Free Follow You Home by Mark Edwards Page A

I don’t understand.’ He came out past the desk and gestured for us to follow him, saying something in his native tongue to his colleague , who gave us a dark look that I didn’t understand.
    The large policeman instructed us to leave our backpacks behind the desk then led us down a short corridor, seeing us into what I assumed to be an interview room, where we sat down on a pair of plastic chairs. Laura still hadn’t spoken. She sat there shivering and staring into space.
    The policeman kept glancing at her suspiciously.
    ‘What are your names?’ he asked.
    I told him and watched him write them down.
    ‘I am Constantin.’ I wasn’t sure if this was his first or second name. ‘OK, tell me. From the start, OK?’
    So I told him about what had happened on the train, that we had fallen asleep in the sleeper carriage, that we had woken up to find that our passports, tickets and money had been stolen. That we had been thrown off.
    He looked up from his notes. ‘Why were you . . . thrown off?’
    ‘Because we had no tickets.’
    ‘You had no ticket?’
    The atmosphere in the room changed. He glanced at Laura again, who was shivering even harder now, her teeth chattering.
    ‘I think she’s in shock,’ I said. ‘Do you have a blanket? A hot, sweet drink?’
    He ignored my request, going back to his previous question. ‘So . . . you were on the train with no ticket.’
    ‘No! We had tickets, but they were stolen.’
    He shook his head, like this made no sense. I didn’t want to tell him that we had been in a private compartment that we hadn’t paid for, or even that Alina had intervened and angered the guards. I felt instinctively that this policeman would side with other men in uniform.
    He pointed at Laura with his pencil. ‘Your girlfriend. She is on drugs?’
    ‘No! I told you, she’s in shock. She needs medical attention. And I need to tell you about what we saw in the house in the forest.’
    The pen he had been tapping on the desk went still. ‘House in the forest?’
    ‘Yes. That’s what we’re here to tell you about.’
    He stared at me. ‘Let me see your passport.’
    ‘I told you that too. They were stolen.’ Beside me, Laura made a whimpering noise. ‘Listen, she really needs to see a doctor. Or, please, a sweet drink.’
    He sighed heavily and made a great show of hefting himself to his feet. He left the room and came back a minute later with a tepid can of Coke, which he set before Laura. I cracked it open and passed it to her. She took a sip and winced.
    ‘So,’ the policeman said. ‘You have no identity?’
    I opened my mouth to reply but no words emerged.
    ‘Does anybody know you are here?’
    ‘No. But . . .’ I produced my dead iPhone from my pocket. ‘Can you let me charge my phone so I can call home? Or let me use yours?’
    ‘Wait.’
    He got up and left. Beside me, Laura’s shivering had abated somewhat but she still appeared on the verge of passing out. I put my arm around her shoulders, tried to pull her closer. She could have been made of stone.
    This was maddening. Constantin hadn’t yet given us a chance to tell him what had happened in the house in the forest. The vision of it loomed up inside my head and I dug my fists into my eyes, as if I could rub the memory away. I had to tell him.
    I paced the room for ten minutes, Laura sitting silently, before Constantin finally returned. He didn’t have a phone with him. He had the demeanour of someone who’d just been asked to make a difficult decision.
    Before he could sit down, I blurted, ‘I need to tell you what happened . . . There’s been a crime.’
    ‘In the house in the forest.’
    At that point, the policeman who had been on the front desk appeared in the doorway and said something to Constantin in Romanian. Constantin huffed impatiently.
    ‘Wait here,’ he said, placing his hands on his thighs and pushing himself to his feet. Before he left the room he turned back and