“I don’t need an escort, I know where it is.”
“I think you will find that you do.” Muscles jump along his jaw as his hands steeple in front of his face and his eyes lock on mine. In them, I find a well of disappointment. “It’s a shame it’s come to this. I had such high hopes for you.”
With that, he breaks eye contact and simply nods at Williams, who steps aside, opening the door for me. “This way.”
I shoot him an irritated look. “I know where we’re going.”
“You’re lucky you’re not in handcuffs,” he hisses, and his words are shards of ice that embed themselves under my skin.
Walking through the main room, I feel every set of eyes on me. They burn with anger and hatred. I hear the whispers. They are like maggots crawling inside me; I can feel them, but I can’t reach them. I can’t make them stop.
We turn left at the corridor, towards the narrowing hallway where the interview room awaits. As we approach room number five, the door to room number four opens and a female officer I’ve never seen before steps out, holding the door slightly ajar. I look to my right as we pass and see Amy. Her face is tear-streaked, her eyes puffy, her neck a shade of ugly purple and a forensic technician is scraping under her nails. My hand shoots to my neck as the man meticulously collects my DNA from her.
Her eyes flicker up and she notices me. She feigns terror. Her hand shoots up to her neck as her eyes grow wide and round, and the officer in the room with her looks up to see me. Rage erupts inside me like venom, cold and menacing, poisoning my insides, infecting every cell and nerve, bleeding into my bones and bleaching my skin. Till all that is left is pure, unadulterated hatred.
“What the fuck did you do, you stupid bitch?” I scream at her and lunge, but Williams throws his arms around me, and the female officer slams the door shut. I hear the latch set in place and panicked words exchanged inside.
Two officers I’ve never seen before rush out of the next room and haul me into number five before pushing me down into the chair. They introduce themselves as officers of the independent office for police complaints and tell me to calm down.
“You calm down! She’s lying! You have no idea how fucking crazy she is.” I eye them like a crazed animal, my heart smashing against my ribs.
“Why don’t you tell me,” the officer I’ve never seen before says as he sits calmly on the other side of the table.
The next few hours are a blur. They keep asking me questions about how we got together, about why I was seen at her apartment banging like a crazed man at her door and about my baton covered in her bodily fluids. A forensic technician takes swabs and DNA samples, a photographer takes pictures of my neck and torso. I want to break everything.
I try to explain. I need to dig myself out of the hole she has somehow buried me under, but the more I talk, the more I tie myself up in knots.
I tell them this isn’t the first time this has happened, that she’s a manipulative shrew, and they ask if anyone can corroborate my story. I shake my head furiously, thinking of Derek in that fucking bed drooling and pissing into a nappy, and I know she’s covered all her tracks and I am fucked.