Elisabeth Carpenter - 99 Red Balloons

Anthony reads my sheet. Fuck knows what they’ve got on there.

‘Just answer no comment ,’ he says.

‘You what? That never helps, does it?’

‘It certainly won’t make things worse.’

‘I’ll see how I get on.’

‘I advise you to answer no comment .’

He’s like a bloody robot. He’s not trying that hard to convince me; he’s not even looking at me. He doesn’t give a flying fuck what happens.

He’s still reading the sheet when Rachel Berry comes back in and sits opposite me. A breeze of her scent wafts over my face. Don’t recognise that perfume. Musky. I haven’t been close to a woman for ages; they usually look at me like they’re worried they’ll catch something just by sitting next to me.

She flicks a switch on the machine next to the wall.

I watch her as she introduces everyone to the tape. They have cameras everywhere now too, one on either side of the room.

‘Scott Taylor,’ she says. ‘You were captured on CCTV with Grace Harper, on Monday 26 September.’ She pushes the picture towards me.

I told you, cameras everywhere. I glance at the picture.

‘Course it’s me,’ I say. ‘You’re not going to show me a picture of some other bloke, are you?’ I smile at my brief next to me, but he’s just staring at the picture of the kid and me. Bet he can’t believe his luck today.

‘Can you tell me how you managed to kidnap Grace Harper from the street unnoticed?’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

Rachel rolls her eyes. There are little beads of sweat above her top lip. I wonder what it’d be like to lick them off. Salty or sweet? She could do with getting a haircut though – her hair’s a bit straggly at the bottom. Sarah wouldn’t be seen dead with hair like that. No way. My sister was at the hairdresser’s nearly every bloody week. Or month. I can’t remember.

She taps a pen on the table.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

I want to slam my hand on hers to stop the sound.

But I don’t.

I’m being good now. She seems all right.

I move my chair closer to the table, dragging it harder on the floor than I have to. She winces at the sound. Two can play at that game. It worked. She stopped tapping.

‘I’d been watching them,’ I say. ‘Do you know that some mothers let their kids walk home on their own? Am I allowed to smoke in here?’

She shakes her head.

‘It was worth asking. Never know if they’re going to change the rules back again. Would’ve been nice to have a smoke while I told you my version of events. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us .’

‘Why do you keep talking like that?’ she says. ‘Quoting from the Bible.’

I sit up in my chair. ‘I don’t keep doing it.’

‘You do.’ She doesn’t break eye contact with me. ‘It says here,’ she holds up a piece of paper, ‘that you were reciting biblical verses all the way to the police station.’

‘Bollocks was I. It’s just something I learned inside,’ I say. ‘Anyway… isn’t that what we’re meant to do when we’re banged up? Follow the righteous path?’

She tilts her head to one side. ‘You mean you learned the skill of trying to appear insane, when in fact you are perfectly fine and knew exactly what you were doing.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I think you know full well what I’m talking about.’

She sighs, and looks again at the sheet of paper in front of her.

‘So you were watching the children,’ she says.

‘You make it sound like I’m a kiddy fiddler. I’m no fucking nonce. I hope you write that down.’

She glances at the digital recorder and rolls her eyes again. Like I’m some kind of bloody imbecile.

I shift in my chair. The plastic’s digging into the back of my legs. They make them uncomfortable on purpose.

‘Bet you wouldn’t let your kids walk the streets on their own, would you?’ I say to her. ‘Not in this day an’ age. Can you believe that? I mean – how old were they? Six, seven?’

‘Eight,’ says Rachel.

Doesn’t say more than she has to, this one.

‘I saw her mother watching them as well,’ I say. ‘Too busy spying on her kid to even notice I was looking at them too. I knew she couldn’t keep that up; one day she was going to let her go on her own. She only lived up the road from the school. Quite a challenge, I tell you.’

Rachel has that look on her face – like I smell of shit or something.

‘Stuck-up bitch,’ I say.

‘Excuse me?’ says Rachel.

‘Emma – that was the mother’s name. I learned that when I went into her workplace. Didn’t even look at me. Thinks she’s better than everyone else. But you can get close to people when they’re not expecting you. There’s a lot more dads outside the school gates these days, did you know that?’

Rachel ignores me; she’s writing something in her notepad.

‘There was a dog outside the library,’ I say. ‘Nearly every day it was there, poor little sod. I did it a favour, really. I mean, what’s the point of having a dog if you’re just going to tie it up outside a bloody building all afternoon?’

The two coppers look at each other. Yeah, I get it. They’re bored – they’ve got better things to do. But I haven’t. I don’t speak to people much.

‘Anyway,’ I say. ‘I grabbed the lead like I owned it. No one gave a shit. Walked it to the sweet shop on the corner. Could see the girls were still in there. The tallest of them – don’t know her name – well… she always comes out first… likes to open her sweets as soon as she can and get them in her face. I used to be like that – though we never got sweets every day like they did.’ Rachel hovers her pen over the table. She’d better not start bloody tapping it again. ‘I made the dog run away – had to kick its backside to get it going, like.’

Rachel frowns. ‘Why?’

‘ Hey , I shouted to the taller girl. Help me, my dog! And the kid’s off down the road, chasing after it. Grace Harper didn’t notice a thing – even though she was standing at the crisp box near the door of the newsagent’s. Everyone outside was looking at this dog – going crazy it was. It went into the road and people looked worried it going to get run over.

‘I just went into the shop and grabbed her. Light as a feather she was. Had to put my hand over her mouth, but she didn’t try to shout – probably because she didn’t know what was happening. My car was just round the corner. I put her in the boot and I drove off.’

I like to think it was by design rather than luck that no one noticed, but fortune favours the brave, as they say.

I lean back in my chair. A nice ciggie and a cup of tea would be perfect right now.

Rachel’s lip curls up at the corner. She thinks she’s got me now, doesn’t she? The copper next to her rolls his eyes. They probably think I don’t notice these little things. They think I’m stupid, but I’m not. Why do people think that if you confess, you’re an idiot? To get caught in the first place is careless, but what happens when you’re tired of running? Sometimes, there’s nowhere else to run.

‘So what happened next, Scott?’ she says. ‘What happened after you got Grace Harper into your car and drove away? Why did you walk through town when anyone could’ve seen you with her?’

I look up to the ceiling again. It’s different in here now. They must’ve given it a facelift. It was nearly thirty years ago, when I was brought into the cells for the first time. I woke up on a bastard-hard bed – couldn’t remember how I got there. Thought I’d been pissed up or high on the street and left to sleep it off.