The Child Who

by Simon Lelic

  She starts to read and has to stop. The letters were sent to help but they remind her only of how much they made her hurt.

  I simply can’t imagine.

  It must be awful.

  They’ll find her.

  They’ll find him.

  You must not give up hope.

  Platitudes, the least of them. Lies, the worst. Nothing at the two extremes or between them that made anyone feel any better but the person who wrote them. Not that she was permitted to say as much. Not that she was able to voice, at any stage, what she was truly feeling. Even to Leo, as things turned out, which was almost the hardest part.

  Sod it. Sod them. She stuffs the letters into the bin and keeps stuffing until the folders are empty and the bin is almost full.

  Her momentum regained, it quickly stalls again. She has reached to open the final drawer but her fingers curl from the handle. She has remembered the part she had forgotten. The part she willed herself to forget. They are inside. They must be. The police have the originals but Leo, being Leo, took copies. So surely they are…

  They are. She has opened the drawer the way she would peel away a plaster and there, all alone, is a plastic wallet. Inside, sealed as though in an evidence bag, are the notes.

  Again Megan hesitates. She dares herself. More than a dare, it would be a penance. Not like reading the newspaper clippings, which would be detestable mainly because they are so emotionally amiss. The notes, in contrast, would drag her through the way she felt. Even just lifting out the wallet, for instance, reminds her of the weight of her shame. At their failure. At her failure. Because she blamed him for so long but who, really, was in a better position to know the truth? To see past the deceit and the misdirection and to act – act – before it was too late?

  I AM WATCHING

  YOU WILL BE JUDGED BY YOUR LIES

  She can see the first note quite clearly through the plastic and the first note, tame enough compared to what followed, is more than enough. The shame is one thing but she is not prepared to relive the terror. Of the memories. Of her imaginings. Of the sick, morbid fantasies of her masochistic mind. Nor is she prepared yet to reconcile the way she felt with what is to come. Equally terrifying, in a way. Her fresh new start. Her brave new world. Her attempt to rediscover what was lost.

  The notes go in the basket. The contents, downstairs, go in a sack. The sack goes in the dustbin and Megan shuts the lid. Before she can stop herself she picks up the telephone. She will call the agent, first, as she promised she would. Go ahead, she will say. Press the button. After that she will call her husband. Not because of Daniel Blake but because she should have called him long ago. She has a confession to make.

  10

  It might have been a school: modern, characterless, crouched amid the office blocks and council flats and camouflaged to the colour of slabs. It was mainly the fencing that gave the building away. The security signs, adorning it, were discreet enough until you noticed them but once you did you noticed other things too. Cameras, for instance, trained inside and out. An intercom at the entrance, higher-end even than the system in the city’s courthouse or gaol. And the windows on the building itself appeared barred – discreetly, again, in window-frame white, but still barred.

  He was unsure, at the gate, for whom to ask. Leaning through the car window, he offered his name to the expectant static. It seemed to have no effect and he started to explain himself – clumsily, warily, trying to avoid explaining anything – but then the static gave a surge and a buzzer buzzed. The gate, with a jerk, beckoned him in.

  This was it, then: the place Leo had read about just that morning in the tabloids. Here were the cushy, five-star surrounds in which Felicity’s killer was being made to feel at home – at the taxpayer’s expense, in case readers needed to be reminded. It was like Butlins, apparently, this facility the newspapers had shied from naming but had spared no adjectives in describing.

  There were two empty visitor bays sectioned off in the expanse of tarmac and Leo pulled into the first of them. He gathered his things from the passenger seat and, out of habit, lifted his chin to check his teeth in the rear-view mirror. His eyes caught instead on his cheek. The wound, it felt like, was taking an age to heal. Beneath it, he noticed, there was a patch of stubble he had skirted when shaving. Above it, his eyes were recessed and bloodshot.

  His teeth were fine.

  A neat, narrow pathway led him through bark-topped flower beds and he arrived at the main entrance. He considered the windowless door and looked about for another intercom. As he was searching, the door buzzed.

  Inside, it was a school once more. Leo had expected a lobby: guards, a desk, something to sign. The area, unmanned, was more an entrance hall, with a set of double doors in each wall. The linoleum-tiled floor seemed polished, the walls recently painted. Through one set of doors he saw a figure approaching. The man ducked and gave a cheerful, inefficient wave through the glass, then moved to one side as though to punch a code. The door clicked and then opened and the man bore his smile into the entrance hall.

  ‘Mr Curtice?’ The man’s smile broadened and he covered the hall in three emphatic strides. ‘I’m Bobby. Hope you found us okay.’

  Bobby wore a suit that shone and shoes thirsting for polish. He was younger than Leo but carried with him a certain authority: the confidence and depth of voice of an out-of-work actor. Or a schoolteacher; or social worker. Someone who would inspire suspicion in most adults but devotion, probably, among children.

  ‘Just about,’ said Leo, accepting Bobby’s enthusiastic hand. ‘Although I came close to missing the turning.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Bobby, bobbing. ‘That’s kind of the idea.’ His smile had not faltered but somehow it seemed to reassert itself. ‘Come through. This way. Daniel’s waiting for you.’

  Leo hesitated and Bobby seemed immediately to realise why.

  ‘We use the boys’ real names,’ he said. ‘We think it’s important they face up to who they are. To why they’re here.’ He winked and tipped his head. ‘Come through.’

  They left the entrance hall through a different set of doors and were immediately confronted by another. Bobby waited until the first set was sealed and then, as he had a moment before, prodded a code into the adjacent keypad. ‘You get used to this,’ he said. He gave one of the doors a hearty shove and held it open. ‘After you.’

  There was a man waiting in the next corridor, wearing a name tag and dressed in a shirt and trouser combination that might, or might not, have been a uniform. His biceps, hamlike, were straining the seams. The man did not speak but fell into step behind them as they passed. ‘This is Garrie,’ Bobby said. ‘He’ll be your escort today.’

  Leo, as they walked, checked behind. He nodded but Garrie said nothing. Leo turned back and Bobby shrugged, gave another wink. ‘Not a big talker, our Garrie. But he’ll watch your back.’ Bobby’s eyes dipped towards Leo’s cheek, then glanced away.

  They had to wait for the next set of doors to be unlocked from the other side and beyond, finally, was a desk at which Leo was expected to sign. Two more guards watched as he fumbled with the pen. They checked inside his briefcase and showed what they found there to Bobby, who returned a nod. A guard handed Leo his pass and Leo clipped it to his breast pocket. Bobby clapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘Ready?’

  He had put on weight. It had been barely a week but Daniel had definitely managed to grow a chin. He had been lacking one before so it was a good thing in terms of the boy’s health. Leo, though, could not help but think immediately of the jury. Waif-like was good. Emaciated better. Ruddy, well fed, portly: each suggested slobbery, contentment – a lack, above all, of contrition.

  He was well turned out, though, and that was something. Much like the guards tacked to the common room walls, the boys all wore smart shirts and trousers, and Daniel looked respectable, as though his mother had assembled him for a family occasion. His posture needed work – he seemed cast, by default, in a slum
p – and his hair would look better rinsed of gel but with a few minor adjustments he would seem almost…

  Leo touched his cheek. He was getting ahead of himself.

  ‘Daniel?’ said Bobby.

  The boy was seated in the corner of a sofa furthest from the wall-mounted television. There were several older boys around him, their eyes pinned slackly to a nature documentary, and Daniel seemed more watchful of them than of the programme. He had set himself at a distance, his knees drawn to his chest and his arms wrapped around his shins. At the sound of his name, he gave a start.

  ‘They’re allowed thirty minutes in here before lessons,’ said Bobby as they watched Daniel slide to his feet. ‘Another hour in the evenings but no TV after eight. They can read, play board games, listen to certain music. No cards, though. No gambling.’ Tough but fair, he seemed to want to imply, but Leo thought again of the morning papers. The tabloids, he suspected, would have blown their budgets for an image of the scene before him, irrespective of the type of programme and the ennui of the boys who watched. They would have had these children breaking boulders, even before they had been convicted of a crime.

  Bobby fell silent as Daniel approached. The boy shuffled. He seemed conscious that the other inmates were watching him and managed, somehow, to make himself seem smaller standing up than sitting down.

  ‘Mr Curtice is here to see you, Daniel. You have something to say to him, I believe.’

  Daniel had stopped several paces away. He flushed, glanced across his shoulder at the boys around the television. He muttered a sentence that Leo did not catch.

  ‘Again please, Daniel. Express yourself clearly.’

  There were sniggers. Daniel’s flush deepened. ‘I’m sorry about what I did to your face,’ he said, his gaze reaching no higher than Leo’s chin. Another boy had drawn close and Garrie, Leo’s guard, stepped forwards to usher him away.

  ‘Better,’ said Bobby and he looked expectantly at Leo.

  ‘Oh,’ Leo said. ‘It’s fine, Daniel, really. It was an accident. There’s no need to apologise.’

  Someone, from somewhere, made kissing sounds. Several of the older boys laughed.

  ‘That’s not quite the message we’re hoping to get across, Mr Curtice,’ said Bobby, ‘but I’m sure Daniel appreciates your good grace. Don’t you, Daniel?’

  Daniel seemed to realise that he was not, this time, expected to answer.

  ‘We’ve set out some sandwiches for you,’ said Bobby. He turned and held out an arm and Daniel sloped into the lead. ‘Daniel helped prepare them. We no longer allow hot drinks outside the staff areas, I’m afraid, but I’ll have someone bring in a jug of water. Unless you’d prefer orange squash?’

  The sandwiches – crustless corners on a tray – were waiting for them in Daniel’s bedroom. The room, to be fair to the papers, was a long way from being a cell. It was larger than Leo would have expected: maybe two thirds the size of Ellie’s bedroom. The space was Daniel’s own – there was just a single bed in the furthest corner – and included what the newspapers would have described as an en suite bathroom, though the washing facilities were basic and boxed off by barely more than a screen. There was a built-in desk, on which the sandwiches had been set, as well as a CD player and an armchair and a pile of thumbed magazines: Top Gear, Autocar, Bike. There were bars outside the window but the window itself was ajar. The view was of the building’s hollow centre: air-conditioning units, mainly. The impression Leo had was of a cheap hotel room. Not fancy but a long way from what he had feared.

  ‘This isn’t so bad,’ he said, peering around the screen at the lidless toilet. On the sink there was a tub of hair gel, some toothpaste without a cap and a Buzz Lightyear toothbrush. The mirror on the wall was polished metal.

  The boy, when Leo emerged, had sunk into the chair, the only one in the room. Garrie was waiting in the corridor through the open door, which left Leo to pick his perch. He settled himself on the edge of Daniel’s bed and felt beneath him the unmistakable crinkle of rubber sheets. Standard issue, he wondered, or only for those who had shown a need?

  ‘So,’ said Leo. ‘How are you finding things?’ He tried to keep his tone light; tried not to worry that he had allowed Daniel to position himself in the path towards the only way out. He glanced at Garrie, who had his eyes averted but his attention, surely, on his ward. ‘It’s a nice room,’ Leo found himself saying. ‘A good size. It’s got to be at least as big as your room at home, right?’

  The boy’s eyes snapped to his. ‘You went to my house?’

  ‘What? No. I mean, I was only guessing.’

  A silence.

  ‘What are the people like? The other boys. And Bobby? Bobby seems… er… cool.’

  Daniel, hunched, twitched a shoulder. ‘He’s all right.’

  ‘And the other boys? Are you getting along okay?’

  Again a twitch. ‘They’re older mostly. Bigger.’

  Leo nodded. There were boys here as old as eighteen and Daniel, at twelve, would not normally have been admitted. The choice, for the magistrates, had been between sending Daniel here or keeping him further from his family.

  ‘But you’re getting on okay?’

  Leo waited for an answer but the boy did not reply. Leo tapped his fingers on his briefcase.

  ‘Where’s Mum?’ said Daniel. He jerked upright and Leo flinched. ‘Is she coming?’

  ‘She is, Daniel,’ said Leo, recovering himself. ‘She’ll be here this afternoon. I thought it might be helpful, though, for you and I to have a chance to talk alone.’

  ‘Alone,’ Daniel echoed. ‘Without him, you mean.’

  Right. Without him.

  ‘He told me…’ Daniel looked up, as though wary of whether to continue. Leo gave the faintest of nods. ‘He told me to get rid of you. After last time. He said… he said you were a…’ his voice dwindled ‘… a waste of space.’

  ‘Who did? Your father?’

  Daniel glowered. ‘Step.’

  Leo held his thumbs against the catches of his briefcase. ‘Step,’ he repeated. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘He said…’ Daniel shuffled slightly straighter in his seat. ‘He said he’d pay for someone better. Said he’d get a loan if he had to.’

  Slowly, Leo nodded. ‘What about your mother? What did your mother say?’

  The boy just shrugged.

  Leo hesitated. ‘And you? What about you?’

  Daniel looked down. ‘You’re here, aren’t you?’

  Leo almost smiled. He pressed and the catches clicked. ‘Let’s get started, shall we?’ He took out his pad and his pen and set them beside him on the bed. He was about to close his case again when he remembered. ‘I brought you something,’ he said, digging beneath a clutch of papers. ‘Here,’ he said and he held out a box no bigger than a soap dish. Inside was a Subaru Impreza, exactly to scale apparently and far too expensive for what was in essence a child’s toy. ‘They didn’t have one in white, I’m afraid. Just the rally version.’

  Daniel eyed the car. He eyed Leo and his outstretched arm.

  ‘It’s fine. I cleared it on the way in. Take it, it’s yours.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘You like cars, don’t you? I thought you’d appreciate it, that’s all.’

  ‘What do I have to do? I’m not doing anything for it.’

  Leo, for an instant, could only stare. He glanced towards the guard outside the door, who was watching the exchange but without expression.

  ‘It’s yours, Daniel. It’s a gift. You don’t have to do anything for it.’

  The boy raised a thumb towards his teeth and gnawed for a moment at the nail. Then, with something like a swipe, he plucked the car from Leo’s hand. He clawed open the box and lifted the toy to the tip of his nose. He turned it, studied it.

  Leo waited. He set about fastening his briefcase.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Leo raised his head. Daniel looked anything but grateful. He looked suspicious, rather; sceptical. Leo, though, smil
ed. ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘We can’t just ignore it.’

  ‘I’m not ignoring it.’

  ‘It won’t go away, Daniel. We have to address it.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it, that’s all.’

  The boy was running the car up and down his thigh. Leo was pleased with how his gift had been received but was beginning to wish he had waited until the end of the session before giving it. Although perhaps it would have made no difference. The boy was looking for a distraction and the car was simply the closest thing to hand.

  ‘Look, Daniel—’

  ‘Just tell them. Can’t you? Like he said. Just tell them that I did it and that I’m sorry.’

  ‘I will. That’s just what we’ll say. But there are ways of saying it. There are ways of explaining it. All I’m asking is that you help me decide how we do that.’

  ‘Me? How am I supposed to help? Aren’t you supposed to tell me?’ Daniel turned the car onto its roof and flicked one of the wheels.

  ‘Okay. Fine. Then it’s my decision that we will consult with a psych—’

  ‘No!’

  Leo recoiled. He looked at Garrie, who lifted his chin. Leo, with a hidden hand, held him off.

  ‘You only need to talk to her, Daniel. Just to start with. There’s a woman I know and she’s really friendly. You’d like her, I know you would.’

  Daniel, this time, said nothing. Leo eased himself forwards.

  ‘It wouldn’t mean anything. Not unless we decided we wanted it to. No one would even know. Honestly, Daniel, I really think—’

  ‘I said, no!’

  Daniel stood. Leo did too. Garrie entered the room and the three of them, for a moment, were cowboys waiting for the draw.

  Leo lowered himself onto the bunk.

  ‘It’s okay, Garrie. Really. We’re fine. Aren’t we, Daniel?’

  The guard, beside the boy, was a behemoth. Daniel would have barely outweighed one of his arms. The boy showed no fear, though. At this – the prospect of a confrontation he had no chance of winning but could at least comprehend – he did not flinch. But then whatever emotion was holding him up seemed suddenly to subside and he dropped his eyes to his toy. He sat.