Escape From Evil - Cathy Wilson [17]
All of this took place in the space of ten seconds. At eleven seconds there was another crashing knock.
‘Open up or we’ll open it for you.’
Regaining her composure, Mum patted down her clothes, did a quick fiddle with her hair and called out, ‘I’m coming, I’m coming.’
That cheered me up. It couldn’t be so bad if she was worrying about her appearance.
Checking that I was back in the lounge, Mum flicked the bolt and opened the door. Standing there were four of the biggest men I’d ever seen. Framed by the doorway, they were giants in police uniforms. To my young eyes, I’d never seen anything more scary.
‘Jennifer Wilson?’ one of the policemen asked.
Mum nodded. ‘What can I do for you?’ she asked quietly. I think that sudden burst of activity had taken it out of her.
The policeman stared over her shoulder at me and the room.
‘Do you mind if we take a look around?’ he asked.
‘Do I have a choice?’ Mum said.
‘None at all,’ he said, and showed her a piece of paper. ‘We have a warrant to search your premises for narcotic substances.’
I saw Mum’s shoulders sag and instinctively ran over to wrap my arms around her waist. I hadn’t understood half the things the constable had said, but I could feel Mum shaking. Whatever he’d said had rocked her, that much was obvious.
Resigned to whatever it said on that piece of paper, Mum stood back and watched as the four of them marched into our tiny flat. While three of them hung around the doorway, a fourth powered straight into the bedroom. He emerged a few seconds later clutching my stuffed panda!
I couldn’t help gasping. I had no idea what I’d tucked inside him, but it was enough to know Mum wanted it hidden. I had a crushing sense of failing her. Panic washed over me. I must have done something wrong. There was no other explanation.
I stared, open-mouthed, as the policeman unzipped the back of the bear and stuffed his hand inside. Moments later, a smile broke out on his face.
‘What do we have here then?’ he said theatrically, and pulled out the little plastic pouch.
I genuinely had no idea what it was, but it was obviously what the lead officer had been expecting to find. He took one look at the package, had a quick sniff, then said to Mum, ‘Jennifer Wilson, you are under arrest.’
It all happened so fast. One minute I’d been tormenting the cat, the next four burly policemen were terrorizing Mum. And then, within the blink of an eye, it seemed, we were all sitting in the back of a police car. Me, Mum and Mr Panda. With the sirens wailing above our heads, for all I knew, this was the end of my freedom forever. Would I ever see our home, our cat, our family again? I looked at Mum. Her face was blank, staring ahead. No answers there.
Oh, Mum, I thought. What have you done?
It felt like the end of the world. Little did I realize this was the lull before the storm. Compared to who would be knocking on our door soon, the police’s visit seemed like a beautiful dream.
FOUR
Mother Knows Best
A lot of children dream of riding in a speeding police car, blue lights illuminating the night sky, sirens clearing other traffic out of its path. I was never one of those kids. Policemen always looked so intimidating and scary. The last place I ever wanted to be was cooped up inside a cop car with two of them. Normally I would have been happy anywhere, as long as Mum was with me. Not this time. I’d never seen her look so down, so shattered. So out of it.
I suppose we were taken to Brighton police station. I didn’t recognize the building, for obvious reasons, but I remember that everything inside was pale grey or blue and so shiny. The desks, walls and floors all had that nasty, hard gloss finish. They took Mum one way and me another – and Mr Panda somewhere else entirely. A policewoman came over and showed me into a small office with a desk and two chairs. As soon as Mum was out of sight, the floodgates