by Clare Boyd
‘It’s going to be very hard for your mummy but it has been very hard for you too, hasn’t it?’
Rosie’s little hand let the cup slip slightly and the drink sloshed a little onto her dressing gown.
‘Careful love,’ Mira said, straightening the mug, feeling how cold Rosie’s fingers were around the warm metal.
Mira waited for Rosie’s understandable anger towards her, and felt ready to withstand it, knowing her motivations for breaking her trust and telling the police had been true.
‘It’s all my fault,’ Rosie said finally.
Mira was taken aback.
‘How so?’
‘When I cut my hand on the picture I told that first police lady that Mummy shouted at me all the time and so today they came back to my school to ask me more questions and then I told them some stuff about what we had talked about when I had cake with you and now Mummy is in big trouble.’ Her chin dimpled and her eyes blinked rapidly.
‘You were a good girl for telling them the truth.’
Rosie took a sip of her drink, sniffing and then wiping away a tear. ‘But what if I didn’t tell them the truth?’
‘Of course you did, pet,’ Mira said, her heart breaking for Rosie. She supposed a period of denial was inevitable after opening up for the first time. It was apparently common for many abused children. She had read about it in the newspapers.
‘You don’t understand, Mu—’ she stopped, a flash of much-needed pink on her cheeks, and continued with more measure in her voice. ‘You don’t understand, it’s just I got into this big story in my head and I started to imagine all these horrible things because I was so angry with Mummy.’
‘Of course you were angry with your mummy.’
Rosie was looking up at Mira with her eyes wider than ever, her drink growing a milky film. ‘What would the police do if I told them it was all a big, fat lie?’
Mira felt suddenly cross. ‘For goodness sake. Has your mother frightened you that much?’
‘Mummy gets really, really cross when I lie.’
‘Lying is very naughty indeed and everyone will be very cross with you if you lie. Very cross indeed. The police will take you into a cold dark room and lock you up if you lie.’
Mira had to exaggerate or else she feared Rosie would take back what she had confessed. It was natural for Rosie to believe that pushing it all back inside again was easier than facing up to the truth about her mother.
Mira had learnt the hard way on that front. Having been let back home, she had existed in a fug of lies and cover-ups and secrets in those early days of her pregnancy. Looking back, if she had given her mother and her sister time to adjust to the idea of a baby in the house, maybe everything would have been different.
‘They’d really lock me up?’ The cup slipped from Rosie’s hand completely, clattering onto the floor. Rosie stared fearfully up at Mira as though she would strike her and leapt up from the stool to stand behind it, away from Mira and the mess.
‘Don’t you worry,’ Mira said kneeling next to her, patting at the hot liquid that soaked into Rosie’s thighs. ‘Accidents happen. Nothing to worry about. Gosh, you’re a nervy little thing, aren’t you, pet? We’d call you Rosie Rabbit-in-the-Headlights at forest school.’
Rosie stood very still as Mira cleaned her up and then said, steadily, decisively, ‘I think I need to go back now. Thank you very much for my drink.’
Mira, still on her knees with the cloth soaking her lap, twisted around to Rosie who was now at the shed door. ‘Don’t you want me to walk you back?’
‘No thank you very much.’
‘Don’t forget, Rosie Rabbit, lying is a sin!’
Rosie stepped out into the night and closed the door carefully behind her.
Yes, Rosie Rabbit, lying was a sin. And sins were punished. Mira remembered that God had taught her this lesson by abandoning her in her hour of need, and she wondered if she had ever really recovered.
Mira’s kneecaps were grinding into the gritty floor but instead of standing, she collapsed over her thighs and cried for the sins of Gemma Bradley and she cried for Rosie, but not for herself. The past was in the past. She would not allow self-pity when there were human beings so close to home who were suffering much greater agonies than she had.
Chapter Thirty-Four
‘Time of arrest?’
‘17.35.’
‘Offence?’
‘Assault of a child causing actual bodily harm,’ DC Miles replied to the man behind the counter – the Duty Sergeant, I’d been told. He ran his eyes across me from behind his modern rectangle glasses, taking in details of my appearance with professional speed.
He tapped into his computer as he spoke. ‘Based on what the officers have told me I will be detaining you here in the station, okay?’
‘Okay.’ My lips quivered. I bit the side of my mouth. DC Miles disappeared into the back room and I felt that much more lost without her there.
‘Any drugs or alcohol in your system in the last twenty-four hours?’
‘No.’
‘Sorry, what was that?’
I tried to put some energy into my voice. ‘No.’
‘Any medication or medical conditions we need to know about?’
‘I’m pregnant?’ I said, wondering if that was relevant, hoping it might mean he was kinder to me. ‘Nine weeks.’
He tapped that in.
Nine weeks pregnant and I was under arrest. How had this happened to me?
‘Occupation?’ he said.
‘Head of Human Resources at CitiFirm.’
Before typing it in, he flicked one of the spikes of hair fanning across his forehead as though it had itched him all of sudden.
‘You have a right to speak to an independent solicitor that’s free of charge. And that can be in person or on the telephone.’
‘Do I need one?’ I tried to ask, before realising my voice box wasn’t working properly again. After clearing my throat, I said, croakily but loudly enough to be heard, ‘I think I know someone.’ There was only one solicitor I would call, amongst the dozens that I’d worked with over the years.
‘You’ll have an opportunity to call them before we take you down to one of the detention cells, okay?’
A cell. I was going to be put in a cell.
‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ I said, shaking my head back and forth, biting my lip and pressing my fingers into my forehead, one escaped tear leaking from my right eye. I sucked in my breath and looked at the ceiling. I was not going to cry.
The custody sergeant looked at me, and then at DC Bennett, who had been standing quietly beside me, and scratched under his hair again, ‘It won’t be too bad, we’ll get you interviewed as soon as we can, okay? Would you like a tea or coffee now?’
I felt pathetic. ‘Sorry, it’s the hormones. A tea would be good, thank you. Thank you very much.’
DC Bennett took over. ‘Okay then, Gemma, could you empty your pockets for me please?’
In a daze, I placed each of my possessions onto the high counter. The chewing gum, the lucky stone that Noah had given me, the velvet button, the tube of lip balm. I looked at them lying there, thinking about how personal they were to me, these small little pieces of my life. Didn’t they in themselves prove that I loved my children? The chewing gum and lip balm were generic pocket-things, but the others were not. Noah had given me the grey pebble when we had been walking on the beach. He had asked me to keep in it in my pocket forever. And so I had, until now. And the little black velvet button belonged to Rosie’s Scottish china doll. It was a jolt to be taken back to that evening a few weeks ago, when I had found the button, when everything had been simpler. Peter and I had been going out to meet Jim and Vics at the local pub for some supper, but we had been delayed by a frantic search for the lost button. I had found it down the side of the sofa, which had delighted Rosie. The babysitter had offered to sew it on that evening, but it had seemed important that I do it myself, so I had popped it
into my coat pocket, this same coat pocket. And look, it was still there, not sewn onto the doll’s blouse and now in a plastic bag at a police station.
‘And the handbag, please,’ DC Bennett said.
‘Wallet. Sunglasses. House keys. Car keys. IPad...’. DC Bennett listed the contents, placing them into a clear plastic bag while his colleague behind the counter typed the items into his computer.
The soft leather of my wallet, the discreet designer logo on the edge of my sunglasses, my silver key ring with my initials engraved onto the heart, the branding of my car on my car-clicker, the snakeskin cover to my touchpad, all of which I had worked so hard to buy, seemed gaudy and out of place here. How little they meant, how unhelpful and useless these over-priced little badges of success were to me now, how worthless.
‘Sign here and then you can call your solicitor, okay?’
After I had signed the small black pad, another officer led me to a small room that smelt of dusty telephone books even though there had probably not been a telephone book in there for decades. The officer’s Sikh turban created a surreal silhouette through the frosted glass of the door and reminded me of when Rosie had very politely asked our brick layer why he was wearing Mummy’s Indian scarf on his head, and how in response he had unravelled it and shown her his long hair. The look of amazement on her face made me smile even now and reminded me of how inquisitive and confident she was, and for a second, took me out of hell.
The plastic receiver was sticky. I knew the Letwin Assosciates’ telephone number off by heart. Philippa could surely help me. I liked her, having needed her countless times for legal wrangling over contractual issues. Strangely, I had only met her in person once before at a Christmas party. She’d had an immaculate grey bob and a short, lined forehead that gave her a permanently determined expression, and she had repeatedly sucked on an electric cigarette, holding it to her red lips with her heavily ringed fingers. The real smell of cigarette smoke had lingered in the air for a long while after she had walked away.
‘Letwin Associates, how may I direct your call?’
‘Could I speak to Philippa Letwin please?’
‘Who’s calling, please?’
‘Gemma Bradley, from CitiFirm.’
I was put on hold for a few minutes while Beethoven’s 5th Symphony played into my ear; how appropriately doom-laden.
‘Someone asking for too much money again?’ Philippa croaked with her husky smokers’ voice.
This was how she always greeted me on the telephone.
‘I’m afraid it’s not work related.’
‘Don’t tell me, you’re getting a divorce,’ she sighed, and then breathed in, probably from her e-cigarette.
‘I wish it was that simple.’
‘Spit it out then woman.’ I heard her tapping into her computer.
‘I’ve been arrested.’
As though her attention had snapped into place, her voice sounded less muffled.
‘You know I’m not often surprised in this job, but now you’ve got me. What for?’
‘They say I’ve assaulted my daughter, but I didn’t do it. In fact, I’m not even sure what it is that I’ve meant to have done.’
I was sounding brave, but I felt anything but. There was something about speaking to Philippa Letwin that gave me some false courage, and reminded me of how to conduct myself professionally in a stressful situation.
There wasn’t a moment’s hesitation before she said, ‘How can I help?’
‘I know before you turned corporate, your background was in criminal, wasn’t it?’
‘I wish I’d never moved on.’
‘D’you think you’d know someone who might come down and get me out of here?’
‘I’ll do it.’
‘I can’t ask you to do that.’
‘You didn’t. I offered.’
My professionalism disappeared and the urge to cry again pushed at my throat. ‘Thank you, Philippa. Thank you.’
‘Give Lucy your details and I’ll be there as soon as I can. They’ll have twenty-four hours to charge or bail.’
I didn’t really want to engage with what this meant for me, still hoping that I would be out of here in a couple of hours and back at work tomorrow as though nothing had happened. I knew I could ask her everything when I saw her. ‘And Philippa, don’t mention anything to anyone, will you?’
‘Client privilege, Bradley.’
The Custody Sergeant took me back to the custody desk. ‘Take a seat, we’ll be with you shortly.’
Wiping a scratchy grey tissue under my nose, resolutely not at my eyes, I sat down on one of the three plastic-moulded chairs. Immediately I was handed tea in a plastic cup which scalded my mouth, and within five minutes I was being led by DC Bennett down corridors that reminded me of halls of residence at university, but interjected by barred gate doors and CCTV cameras and ominous warning signs.
Beeps and clanging and thuds echoed around me, but there was no screeching or weird, scary people as I had seen on television, simply a series of police officers passing us, briefly looking me up and down, too busy to concentrate on me.
I could smell the reek of vomit and disinfectant before DC Bennett even opened the cell door.
‘If you could take your shoes off and just leave them here please. Do you want a blanket or anything?’
‘No, thank you,’ I said, thinking about how horrible the blanket would be and how many others might have had it before me.
As I bent down I noticed a pair of laced high boots two doors down and wondered who was behind that locked door.
‘I know it’s not the nicest room in the world.’
‘How long will I be in here for?’
‘When your solicitor gets here, we’ll come get you, okay?’
I stood in the middle of the room and he slammed the heavy metal door closed.
The white walls shot up around me, the smell from the low metal toilet in the doorless cubicle soured my tastebuds. Everything was too unfamiliar to take in, and I stood paralysed in the middle of the room, transfixed by the shadows moving behind the warped glass of the grid window above the plank bed. I was catatonic with fear. My attention was drawn to this natural light, outside of which was freedom, and I wanted to stand on the bed to peer out to feel connected to the outside world somehow, but I felt self-conscious of every move I made. The CCTV camera, in the left-hand corner above the cell door, flashed its tiny red light. I sat down on the low bed with my knees pulled up to my forehead, my face buried in the lock of my arms, hiding from my surroundings.
By the time the little small square window slid open, I was shivering violently.
‘You’re going to speak to your solicitor now, okay?’
Bleary-eyed, I slowly unpeeled, one vertebra at a time, to sit straight. My back was stiff and my sitting bones were numb as I stood from the bench. I must have been in the same hunched position for over an hour, too frightened and forlorn to move an inch from the spot.
By the time I was sitting in front of Philippa Letwin’s red lips, her perfume and cigarettes stinging my eyes, I was in a stupor, barely managing to articulate a sentence to answer her questions. Her teeth were yellow as she talked.
‘I’ve spoken to the DS and basically your daughter has accused you of slapping her face causing a bloody lip. Can you talk me through this from your point of view?’
Rosie’s accusation didn’t register properly at first.
‘Slapped her? Are you serious? I’ve never slapped her? Why would the police make that up?’
‘The police didn’t come up with that, Rosie did.’
‘No, no, she wouldn’t say that when it never happened.’
‘Apparently Rosie can’t specify exactly when it happened, which is good for you.’
‘It didn’t happen at all.’
‘She told the police that when you came back from work, you were in a “grumpy” mood and you slapped her because she hadn’t finished her homework.’
&nb
sp; I wanted to laugh with relief, knowing for certain that I didn’t do it, feeling confident I could persuade anyone of this. ‘I have never slapped Rosie in my life. Surely they can’t believe I would.’
‘Have you had any other dealings with the police or Social Services before this recent spat with the neighbour?’
‘No, never. The first time was two weeks ago as I told you.’
And then came the question that shocked me out of my momentary relief.
‘Can you think of a reason why Rosie would lie then?’
My mouth was dry, I gulped repeatedly before I spoke. ‘I have no idea.’
I could pull one reason out from the recesses of my mind. I felt nauseous and an uncomfortable feeling crept under my skin. ‘She must have got confused or something. The police must have twisted her words.’
‘Have you heard of TED?’
‘Who’s Ted?’
‘Tell me. Explain to me. Describe to me. That’s how the police question a child witness. In a recorded interview if they tried to lead the child into an answer to suit their own narrative, it would be inadmissible in court.’
‘There must be ways of getting stuff out of kids.’
‘But why would they bother? Believe me, they don’t have time. So I’m going to ask you to think about why she might have lied.’
‘She must be angry with me about something.’
‘Get her not to be, because you know, if she takes it back, the case’ll be dropped like that,’ she said, snapping her fingers in the air like she could conjure a magic trick.
‘When can I talk to Peter?’
‘When you’re home.’
Home. There’s no place like home, I thought, echoing Dorothy’s whimsical words after the storm. I felt my feet encased by ruby red slippers, as red as Philippa’s lips, and imagined Rosie’s envy of them. A haze obscured my vision and I felt the violent shuddering take over my body again. My poor, unborn baby would be feeding on toxic adrenalin.
To calm myself down, I focussed my mind on Rosie’s face, her beautiful blue eyes filled with regret and concern.