‘Max.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m going to be coming with you to school today. I need to tell your teacher what you saw.’
‘His name’s Mr Sharpe.’
‘… to tell Mr Sharpe what you saw.’
‘You forgot his name, didn’t you?’
‘Max. Can you listen?’
‘What? And why do you have to tell him?’
‘Because what you saw was very upsetting.’
‘It wasn’t.’
‘You might be upset later.’
He shrugged. ‘Can I be there when you tell him?’
‘Sure. OK. Why not.’
I kept expecting the police to knock on the door. Typical of Millicent to be out at a time like this.
I made a cooked breakfast to fill the time before we left. I let Max fry the eggs, which surprised him. It surprised me too. We ate in silence, then shared Millicent’s portion, enjoying our guilty intimacy. Max went upstairs. I put the plates and pans in the dishwasher and set it running. Millicent didn’t need to know.
Max came downstairs, dressed and ready to go. I texted Millicent to say I was taking him to school.
There was a man standing outside our house. He was casually dressed – leather jacket, distressed jeans – but there was nothing casual about his stance. Perhaps he had been about to knock, because the open door seemed to throw his balance slightly off. Max had flung it wide, and there stood the man in front of us, swaying, unsure of what to say.
‘Who are you?’ said Max. ‘Are you a policeman?’
The man nodded, ran the back of his hand across his mouth. He carried a briefcase that was far too smart for his clothes.
‘I could tell you were,’ said Max. ‘Are you going to arrest someone?’
The policeman ignored the question. ‘Mr Mercer?’ he said. I nodded, and he nodded at me again. He told me his name, and his rank. I immediately forgot both.
‘You got a minute?’
‘I was going to take Max to school.’
‘It’s OK,’ said Max. ‘I can just go.’
‘I’d like to speak to your son actually, if that’s all right. With your permission, and in your presence.’
No.
‘My name’s Max,’ said Max.
I looked at Max. You want to do this? He nodded at me.
‘OK,’ I said.
‘You’re giving your consent?’
‘I am,’ I said, ‘yes.’
‘Me too,’ said Max.
The policeman explained that this was not an interview, although he had recently been certified in interviewing children. He gave me a sheet of paper about what we could expect from the police and how to make a complaint if we were unhappy. Then he took out a notebook. I handed the paper to Max, who read it carefully.
First sign, I thought. First sign that this is taking a wrong turn and I end it and ask him to leave. He’s eleven.
I brought a chair in from the kitchen for the policeman. Max and I sat on the sofa. The policeman asked me where Millicent was, and I told him she was out. He asked me where she worked, and I said that she worked from home. He asked me where she was again. I said I wasn’t sure.
He made a note in his notebook.
‘She often goes out,’ said Max. ‘Dad never knows where she is.’
‘Max,’ I said.
‘Well, you don’t.’
The policeman made a note of this too.
‘Mum values her freedom.’
The policeman made yet another note. Then he took out a small pile of printed forms on to which he began to write.
‘How old are you, Max?’
‘Eleven.’
‘And is Max Mercer your full name?’
‘Yes. I don’t have a middle name.’
‘And you’re a boy, obviously.’
‘Obviously.’
They exchanged a smile; I realised that the policeman was simply nervous.
‘Can I sit beside you?’ said Max. ‘Just while you’re doing the form?’
The policeman looked at me.
‘If that’s OK with your dad.’
‘Sure,’ I said. I asked him if he wanted a coffee; he asked for a glass of water instead. I went through to the kitchen. Was he nervous, I wondered. Or are you playing nice cop?
‘I’m white British,’ I heard Max say, ‘even though British isn’t a race but the human race is. We’re not religious or anything. And my first language is English, so I don’t need an interpreter.’
He was reading from the form, I guessed, checking off the categories: so proud, so anxious to show how grown-up he could be. ‘For my orientation you can put straight.’
‘That’s really for older children,’ I heard the policeman say.
‘But can’t you just put straight?’
‘All right, Max. Straight.’
I came back in with the water. The policeman got up and sat opposite us again in the kitchen chair, writing careful notes as his telephone recorded Max’s words.
‘What were you doing before you found the neighbour, Max?’
‘Not much. Like reading and homework and stuff. I’m not allowed an Xbox or anything. And Mum was out, and Dad was working. He lets me borrow his phone, though.’
The policeman sent me an enquiring look. Then he made another note. I was wrong. It wasn’t nervousness; it was something else. There was a shrewdness to him that I hadn’t noticed at first, and that I didn’t much like. ‘We’re good parents,’ I wanted to say to him. ‘We love him unconditionally. We set boundaries.’ Don’t judge us.
He was good at speaking to children, though: I had to give him that. Max told him everything. That we had been looking for our cat, that the cat had led us into the neighbour’s house, that the back door had been open, and that the cat had disappeared up the stairs.
‘Is it better to say erection, or can I say boner?’ said Max.
‘Just say whichever you feel more comfortable saying,’ said the policeman.
‘But what should I say in court?’
‘I don’t think you’re going to have to speak in court,’ said the policeman. ‘That’s very unlikely.’
‘What would you say, though?’
The policeman laughed gently. ‘Probably erection. It’s the official word.’
‘OK.’ Max smiled a wide smile. ‘Erection.’ Then he became serious again; he made himself taller and stiffer, an adult in miniature. ‘Anyway, even though Dad tried to stop me seeing, I saw that the neighbour had an erection.’
I hadn’t tried to stop Max from seeing, though. At least I didn’t think I had. I was suddenly unsure. Perhaps