From report to court, part three – Video Recorded Interview

I only had to wait two days for my interview, and in some ways I was glad it wasn’t longer. Not because I was going to get cold feet, they were already frozen, I just didn’t want to live with the dread of what would happen when I said everything out-loud. Scenarios started playing in my mind of being questioned, would cheery Ross from the phone calls turn back into stoic Ross? How could I sit there, 94kg of muscle, tattoos, and resting-bitch-face, and be believed I could let a man do those things to me?

I woke around dawn, groaned as the realisation of what day it was also dawned, and pulled the duvet over my head. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done that, maybe not since I was at school and being bullied. There was something oddly comforting about it though, the tiny world under the sheets with its mottled light and humid warmth, it smelled too much like me though, and I needed to fart, so I flapped the duvet back and looked at the world.

Google said it would take twenty minutes to get to the police station, so I was leaving at 09:30. I picked up the keys and with a very definitive, “I’m off,” I took the luck my sister wished me, and walked out the door.

I quickly found that my concentration was an issue. I couldn’t live in my thoughts and focus on the road ahead at the same time. I drove on autopilot, but it didn’t feel like I was conscious. As I got to the dual-carriageway, I took the corner to the on-ramp almost too fast, and my mind snapped back into the present like an over-stretched rubber band.

There were few cars on the road, and as I left the ramp onto the dual-carriageway I put my foot down. My sister’s car was durable, reliable, clean, but not what I was used to. It accelerated, but in a respectable way. I left my foot down on the accelerator and went passed the speed limit. As the dial ticked up into higher numbers, it dragged my mind into my body. I reached speeds that created a slight rumble in the steering wheel and was fully focused on the road for the first time since I set off. It crossed my mind that being pulled over and arrested while already on the way to the police station, would at least be ironic, but took my foot off the accelerator all the same.

I got to the police station ahead of schedule and looking around the carpark, I lit a cigarette and text Ross to say I was outside.

While waiting, I wiped an ever-present tear from my cheek, twisted the lit end out of my cigarette, pocketed the butt, and lit another one. I was expecting Ross to appear from the main building, but he materialised from the small building right beside the carpark. It looked a bit like the caretaker’s house from my secondary school. It was there, but dwarfed by its counterpart, and surrounded by hedges, it seemed to exist less.

“Alright, how you doing?” Ross asked as he approached.

I was a mess, but it felt like that should be obvious. “I’m here. How are you?”

He walked me towards the building he’d just come from. He was bigger than I remembered and still had a presence like he was taking up more space than he needed. He spoke about the building saying that no one else was using it, but there was another officer in the lobby.

“You keep your butts in your pocket?” He said as I fished my earlier one out and posted it into the ashtray fixed on the wall.

“A hangover from living in Singapore. It’s a $300 fine for dropping them.”

 He looked at the floor, “We could do with that here.”

When I was done he clapped his hands together and said, “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

“You’ll be fine, just relax, okay?”

He stopped in the lobby and spoke to the officer sat writing in her notebook and tapping on her phone at the same time. They spoke like I wasn’t there, which felt rude at first, but it also made sense. She would know the ballpark reason of why I was there, so what could she say to me?

Ross led me through the building. “It will probably be about forty-five minutes, but it won’t feel like that.”

He gestured into a poorly lit room with furniture that belonged in a budget old people’s home, then walked to the next door, and said, “Greg will be recording today.” Greg waved and I looked at the recording equipment. There was even a blank CD on the desk. I didn’t know they still made those.

The cameras in the interview room were everywhere. A big dome in one corner, probably containing one that can be moved to get the right angle. And each corner had its own fixed camera. Ross must have seen me looking at them as he said, again, I’d forget they were there. I still thought he was talking shit.

He ran through what would happen, and I kicked off my shoes and pulled my knees into my chest as a barrier between him and me. He sat in a chair across from me that was equally ugly as the sofa I was on. “I’ll be taking some notes as you talk, but don’t worry about that. Once you’re ready, I’ll knock on the wall behind me to let Greg know to start recording, it’s all very high-tech, then we’ll start.”

I nodded, he nodded, and raised one hand to knock on the wall. He received a knock in response from Greg, and in a voice that I’d not heard him use before, soft, low, slow but not drawn out, he said, “What would you like to tell the police today?”

Of all the things I was expecting, that wasn’t one of them. And I didn’t want to tell the police anything. I had to. I wasn’t doing it for myself, I was doing it because my silence had meant others had suffered. The only options I had were to live with knowledge that more could suffer if I stayed silent, or, talk.

I spoke about how I met Tim. How he introduced me to other young people my age, took us to pubs and clubs, gave us alcohol and weed, how one night in his kitchen, Tim’s leathery tongue that tasted of beer and tea became part of my first kiss.

I didn’t look at Ross unless he spoke, and he only spoke to qualify my statements, repeating something I’d said but getting it wrong, so I had to correct him. I thought my words would be hard to get out. I thought Ross would question me. I’d thought the presence of the cameras would put me off. But words kept coming.

I spoke about returning home. About Tim becoming a bigger part of my life. About the night he dropped me off at the pub, and the guy who took me home. I spoke about wearing a blindfold, and hearing the clang of metal handcuffs hitting the bedside drawer. I heard the noise, metal against wood. I didn’t remember it, I heard it. And I felt the tears start to burn in my eyes. The next thing I remember was hearing Ross say, “And then what happened.”

I was staring at the corner of one ugly, grey carpet tile. My head was hung so far forward my chin was nearly on my chest, I woke from whatever trance state I’d been in. I looked up at him, his eyes mirrored everything I’d just said. This man that must hear horror stories every day, and hearing what I’d been through had made him smaller. The things I just spoken about faded like a dream. I knew I’d said them, I knew what I’d said, but it was like someone else had said it.

I got to the end and was completely drained. I was only still breathing because my body did it on its own. Ross said he’d check with Greg, in case he had questions that Ross hadn’t asked. Then I was alone in the little, dimly lit, functionally furnished room filled with cameras. My watch said it hadn’t been forty-five minutes, it had been an hour and a half. I looked at the big domed camera, was Greg looking back? I couldn’t believe it, but Ross had been right. I did forget they were there. But I was done. The biggest rule of my life was broken, I’d told the police. All that was left was to sign a document and my betrayal of Tim would be complete.

That might have been the end of the road for my involvement, but it wasn’t the end of the information I had.