The ambulance men looked round at me as they were struggling to lift the woman into the back of the ambulance. She looked yellow and her eyes were open, an arm fell out the blanket and they turned back to what they were doing.
I looked up at the policeman’s face, he didn’t have his helmet on, he had a rough neck that was creased, with patches of dried blood under his chin, and he had red and white skin in blotches up over his cheeks. He gave me a shake because I was just looking at him. I didn’t know what he wanted.
‘What school you in?’
I started to panic, and tried to pull away but he held on to me. I shrank my arm upward into my sleeve to get away but he kept hold and watched me pull, then gave me a sharp tug that made me fall over on my knee and scrape it on the ground. I put my hand up on his sleeve to get my balance and try to get him off me. I could feel the tears coming up in my eyes.
‘What’s going on?’ the other policeman said.
‘We got a runner,’ he said.
‘Hurry up.’
The other policeman turned away and started talking to the ambulance men. I looked up at the one who was holding me. I was on my own with him. I could see he hadn’t decided what he was gonna do, but he liked me struggling, so I stopped.
‘Where d’you live?’
I thought quickly about what I could tell him, but got distracted by one of the ambulance men going back and scraping up the hair that was stuck to the pavement to put in a plastic bag.
‘Or am I gonna put you in the car?’
If I told him I lived with the old lady, I wouldn’t know the address but I could tell him it was the ground floor across from the school and she was out. If he took me to school, it would get back to my mum. I tried to stand up but he shook me again and grabbed the back of my collar so it was up against my throat. I reached back to get his hand off and scratched it.
‘Cheeky monkey?’ He let go my arm but kept hold of my collar and slapped me in the face. I didn’t feel it, it was a fight, but I gave him an angry look.
‘That’s enough, get him in the car,’ the other policeman said.
He dragged me swinging by the collar, not letting my feet touch the ground, and bundled me in the back seat, slamming the door and saying, ‘Mind your fingers!’
I hadn’t been in a police car before. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t know how to stop my dad finding out. I could feel my sweat turn cold even though it was warm in the car. I was going to open the door and run for it, but when I looked out the back window to see where they were, the policemen were opening the boot and putting bags and blankets into the back.
The side door opened and the groaning man got pushed in beside me, his face red and covered in dirt. He had tears streaked down it, and looked at me with swollen eyes, dark and glassy like marbles. I looked back but he didn’t say anything and put his head down.
The doors slammed shut as the two policemen got in, and the one I didn’t know turned round in the driver’s seat.
‘Right, where we going?’
I looked at the man beside me who gave off a smell that made me feel sick, like mouldy dustbins. He shifted in his seat and I saw he only had one leg. His nose was broken and squashed up against his face with dried blood across it, making it look even more red. He was quiet and shuddering, like his sobs were stifled and couldn’t open in the warm.
‘I’m talking to you!’
The policeman was looking at me, but he wasn’t as rough as the other one and looked older and in charge, like he might be going to let me go. ‘We’re not gonna arrest you this time,’ he said. ‘Where do you live?’
I told him because it was just around the corner and he could let me walk. He laughed and started the car up, ‘What number?’
The man beside me let out a moan and the blotchy policeman who hit me reached back and punched him on the shoulder, ‘Fucking crab!’ – and punched again – ‘Back in your shell!’
‘Language,’ the older one said, moving off out the tunnel. The man bent even more into himself, shaking and dribbling on to his lap. The flap of his trouser leg dangled off the seat beside him, twisted and muddy.
‘What a fucking morning, what a fucking shit-hole!’ The flushed red blotchy policeman leaned back heavily in his seat, ‘They stink!’
The driver was going the long way round the tunnels, back by the crossroads. He shrugged, ‘You gotta have the stomach for it.’
The one with blotches turned and slapped me on the leg, ‘Get your feet off!’ I hadn’t realised I’d pulled my legs up on the seat to stop him crushing them when he leaned back. We turned in to the traffic under the railway bridge. ‘Look at that,’ he was saying – but it was dark and noisy, I wasn’t sure what he was going to do, I couldn’t hear – ‘...monkey and a crab ... you told me ... this patch was full of villains.’
‘Graveyard shift,’ the older one said, looking in his mirrors as we came out from under the bridge and I could hear. ‘They’re still in bed.’
The blotchy one laughed and the car slowed down to turn into my street. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ the one driving said, turning the wheel again, ‘they’re gonna clear all this out soon. It’s just filth.’
There were spots in my eyes and everything was going fast when my mum opened the door. I could feel the policeman’s hand on my jaw from when he slapped me and now it felt hot. He was holding me by the hood of my duffel coat and the other one was round on the road opening all the doors to get rid of the smell.
‘We’re looking for his mum,’ the policeman said.
‘I’m his mother,’ she said.
I looked down because I couldn’t look at her, and threw up over my shoes and the front of my duffel coat. The policeman stepped back from the splash and looked at her and looked at me.
‘You?’
‘Yes,’ she said, and looked at me. ‘What’s happened?’
‘You’re his mother?’
She crouched down and got a handkerchief out her sleeve and wiped my mouth and my chin, feeling the side of my face with the cold of her hand. She asked me questions quickly with her eyes and my tears started to come down on to my cheeks. She glanced across at the police car and up at the policeman, and stood up. ‘He’s sick,’ she said. ‘Do you want to let go of his hood?’
‘He’s black,’ the policeman said, sounding stupid and wrong, and looking like he wasn’t sure what was going to come out his mouth.
‘I’m his mother,’ my mum said. ‘What’s that to do with why you’re holding him?’
The policeman loosened his grip but didn’t let go, his mouth was open and his eyes went sideways over the back of his shoulder to the one standing in the road. ‘That’s her,’ he said.
‘Who?’ said the older one, slamming the doors and coming round on to the pavement – my mum ignored the one standing over me and spoke to him.
‘I’m this boy’s mother. Can you tell me what’s going on? Why are you here? Who’s that in the car with you?’
‘That’s a separate matter, miss–’ but she cut him off.
‘Mrs.’
‘We found him on the street. He should be in school. Why wasn’t he?’
My mum looked down at his feet as he came up to us. He stopped and had to step back away from the sick, wiping his shoes on the pavement.
‘That might explain it,’ she said.
He looked up at her from under his helmet, wiping his feet, and thought about it. ‘OK, let him go,’ he said, and nodded the younger one back to the car.
I looked up over my hood and saw the red angry blotches climb up over the policeman’s jaw and I felt his fist clench the hood tighter. He gave me a shove towards my mum, but by that time some of the neighbours were leaning out the windows and doors to see what was going on.
‘Ye’re nothing but a bully!’ Mrs Keogh shouted from her window over the road. ‘Leave the poor boy alone!’ She had a booming voice, and leaned up out the window on her arms with her sleeves rolled up.
The policemen looked at her and each other as she stared down at them and more people came out on to the street. I looked up at my mum but she was shaking her head quietly and looking away from my dad who was hurrying up the street in his work clothes, carrying his night lamp. He slowed down to watch what was going on.
‘Get in the car,’ the older one said, and when the blotchy one didn’t move he said it again, ‘Get in the car.’
My mum put her arms around me and watched them.
‘I have to warn you,’ he said, ‘it could be serious next time.’
The younger one stopped to take his helmet off and look at us as he got into the car. He was remembering my face because he was gonna get me. The man in the back was looking at me too, because they’d already got him and there was nothing he could do. He looked away as they drove off. I lifted my hand out towards him but it was too late, and my mum said, ‘Put your hand down.’
I told my mum and dad I’d got ill and got lost coming home, and they nodded. My dad said I wasn’t to bring police to his door because they’d know who you were, and you’d never see the end of it. I didn’t tell them the policeman hit me, I just said they’d brought me home. My mum asked who the man was in the back of the police car, and I told her he was a tramp they found sleeping under the arches.
Busola watched as I got into my pyjamas and said there was blood on my leg and I had a bruise, but I didn’t answer and got my trousers on quickly.
‘You can’t hide it,’ she said, ‘the side of your face is red. Don’t be sick over me.’
I just wanted to go to sleep and woke up in the evening with my top soaking and Manus and Connor wanting to go to bed. ‘Get out my bed,’ Connor said, and I had to take my top off and get back in with Busola, but I was shivering.
‘What have you got?’ Manus said.
I didn’t answer him, but Busola said, ‘He got arrested by the police.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘They beat him up,’ she said, ‘look at his bruise on his leg.’
I pulled the blankets tight up under my chin and shook.