Finally, too weak to keep her from my thoughts any longer, I think of Maya. Maya, Maya, Maya. I choke her name into my hands, hoping that the sound of her name will bring me some comfort. I never, ever should have taken such a terrible risk with her happiness. For her sake, for the children’s sakes, I should never have allowed our relationship to develop. I cannot regret it for myself – there is nothing I wouldn’t have endured just for the few months we had together. But I never thought about the danger to her, the horror she would be forced to undergo.
I am terrified of what they might be doing to her right now – bombarding her with questions she will struggle to answer, torn between protecting me by telling the truth and accusing me of rape to enable her to protect the children. How could I have put her in such a position? How could I have asked her to make such a choice?
The clash and crash of keys and metal locks jolts through my body, startling me into confused, panicked consciousness. An officer orders me to get up, informs me I’m being taken to the interview room. Before I can get my body to respond I am seized by the arm and jolted to my feet. I pull away for a moment, desperate to get my thoughts in order – all I need is a moment to clear my head, remember what it is I have to say. This could be my only chance and I have to get it right, all of it, make sure there isn’t the slightest discrepancy between Maya’s story and my own.
I am cuffed once again and led down several long, brightly lit corridors. I have no idea how long it’s been since I was shoved into the cell – time has ceased to exist: there are no windows and I cannot tell what time of day or night it is. I feel dizzy with pain and fear: one wrong word, one wrong move and I could mess it all up, let something slip that would somehow implicate Maya in this too.
Much like my cell, the interview room is harshly lit: bright, fluorescent light turning the whole room an eerie yellow. It isn’t much bigger than the cell, but now the stench of urine is replaced by sweat and stale air, the walls are bare and the floor carpeted. The only furniture is a narrow table and three chairs. Two officers are seated on the far side: a man and a woman. The man looks to be in his early forties, with a narrow face and close-cropped hair. The hardness behind the eyes, the grave expression, the set of the jaw all suggest that he has seen this many times before, has been breaking criminals down for years – he looks sharp and shrewd, and there is something tough and intimidating about him. The woman, on the other hand, looks older and more ordinary, with scraped-back hair and a world-weary expression, but her eyes also have that sharp gaze. Both officers look as if they have been well-trained in the art of manipulating, threatening, cajoling or even lying to get what they want from their suspects. Even in my confused, hazy state, I immediately sense that they are good at what they do.
I am directed to the grey plastic chair placed opposite them, less than half a metre away from the edge of the table and backed up against the wall behind me. We may as well all be in a cage together: the table is not very wide and it all feels far too close for comfort. I am acutely aware of my clammy face, the hair sticking to my forehead, the thin fabric of my T-shirt clinging to my skin, the sweat patches visible on the material. I feel dirty and disgusting, the taste of bile in my throat, sour blood in my mouth, and despite the officers’ impassive expressions, their revulsion is almost tangible in this small, enclosed space.
The man hasn’t looked up since I was brought in, but keeps scribbling away in a file. When he does raise his eyes, I feel myself flinch and automatically try to scrape my chair back, but it does not budge.
‘This interview is going to be recorded and videoed.’ Eyes like small grey pebbles bear into mine. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’
As if I have a choice. ‘No.’ I notice a discreet camera in the corner of the room, trained on my face. Fresh sweat breaks out across my forehead.
The man flicks the switch of some kind of recording device and reads out a case number, followed by the date and time. He goes on to state, ‘Present is myself, Detective Inspector Sutton. To my right, Detective Inspector Kaye. Opposite us, the suspect. Would you identify yourself, please?’ Who exactly is he speaking to? Other police officers, truth-analysts, the judge and jury? Will this interview be played in court? Will my own descriptions of my heinous crime be played back to my family? Will Maya be forced to listen to me stutter and stumble my way through this interrogation and then be asked to confirm whether I’ve been telling the truth?
Don’t think about that now, for chrissakes. Stop thinking about that now – the only two things you should be focusing on right now are your demeanour and your words. Everything that comes out of your mouth must be completely and utterly convincing.
‘Lochan Whi—’ I clear my throat; my voice is weak and uneven. ‘Lochan Whitely.’
The next few questions are the usual: date of birth? Nationality? Address? Detective Sutton barely looks up, either jotting things down in his file or fast-forwarding through my notes, his eyes flicking rapidly from side to side.
‘Do you know why you’re here?’ His eyes meet mine very suddenly, making me start.
I nod. Then I swallow. ‘Yes.’
Pen poised, he continues to look at me, as if waiting for me to continue. ‘For – for sexually abusing my sister,’ I say, my voice strained but steady.
The words hang in the air like small red puncture wounds. I feel the atmosphere thicken, tighten. Even though the interrogating officers have it all written down in front of them, my actually saying the words aloud, in the presence of both a video camera and a voice recorder, makes it all suddenly unalterable. I barely feel as if I’m lying any more. Perhaps there is no one universal truth. Consensual incest to me, sexual abuse of a child family member to them. Perhaps both labels are correct.
And then the questions begin.
At first it’s all background stuff. The tedious, endless minutiae: where I was born, the members of my family, everyone’s dates of birth, the details surrounding our father, my relationship with him, with my siblings, with my mother. I stick to the truth as much as possible, even telling them about our mother’s late shifts at the restaurant, her relationship with Dave. I am careful to omit the parts that I hope Mum and Kit will have the sense to gloss over too: her drinking problem, the fights over money, the move to Dave’s house, and finally the almost total abandonment of her family. Instead, I tell them that she has only recently started working late shifts and that I babysit in the evenings, but only once the children are in bed. So far, so good. Not an ideal family set-up, but one that just about fits within the bounds of normality. And then, after they have been given every little detail, from the number of rooms in our house to our respective schools, our grades and extra-curricular activities, the question is finally asked:
‘When was the first time you had any kind of sexual contact with Maya?’ The officer’s gaze is direct and his voice as expressionless as before, but he suddenly seems to be watching me carefully, waiting for the slightest shift in my expression.
Silence thickens the air, draining it of oxygen, and I am aware of the sound of my own rapid breathing, my lungs automatically crying out for more air. I’m aware too of the sweat running down the sides of my face and certain he can see the fear in my eyes. I am exhausted and in pain and desperate for the toilet again, but clearly the interview has a long time yet to run.
‘When – when you say sexual contact, do you mean like – like feelings, or when we first – I mean, I first t-touched her, or—?’
‘The first time you had any inappropriate exposure or contact.’ His voice has hardened, his jaw tightened and the words shoot out of his mouth like small bullets.
Fighting my way through the fog and panic, I try to come up with the correct answer. It is vital I get all this right so it will match up exactly with Maya’s account. Sexual contact – but what exactly does that mean? That first kiss the night of her date? Or before that, when we were dancing?
‘Would you answer the question!’ The temperature is
rising. He thinks I’m stalling in order to try to exonerate myself, when in reality it’s the opposite.
‘I – I’m not sure of the exact date. It m-must have been November sometime. Y-yes, November—’ Or was it October? Oh God, I am messing this all up already.
‘Tell me what happened.’
‘OK. She – she came home from a date with a guy from school. We – we got into an argument because I was giving her the third degree. I was worried – I mean, angry – I wanted to know if she’d slept with him. I got upset—’
‘What do you mean by upset?’
No. Please.
‘I started—I began to cry . . .’ Like I’m going to do now, just at the memory of the pain I felt on that night. Turning my head towards the wall, I bite down hard, but the pain of my teeth cutting into my tongue doesn’t work any longer. No amount of physical pain can cover up the mental agony. Five minutes into the interrogation and already I’m falling apart. It’s hopeless, everything’s hopeless, I’m hopeless, I’m going to fail Maya, fail them all.
‘Then what happened?’
I try every trick in the book to keep the tears at bay, but nothing works. The pressure mounts, and I see from Sutton’s expression that he thinks I am stalling for time, pretending to feel remorse, lying.
‘Then what happened?’ This time, his voice is raised.
I flinch. ‘I said to her – I tried to – I said she had to – I forced her to—’
I can’t get the words out, even though I’m desperate to, wishing I could scream them from the rooftops. It’s like being forced up in front of the class again, the words clogging up my throat, my face burning with shame. Except this time I’m not being asked to read out an essay, I’m being interrogated about the most intimate and personal details of my life, all those tender moments spent with Maya, all those precious times that have made the last three months the happiest I’ve ever known. Yet now they are being smeared across our family like the faeces in the cell – putrid, foul, horrific abuse, myself as perpetrator, forcing my younger sister into revolting sexual acts against her will.
‘Lochan, I strongly suggest you stop wasting our time and start to co-operate. As I’m sure you’re aware, in the UK, the maximum sentence for rape is life imprisonment. Now, if you co-operate and show remorse for what you’ve done, that sentence will almost certainly be reduced, perhaps even to as little as seven years. But if you lie or try to deny anything, we will find out anyway and a judge will be far less lenient.’
Again I try to answer, again I fail. I see myself through their eyes – the sick, screwed-up, pathetic sex addict, reduced to abusing a younger sister he once played with, his own flesh and blood.
‘Lochan . . .’ The female detective is leaning towards me, clasped hands stretched out across the table. ‘I can see you feel bad about what happened. And that’s good. It means you’re beginning to take responsibility for your actions. Perhaps you didn’t really believe that having a sexual relationship with your sister would harm her, perhaps you never meant it when you threatened to kill her, but you need to tell us exactly what happened, exactly what you did, what you said. If you try to gloss over things or leave things out or stall or lie, then things are going to get much, much worse for you.’
Taking a deep breath, I nod, trying hard to show them that I’m willing to co-operate, that they don’t have to keep up this Good Cop, Bad Cop charade in order for me to confess. All I need is the strength to pull myself together, hold back the tears and find the right words to describe all the things I forced Maya to do to me, all the things I forced her to endure.
‘Lochan, do you have a nickname?’
Detective Kaye is still doing her pally stuff, where she pretends to comfort and befriend me in the hope that I will trust her enough to relax, calm down, believe she is trying to actually help rather than to extract a confession.
‘Loch—’ I blurt. ‘Lochie—’ No, oh no. Only my family call me that. Only my family!
‘Lochie, listen to me now. If you co-operate with us today, if you tell us everything that happened, it will make a big difference to the outcome of all this. We’re all human. We all make mistakes, right? You’re only eighteen, I’m sure you didn’t realize the severity of what you were doing, and a judge will take that into consideration.’
Yeah, right. How stupid do you think I am? I’m eighteen and I’ll be tried as an adult. Save your manipulating lies for the ones who are really trying to conceal their actions.
I nod and dry my eyes on my sleeve. Tearing at my hair with cuffed hands raised above my head, I begin to talk.
The lies are the easy part – forcing Maya to stay off school, getting into bed with her every night, repeating the same threat, again and again, whenever she begged me to leave her alone. It’s when I have to tell them the truth that I flounder – it’s our truth, our innermost secrets, our most intimate times, the precious little details of our brief, idyllic moments together. Those are the parts that make me stammer and shake. But I force myself to continue, even when I can’t hold back the tears any longer, even when they start spilling down my cheeks and my voice starts to shake with repressed sobs, even when I feel their looks of revulsion merge with ones of pity.
They want to know every little detail. The time on the bed, our first night together. What I did, what she did, what I said, what she said. How I felt . . . How I responded . . . How my body responded . . . I tell them the truth, and someone reaches into my chest and slowly starts splitting me apart. When we finally reach this morning’s events, when it comes to what they refer to as ‘penetration’, I want to die to stop the pain. They ask me if I used protection, they ask me if Maya cried out, they ask me how long it lasted . . . It hurts so much, feels so utterly humiliating, so completely degrading, that I feel sick.
The interrogation seems to go on for hours. It feels like the middle of the night and we have been shut up in this tiny, airless room for all eternity. They take turns popping out for coffee or snacks. They offer me water, which I decline. Eventually I am so wrung out that all I can do is suck on my middle two fingers like I used to as a small child and slump sideways against the wall, my voice completely hoarse, face sticky with congealed sweat and tears. Through a thick haze, I hear them inform me that I will be escorted back to my cell and that the interview will continue tomorrow.
The tape is switched off, another officer comes to collect me, but for a few moments I can’t even get to my feet. Detective Sutton – who, for the most part, has remained cold and impassive – sighs and shakes his head with a look bordering on pity. ‘You know, Lochan, I’ve been in this job for years and I can tell that you’re feeling remorse for what you’ve done. But I’m afraid it’s all rather too late. Not only are you charged with committing a very serious crime, but your threats appear to have left your sister so terrified, she has signed a statement swearing that your sexual relationship together was fully consensual and instigated by her.’
All the air exits my body. My exhaustion evaporates. Suddenly only the thudding of my horrified heartbeat fills the air. She told them the truth? She told them the truth?
‘A signed statement – but that’s void now, right? Now that I’ve admitted everything, told you exactly what happened. You know she only said those things because I told her to, because I said I’d have her killed if I ended up in prison. So no one believes her, do they? Not now I’ve confessed!’ My cracked, dried-up voice is shaking hard, but I must stay calm. Showing remorse is one thing, but I have to somehow disguise the extent of my horror and disbelief.
‘That’ll depend on how the judge sees it.’
‘The judge?’ I’m shouting now, my voice verging on hysteria. ‘But Maya’s not the one being accused of rape!’
‘No, but even consensual incest is against the law. Under Section Sixty-five of the Sexual Offences Act, your sister could be tried for “consent to being penetrated by an adult relative”, which carries a sentence of up to two years in prison.’
/> I stare at him. Speechless. Stunned. It cannot be. It cannot be.
The detective sighs and tosses the file back onto the table in a sudden gesture of weariness. ‘So unless she retracts her statement, your sister now faces arrest too.’
Why? Maya, my love? Why, why, why?
Collapsed on the floor, half propped up against the metal door, I stare blindly at the opposite wall. My whole body hurts from lying completely motionless for what must be several hours now. I no longer have the strength to continue banging my head back against the door in a desperate, frenzied attempt to think of a way of somehow getting Maya to retract her statement. After shouting over and over, pleading with the guards to let me call home, I eventually lose my voice completely. Maya and I will never be allowed to contact each other again – at least not until I’ve served out my sentence which, according to that interrogation officer, could be over a decade from now!
My mind is falling apart and I can barely think, but as far as I understand it, the fact is that unless Maya retracts her statement, she will be arrested just as I was, possibly even in front of Tiffin and Willa. With no one to look after them, no one to cover for our mother’s drinking and neglect, all three children will doubtlessly be taken into care. And Maya will be brought to the police station, subjected to the same humiliations, the same interrogations, and accused, just as I was, of committing a sexual crime. Even with my word against hers, there will be little I can do. If I continue to insist I am the abuser, they will immediately question why I am suddenly so desperate to absolve Maya of all wrong-doing – especially after having both repeatedly abused and threatened to kill her should she tell anyone. I will be cornered, powerless to protect her, for the more I insist that Maya is innocent and I am the guilty one, the more likely they will be to believe Maya’s confession. It won’t take them long to figure out that I’m taking the blame to protect her, that I’m lying because I love her and that I would never abuse, threaten or harm her in any way. And of course there’s Kit – the only real witness. Even Tiffin and Willa, if they are questioned, will insist that never once did Maya ever appear afraid of me – that she was always smiling at me, laughing with me, touching my hand, even hugging me. And so they will realize that Maya is as complicit in this crime as I am.