"…yeah, he is.. was my boyfriend " The little girl's mother, was saying to the officers, they were in an office ,it looked like it belonged to one of the doctors here. The two officers were seated at one side of the table while she was seated opposite them. On the table was a placard with the inscription Dr. Ahmed Saraki.
Her composure seemed worse than earlier, her black had loosened from its bun. Taking a good look at her one could tell she pretty, but she didn't look much so now. She had her arms folded around her. Her eyes were swollen from crying.She looked weak and tired and deathly pale.
" When did you guys end your relationship then, Miss Theresa?" The tall, lanky officer asked while he continued scribbling something down in his note.
"That.. that about three days ago officer" Theresa answered.
"And was it a peaceful breakup, did he make any threats or anything?"
"No, not really, we were at my house, Cindy was staying over at my sister's place ,and after I told him, that I wanted us to go our separate ways ,he was upset and angry and cussing, he also broke a few things before he left, but aside from that he didn't say anything else and he banged the door."
"That's it and since then we haven't been in touch "
Her speech pattern was surprisingly more articulate, than you would expect of her .
"Ma'am, did you know that Mr. Jack has a criminal record and has been to jail a couple times "
Theresa kept quiet for a while then slowly she unfolded her arms, then folded it again. Inhaling a shaky breath, she said " Yes, I know, actually I found that out on my own " she said unfolding her arms and refolding it once more.
"And was that the reason why you wanted to end things with him "the older looking officer asked looking up from his notepad.
Theresa pursed her lips and kept quiet for she felt that this question had nothing to do with the current situation.
Seeing that she wasn't going to respond the officer sighed and asked instead " What was Mr. Jack's relationship with your daughter like?"
"That..it wasn't bad, it was okay, occasionally he bought gifts for her and at times took her to the amusement parks, but overall Cindy didn't seem to be very fond of him ".
"She wasn't her usual cheery self around him, instead she was just quiet and aloof, and though she accepted his gifts, she never made use of them." Theresa continued, running her hands through her hair.
"Honestly, I never thought,Cindy would be brought into this drama, and i.. I didn't think Jack was capable of doing such a thing."
"Jeez H. Christ … He was never violent around us"she pursed and stared up at the ceiling, blinking her eyes to push the tears back.
"I.. I never imagined that it would come to this one day and now my innocent daughter is stuck in a hospital ward all because of my stupidity "
The lanky officer held out a tissue paper for her which she made no move to take from him.
Putting his hands down he said "So, you're saying that Mr. Jack went to her sister's house to kidnap your daughter under the guise that you asked him to bring her home."
"Yeah " she affirmed.
"And how was this possible " he asked.
"Well, Madeline , she ..umm, she wasn't aware that we had broken up.. I hadn't told her " she added softly.
"At what point did you then find out that she was missing ma'am?"he queried.
"That..it was when I went to pick her up from my sister's place and she told me that Jack had already come to pick her up"
"And how about your daughter? Was she aware that you weren't in a relationship with Mr.Jack anymore "
"No, Cindy didn't know, I hadn't told her either, I know now that it was reckless but I didn't think that Jack could do something so inhumane " she said her voice sounding raw and coarse.
The officers looked at each other nodded at themselves and said to her "we'll leave you know ma'am , we'll let you know if there's anything else you could help us with then, and we'll inform of progress we make then."
"Yeah, sure …" Theresa said.
She stood up and left. Her legs shaky as if they would give away any time soon.