Alex Gray - The Swedish Girl

‘You awake, son?’

Colin opened his eyes to the darkness of the room and for a moment he was at a loss to know just where he was. Then, as he recognised the familiar objects of his old bedroom at home — his worn brown desk with the stack of poetry books that had gathered over the years, the wardrobe with the right-hand door that never closed properly, its inside mirror reflecting the narrow band of light from the space between the curtains — he remembered why he was here and all the events of the past few days came flooding back.

‘Is that you, Dad?’ he yawned, flexing his arms before tucking himself back below the duvet once more, huddling sleepily into its warmth.

‘Aye, son.’ There was a pause, then Alec Young moved closer and sat on the edge of the bed.

Colin’s eyes were closed and so he did not see the rush of tender concern that filled his father’s face as he looked down upon his boy. And was he even aware of that small sigh filling the space between them before Alec spoke?

‘Son, there’s a couple of polis here tae see ye. Think ye better get up, eh?’

Colin sat bolt upright, grabbing the edge of the cotton cover to hide the fact that he was naked. ‘What?’ He blinked stupidly. ‘To see me ? Why?’

Alec shifted uneasily, looking down at the floor now and not at his younger son. ‘Don’t know, Col. They jist said to get you up. Think they want you to go intae Glasgow again with them.’

Colin shivered as the cool draught from the open doorway reached his skin. ‘Okay. Give me a minute to get dressed. Tell them I’ll be right there,’ he said.

For a moment their eyes met and Colin wondered what was going through the older man’s mind. There was no reassuring smile, just a sort of watchfulness as though his father was appraising him, trying to see something in this boy of his that Alec Young had never seen before.

Then Colin reached out and took his father’s hand, feeling its calloused roughness. ‘It’s all right, Dad. I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m jist helping them, ken?’ he added, slipping back into the familiar vernacular of his childhood.

His dad nodded then sighed. ‘If yer mither wis here…’ he began.

‘Dad,’ Colin said sharply. ‘C’mon. I’ve got to get up. Okay?’

Alec rose from the bed and left the room, closing the door behind him. For a moment there was silence, then Colin could hear the sound of unfamiliar voices coming from the living room.

Gathering up the clothes he had discarded the night before, Colin hastily pulled on a T-shirt, only pausing to rummage through his rucksack for a fresh pair of underpants and clean socks.

Why had they come? They’d said that they wouldn’t be needing him any more, but maybe they had found something…

Colin stopped, his hand on the buckle of his belt, wondering. What if they’d found something in the post-mortem? A shudder went through him.

Trembling, he glanced desperately at the small square window of his room. It had been stuck fast for years except for a couple of inches where you could ease it up for air in the summertime. Bloody death trap, his brother Thomas had said often enough. Death trap . The words in his head resonated as though someone had actually spoken them out loud.

His shivers continued as he fastened his belt and yanked a jersey over his head, eyes emerging to stare at the door that separated him from the people who were waiting to take him away.

There was no way out. No way to escape whatever was waiting for him behind that door.

As if in a dream, Colin left his old bedroom behind, the place that was filled with so many childhood memories, then walked into the hall, seeing the ancient carpet, its red and yellow leaf pattern worn and faded now from so many feet over so many years. Nothing had been changed since Mum had died, despite the boys’ efforts to persuade their father to smarten the place up. Now, for the first time, as a vision of his mother’s laughing face came back to him, Colin understood why. It was seeing familiar things like this scabby old hall carpet that kept some of the memories alive for Alec Young.

Behind the living room door Colin could hear the voices and his steps faltered for a moment. His hand turned the door knob and he stepped in to see three faces turned towards him, staring silently as though he had been the subject of a conversation that had abruptly stopped the moment he had entered the room.

Then Colin Young heard words that he had never expected to hear in his life as a uniformed officer stepped forward to enclose his wrist in that cold hard cuff: ‘… detained on suspicion…’

It was all happening too quickly. There was no protest from the father who stood there, arms limp by his sides. Colin tried to see what was in Alec Young’s expression. Mute amazement? Horrified disbelief?

Then the moment had passed and he couldn’t look back to see any more as he was being led out of the front door, leaving his dad behind them.

A small crowd of people had gathered several paces away, watching the little drama, eyes feasting on the handcuffed figure being led towards the police car. Colin searched in vain but there was no friendly face that he recognised amongst their stares. One of the police officers put his hand onto Colin’s head as he was helped into the back seat and clipped into his belt, then the car began to move away from the pavement.

Someone in the crowd called out but the words were lost in the sound of the car’s engine and all Colin could see as he twisted around to look out of the window was his father’s face, white and strained, as he stood framed in the doorway of their home.

Perhaps he could write a poem about it once they realised their mistake, Colin thought. He was sitting at a well-scrubbed Formica-topped table in an interview room that was almost identical to the one he had been in before, but he had nothing with him to write down any thoughts, not even a pencil stub, and his notebook was back home in the rucksack that he’d been carting about for days ever since he had left Merryfield Avenue.

They had arrived at the back of the police station this time and Colin had been led up a sloping metal pathway barred on each side and through a red door to the Charge Bar, where a man behind the counter had asked if he wanted to call his legal representative or not. Colin had shaken his head, still bewildered at the turn of events.

‘You need to have someone with you, son,’ one of the uniformed officers who had taken him from his home explained. ‘We can get you a duty solicitor if you like but if there’s anyone you know, like a family solicitor…?’

Colin had shaken his head and mumbled, ‘We don’t have one…’ and that had made the man bark out, ‘Duty solicitor then, Sergeant!’ Then he had been taken through a maze of corridors until they had reached this interview room.

The uniformed police officer standing guard by the door didn’t look much older than he was, but looking at his closed expression, Colin did not feel inclined to engage the other man in conversation. Detective Inspector Grant would be with him shortly, he had been told, and that must have been at least quarter of an hour ago, Colin thought, glancing at the watch he’d remembered to slip onto his wrist. He fingered the metal strap, recalling the morning of his eighteenth birthday when he had opened up the slim parcel and found it inside. A good-looking grown-up watch, something he’d wanted for ages, something that would last him a lifetime.

Colin hung his head as the thought of a lifetime twisted itself in his brain. Eva. She’d had such plans for the rest of her life, hadn’t she? And now none of them would ever come to pass. He swallowed hard, blinking away these treacherous tears. What on earth would that detective inspector think if she came in and found him crying again?