The Child Who

by Simon Lelic

  Dale nodded, held up a hand. ‘What about the boy’s parents? What do they say?’

  ‘They seemed in favour of diminished responsibility until they realised what it would involve. Now they think Daniel should plead guilty. Throw himself on the mercy of the court.’ Tell them Daniel did it and say he’s sorry – isn’t that how Blake had put it? As though sorry was the magic word; as though uttering it would be enough to salvage a future for his stepson.

  ‘The boy has a record. Doesn’t he?’

  ‘He does but the infractions are minor. Just kid stuff, really, and some time ago. They might even help us. Mightn’t they? If we paint them as cries for help. Like his school record. Couldn’t we use that too?’

  Dale gave Leo a weary smile. ‘You don’t believe that, Leo.’

  And it was true. Leo did not.

  ‘What about the schools?’ Dale said. ‘Daniel’s teachers? Might their testimony help us in any way?’

  Leo thought of Ms Bridgwater, Daniel’s former – and Ellie’s current – head teacher. He thought of the younger teacher Daniel had attacked. ‘What could they say?’

  Dale considered. He shook his head. ‘You’re right. It would hardly matter.’

  Leo straightened. ‘There’s plenty to show Daniel was troubled. His father’s in prison, walked out on the family when Daniel was eight. And Daniel must have been to, what? Four? Five schools in the past three years? All his life he’s been shunted from one place to the next. He needed help but he was never offered any. I mean, he’s not stupid, his IQ tells us that, but he’s a year behind where he should be.’

  ‘They kept him down a year?’

  Leo nodded. ‘And he’s bottom of his current class too.’

  ‘Any learning difficulties?’

  ‘None that have been diagnosed. One of the schools made a tentative diagnosis of hyperactivity. If you ask me, though, it was just a guess. A dismissal, rather. The only label that seems to have stuck is that Daniel was a troublemaker. A “low achiever” – isn’t that the term they use?’

  ‘What about social services? Was he on any lists?’

  ‘Not at the time. There was an investigation when he was a toddler because he kept showing up in A & E. It didn’t come to anything, though. Accident prone, was the verdict. One of those kids who’d find a knife in a drawer full of spoons.’

  Dale resumed his pen spinning. He nodded his head as though to a beat. ‘Useful background,’ he muttered. Leo could not quite tell if he was talking to himself or offering some half-hearted encouragement. Either way, background would not be enough. Leo felt his posture deflate. He looked at his hands and, glancing up, realised that Dale was watching him. The barrister, caught, looked away. Then he set down his pen and tested the air with a cough.

  ‘Have you considered,’ he said, ‘mitigation?’

  Leo felt his expression harden.

  ‘There’s no reason you can’t make the argument you’re making now in the pre-sentence report,’ said Dale. ‘Plus, if he pleads guilty, Daniel could benefit from a reduction in his tally.’

  Leo was shaking his head. ‘But then he’s guilty. It’s not just about the sentence, Dale. If he’s guilty, he’s guilty for the rest of his life: on registers, databases, lists. And anyway, there’s no guarantee that he’ll be any better off. Not given the attention on the case.’

  ‘Possibly not. But it seems to me it’s the boy’s best option. I mean, his parents… Something tells me you don’t think much of them but… well… they might, in this case, be right.’

  ‘It’s not right. How can it be right? Someone needs to consider why. Don’t they? Whoever judges him needs to understand what led Daniel to do what he did. They owe the boy that much. We do. At least my way he has a chance.’

  ‘He took a life, Leo. An innocent child’s life.’

  ‘He took two lives. He took his own at the same time.’

  ‘Not in the sense that matters. And anyway it’s not about why. It’s never about why. We need to condemn a little more and understand a little less. John Major – remember? This is England, Leo, not Scandinavia.’

  ‘So we leave it to the newspapers. Is that what you’re saying? We let the Sun and the Mirror and the Mail take care of why?’

  ‘I’m saying that it’s not our job. That’s all.’ Dale paused, then added, ‘Especially when we don’t even know the answer.’

  Leo opened his mouth, then clamped it tight. He was leaning forwards, he realised, reaching towards the centre of the table. He slid his hands into his lap and sat back.

  Dale sighed. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m on your side. But you should consider as well the effect the trial would have on Daniel. Whether dragging this thing out is really, from his perspective, the right thing to do.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Think about it. Think about what would be involved. You’ve been to a murder trial, I’m sure.’

  Leo had. Two of them. One as an observer, the other as part of the defence team. Neither had been as dramatic as he had expected but they had been long, gruelling, even for someone just watching from the sidelines. ‘It would be different, though. Wouldn’t it? Given Daniel’s age.’

  Dale shrugged. ‘The barristers might take off their wigs. The judge might sit a little lower. But no, actually – it would be exactly the same. A little slower. A little more drawn out. It would be an ordeal, Leo. There’s no getting away from that.’

  Leo moved in his chair. ‘Well. As you say. There’s no getting away from that.’

  Dale, charitably, ignored Leo’s tone. ‘Would Daniel be up to it, do you think? If he had to testify, how would he come across? Would he stay calm? Would he seem contrite? Would he remain quiet, pay attention, sit straight: all those things he seems so rarely to have managed at school?’ The barrister’s gaze seemed to have settled on the scratches on Leo’s cheek.

  Leo turned away, dropped his chin. ‘I think,’ he said. ‘I think maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves.’

  Dale said nothing. He watched Leo for a moment, then smiled and pulled himself straight. ‘Perhaps we are. I’m sorry, Leo. It wasn’t my intention to make this harder.’

  ‘No,’ said Leo. He looked up and said it again, this time displaying a brightness he did not feel. ‘Really,’ he added, ‘it’s fine. You’ve been a huge help. You really have.’

  Dale smiled, in a way that said they both knew that was not true. He closed his folder. Leo, for a moment, stared at the table. Then he set about gathering his belongings.

  ‘How much youth work have you done, Leo?’ said Dale, after a moment. He was tucking his pen into his jacket pocket, not looking at Leo as he spoke.

  Leo had, once, attended a seminar. He rescued himself from saying so. ‘Some,’ he said instead. ‘Not a lot.’ He had a daughter, too. That was the other reason, as Leo recalled, that Howard had appointed him their practice specialist.

  ‘It’s tough,’ Dale said. ‘Isn’t it? It can get to you. Affect your judgement.’ He was standing now, facing Leo across the table. ‘It can be hard, sometimes, to remain objective, to distinguish what we need to do from what we feel we should.’

  Leo focused on fastening his briefcase.

  They were almost at the lift. Leo cleared his throat and Dale glanced. ‘Do you…’ Leo said. ‘Have you ever…’ And now Dale was smiling and frowning both. ‘Have you ever been threatened?’ Leo spoke quickly. ‘Because of work?’

  They stopped at the elevator. Dale pushed the call button and gave a puff. He folded his arms. He looked suspiciously at Leo. ‘You mean by a client? Are you talking about Dan—’

  ‘No, no, no. Not at all. I mean generally. By someone else. Because of a case you were involved with.’

  Again Dale considered. ‘Well, I… Yes. I suppose I have.’

  Leo, ludicrously, felt a surge of relief.

  ‘More than threatened, actually,’ said Dale and he seemed to brighten at whatever recollection was forming in his mind. ‘I was attacked
. When I was a pupil. By the girlfriend of this bloke I was defending.’ Dale grinned. ‘She didn’t like my advice. She wanted to testify, you see, tell the judge what an upstanding man my client was, when the whole point was this bloke, my client, was married – twice, concurrently – and charged with bigamy. We were in chambers, just downstairs in fact, and what happened was…’ Dale fell silent. He had noticed the expression on Leo’s face. ‘It didn’t end well,’ he said, dismissing the story with a gesture. ‘I had scratch marks for a while, just… er… just like yours.’ He twitched a smile, then coughed and looked down. He reached once more for the call button.

  Leo raised his fingers to his cheek. ‘I was thinking more about… you know.’ He let his fingers fall. ‘Members of the public. People not directly involved.’

  ‘Like protesters, you mean? Like that mob outside the Magistrates’ I saw on the news?’

  ‘Well. Yes. Sort of, I suppose.’

  ‘I’ve battled my way through a few crowds in my time. Dodged the odd egg; even got hit by one or two. The dry-cleaning bills, I would say, come with the gown. Should really be tax deductible.’

  Leo smiled politely. He nodded, as though that was the sort of thing he had in mind. ‘What about letters. Notes. Things like that.’

  ‘Letters?’

  ‘Like, um… poison-pen letters.’

  ‘Hate mail, you mean?’ Dale, incongruously, grinned. ‘We get it by the sackload, my friend. Human-rights protesters, environmentalists, animal-rights campaigners, you name it. When they’re not writing to the Guardian, they’re writing to us.’ Dale glanced across his shoulder, made a show of leaning in close. ‘I’ll let you into a secret,’ he said. Then, in a whisper: ‘Lawyers, in this country, aren’t very popular.’ He held up his hands, backed away. ‘It’s crazy, I know. I, for one, feel misunderstood.’

  Leo mimicked the barrister’s grin. There you had it. Exactly as Leo had suspected.

  Dale turned and reached again for the call button but almost as he pressed it the lift arrived. There was a ping and whisper of wood and Leo, facing inwards, was greeted by an image of his smiling self. He stepped to meet it, his briefcase a little lighter in his grip.

  14

  Their house was on fire. In the midnight dark that had swallowed the evening, that was how it seemed. The bedroom, the kitchen, the hallway, the study: each of the windows at the front of the house was ablaze with light. It was as though every curtain had been hauled back and every bulb angled to fend off the encroaching darkness. The effect, truly, was that the house was being consumed; that Leo would open the front door and be blinded, burned. And it was Megan at home. The woman who had been parentally programmed to turn out the light in the kitchen if she were popping upstairs to use the bathroom. Had Leo come home to find flames feasting on the mock-Tudor timbers, he did not think he would have been any more alarmed.

  He did not wait for his change. He spilled from the taxi and hurried up the driveway and rang the bell at the same time as fishing for his key. He found it, found the lock, but when he turned the key the door clung tight to the frame. It had been bolted on the inside, top and bottom it felt like. He rang the bell again and rapped with his good set of knuckles. ‘Meg?’ He listened, rapped again. ‘Meg, it’s me.’

  Shuffling, scrabbling – the sound of the bolts sliding back. The door opened, on the chain, then shut again to allow the chain to be unhooked. Finally Megan showed herself, pale and looking frayed in the unrelenting light.

  ‘Leo. Where have you been!’

  ‘What? I was…’ He had told her, surely, about his trip to London. ‘In a meeting,’ he said. ‘What’s going on, Meg? You look… Why are all the lights on?’ The question did not come out as intended. It was the tone he might have used with Ellie had he discovered that his daughter had left a tap running or the television blaring.

  ‘Come inside,’ Megan said. She peered into the outdoors and kept watching until she had sealed them both inside the house.

  In the hallway, Leo sniffed. ‘What’s that smell?’ He angled his nostrils towards his wife. ‘Have you been smoking?’ Again, the tone. Christ, Leo.

  ‘I’m fine, dear husband. Thank you for asking.’ Megan turned away from him and towards the kitchen. Leo followed but lingered in the doorway. He watched Megan set herself behind the counter. On the worktop was a wine glass, half full, and a bottle of red, half empty. There was a saucer beside the bottle containing the charred filter of a single cigarette, and a Zippo, next to the saucer, that Leo had long since assumed lost. Neither Megan nor he had smoked a cigarette in over a decade – since Megan’s thirtieth birthday. So Leo had thought.

  ‘Megan? What’s going on?’

  His wife, to Leo’s surprise, replied with a laugh. She shook her head, picked up her wine and spluttered as she took a sip. She wiped around her mouth with the hinge of her thumb.

  ‘Where’s Ellie?’ said Leo, casting round. ‘Is she upstairs?’ He took a step into the room. ‘Megan? Will you please just tell me—’

  ‘Ellie’s at Sophie’s house. I rang and checked. She wouldn’t talk to me, of course. She’s still angry because I made her go to school.’

  ‘You made her go to school?’ Every question Leo asked seemed to come out as an accusation.

  ‘What else was I supposed to do! You said you’d talk to her, Leo. Today, you said: two days ago. Yesterday you said the same and then this morning you were gone before dawn and all she’s been doing is sitting and moping in her room! I just… I thought… I just thought it would be better for her…’

  ‘Meg. Calm down. It’s fine. She went to school. She’s at her friend’s house. Everything’s fine.’

  ‘Everything’s not fine, Leo! Everything’s far from bloody fine!’

  Megan turned. She clumsily set down her wine glass and reached to open the cupboard above the cooker – the cupboard no one in their family ever used. Leo watched, wondering what on earth Megan would produce that would explain things, but the object she brought down solved another mystery entirely. It was a tin, barely big enough to contain a packet of cigarettes. Megan plucked a cigarette from the box. Her fingers shook as she lit it and her face, when she dragged, puckered.

  ‘Meg? You’re smoking. I mean, why are you smoking?’

  Megan exhaled. She glared as though daring him to go on. When he failed to, she propped an elbow on her wrist and dangled the cigarette level with her chin. She started forwards, trailed by smoke. ‘In here.’

  Leo watched her go. He looked at the tin, the cigarette packet – and then he followed. In the hallway again he noticed a chair in front of the door to the living room. Not just in front of it: the seat back was wedged under the handle.

  ‘What is it? What’s in there?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Megan said. She reached for the chair and scraped it free. She did not open the door, however. She stood aside as though waiting for Leo to go first.

  ‘Meg?’ He looked at her. When she did not answer he faced the door. He grasped the handle but kept it at arm’s length. The door opened and he held it ajar, then gradually eased it wider. The space beyond was black. It was surely the only room in the house in which Megan had neglected to turn on the light. Leo submerged his hand in the darkness and frisked the wall for the light switch. He found it, flicked it, and braced himself for what he might see.

  He turned to Megan, who was peering now across his shoulder. ‘Meg?’ he said and stepped into the room. ‘There’s nothing in here.’

  Megan continued looking. ‘That’s what I said.’ She did not, though, sound convinced.

  Leo spread his arms and glanced about. There was just the sofa, the television, the piles here and there of everyday clutter. The only thing amiss was that the curtains, like those in the rest of the house, would normally by now have been drawn. The bay, with the light on, was a span of impenetrable blackness. Leo moved to cover it.

  ‘Leo!’

  He stopped halfway to the window. ‘What? I was just going to—�
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  ‘Don’t. Leave it. Can we… Let’s go back into the kitchen.’ Megan waited for Leo to follow her.

  ‘Megan. Honestly. What on earth are you so frightened of?’ Now it was Leo who sounded uncertain. He looked again at the window.

  Megan raised her cigarette but it had burnt already to the filter. She looked for somewhere to dispose of it and settled on the soil beneath the Kentia palm beside the door. When she unbent she folded her arms.

  ‘There was a man.’ She spoke across Leo’s shoulder. ‘There. At the window.’ She shuddered and wrapped herself tighter.

  ‘A man?’ Leo looked where his wife was looking. ‘I don’t understand. What man?’

  ‘I don’t know what man! Just a man! Staring at me! Pressed against the glass and… and… leering!’

  ‘Leering?’

  ‘Leo, don’t!’

  He had started again towards the window and this time he made it across the room. He pressed his face to the glass. ‘There’s no one out there, Meg. There’s no one there.’

  ‘Of course there’s no one there! He’s hardly going to sit around waiting for you to come home!’ She sniffed. ‘He’d be there all night.’

  ‘What was he doing?’ Leo said. ‘What did he want?’

  ‘It completely slipped my mind to ask,’ Megan said, sounding dangerously reasonable. ‘Maybe he just needed directions. Maybe he got lost delivering pizza.’

  ‘What? You think he was just—’

  ‘No!’

  The word pealed. It took an age, it felt like, to fade.

  ‘He was in the bushes, Leo. In the dark, at the back of the house.’

  Leo struggled for something to say but before he could settle on the words his wife, without warning, left the room. He trailed her back towards the kitchen.

  ‘Meg? What then? He was looking at you. “Leering,” you said. As in…’

  Watching.