Say You're Sorry(102)

Drury clicks on “View options” and ticks the box for “Date created.”

“He registered the computer in May. Look at how many files share that date?”

“He must have imported them from his previous computer,” says Drury, opening files. He watches several seconds of each clip. Pretty women with painted mouths, taken by force, penetrated, pretending. There is nothing erotic or titillating about the footage; instead, a mind-numbing banality, pain for the heartsick.

A new clip opens on screen. The poor-quality camerawork shows the floor and then a wall, before it focuses on a girl in a floral dress and messy hair being made to dance as wet towels flick at her legs and thighs. The music is coming from a mobile phone: Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies.”

The men are sitting on wooden benches or standing. Balaclavas or handkerchiefs cover their faces. Natasha is begging them to let her go. One of them flicks a lit cigarette at her legs. She dances away. Exhausted. Slowing down.

“Give us a spin.”

She obeys.

“You can do better than that.”

“Faster!”

She turns faster. Her dress flies up, showing her underwear.

One of the men gropes Natasha’s breasts. She pushes him away. Another set of hands close around her waist, lifting her off the floor. Someone is reaching between her legs.

“No,” she pleads. “Please, let me go.”

“I thought you liked dancing.”

“I’ll dance, but don’t touch me.”

“Come on, shake that little tail.”

The footage stops and starts again. The angle is different. The towels are still whipping at Natasha’s thighs and stomach but now she’s naked.

There are six men visible on the video. A seventh is holding the camera.

“Yeah, give it to her!” says a voice.

“Show us how you move.”

A fist grabs her hair and jerks her head up.

“Don’t cry, missy. When this is over you’ll walk funny for a while, but you’ll still have two legs.”





A dream.

What I heard.

What I saw.

What I wish I could forget.

They must have followed us from the funfair, but I don’t know how they got inside the leisure center. Tash was trapped behind the wire, unable to get away.

I ran. I made it almost back to the main road where there were streetlights and houses, but I tripped over the bike rack, the same one as before. I thought my leg was broken. I hobbled towards the road.

A shadow moved on my right. His hands closed around my waist and his fingers covered my mouth, pressing against my nose. I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t tell him. I kicked and squirmed, but he held me tighter.

He carried me back to the leisure center. I thought I was going to suffocate. Instead, he put me down and tied my hands behind my back. I was sitting on the concrete outside the changing room.

I could hear music inside. They were laughing. Tash was begging them to let her go.

The man pulled my head up. He put a smooth stone in my mouth. “Don’t you swallow this or you’ll choke,” he said, as he pulled a piece of fabric between my teeth, tying it behind my head. Then he pulled up my shirt until it covered my face. I was embarrassed because he could see my bra.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” he said. “Your friend is being taught a lesson.”

I couldn’t see his face, but I smelled his sweat and the alcohol on his breath.

I heard voices inside. Music playing. Laughter.

“Swing those hips,” someone said.

“Show us how you move.”

“Lift your chin. I want to see your face.”





38




Toby Kroger sits with his legs splayed, fingers locked behind his head, endeavoring to look like a man who has never known a moment of doubt or hesitation. Internally, there is a dynamic at work. He’s scared. Bewildered by the speed of his arrest. Wondering what moment of catastrophic inattention had led to this abrupt change in his fortunes.

I have read his file. Unemployed, uneducated, he’s one of three children whose parents divorced when he was seven. His grandfather and father worked on the production line at the Morris Motor Company in Cowley until the downsizing of the eighties saw the workforce cut by 90 per cent.

Kroger was kicked out of school at fifteen and arrested twice before his seventeenth birthday. There were no factory jobs. The mines had closed and the manufacturers had moved offshore. The state paid him welfare and wondered why a kid like this would turn to crime, when the only “paid work” on offer was coming from the drug dealers and crime gangs on the estates. So they hired more police and built more prisons and hoped the underclass would shrink and die.

Drury is behind me in the observation room. “What’s your take on this guy?”