There's something wrong with Phoebe

19 - Mason

“Where did she even get the material for a bomb like that? Did she make it herself?”

“Impossible. Even the best weapon manufacturers struggle with one like that. Each has to be personally made and takes weeks; if not months.”

“So you think the bomb was just given to her?”

“By her abductor maybe?”

“Those bombs automatically explode a week after they are completed. She was back at home for a longer period of time than that. She must have made it!”

“But how?”

“Don’t ask me!”

“We still don’t know where her abductor is – maybe he would have a say in all this.”

“Like he’d say anything.”

“Neither is the girl.”

“Everything she told us must be a lie then. Something isn’t right with that girl.”

“How do we get her to talk?”

“We can say it would help her!”

“With what?”

“Her sentence.”

“Are we throwing her in jail?”

“If she offers no explanation for her actions, we have no choice!”

“But..”

“But she killed fifty three people, Gary! And the attack is just too similar to that one in Liverpool, and the one in London. Nobody knows about them, apart from the fact that two kidnapped kids had been found near there and returned home and have gone missing since!”

“Which suggests their abductor is the same, and they are working for him!”

“Why would missing kids want to help their abductor?”

“Out of fear?”

“Threatened?”

“Manipulation,” I said, and the whole room fell silent. I hadn’t spoken in a while. I preferred to listen sometimes, but I’d been toying this over in my mind for a while. “That girl isn’t right in her head. Her counsellor, Jackie Stubbings, said she saw something in her that wasn’t right, but she generally seemed a pleasant being. The abductor has planted ideas in that head of hers; I’m almost positive of it.”

“And the benefit of these bombings for the abductor, if what you’re saying is true?” said Gary.

“That’s what we need to find out. Tell her we need to speak to her abductor. She has to tell us where he is,” chipped in Roger.

“She won’t tell us anything now,” I said, calmly. “We must wait a while – see how she enjoys prison.”

“I’m worried about that girl,” Gary said, frowning. “She keeps talking to herself, and banging herself against her cell walls. And then she does all these sit ups and press ups. She’s a messed up kid.”

“She’s nineteen!” Ashley said. “She takes responsibility for her actions.”

“The girl was away from home for six years – who knows what she went through. We take her to court in three days and see what happens then. She confuses me,” I said. “Now, we’ll speak no more of her, but what about her Dad?”

“Drugs,” Gary said blankly.

“He went outside the building to take some, and saw Phoebe running and chased after her. He was inches from death.”

“What do we do with him?”

“He’s been through a lot too.”

“But he was in possession of drugs! That’s a criminal offense!”

“So is bombing.”

“This is no normal case!” I shouted. “We can’t treat it the same as we do every other. We’ll speak no more of it until the hearing. And don’t make any snap judgements. We all know her Dad is messed up, that Sam kid loves her, and there’s something wrong with Phoebe. Let’s leave it at that, please.” There was mumbling as I finished, and the shuffling of papers. “Now; what about that drug dealer we found in town down that alleyway?”