They drove for twenty minutes, around in so many circles that Ebony lost all sense of direction. They turned into a place that echoed, as if it were underground. They kept the engine running and she heard the car door being opened, felt the rush of cold air as she was hauled from the car. She heard the car drive away.
They marched her along an open space and she felt the presence of two men. She listened to their footsteps. Ebony felt the air around them. The smell of chemicals. They stopped and Ebony heard the clank of a chain being loosened, slipped out of its hold and dropped onto the ground. She was pushed forward and she tripped over, landing on concrete. A door was closed and her hood was removed. Two men stood looking down at her. They were both thick set in their mid-thirties to early forties, one taller than the other. Both bald. They were dressed the same, almost in a uniform of dark clothes. One of the men was taking his jacket off. Ebony felt herself beginning to shake. She was trying to keep the panic down and her wits about her. She had to stay sharp. She looked around her to assess the situation. It was a windowless room with a concrete floor and bare brick walls. There was strip lighting on overhead, hanging down from the ceiling. There were shackles on the floor, bloodstains on the concrete. There was a sink in one corner. The room was icy cold. Ebony’s breath was white. In another corner of the room was a metal tank up at a forty-five-degree angle from the ground. She knew what it was – a sensory deprivation tank. She had read about them. She knew that inside the tank a few hours was equal to weeks of solitary confinement in an ordinary cell.
The shorter of the two men hauled her to her feet and pinned her against the wall. He placed his hand in the middle of her chest and kicked her ankles back until she was touching the wall with her feet and then he came close to her face so that his nose was touching hers. It was many years since Ebony had been subjected to an attack like this. As a child she’d been assaulted many times in the power struggle that went on in kids’ homes. She had learnt to keep her head down, to comply, to wait for it to be over. It had been many years and countless blocked memories since she had felt so vulnerable.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Ebony Wilson.’ Ebony’s voice came out with a Caribbean accent. She had known that the trial would happen but even so, it felt very real to her. She had to try to stay focused and remember it was not going to last for ever. They will not kill me, she said to herself. A small voice in her head added: they will try to and break you though.
‘Where’ve you been living for the last twelve years?’
‘Jamaica.’
‘Address?’
‘One hundred and seventy-three Manning Street, Trench Town, Kingston.’
‘Who did you live with?’
‘My grandparents.’
‘What was your grandfather’s middle name?’
‘Levi.’
‘You’re lying. What was the colour of your front door?’
‘Blue.’ Ebony heard the sound of metal grating against metal – the taller man was opening the tank in the corner of the room. The man talking to her grinned.
‘You’re rubbish at this. You must enjoy pain because that’s what you’re going to get.’ Ebony looked across at the other man. He seemed softer, more human. She thought about talking to him directly but then thought against it.
Ebony looked back at the other man. He was stockier, bigger. He watched her and the expression on his face was one of contempt mixed with pleasure in her pain. He looked like the type of man who tortured kittens.
‘What date did you leave there?’ The short man slapped a flat hand against her abdomen. It doubled Ebony in pain and she snorted white breath as she answered.
‘February the eighteenth 2012.’
‘What day was it?’
‘Monday.’ She breathed through the pain.
‘You’re police, aren’t you?’ He slapped her again.
She raised her head and looked him in the eyes.
‘No.’
He kicked her feet away from the wall. She fell backwards and banged her back as she bounced off it and landed on her side on the floor. She sat up quickly and flinched as he pulled out her legs and rested a heavy boot on her kneecap as he rocked it with his weight.
‘You’re police – I’m going to break your leg just to start with. Tell us and I’ll spare you the pain.’ He ground his boot into her thigh as she squirmed to get away. The other officer came forward and breathed into her face. His voice was soft.
‘Give us one good reason why we shouldn’t kill you here and now?’
‘Because I have a small child. A boy – Archie.’
‘What’s his date of birth? Which hospital was he born in?’ The shorter officer took over again.
‘Uh…’ Ebony couldn’t think. She knew this – she must remember. ‘Uhh… Queen Mary’s, Trenchtown.’
‘Wrong. You’re police, aren’t you? Do you think we’re stupid?’
‘No.’
Ebony was hauled over to the tank and her legs were tied and she was lowered inside the pitch black. The lid was placed on the tank and she could see nothing, feel nothing, no sound except blood pumping. Ebony closed her eyes and breathed deeply.
I can do this. She closed her eyes just to rest them. She tried to imagine herself on a beach. She was with her friend Micky. Camber Sands: a beach that stretched forever within warm sun and clouds that filled the sky. Lying on their backs they stared up at the sky, the hot sand beneath them and the salty breeze skimming their skin; they looked for shapes in the clouds.
‘There’s a croc.’ Micky had been right There was his tail, his eye. ‘Or maybe an alligator,’ Micky laughed. ‘How many people know the difference, do you think, Ebb?
She didn’t answer. She sighed and smiled. This was the happiest place in the world.
‘If the world ended now, Micky, we could just float up to heaven from this beach.’
‘Yeah, maybe a tidal wave as big as a mountain would just pick us up. We’d drown, and every single day for the rest of our lives would be like this.’
‘Not for the rest of our lives – we’d be dead.’
‘You know what I mean. For the rest of whatever it is afterwards.’
‘We’d be together,’ said Ebony, watching the world turn above her. ‘But do you think we’d fall out?’
‘We would, a bit. But then we could go to the other ends of the beach for a few hours and when we met again we’d be so happy to see each other.’
Two months after they visited Camber Sands Ebony was returned to her mother and she never saw Micky again.
Now in the tank she felt like she was drowning inside the tidal wave and all she could hear beneath the water was the sound of her own blood pumping around her body. Something held her in the darkness. She called out for her mother and heard her laugh and Ebony’s face was pressed against a wall and someone was touching her in the darkness. Someone was hurting her, trying to get her clothes off, and she was fighting so hard.
She gasped and opened her eyes at the sound of the tank being opened above her head, squinting as light and pain flashed across her eyes and skull. A voice breathed in her ear. She recognized it as that of the officer who had interrogated her. She couldn’t see him. He stood behind her with the lid still half on the tank.
‘You’ve been in here for five hours. Did it seem like longer?’ Ebony didn’t answer. It felt like days. ‘Want to talk to us before we go home to our families for a few days and forget all about you here? I want to explain something to you. Officially we were never here and neither were you. Eventually someone might find you – follow the stink. How does it feel to be dying in here?’ Ebony tried to answer but she couldn’t. The panic which had built up in the last five hours had left her speechless.