The World Out There - 6. Six

They drove Liam to the police station in a police car, him sat on the backseat between Miss James and another police officer, a woman. He didn’t watch any of their journey there. He barely knew where he was being taken. He just sat there and stared at the back of one of the policeman’s head, the one who was driving. The man had surprisingly red hair which was cut into short bristles at the back of his neck.

At the police station, two policemen - one portly and old, his black hair streaked through with grey; the other one thin, pale and so much younger - took him off into a small room, but they insisted Miss James had to wait out in the corridor. There, the older policeman told him to remove his clothes. He knew not to defy them, but the idea of undressing in front of these two strangers made him feel deeply uncomfortable. He slowly removed one item of clothing at a time, which the young policeman then snatched off him and sealed up inside a separate plastic bag for each item. Both policemen were wearing gloves, bright blue doctor’s latex medical gloves. He’d stopped when he was only wearing his underpants, an old and faded pair. In embarrassment, he covered his groin with both his hands, even in his underpants he’d felt so exposed. The older policeman handed him a white, plastic jumpsuit barking, “Put this on!”

It was far too big for him, the sleaves falling far past his hands, the legs dragging on the floor past his feet.

The policemen then left him alone in the room, carrying out his clothes in all those different plastic bags. A moment later, Miss James entered the room and started fussing over him. She rolled up the sleeves and legs of the jumpsuit, trying to make it fit him better.

When he and Miss James sat down on the chairs there, he realised they were in an interview room. There, they were left alone for what seemed like an age. The room’s walls were a pale green and the only furniture was a wooden table with plastic chairs surrounding it. He and Miss James were sat there in silence, but he didn’t mind. He liked silence: it always felt safe in its own strange way.

He didn’t know when, but their silence was interrupted by the room’s door suddenly opening and a man walking in there. He looked as old as Mr Stein, but that was the only thing they seemed to have in common. This man had a head of unruly, dark curly hair flecked through with grey. He was wearing a dark brown suit that was so creased and wrinkled, it looked as if he had been wearing it for days and days. His round, doughy body pushed out against his suit, putting the three buttons on the jacket under stress.

The man’s face was round, his cheeks slightly flushed pink, his eyebrows the darkest black in contrast to his greying hairs. His wide mouth was framed with full but pale pink lips, while his round and slightly podgy nose seemed to match his face. But what dominated his face were his large and bright brown eyes. Liam had never seen someone with such bright brown eyes before. Until that moment, he’d only though blue eyes shone that brightly. In those few moments it took the man to enter the room, Liam realised that this was a friendly face: the man wore such a friendly expression, not creased at all by anger.

“Hi, I’m Mark Hiller. I’m your solicitor,” the man said to Liam, holding his hand out. Liam stared back at him: adults never held out their hands towards him wanting a handshake, and he didn’t know what to do. Was the man being real?

“Liam is a quiet boy,” Miss James said to the man, Mark Hiller.

“You’re his Appropriate Adult?” Mark Hiller asked her.

“I’m one of his teachers, Leanne James. We couldn’t get hold of Liam’s mother.”

“Neither can the police. I think you have the job for now,” Mark Hiller said as he sat down next to Liam.

“I think I do,” she replied.

“Now young man,” Mark Hiller said, turning his attention onto Liam. “Have you ever been in trouble with the police before?”

Liam just shook his head in reply.

“Right,” Mark Hiller said. “You have the right to remain silent in law, which means when the police ask you a question you can say ‘no comment’. It’s not wrong to do so and at the moment it’s the best thing to do.”

Liam had nodded his reply.

“Now, Miss James and I will be with you during your interview, but at the moment just say ‘no comment’ to all the police’s questions. If there’s any problems, we’ll step in. That’s our jobs,” Mark Hiller said.

Again, Liam had just nodded his reply.

It was only a few moments later that two police officers entered the room and sat across the table from the three of them. Both police officers were dressed in business suits and not uniforms, though from their body language and attitude, he knew they were police officers. Their presence shouted that they were in command here. They were a woman and a man, though the woman obviously was the one in charge: she was the one who spoke first, her voice level with a hard edge to it, and over the next few hours, she was the one who asked most of the questions and there was a lot of them.

The first thing she did, once she was sat down, was turn on the large tape-recording machine there and loudly state, “I am Detective Sergeant Jennifer King, and this is Detective Constable Harry Greig. We are conducting the interview with the suspect, Liam Andrews, in the presence of his solicitor, Mr Mark Hiller, and his Appropriate Adult, Miss Leanne James.”

The policewoman’s voice had only been stating facts and yet the hard edge to it seemed to fill the room, pulling everyone’s attention towards her. Liam looked down at the table in front of him. It hadn’t begun, and he wanted all of this done and gone away. He wanted to be a million miles away from here.

The first question she’d asked him was about how he knew Rhys Clarke. He shook his head and remained silent. This seemed to annoy her because she leant forward onto the table and said, in her hard-edged voice, “I asked you how you know the victim, Rhys Clarke.”

Liam just shook his head again, not looking back at her.

“My client is saying no comment, in his own way,” Mark Hiller said.

“He has to say it for the purpose of the recording,” the police woman replied.

“He’s only twelve,” Miss James said.

“And you have video cameras recording this as well,” Mark Hiller added.

“All right, all right,” the policewoman said.

They seemed to ask him hundreds upon hundreds of questions, and each time he just remained silent. At first, it seemed safe but as the questions continued, he kept hoping his silence would end them, that the policewoman’s next question would be her last one, but her questions kept coming and coming. The more she asked him, the more afraid he became. This all had long ago run away from him, and he didn’t know what to do next - how to stop any of this.

When the questions finally ended, he felt a moment of relief, sinking down into himself and slipping down physically on his chair. But it was short lived. Before the two police officers even left the room, another policeman entered it, and he was dressed in uniform. He had slate grey hair that was styled into a sweeping wave across the top of his head, and his neck bulged out over his shirt collar. He told Liam to stand up, and when he did, the policeman told him he was being charged with Rhys Clarke’s murder. He recited a statement, using Liam’s full name, that was the actual charge. When the man finished, all three police officers silently left the room, the door being slammed loudly by the last one.

In reply, Liam just sank down again onto his chair and started to sob. Everything was out of control, and he was so lost now.

Someone put their arm around his shoulder, as he sobbed, gently drawing him into a hug. It was only when his face pressed into the woollen cloth of Mark Hiller’s suit, did he realise the man was comforting him. He buried his face into that slight acrid smelling cloth and hid his tears, as the man’s arm held him. That hug had felt so nice, and, for a moment, he felt safe in it.

When he finally stopped crying and lifted his head off Mark Hiller’s shoulder, he saw that he’d left a wet stain on the man’s suit.

“I’m sorry, I’ve messed your suit,” he mumbled.

“This suit has had worse crap on it, believe me,” Mark Hiller replied in a gentle tone.

Mark Hiller left a short while later, telling them that he had to sort out Liam’s paperwork from that day, and had squeezed Liam’s shoulder in a reassuring gesture as he did. Miss James, though, stayed with him in that room.

His mother arrived at the end of the evening. He’d been still sat in the interview room with Miss James, though the two of them were eating a dinner of McDonald’s’ burgers and chips. It was rather a treat to eat McDonald’s: usually he wasn’t allowed to. His mother would complain that it was all too “expensive”, but he kept silent about that too.

His mother charged into the room, still wearing her work clothes, and screamed at him: “You stupid little bastard! You’ve ruined everything now!”

She then struck him hard across his face, her open hand striking his check, forcing his head backwards. The pain had made his eyes fill up with tears, and her raw anger directed straight at him. He pulled hard upon himself to stop from physically crying, as his whole mind shook from the physical impact of her striking him.

“Mrs Duffield!” Miss James shouted at her.

“It’s Miss Duffield, actually,” his mother shot back, “and I can raise my child the way I want to, bitch!”

“And maybe if you cared about your son more, we wouldn’t be in this mess!” Miss James shouted back at her.

“You don’t know me, bitch! And you,” his mother turned her attention onto him. “I don’t fucking know what to do about you.”

“Shut up and sit down!” Miss James barked back at his mother. “You’re not helping anything!”

Strangely, his mother quietly sat down on one of the plastic chairs, obeying Miss James’s command. He’d never seen his mother become so silent and so quickly, her anger being stopped like a switch being turned off. The surprise dried the tears in his eyes.