‘I’m sorry . . .’
She slammed her hand down again. ‘DID YOU SAY IT? DID YOU?!’
‘Yes!’ I said, ‘I said it! I did! I’m sorry, I—’
Then she was level with me, squatting next to me, one hand holding the edge of the table, the other on my leg. ‘And who is he?’ she said, her voice intense and low, like she’d never shouted, like she didn’t want even the social worker to hear her now. ‘Who is he, Yasmin?’ she said. ‘Tell me. Is it Gary?’
I realised then what she thought – that because I’d said about there being a man, it must be true.
‘No,’ I said, ‘no,’ wiping the tears off my cheeks and looking into her eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘There isn’t a man.’
She gave a tight shake of her head, like that wasn’t possible.
‘I did say it,’ I said, ‘but I made it up. I’m sorry.’
She didn’t move. She just stared at me. Then slowly, she stood up. She walked in a circle round the table, round me and Mr Jeffries, her palm pressed to her forehead. Then she stopped behind her chair and turned to me. ‘Why?’ she said, as if it made no sense. ‘Why would you say that?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘They were saying I was stalking Alice. I made it up so they wouldn’t say it anymore.’
There was a long silence.
I looked at the social worker. He was frowning at me over his glasses, a grim expression on his face.
‘So there’s no man?’ DI Burke said.
I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said. ‘There’s no man.’ When I came out, I could see Mum through the swing doors at the end of the corridor. She was at the front desk, taking some papers from a policeman in uniform. She looked like she was arguing with him.
When I came through the door with DI Burke, she rushed over and grabbed my arm. ‘Yaz, love, are you alright?’ Her face was puffy, her make-up all washed away.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I’m OK.’
‘Let’s get out of here.’ She threw DI Burke a dirty look.
‘Where’re we going?’ I said when we were outside. I didn’t think we’d be able to go home with all those police people there.
‘They called a cab,’ she said, hugging herself because it was cold and we hadn’t got our coats. ‘They’ve arranged for us to stay at the Premier Inn.’
‘Did they tell you why they got Gary?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Reasonable cause was all they said. How can they arrest someone on reasonable cause when they won’t even say what reasonable cause it is they’ve got? It’s despicable!’
I thought she was going to carry on once we’d got in the cab, but she went quiet and stared out of the window, her fingers pinching and twisting her bottom lip.
Except for the purple carpet, the Premier Inn wasn’t anything like it is in the telly advert with people bursting through the doors laughing, their arms full of shopping bags. The girl behind the counter wasn’t smiling like the one in the advert either.
The room was nice, though – really smart – everything white and purple. The beds had purple silk runners going across the white duvets and the window had a white sort of see-through curtain all across it – probably because the car park wasn’t a very nice view – and purple curtains to pull in front. The bathroom was nice too, all clean with fluffy white towels folded neatly on a shelf over the loo and a bath with a glass panel for when the shower was on. There was a telly, too, on a chest of drawers. I thought maybe we’d watch a film later on, when Mum had calmed down a bit, snuggled up in our beds with hot chocolate.
She sat on the bed nearest the window and stared into space.
I closed the curtains and sat on the other bed so I was facing her. ‘It’ll be OK, Mum,’ I said.
‘Gary’s a good man,’ she whispered.
I put my hand on her leg, and she gripped it and looked up at me. ‘He’s a good man,’ she said again.
I nodded, feeling a bit awkward. ‘I know.’
Then her face crumpled, like now she didn’t know anymore if he was good or not. ‘Isn’t he?’ she said. I thought the police probably asked her the same questions they’d asked me about Gary making me do things I didn’t want to.
‘Mum, it’s OK,’ I said. ‘Gary’s never hurt me. He’s never touched me. I told them that.’
She nodded. She was still gripping me just as tight though. ‘Oh, good,’ she said, sniffing and nodding, trying to smile. ‘That’s good.’
I said she should have a nice bath, and went to run her one. It took me ages to work out how to get the plug to go down because it wasn’t one on a chain or one where you pull up a lever, but in the end I figured it out. You had to turn the big silver shower dial the other way from if you wanted a shower. Anyway, I ran the bath, squeezing in the little sachet of shower gel that came for free with the room. It didn’t really foam up much but it smelt nice.
When it was full and I’d turned off the taps, I went back into the room and took a tenner out of Mum’s purse in her handbag. I said I was going to walk over to the big Tesco that’s open twenty-four hours and g
et us some toothbrushes and stuff. I wasn’t sure she heard me because she was staring into space again. ‘Mum,’ I said, so she looked at me. ‘I won’t be long. Get in the bath.’
When I got back, Mum was lying down, curled away from me. She hadn’t got in the bath. She was still in her clothes, the bedspread half over her.
‘Mum?’ I said quietly, but she didn’t answer. I went over, round the end of her bed. Her eyes were open. ‘Hi, Mum,’ I said.
She lifted her head off her hands. ‘Oh, hi love.’
‘Are you hungry?’ I said. ‘I got some sandwiches.’
She shook her head. ‘No, I’m OK,’ she said. ‘You carry on.’
‘OK,’ I said. It was obvious we weren’t going to watch telly, so I said, ‘I’ll be back in a bit. I’m just going down the hall.’
She put her head back down and closed her eyes.
I took the hoisin duck wrap and sweet ’n’ salty popcorn I’d bought out of the Tesco bag and went into the corridor, closing the door quietly behind me. Then I went to reception. I’d seen a waiting area round the corner from the desk when I came back from the shop and heard a telly there.
It was on the wall – a big flat-screen – already on BBC News 24. The newsreader was laughing, having some joke with the weatherman. I sat in one of the purple tub chairs and chewed my duck wrap slowly. I got an uneasy feeling waiting for the report, like I didn’t really want to know what they were going to say in case they said Gary’s name or showed our house, but at the same time I wanted to know if they were going to say anything about the reasonable cause they had. It had to be something to do with Gary’s van, because that’s what DI Burke kept asking about.
When it came on, I stopped eating and listened. The reporter said that a man, the owner of a Ford Transit similar to one captured on CCTV and believed to have been known to the missing teenager, was assisting police with their inquiries. My heart banged in my chest. ‘Believed to have been known to the missing teenager’. Alice knew Gary? There was no way Alice knew Gary! Unless ‘believed to have been known’ to her meant something like she just knew who he was because she’d seen him picking me up outside school, or something like that, or because of the work he’d done at their house.
Things We Have in Common Page 15