Chapter 14
‘Please.’ I have to fight to control my breathing as DS Merriott leads me towards a black Ford Focus and opens the door. ‘I told you. Paula’s behind this. I don’t do drugs. Neither does my husband.’ I look up into the detective’s expressionless face. ‘Please, if we could just wait until Max gets home he’ll back me up.’
‘We’ll talk at the station.’
DS Merriott puts a hand on the top of my head and lightly pushes me towards the back seat of the car. I twist around and look over my shoulder, searching for a glimpse of my daughter. She’s got to come to the station with me because there’s no one else to look after her. I was allowed to put her coat and shoes on as one of the male officers took Elise’s car seat out of my car then the female officer took over.
‘Mummy!’ The door on the other side of the car opens and my daughter’s curly blonde head appears. She scrabbles across the seats and parks herself in the car seat in the middle as the female officer gets in beside her.
Elise watches me intently as I strap her in. If I give into the fear that is building inside me she’ll become scared too.
DS Merriott, in the driver’s seat, glances back at us and I feel myself grow hotter and hotter under his appraising gaze. The metal frame of the car feels like it’s closing in and the air feels too thick and cloying to breathe.
‘Could you open it?’ I gesture at the closed window to my right. ‘I need some air.’
‘Mummy?’ Elise’s tiny fingers weave their way through mine. ‘Mummy?’
‘Are you going to be sick?’ DS Merriott asks over the electronic drone of the window being lowered.
I’m too panicky to speak so I incline my head towards the window, take a deep breath of cold February air and count to three in my head as I inhale. I do the same as I exhale. I imagine myself on holiday in Rhodes with two friends, a long time before I met Max. I am lying on my back in the sea, sculling with my hands. My eyes are closed and I can feel the warmth of the sun on my face. I can hear the muffled sound of my friends’ laughter. I feel safe, peaceful, relaxed, happy. An intrusive thought pops into my mind, of the two police officers staring at me, judging me, thinking I’m mad, but I push it away. I am not in any danger. Nothing bad is going to happen to me.
It feels like for ever before I am calm enough to speak. I sit forward in my seat, the back of my shirt clinging damply to my back, and make eye contact with DS Merriott in the rear-view mirror. I’m too ashamed to tell him what just happened.
‘I’m OK now.’ I reach an arm around my daughter’s shoulders and pull her into me. ‘Mummy’s OK.’
In the last two hours I’ve been interviewed, photographed and had my fingerprints and DNA taken. I nearly had another panic attack when the female officer said she was taking Elise to a separate room but DS Merriott put a steadying hand on my arm and said, ‘The calmer you are the quicker we can do this. You don’t want your little girl to get upset, do you?’ So I played along; I gave Elise my best ‘happy, excited Mummy smile’ and told her to have fun with the nice lady while Mummy had a quick chat with the policeman.
I felt like I was in a film, or a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from, as the Duty Sergeant told me that I was under arrest on suspicion of the possession of controlled drugs. The questions came thick and fast. Do you want a solicitor? Do you have any illness or injury? Are you suffering from any mental ill health or depression? Are you taking or supposed to be taking any tablets/medication? Have you ever tried to harm yourself?
‘No,’ I replied to every question. I just wanted it to stop. For them to bring Elise back to me and let us go home. ‘Can I ring my husband? Please! I’m allowed a phone call, aren’t I? He’ll tell you that this was down to Paula. She knows where we live. She’s been following and threatening me!’
I was told that they’d ring Max in due course and then my belongings were taken away and placed in a clear plastic bag. I did everything I was told, moving zombie-like as I opened my mouth and held out my hand, but then I began to shake. They’d found drugs in my house. I didn’t know how many they’d found, or where. All I knew was what DS Merriott had said to the Duty Sergeant – that they’d found a quantity of class A and class B drugs hidden in my home.
My panic increased as DS Merriott led me through a maze of different corridors. I tried to memorise the route we were taking – a right, then a left, then another left. By the time the detective pushed open the door to a tiny interview room, I was dripping with sweat and struggling to breathe. I took one look at the cramped space, strip-lighting and lack of window and shook my head.
‘I can’t.’
‘Mrs Blackmore, please don’t make this difficult.’
‘I suffer from agoraphobia and panic attacks. If we go into that room and you shut the door …’
DS Merriott looked at me with a kind of weariness that suggested that he’d had the shittiest of shit days and he really didn’t want to deal with my neurotic crap. ‘You were asked by the Duty Sergeant if you suffered from any kind of mental illness. You replied no.’
‘I was scared. I didn’t know what would happen if I said yes.’
‘We could prop the door open with a chair?’ suggested the portly female PC who’d accompanied us to the interview room.
The detective glanced at his watch and sighed again. ‘Fine. Let’s just get this done.’
I insisted, all the way through my interview, that the drugs weren’t mine, that I didn’t know how they got into the toilet cistern and that no, I did not take drugs for personal use. After grilling me for several minutes, DS Merriott then asked about Max and whether the drugs could be his. I told him, as calmly as I could, that Max’s dad had died from a heroin overdose when Max was a child and there wasn’t anyone more anti-drugs than he was. The drugs had been planted in our house by Paula. They had nothing to do with either of us.
He asked me to tell him again what had happened with Paula, and made a few notes on his pad of paper. Then he asked me whether I’d noticed any sign of forced entry when I’d returned home with Elise today. I told him that I hadn’t noticed any issues with the front and back doors but I couldn’t say whether anyone had tampered with the windows because I hadn’t checked them.
At that point we were interrupted by a ginger-haired police officer who stuck his head around the door and announced, ‘The husband is here.’ I slumped back in my seat. Finally! Max would corroborate everything I’d said and I’d be let go. But DS Merriott wasn’t done with me. He dismissed the ginger-haired police officer with a nod, then continued questioning me for another five or ten minutes. Only then did he conclude the interview. I was asked to remain in the room for a couple of seconds while the two officers left. I could hear them talking in low voices in the corridor but couldn’t make out what they were saying. The female PC returned to the interview room and sat down opposite me.
‘We’re just going to sit here for a while,’ she said, ‘while DS Merriott talks to your husband. Normally we’d return you to a cell but,’ – she raised a hand when I gasped – ‘given your medical condition I think it’s for the best if we remain here. If you feel unwell at any point I will call for the Duty Doctor. OK?’
I
