11 . Here's Where The Story Ends

They sit you in a room and they just ask you questions, and at first you get your story right (Jane had cooked up some bullshit story about four o’clock that Sunday about being asked to look after a parcel by some guy in a pub), but then they keep asking the same questions but a little bit differently and you can’t remember exactly what you said before and it all gets mixed up in your head and then they say ‘end of interview stop the tape’ and all you can think is ‘what did I say, did I say anything that I shouldn’t have’. Of course when we went to court I found out
Jane had blamed it all on me.

The worst thing was Mum’s face when she came to the police station. She looked really
pale and then she started crying and then she started shouting and crying at the same time and asking me why and what had she done that was so wrong. I didn’t know what to tell her. I didn’t know what she wanted to hear.

And whatever anyone says I don’t blame Em for ringing the police. She must have
nearly had a heart attack when she saw the news that day. I tied to get in touch with her, to say sorry, but her mum answered the phone and said I wasn’t allowed to speak to her anymore as she was going to be a witness for the prosecution, and never to call again anyway because she didn’t ever want to speak to me. I was sad, because Em’s mum had always been really nice to me before and made sure to make her chicken and tarragon bake specially when I went round for tea because I’d said once I’d liked it. I knew Em would be sad and I wondered if she’d make it up with Jane ever. I knew she wouldn’t with me.

It’s taken me ages to write this all down. But it’s helped me make a little bit more sense of what happened. They said it would. Stories are meant to have morals at the end aren’t they but I don’t know what the moral of this one is yet. Don’t steal valuable paintings maybe? Mum says it was all down to hanging out with the wrong kind of people but I’m not sure. It was my idea after all to take the thing, not Jane’s.