school photos 69

Clock time was abolished. They left him to stew in the damp underground cell. Shiny white brick swimming from floor to ceiling. Caged light above his head, on permanent twilight.  A thin foam mattress and a scratchy blanket his only possessions. He read the inscriptions of the walls and door of who was there and who was going to fuck who and, fuck you, and who was a grass, and Celtic and Rangers forever, until he knew what they said without turning or having to raise his head from the mattress. He knew the drill. A thin ledge just off the floor that the mattress fitted onto. The day went on without him. He heard the hatches opening in other cells and the shuffle of feet the banging open of hatches in the doors and the shouts of ‘Turnkey. Fucking turnkey,’ followed by the rattle of flat hand on the thick metallic plate on the door, but not his door. Nobody came to give him a cup of tea, or lunch or even dinner and he was too scared to make a fuss.  He grew used to the cold shivering spasms, musty smell of his body, tears, and dryness of his mouth that felt as if it had cotton wool in his throat. The only pastime was sleep, but that was as out of reach as Paris, the safety of home, the yearning to hear the voices of his mum or dad.

    The rattle of the key in his cell door roused him. He heard a throaty laugh and a joke between gaolers, made funnier because they were shouting from one end of the corridor. Tightly clutching the blanket, pulling it around his shoulders, making a suit of his discomfort, he recognised in himself the creeping aura of dread akin to an epileptic sufferer before a grand-mal seizure. The turnkey stood staring in at him, the door open as some kind of invitation. ‘Let’s be having you.’ He took a step into the cell, the thick solidity of his body blocking the light behind him.  John remembered his name, Linton, because of the way he’d mauled his feet. Scrambling to stand he stood with his back against the wall and the sheet draped in front of him.  But the guard showed only a dead-eyed interest, flicking his head to indicate that he was to follow him out of the cell.

    Another guard, thin with dank hair that looked longer than the regulation length, waiting outside the cell, to act as auxiliary escort. They marched John to the interview room where the two suits were waiting. One lounged against the wall, smoking and watching their arrival with a bored expression. Prematurely bald, the sides of his hair shorn dark into his scalp, against the white dome of his crown. The window high above his head was hooked open, letting in the faraway buzzing noise of traffic. Because of the brighter light and the open window bringing a tang of the river, John initially felt the room to be bigger than his cell, but with a clutter of table and a chairs it also seemed huddled together and smaller.

    ‘What happened to his clothes?’ the detective sitting at the table asked Linton in a blokey tone. His hair and suit were the same slate-grey colour and his eyes a watery pale-green, wrinkled into a kind of wry amusement, but everything else about him was ordered. He sat square, feet under the table, notepad, pen, jug of water and two plastic cups lined up, tools of his trade, on his side of the table.  

    ‘That’s what he was wearing when we arrested him, Sir.’ Linton snapped to attention.

    ‘Or not wearing.’ The balding detective laughed, shrugging off any impropriety, and took a seat behind and to the side of his colleague.

    Linton huckled John round the table and into the seat facing his senior officers and went to stand guard by the door, whilst the other turnkey, sloped off.  

    The man sitting across from John introduced himself. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Allan and this is Detective Morley.’ He nodded towards the man sitting with a pencil and notepad on his knee behind him and half turned to gave John his full attention ‘You know why you’re here?

    The simple sounding question flummoxed John. ‘Ah’m no’ sure,’ he admitted. He’d thought of little else, but couldn’t come up with an answer. His musings after his mum’s death looped round his head. He imagined the ward had got in touch with the police, or the police had to get in touch with the ward and he’d have to go back. But as far as he knew his mum had taken an overdose of prescribed medication and there was nothing he, or anyone, else could have done.

    ‘What have you done with you sister, Alison?’ Detective Morley leaned forward to hiss at him. ‘Where have you stashed her?’

John slanted his head to study one police officer, then the other. ‘I don’t know whit you’re talkin’ about.’ His voice grew angry. ‘I wiz in hospital when she was taken.’

‘No you werenae sonny.’ Detective Morley, his pencil a prop which he waved like a weapon, did more talking than note taking.  ‘We’ve been there and checked. They said you treated the place like a hotel and swanned in and out whenever you felt like it.  They can’t account for all your movements on that day.’

‘For God’s sake. I ran away once. Went back the next day.’

‘So you do admit you absconded?’ Detective Allan spoke with a forced familiarity, as if smoothing over a little difficulty between relatives.

‘Aye, but that’s different.’

‘How is it different?’ Detective Allan asked.

John brooded, couldn’t think of an answer. ‘The nurses saw me comin’ in and oot,’ was all he could offer.

Detective Morley needled him. ‘What about all those other times when they never saw you coming in and out?’  

‘Ah don’t know whit you’re talkin’ about. We were locked up twenty-four-hours a day.’

Detective Allan spoke through tight lips. ‘Easy enough to get out.’

‘That one time. And I went through the front door.’

He heard Detective Allan’s shoe knocking against the desk and a hesitation before he spoke. ‘But you can see our problem?’

‘There’s more than one way to skin a cat.’ Detective Morley added. ‘We checked the window in your room. Unlatched. Ground floor. Easy enough to slope in and out without anyone being any the wiser.’

‘And the psychiatrist, a Mr Williams, I believe,’ the senior officer revelled in the pronunciation, ‘said you’d a history of violence, assaulted a member of staff and was thinking of moving you to a more secure unit.’ He let this sink in, gauging John’s reactions    

‘That’s just pish,’ spluttered John. He clutched at his hands and couldn’t think of anything to counter with. ‘Whit did he let me oot for then?’

‘Quite understandable, compassionate grounds,’ said Detective Allan.

‘That was a mistake.’ Detective Morley cut in. ‘People like you have as much compassion as—’ and he rapped his heel against the tiled floor, a crack that echoed round the room. ‘What have you done with your sister?’

‘And all those other little girls you abducted?’ Detective Allan asked with a drier voice, his eyes drilling into John’s, until he looked away confused. He poured a glass of water into one of the plastic cups and handed it to John. He spoke in a paternal tone. ‘It’s your mother’s funeral soon. We could easily arrange for you to be back on the same ward. Arrange an officer to escort to you to her funeral. Then back to the cosy little ward routine. I’m sure you’ll soon be out, but only if you admit to the abduction of your sister and these other girls.’

John choked up with crying, rocking back and forth in his chair, his eyes downcast on the space underneath the desk. ‘But Ah didnae dae it.’

Detective Allan leaned across close enough to smell his Brut aftershave. ‘That’s not what your mother said. She left a note. Mentioned you in it.’

Detective Morley spoke over the top of his colleague, enjoyed telling him. ‘That’s why she killed herself. Couldnae live with the knowledge of what her son had done.’

John wriggled in his seat for a second, wanted to stand up and flee, but Linton and Morley’s hostile gaze and Allan’s more sanguine, kept him pinned to the seat of the chair. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘Ah loved my mum more than anything. She wouldnae say that.’

‘But she did.’ Detective Allan picked up his notepad. Underneath it was a scrap of paper. He recognised his mum's handwritten scrawl, the uncrossed ts and stunted ps, broke him and he bent over and sobbed. ‘You admit to abducting your sister Alison Connelly on the morning of 21st February 1974?’

‘Ah must have,’ John said.

Detective Morley punched the air as if he’d scored a winning cup-final goal. ‘Yes.’

Detective Allan took his time reading out a long list of girls’ names, with the addendum of  days and dates. At each one he paused to look up at John and let him answer, reminding him that a nod was not enough, he’d have to answer for the record. When they finished, he slapped him on the shoulder. ‘You did well.’ But his self-satisfied smile was for himself and the other policemen.