Mummy Where Are You? (Revised Edition, new) (14 page)

              My statement was faxed over to the Attorney General to see if he might grant me bail.  Unsurprisingly, he did not.  After all he was the brother of our family Court Judge, as is often the case in small communities.  The same Judge who had passed the Prohibited Steps Order, had had me placed on penal notice,  and had passed the Care Order seeking M’s removal from me- ex parte – there were no end to his crimes. This Judge was clearly unfit and now his brother was protecting him. Probably there was something more sinister going on.  Who knew?  Perhaps there was something being covered up, like a ring?  The Island was not unlike Jersey and everyone knew what had happened there.  None of this made sense and as the long hours of night stretched before me, a never-ending nightmare, I wondered how this situation had happened.  What else could I have done? 

              Perhaps if we had not elicited the help of my father we would still be safe in Florida?  But then without his help we couldn't have fled.  Should we have gone to the UK, as another friend of mine had done?  She had succeeded in thwarting the Court, but only because her ex had run out of funds and didn't deep down, really want full custody of her son – the son he had wounded with a knife.  Should we have gone to Ireland like other mothers had done?  Ireland where mothers were sacred and protected. But then with a predominantly Catholic society that placed the Virgin Mary in the highest position in the Holy Order, one must expect that.  Having said that, there was much unrest around the Catholic Church and certainly paedophilia was rife amongst Priests.  Since 2009, many rings have been exposed around the Church.

              Where was safe?  I had run as a reaction to a dangerous situation – I had run to protect and save M and yet here I now was a prisoner in a dirty cell with who knew what ahead of me.  M was with strangers of whom I knew nothing at all.  I wondered if they were kind, if they cuddled him when he cried for his mummy in the night.  I spent the long hours in isolation turning over these questions in my mind.

              I was eventually charged with Child Abduction and detailed again – finger prints, photographs and my personal data all entered on the computer.  At least it kept me out of the cell for half an hour whilst they completed it.

              At just before eleven p.m. by my estimation, I was returned to the cell and they eventually brought me some food, if you could call it food.  It was a microwave chilli con carne and it was disgusting.  It was one of the cheapest variety and given how ill I was now feeling, I did not want it anyway.  I forced two mouthfuls of the brown sludge down my throat, only because I needed to take an antibiotic and it had to be taken with food.  I was not allowed to have my medicine in the cell, so had to wait for them to bring it.  I swallowed it with some water and shortly after that they dimmed the lights, increasing my sense of fear and isolation.  I knew they were watching me and I pulled the rough blue dirty blanket over my knees and prayed for morning to come.

              Soon after they had brought my food, I heard the man in the cell opposite being taken somewhere – I guessed it was to prison.  The custody sergeant yelled at him, “down on your knees you bastard”.  They must have been cuffing him, as I heard the clanking of chains and the man was screaming obscenities back.  I heard the heavy thud of his steps going down the corridor and then the screams became fainter and now I was truly alone.  In a way, whilst the man scared me, the thought that other human life was nearby had been strangely comforting, now I might be the only person in the custody suite, there was absolutely no way of knowing. 

              A few minutes later the letterbox was pulled open and the custody sergeant barked at me.  “Go to sleep.”  I had been lying with my eyes shut, so I didn't know how he could tell I wasn’t asleep.  I was also freezing cold and shivering from my temperature.  There was no way I could go to sleep.  “Can I have another blanket please?”  I begged the angry face through the letterbox.  “No.”  He yelled back. “Go to sleep or we might keep you here all weekend.”  My God, could they do that?  Cold fear rose up in my chest and I thought I may be sick.  I felt dizzy and hot.  I put my head on my knees and wept.  Minutes later the custody sergeant was back.  “If you don’t fucking go to sleep, you’ll be in here for five days.”  I had no idea if that was even legal.  I later discovered they couldn’t detain me without a Court Order, but that night, with no knowledge of protocol, I was utterly terrified.  The Custody Sergeant was clearly enjoying the sport of bullying me and now that the drunk had left, he had turned his attentions to me as a way of passing the tedium of the night.

              With his threats fresh in my mind, there was even less chance of sleep. I kept my eyes tightly closed and hugged my knees closer to my chest shivering. Every so often the angry sergeant would come back and yell at me saying he knew I was not really asleep.  I felt tortured and was terrified that they would keep me there for days or transfer me directly to the prison – even that seemed a better option than staying in the filthy cell.  Whenever I did open my eyes, praying for light, it was still dark through the cell window – night seemed interminable.  I knew I had to get through this as a way back to M, so I held onto the thought of seeing him and tried to fill my head with images of happier times when we were still together.

              Finally dawn came and with it a change of custody sergeant.  I was handed some breakfast through the shaft in the door at what must have been around six a.m.  It was another micro-waved hot meal – over-cooked to the point of solidifying and inedible.  Congealed scrambled synthetic egg, rubberised bacon and a sausage that could not be cut – I tried to swallow something so that I could take my antibiotic, but all I could manage was one bite of the sausage which was like chewing a pencil eraser.  I pressed the buzzer on the wall to alert the custody sergeant that I needed my meds.  He came and brought it back with him, opening the cell door, he threw it on the floor – a floor that had clearly been urinated on many times.  “Oops”, he said and then with a laugh, he left. 

              One might have thought we were in a third world country, given the way I was treated. I obviously didn't take the capsule.  It was the least of my worries.

              Another long hour passed and then a woman PC came to the door and told me I could take a shower.  She handed me a carrier bag of clean clothes that my friend Jan had brought in for me. 

              I walked past two other cells and wondered if they were occupied.  There was no noise since the drunk had left, so I couldn't tell.  The shower was not much cleaner than the cell had been, but I thought it might stop me shivering at least.  There was no curtain and I had to have a female officer standing with me as I tried to wash the smell of the cell from my shivering body – scrubbing endlessly with the soap Jan had thoughtfully provided. 

              I felt I would never be clean again.  Tepid water trickled slowly from a broken shower head and I was then handed a rough badly stained towel with which to dry myself.  I did the best I could and then reached in the bag to find a pair of knickers that Jan had put in there – a couple of sizes too big, but at least they were clean.  I pulled them on and a clean grey T-shirt that was also a little too big.  I then put on my own grey suit and was accompanied back to the cell to await being taken to Court which I was told would be within the next two hours.  Thank God the night was over and the end of my ordeal was in sight.

              After another seemingly endless wait, the female officer came back and accompanied me to be checked out of custody.  This entailed going through the belongings that I had come in with so that I could say they had been returned to me – which they had not – but had been put on the van taking us to Court so had in effect left the custody suite. I was not going to argue. I was searched once more and put in handcuffs  and then told to get into the waiting van where security guards would now drive me to Court. 

              As the officer slid the side door of the van open, I could see there was another girl in the back and I was asked if I  wanted to sit next to her.  I was so glad of the company of another human being, I said I would join her.  She could have been an axe murderer, but at that point she was just another person in the same boat as me.  Once we were seated, the cage was pulled across and we began bumping out of the station as we were thrown from side to side unable to steady ourselves with our hands cuffed.  As we drove into daylight, I could make out that the girl looked in her forties, but was probably younger – life having aged her – or maybe substance abuse.  She had brown hair, was wearing shabby jeans and a jumper and her teeth were stained and broken. 

              “That custody sergeant was a right bastard last night.”  She suddenly volunteered in a strong local accent. 

              “Yes,” I agreed.  “He told me that if I didn’t go to sleep I would be in custody for five days and not be taken to Court.”  The girl, whose name was Diane laughed, a harsh gravelly heavy smoker’s laugh. 

              “He can’t fuckin’ do that mate.  They’re not allowed to keep you that long without an Order from the Court. He was just fuckin’ you around to scare you.  That’s what they do the bastards… I tell 'em where to go...they treat you like shit whatever anyways.”

              I felt strangely comforted by being with someone who knew the ropes. I couldn’t have been more out of my depth.  The whole experience was so alien to me.  I asked Diane why she had been taken into custody and she said she was caught dealing drugs.  It felt surreal and bizarre that I was sharing a cage in a van with a drug dealer on my way to Court in handcuffs – I felt like I was watching this happen on a movie screen and that it must be someone else’s life not mine.  It would be one of many times that I tried to pretend I was an actor playing out a scene in a crime drama.  In my worst moments – I would try to persuade myself that once the episode came to an end, I could walk off the Courtroom stage and back into my real life with M - but the Crime Thriller never seemed to reach the final act and my scenes became longer and more horrifying.  My real life had been replaced by this interminable nightmare.

              After twenty or so minutes we were taken off the van at the Court and put in a holding cell there.  We again agreed to share.  Diane was well- known to the G4 guards who were responsible for “looking after” us whilst we awaited being brought before the Judge.  She spoke to the guards by name and asked for coffee and toast for both of us, which we devoured hungrily after our cold night in custody.  She asked me why I was there.

              “Not being funny mate, but you don’t seem the type to be in 'ere.”  I told her a little of our story and she was horrified.

              “Don’t surprise me though, this whole fuckin’ Island is corrupt.  You should’ve got them people in America to help you – in the US there are people who could have helped you get away if you paid them enough.”  I wasn’t sure what people she was talking about, so I just nodded and asked her if she had any children. 

              “Yeh, got three.”

              “Has anyone ever tried to take your children from you? “ 

              “Nah, they wouldn’t fuckin’ dare.”  She said. 

              Ironically, here was I, a good mother, clean living and educated and I had lost my precious son to a Paedophile.  Where was the common sense?  Much as I was sure Diane was a nice girl who had just fallen on hard times and was trying to survive any way she could, it summed it up completely that it was so easy to victimise someone like me, but the Department wouldn’t dare step in where maybe some help was needed.  It seemed incredible.

              “Are you sure the Social Services have never tried to take your kids?” 

              “Sure mate.” 

              “Well, perhaps if I offer to deal drugs, I can get mine back.” I said. She laughed hoarsely and I forced a weak smile.  The whole thing was so outrageous it was almost farcical, but there was nothing funny about it.  We had entered an alternative universe where good was bad and bad was good - a mirror image with everything in reverse.

              “Your advocate’s here.”  The G4 guard took me to a side room where I met again with the same Scottish advocate who had come to see me in custody.  He was now in a suit and was acting officiously, filling out forms and suggesting bail conditions.  I thought maybe in the light of day he would be more sympathetic to me – after all I don’t expect any of them  want to be called out at  nine p.m. at night.  I tried to warm to him, but couldn’t. 

              “I’ve spoken to the prosecutor and offered ten grand bail money.” 

              “That sounds like a lot.”  I said amazed.

              “He’s turned it down, he wants fifty grand, your passport and you signing on at the police station every day.” 

              “I haven’t got fifty grand", I said weakly and with newfound fear.

                “It’s okay, your father will stand bail for thirty and you can put up twenty.”  I nodded.  I had some savings that had been left to me by my mother. I had lost my beloved sister, my mum and my most precious child. Now it seemed they would not stop until they had taken everyone and everything from me.

              I was taken to Court shortly afterwards and stood shaking in the dock as the Judge decided on whether I could now be bailed.  I was exhausted and felt like I had the dirt of ages stuck to my body from the filthy cell, but to my relief, with the high price on my head, I was released at last.