"Just what the hell is going on here?" called a voice from one of the two figures approaching us.
All seven of us remained lying on the cool grass, as we looked into the dark night, trying in vein to depict details in the emerging silhouettes.
Suddenly, I noticed them reach to their hips and unholster black metallic looking objects.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Omar, next to me, raise himself to his knees, as if he was on the starter's blocks for a hundred metre race.
"What the fuck, man." Omar breathed, mostly to himself.
A moment later, bright lights were shining in my eyes and illuminating narrow, moving spots around us: they were pointing torches at us, not guns, as I'd originally feared.
Apparently, Omar had the same thoughts, and breathed an audible sigh of relief.
"Don't get upset, Osama," came the advice from the second mystery figure, "we're not going to hurt you!"
The words were separated, presumably so it was easier for us to understand.
"Oh shit!" sighed Omar, as if he was being deflated, before turning to me and adding by way of explanation, "It's the Police."
"That's right," the first figure was speaking again now, as if he was just mildly cheesed-off at having to do something on his night shift, "Just put all your clothes back on and climb into the back of the van. There'll be no trouble. Let's just get this over with and we can all get on with our lives."
"Come on! Let's go!" ordered the second voice, with a mixture of anger and authoritarian excitement, "You heard the man, we ain't here to hang around!"
Then the first voice again, "You have the right to, y'know, all the usual shit."
The journey in the Police van was conducted in silence. Not because we'd been told to stay quiet, more because we had nothing really to say, either to the Police, or each other.
The station we were taken to only had two detention cells, each with what I thought were hilariously outdated bars instead of walls. We were separated into males and females and locked in while the arresting officers sat at a desk and started filling in forms on their respective computers.
We sat, mainly in silence, for what felt like a few hours, unable to sleep, but dozy.
"Ok," started the more senior of the two officers, in his already familiar laid-back, almost annoyed style, "who wants to go first?"
We all looked up as we came back to our senses and at first I didn't know what he meant, but Leslie seemed to be very well versed in these kind of situations, and walked to the front of the ladies cell.
"I'll go first, if you like." she cooed, and when the officer looked up at her, she smiled the coolest smile I'd ever seen, considering the circumstances, "but you'll have to come closer as I can't see you properly from all the way over there. I like to lip read."
Leslie said the last two words very slowly, pouting as she did so. I wondered what the fuck she was doing: trying to get us into more trouble?
But to my amazement, and by the look on the junior officer's face, his too, the older cop stood up from his desk and walked over to the women's cell, standing inches from Leslie.
"That's better," Leslie purred, "now, what do you want?" And then added, like an afterthought, with a raised eyebrow, "to know."
The officer in front of her visibly gulped, and that seemed to induce another smile from her. Now, smiling a knowing smile, she looked down at his tubby tummy, almost obscuring the belt he wore from which a bunch of keys hung.
"This uniform looks uncomfortably tight," she started, and began her imperceptibly slow descent to her knees, suggesting on the way, "maybe I can help you relax."
The officer started breathing more heavily. So much so, that his colleague exclaimed, "Oh for fuck's sake! What are you doing?" But the experienced man at the cell stood his ground.