The ambulance men looked round at me as they were struggling to lift the woman into the back of the ambulance. She looked yellow and her eyes were open, an arm fell out the blanket and they turned back to what they were doing.

I looked up at the policeman’s face, he didn’t have his helmet on, he had a rough neck that was creased, with patches of dried blood under his chin, and he had red and white skin in blotches up over his cheeks. He gave me a shake because I was just looking at him. I didn’t know what he wanted.

‘What school you in?’

I started to panic, and tried to pull away but he held on to me. I shrank my arm upward into my sleeve to get away but he kept hold and watched me pull, then gave me a sharp tug that made me fall over on my knee and scrape it on the ground. I put my hand up on his sleeve to get my balance and try to get him off me. I could feel the tears coming up in my eyes.

‘What’s going on?’ the other policeman said.

‘We got a runner,’ he said.

‘Hurry up.’

The other policeman turned away and started talking to the ambulance men. I looked up at the one who was holding me. I was on my own with him. I could see he hadn’t decided what he was gonna do, but he liked me struggling, so I stopped.

‘Where d’you live?’

I thought quickly about what I could tell him, but got distracted by one of the ambulance men going back and scraping up the hair that was stuck to the pavement to put in a plastic bag.

‘Or am I gonna put you in the car?’

If I told him I lived with the old lady, I wouldn’t know the address but I could tell him it was the ground floor across from the school and she was out. If he took me to school, it would get back to my mum. I tried to stand up but he shook me again and grabbed the back of my collar so it was up against my throat. I reached back to get his hand off and scratched it.

‘Cheeky monkey?’ He let go my arm but kept hold of my collar and slapped me in the face. I didn’t feel it, it was a fight, but I gave him an angry look.

‘That’s enough, get him in the car,’ the other policeman said.

He dragged me swinging by the collar, not letting my feet touch the ground, and bundled me in the back seat, slamming the door and saying, ‘Mind your fingers!’