Forbidden

‘Then what happened?’

I try every trick in the book to keep the tears at bay, but nothing works. The pressure mounts, and I see from Sutton’s expression that he thinks I am stalling for time, pretending to feel remorse, lying.

‘Then what happened?’ This time, his voice is raised.

I flinch. ‘I said to her – I tried to – I said she had to – I forced her to—’

I can’t get the words out, even though I’m desperate to, wishing I could scream them from the rooftops. It’s like being forced up in front of the class again, the words clogging up my throat, my face burning with shame. Except this time I’m not being asked to read out an essay, I’m being interrogated about the most intimate and personal details of my life, all those tender moments spent with Maya, all those precious times that have made the last three months the happiest I’ve ever known. Yet now they are being smeared across our family like the faeces in the cell – putrid, foul, horrific abuse, myself as perpetrator, forcing my younger sister into revolting sexual acts against her will.

‘Lochan, I strongly suggest you stop wasting our time and start to co-operate. As I’m sure you’re aware, in the UK, the maximum sentence for rape is life imprisonment. Now, if you co-operate and show remorse for what you’ve done, that sentence will almost certainly be reduced, perhaps even to as little as seven years. But if you lie or try to deny anything, we will find out anyway and a judge will be far less lenient.’

Again I try to answer, again I fail. I see myself through their eyes – the sick, screwed-up, pathetic sex addict, reduced to abusing a younger sister he once played with, his own flesh and blood.

‘Lochan . . .’ The female detective is leaning towards me, clasped hands stretched out across the table. ‘I can see you feel bad about what happened. And that’s good. It means you’re begi

Taking a deep breath, I nod, trying hard to show them that I’m willing to co-operate, that they don’t have to keep up this Good Cop, Bad Cop charade in order for me to confess. All I need is the strength to pull myself together, hold back the tears and find the right words to describe all the things I forced Maya to do to me, all the things I forced her to endure.

‘Lochan, do you have a nickname?’

Detective Kaye is still doing her pally stuff, where she pretends to comfort and befriend me in the hope that I will trust her enough to relax, calm down, believe she is trying to actually help rather than to extract a confession.

‘Loch—’ I blurt. ‘Lochie—’ No, oh no. Only my family call me that. Only my family!

‘Lochie, listen to me now. If you co-operate with us today, if you tell us everything that happened, it will make a big difference to the outcome of all this. We’re all human. We all make mistakes, right? You’re only eighteen, I’m sure you didn’t realize the severity of what you were doing, and a judge will take that into consideration.’

Yeah, right. How stupid do you think I am? I’m eighteen and I’ll be tried as an adult. Save your manipulating lies for the ones who are really trying to conceal their actions.

I nod and dry my eyes on my sleeve. Tearing at my hair with cuffed hands raised above my head, I begin to talk.

The lies are the easy part – forcing Maya to stay off school, getting into bed with her every night, repeating the same threat, again and again, whenever she begged me to leave her alone. It’s when I have to tell them the truth that I flounder – it’s our truth, our i

They want to know every little detail. The time on the bed, our first night together. What I did, what she did, what I said, what she said. How I felt . . . How I responded . . . How my body responded . . . I tell them the truth, and someone reaches into my chest and slowly starts splitting me apart. When we finally reach this morning’s events, when it comes to what they refer to as ‘penetration’, I want to die to stop the pain. They ask me if I used protection, they ask me if Maya cried out, they ask me how long it lasted . . . It hurts so much, feels so utterly humiliating, so completely degrading, that I feel sick.

The interrogation seems to go on for hours. It feels like the middle of the night and we have been shut up in this tiny, airless room for all eternity. They take turns popping out for coffee or snacks. They offer me water, which I decline. Eventually I am so wrung out that all I can do is suck on my middle two fingers like I used to as a small child and slump sideways against the wall, my voice completely hoarse, face sticky with congealed sweat and tears. Through a thick haze, I hear them inform me that I will be escorted back to my cell and that the interview will continue tomorrow.

The tape is switched off, another officer comes to collect me, but for a few moments I can’t even get to my feet. Detective Sutton – who, for the most part, has remained cold and impassive – sighs and shakes his head with a look bordering on pity. ‘You know, Lochan, I’ve been in this job for years and I can tell that you’re feeling remorse for what you’ve done. But I’m afraid it’s all rather too late. Not only are you charged with committing a very serious crime, but your threats appear to have left your sister so terrified, she has signed a statement swearing that your sexual relationship together was fully consensual and instigated by her.’

All the air exits my body. My exhaustion evaporates. Suddenly only the thudding of my horrified heartbeat fills the air. She told them the truth? She told them the truth?

‘A signed statement – but that’s void now, right? Now that I’ve admitted everything, told you exactly what happened. You know she only said those things because I told her to, because I said I’d have her killed if I ended up in prison. So no one believes her, do they? Not now I’ve confessed!’ My cracked, dried-up voice is shaking hard, but I must stay calm. Showing remorse is one thing, but I have to somehow disguise the extent of my horror and disbelief.

‘That’ll depend on how the judge sees it.’

‘The judge?’ I’m shouting now, my voice verging on hysteria. ‘But Maya’s not the one being accused of rape!’

‘No, but even consensual incest is against the law. Under Section Sixty-five of the Sexual Offences Act, your sister could be tried for “consent to being penetrated by an adult relative”, which carries a sentence of up to two years in prison.’

I stare at him. Speechless. Stu

The detective sighs and tosses the file back onto the table in a sudden gesture of weariness. ‘So unless she retracts her statement, your sister now faces arrest too.’

Why? Maya, my love? Why, why, why?

Collapsed on the floor, half propped up against the metal door, I stare blindly at the opposite wall. My whole body hurts from lying completely motionless for what must be several hours now. I no longer have the strength to continue banging my head back against the door in a desperate, frenzied attempt to think of a way of somehow getting Maya to retract her statement. After shouting over and over, pleading with the guards to let me call home, I eventually lose my voice completely. Maya and I will never be allowed to contact each other again – at least not until I’ve served out my sentence which, according to that interrogation officer, could be over a decade from now!