Читать книгу I Dare You - Sam Carrington - Страница 17

Friday 21st July

‘Now, this is important. Tell me exactly what you saw.’

She sat on her hands. They’d begun trembling when the policeman had first started asking questions; now, after what felt like hours, he was still asking her stuff and a funny tingling had filled her belly. Why did she need to go over this? She’d told him again and again. Maybe he didn’t believe her. She’d have to say it in a stronger voice.

‘The truck stopped in front of where we were walking—’

‘Which was Elmore Road,’ he interrupted.

‘Yes, I thi— I mean, yes. It was.’ She mustn’t say ‘think’; it seemed to make her mum and the policeman a bit jumpy. ‘I held back and was going to turn around and take the cut-through to go to the park instead, but before I realised, she’d gone.’

‘Gone to the truck?’

‘Yes. I don’t know why she did that. Why she left me.’ Her eyes stung with fresh tears.

‘And what did this truck look like?’

She was somewhat relieved at being asked this; at least it was a different question to the other ones he’d been constantly getting her to repeat.

‘It was a red one,’ she said with conviction. ‘Dad says those types of trucks are called pickups because they have all that open space at the back to put things in.’

‘And what else? Was there anything else about it you can remember?’

‘Oh, yes.’ She felt confident about this now. ‘It had a yellow stripe all the way across the side. And as it pulled off, it turned so it almost went past me. I couldn’t move. I was scared he was coming for me too.’

‘But he didn’t try and take you?’

‘No, I don’t think so. The truck slowed down, but it didn’t stop. But I did see something weird.’

The policeman sat forward in his chair, his round, ruddy face lighting up. ‘Yes? What was that?’

‘I could see something stuck on the front, on the bit that those red noses for cars go for Comic Relief.’

‘The grille,’ the policeman said as he scribbled in his notebook. ‘But it wasn’t a red nose?’

‘No. I could see a face. It was a doll’s head. Just its head.’