The Panopticon (13 page)

They ask if I’m a Buddhist.

‘Are you a Buddhist, Anais?’

‘Do I look like a fucking Buddhist?’

They come again, the next morning – just before breakfast
– and say there is a witness. They show me my bag with the Buddha and the holes cut out. I have no fucking idea how they found that. They’re so chuffed to have caught me, they’re almost being chatty. They are cowboys and I am the only Indian left now. They have my tomahawk and they’re gonnae burn my settlement to the ground.

‘It will be better for you if you can return the stolen police goods, Anais. Can you do that?’ the police officer asks me in the station. They are so smug in their victory of catching me that they probably didnae even spit in my tea.

‘Can you give me half an hour?’

‘Ten minutes, no more.’

He’s the only nice policeman I’ve ever met. I run all the way to my dealer’s; from outside his window I can hear his spotty bird laughing in his room. I shagged him last week. I didnae know about Spotty until after the shag, like. When I was putting my jeans back on he told me Spotty was his bird, then she turns up at the door and just knows we’ve been shagging.

Hammer on his door.

‘I need the lights back, all of them – they’ve fucking caught me, ay.’

She’s sniggering and he’s telling her to shut up, and he goes to get the lights out from under his bed. I cannae fucking believe it when he hands me them. The two of them are in hysterics, but I umnay laughing. I can still hear them roaring away to each other as I run down the road.

Me and the two policeman sit watching the footage on his laptop. Me spraying the CCTV. Me crouched on the roof of a police car with a knife. The next bit of footage is the
last one they’ve got, and the policeman turns up the brightness on his laptop.

I walk into the station, up to the counter. I am holding an armful of police sirens. A wee boy and his mum are sitting in the waiting room. The wee boy stops crying when he see’s what I’m carrying. The pigs all watch from behind the reception desk, their cups of tea poised in mid-air as I line the police lights up carefully. Six of them. Official police lights. Neatly placed in a row. Each one has been spray-painted fluorescent-pink and covered in glitter.

It still makes me smile.

The policeman stops the footage.

‘So, your vendetta against PC Dawn Craig started over a year ago?’ he states.

‘I didnae have a vendetta.’

‘You threatened tae kill her. Is that friendly behaviour, in your world?’

‘When’s Helen coming back?’

‘She’s not.’

11

IT’S PEACEFUL ON
the roof and there’s a big yellow full moon. I’ve been listening out for Britney, but she’s not around tonight. I keep thinking about my biological mum – it’s probably cos Helen’s finally taking me to the nuthouse I was born in. She wants me to meet the old schizo who supposedly saw bio-mum when she got committed. I still have the monk’s wee pencil picture, a scrawl of a cat with wings.

I don’t know what to think about it: someone who actually claims to have seen me, actually being born. Well, not actually being born, but he reckons he was there (in the building) when it happened. Helen says the old guy actually saw
me
, when I was a baby. Like not in a test-tube, or a Petri dish, or a lab, not growing in a glass jar. He saw me. A real wee baby, born the usual way, and this wee frantic part of me is hoping – for what?

I’ve been thinking about the experiment growing me for so long – I almost cannae imagine anything else now. Maybe this is just a ruse. The experiment urnay fucking stupid. Helen thinks it will help my
identity
problem. I fucking
doubt it. She keeps saying she’s leaving the social soon, tae go and help people in other countries. Wish she’d fucking hurry up about it.

7652.4 – Section 48 was my first name. Seriously, they couldnae even give me a name until they’d filed me and discussed me and decided what I came under for sectioning. I hate the first name they gave me after that one; I wouldnae even tell anyone it, ever. It was shit. At least Teresa picked something better: Anais – she named me after one of her favourite writers.

A glow from the window below spills out into the dark and stars appear. Pull a half-smoked cigarette out my jeans pocket, spark my lighter, the silver bit hurts my thumb, but it catches. Inhale until I’m dizzy. My jeans smell now, that burnt-umber kind of way. I’ll have to put them in the laundry tomorrow. I might just quit smoking. Why follow the crowd?

The wind is picking up, trees rustle all the way down the drive. Malcolm, the flying cat, is waiting for me tae go and say hello.

Are you fucking ignoring me?

I look at the text twice. Mind-games. Delete the message and look at my photos. There’s a beautiful one of me and Hayley, one night up on Calton Hill, with the Beltane behind us, fire-breathers and drummers and me – feeling like a white witch on LSD.

I’m in debt, the pigs are saying I grassed someone. They’re gonnae kill me, Anais
.

Cold. Cold in my heart. I dinnae know how tae tell him that, since I’ve been away from him, I see things differently. All the times he – I dunno, it’s like he manipulated. But
maybe he didnae. Maybe I’m just being a bitch? Maybe everyone deserves a second chance.

Hang on xx
.

I tried to get in the watchtower again, but it’s locked. The experiment are like the watchtower: they can see in everywhere, but nobody can see them. But they’re even cleverer, they can see you anywhere you are. You could imagine them like a man with a wide-rimmed hat staring in your bedroom window while you sleep. Every night he comes and watches your dreams like he’s watching the telly. Sometimes he sits by your bed and whispers words to rearrange them, so you might start out dreaming of something nice, then he’ll whisper tae you about something bad. It’s always something bad. The experiment are like that.

I was in hospital once, and I saw them – just under the curtain, four guys in suits; all I could see was the bottom of their trousers and identical shiny shoes. Then Teresa. Kimono. On the floor. Blood. The walls. Her cigarettes. Kraft macaroni cheese congealing in a pot while Tom chases Jerry and a siren roars. They’d been there then as well.

If you sit really quietly and focus, you can feel the experiment. You will. You’ll feel them right fucking there, in the room. Just watching. Dinnae ever let them know that you know about them. If they find out that you know about them – then it will just be a matter of time. Just a matter of time. You’ll walk down a street one day and a bus’ll fly by, and where you were stood – just a second ago – there’ll be nothing but empty space!

Gone.

Game over.

It happens all the time. There are hundreds of thousands
of people go missing every year in the UK, never-seen-again. Gone. A few come back, like. Most dinnae. It’s getting worse every year, and it’s not just nobodies; I mean mostly it’s nobodies, but in all truth, they’ll take anybody. They hate. You. Me. Everyone really.

Like ming-bag Elaine last spring, I watched the final footage of her on some train’s CCTV on the local news. They never found her body, just her bag at some dump.

Then there was Brendan, in fuzzy footage – shoplifting, just before he climbed into some taxi. A taxi where? Nobody knows, Your Honour.

‘Who was driving the taxi?’

‘I dinnae ken.’

‘How not?’

‘Didnae ask.’

‘Did anyone ask?’

‘Nope.’

It could have been anyone driving that cab. It could have been Elvis. It might have been some sick cunt with a space in his sex circle, who knows? Maybe Brendan is cement under a patio right now. What a waste, ay, he was a fucking great shoplifter. I bet he didnae look at the number on the back of that cab when he got in. I bet he didnae memorise it. I memorise every number in every car I get in. I memorise nameplates. I did it on the docks for Mary when she went on the game, and Mary never went missing on my shift, not fucking once. She used to give me twenty fags tae keep track of the registration numbers for her, and a drink at the end of the night. It was better than a paper round. Teresa went fucking mental when she found out.

Disappearing, ay. It can happen alright. Any time,
anywhere. Even from a nice leafy street, or a dark cinema, or the dinner queue, or the back of the bus, or straight from bed, all cosy in the morning.

I could be stood out on somebody’s car sunroof on a summer’s night, a fat bassline vibrating, my arms flung out wide, and just as the driver turns to shout something up and touch my bare leg – he finds nothing. Only air. Gone.

People in care are always disappearing. Nobody finds out where they go.

The office is warm. Angus’s got one of those hot-air heaters on. I turn it around so it blows on my legs.

‘I want tae file a counter-complaint for harassment.’

‘Okey-dokey.’

He crosses his legs. The soles on his eighteen-hole Docs are almost worn through. His army shirt’s frayed and his knees poke through his jeans, and his dreadlocks are tied up at the back in a kind of weird green bun.

‘Is that your phone buzzing, Anais?’

‘Aye.’

Part your legs
.

He’s fucking bored in that jail.

‘D’you think I should file a counter-complaint against the polis?’

‘That’s not what I said, Anais.’

You are the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. Marry me
.

‘They arrested me without cause, and kept me for three days.’

‘Two and a half days.’

‘Whatever.’

I stretch an elastic band I found on the desk.

Will you meet me, Anais?

He’s really putting the pressure on lately, and I’m just trying not to answer.

‘They only kept you for four hours today,’ Angus says.

‘Aye. Great.’

I take out my voucher to top up my phone and tap it in.

‘The police will want you tae make another statement,’ Angus says.

‘They’re harassing a minor.’

I’m getting out the jail, they told me this morning
.

What?

In about three weeks, meet me at the safe-house? You better fucking come!

‘I have some more bad news, sorry. Helen has decided tae take annual leave. She’s not gonnae be your social worker any more.’

‘That’s not bad news.’

‘It’s not?’

‘Eh, no!’

‘Okay. Well, I’ll be your main point of contact through the investigation. Helen will be back in for an end-of-client-care review, and she says you have a trip booked to go and see a Mr Jamieson?’

I love you
.

I cannae believe he’s getting out, and despite myself I’m thinking – of moving into his, of painting his living room, of getting a flatscreen, and a dog. It’s not that long until I’m sixteen. If the polis dinnae get me in secure, then the social cannae keep me. Fuck that, though. I’d rather go into homeless accommodation and wait to get my own place, then nobody can ever kick me out again.

Will you meet me?

‘Anais, are you with me?’

‘Aye.’

‘Come on then – enlighten me, please?’

His eyes are bloodshot.

‘Angus, are you stoned?’

‘I dinnae take drugs, Anais. So, who is Mr Jamieson?’

‘Read my files.’

‘I could, or we could attempt the archaic habit of conversation.’

‘We’re gonnae visit the nuthouse tae see some schizo, who supposedly met me when I was a baby.’

I ping the elastic band across the room.

‘I see,’ Angus says.

‘Helen thinks it will help if I say hello tae the drooling old fuck.’

‘Help you or him?’ he asks.

‘Are you taking the piss, Angus?’

‘No. No, I’m not. For the record,
drooling old fuck
is now known as mentally ill, or aged and infirm, or special needs.’

‘You’re special-fucking-needs.’

‘Okay, that’s us done. Are you coming for dinner, Anais?’

‘What is it?’

‘Macaroni.’

‘Sound.’

Everyone is eating already in the dining area. Mullet is sat at the top of the table. I collect a plate and sit opposite Isla and Tash; Dylan and the new boy are on the next table, Brian’s next to Mullet, for safety.

‘Alright.’ Isla smiles.

She looks better than she did yesterday.

‘Alright.’

Mullet peers under the table. ‘Brian, what’s wrong with your trousers?’

‘Nothing,’ he says.

‘That doesnae look like nothing?’

Brian crosses his legs tae cover up a hole that’s been cut in the crotch of his school breeks.

‘’S that for easy access, ay?’ wee Dylan asks.

The new boy sniggers; he seems alright, quiet though. He only got brought in cos his mum’s got cancer and there’s no-one else tae take him. Dylan’s looking after him. It’s good he’s got a pal.

Shortie wanders in and grins at Tash and Isla, and half-smiles at me.

This macaroni cheese really is – the business. I want seconds. John throws the front door open, it bangs off the wall and we all turn around tae look. He marches over and,
smack!
, he punches Mullet clean off his chair.

‘You fucking liar!’ John roars at him.

Mullet thuds off the wall. Fucking hell! Wee Dylan and Brian snigger, Tash’s mouth falls open, and Isla steps away from the table.

Mullet puts his arm up. ‘Calm down, John, what the fuck are you doing!’

‘John, what is it?’ Angus asks, looking edgy, like he already knows the answer and it’s not a good one.

Brian skulks intae the kitchen. He takes two puddings and disappears upstairs.

Mullet launches himself up and ontae John’s back, and they hit the deck. Mullet yanks John’s arms back in a restraint. Tash giggles.

‘This is not acceptable behaviour, John. Calm down, we can talk about this!’

Mullet shoves John’s face further intae the carpet so he cannae even reply. He drags him up off the floor and marches him off towards the interview rooms; they tussle through the doorway, then another door slams and there are thuds, and
Fuck’s sake
, then silence.