Page 65

46

Wednesday, 21 June, 11.44 p.m.

The trick to being punched in the face is to close your mouth. That stops their fists from breaking your teeth. Unfortunately it means you can’t talk, which is a real conundrum when the reason you’re being punched in the first place is because you’re not talking.

‘Jesus!’ said the first officer, shaking his hand. ‘What’s his head made of? Fucking granite?’

‘I told you,’ said the second, ‘get him in the temples.’

‘You get him in the temples,’ the first one grumbled, sitting down. ‘I’m knackered.’

I took the opportunity to spit out some blood and glance at the clock. The two officers – I’ll call them PC Gouger and Officer Knuckles – had been roughing me up for twenty-one minutes. It felt longer. Officer Knuckles stepped out from behind the chair that he’d tied me to, stubbed out his cigarette and rolled up his sleeves.

‘Stubborn little prick, aren’t you?’ he muttered. ‘People don’t normally spend this long receiving injuries in the process of resisting arrest.’

I wanted to point out that I’d actually been arrested nine hours ago, but I didn’t want to give him a reason to punch me again. He had bonier fingers than the other one and they hurt like hell. ‘Please,’ I begged, ‘let me go. I’ve got nothing to do with any of this.’

‘Course you don’t!’ said Officer Knuckles. ‘But, you’ve got to admit, it’s not looking good for you, is it? Seems to me like you just got caught standing in a room filled with incriminating evidence.’

He was right. Maybe the reason I was able to take so many punches was because I knew that what was going to come afterwards was going to be worse. Between being punched in the head and being led to the gallows, I knew which one I’d pick.

‘Right!’ said PC Gouger, glancing at the clock. ‘Sod this, I’m starving. Get the chisel and we’ll start on his knees.’

I was just about to change my opinion about the whole ‘gallows’ thing when someone knocked at the door, very hard and very loud.

When you work as a servant, you learn how to read the way people knock on doors. Some knocks say, I hope they don’t answer. Some knocks say, this should be a laugh. This knock said, open the door right now because I am on fire.

Gouger and Knuckles glanced at each other. Knuckles walked over and inched open the door. ‘Push off, we’re –’

Another officer barged inside. He looked a sight: skull-white, sweating, ready to jump out of his uniform. He saw me tied to the chair, somehow turned even paler and muttered something frantically to Knuckles, whose face became just as pale. Then he backed out of the cell. Knuckles grabbed Gouger and dragged him outside, slamming the door behind them. I could hear them talking in the corridor, getting louder and louder.

I wish I could say I did something clever while I sat there, but I didn’t. My head felt like the rag-end of a butcher’s block. Take the calm when it comes, Nan always said, so I closed my eyes, bled peacefully and thought about a really good sandwich I’d had four years ago.

The door opened again. All three officers now looked equally pale and wide-eyed. Whatever they had, it was catching. Gouger marched quickly towards me so I clamped my mouth shut, hoping he’d misjudge the blow and hit the top of my head by mistake. Only, he didn’t hit me. Instead, he untied me.

‘Allow me, sir,’ he said quickly. ‘That’s it, on your feet, sir. That’s the stuff!’

He walked me to the door, and the other two officers leapt out of the way to let me pass. I was led – steered, really – out of the room where I’d spent the last nine hours, heading straight for the exit. It was like being in a dream.

‘We can’t apologize enough, sir,’ said Gouger. ‘There’s been a terrible misunderstanding.’

‘That’s right,’ said Knuckles, catching up. ‘These things happen. We let you go as soon as we realized the mistake, didn’t we?’

‘Mistake?’ I said, or tried to at least. My mouth was a shambles.

‘That’s right!’ said Gouger. ‘Don’t worry about the documents, sir, they’ll all be taken care of.’

They led me past the front desk, which I could now see was manned by three more pale and sweating officers, and out into the balmy evening air. I had no idea what was going on.

‘May we summon a cab for you, sir?’ said Knuckles. ‘It’s the least we can do.’

I shook my head, baffled. It’s weird, being fawned over by the same people who were punching you in the head a few minutes before.

PC Gouger suddenly panicked and leant in close. ‘Look – we were just doing what Cartwright told us to do, right? You saw that yourself. We were following orders. You’ll remember that in your report, won’t you?’

‘Report?’ I tried to say, but the blood now streaming out of my nose meant it sounded more like ‘Of course’.

Officer Knuckles beamed with relief. ‘Thank you so much, sir. We’re grateful to you, sir, we really are!’