When I Was Joe

Chapter 1 - Statement

It's one thing watching someone get killed. It's quite another talking about it. When it happened I didn't even realise exactly what I was seeing, and my heart was thumping so loud I couldn't hear anything else. My mind was whizzing around at hyperdrive speed - trying to work out what to do, trying to sort out what was going on. And I ran away as fast as I could.

But now I'm sitting at the police station telling three officers what happened and they're asking so many questions about every detail that it's as if they've put the whole thing in slow-mo. It's like being trapped watching a really sick horror film and not being able to close your eyes. And I can't run away this time.

Twice - when I tell them how the blood splashed into the mud, and then the triangle of bodies on the ground - I think I'm going to vomit, and Nicki - that's Mum - has to ask them to stop their tape while I lean forward and try to gulp it back.

She puts her hand on my back and uses her best lawyer-in-training voice: 'Is this really necessary? He's here to help you. He's just a kid of fourteen.' And the main guy asking questions says, 'So was the boy who died, Miss Lewis.' They get me a glass of water and then they start again. I'm wondering if they'll ever let me leave.

They make me look at loads of photographs. Some are just faces and it's easy to pick out the ones I've told them about. Some are close-ups of the cuts and wounds that I've already seem. But they look different in pictures than they did at the park yesterday - was it only yesterday?

At the park it was nearly dark, and I got a quick glimpse, and look away. Now they make me look and look away at the flesh is spilt and curved and meat like, and it's been photographed in bright white light and I know I'm never going to forget it. I think they're trying to shock me into confessing something. They warn me that I might be charged, tell me that I can stay silent. Nicki says again, 'is this really necessary? He's here to help you.'

The police officers change around, but one guy always stays. He's called Detective Inspector Morris and he's the only black and he's older than the rest. He's quite, hardly saying anything and leaves it to the others to ask me again and again, louder and louder: was I involved? Was I fighting? Did I know what was going to happen? How near was I when the knife went in? Was I the lookout?

No, I say, keeping my voice steady. No, not very close, no. I was just watching, not involved, just a witness. All the time, every question they ask, I'm trying to focus. I'm trying to think only about those boys fighting - who pushed, who hit, which knife went where.

After hours of questioning, after taking my fingerprints and scrapping my mouth - 'for DNA' - they leave Nicki and me alone. She's looking completely knackered, her eyes are puffy and I feel incredibly guilty that she has to sit through all this. 'I'm really sorry Nic' I say, and she says 'don't worry about me, you're doing the right thing.' But she doesn't look very sure.

Then one of the policemen shows us the canteen. 'I'll be you're hungry,' he days, buy when we get there the hatches are closed and we have ti make do with the vending machines. So my supper is hot chocolate and crisps and stale custard creams. It's about midnight. Eventually I fall asleep, head cushioned on my crossed arms, slumped forward over the table.

When I wake up, DI Morris is sitting at the table, talking to Nicki. I keep my head down while I work out if they are staying anything interesting.

'We're satisfied with his story,' says DI Morris.

Nicki asks 'Can I take him home now? He's got school in the morning.'

'We're going to have to think very carefully about whether you can go home,' he says 'it may be safer for you not to.'