The Child Who

by Simon Lelic

  ‘What’s to understand! What bloody difference does it make whether Steph “enjoyed motherhood”?’ He said this last as though the concept were patently something to mock.

  ‘Well, actually, Vincent, it does make quite a significant—’

  ‘Steph didn’t kill anyone. Frank, her ex: he liked a scrap but he never killed anyone either.’

  Karen inclined her head. ‘No. That’s true. But—’

  ‘So what’s with all the questions about them? You wanna help Daniel, that’s what you said. Sounds to me like all you’re interested in doing is digging up the family dirt.’ An idea seemed to strike him. His eyes tightened. ‘Like for the papers or something.’ He smiled. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? You’re digging up dirt to give the papers.’ He allowed Karen an instant to respond but all she could manage was a shake of her head. ‘I’m right,’ Blake said, his smile spreading. ‘Aren’t I?’

  Stephanie shuffled forwards, pressing her knees against the coffee table and reaching half-heartedly across it. ‘Vince. Please. I’m sure that’s not what this is about.’

  Blake stood. ‘This is over. We’ve said all we’re going to.’

  Karen rose to face him. ‘Mr Blake. Vincent. I promise you. This entire conversation is completely confidential. There is simply no way I would—’

  ‘Let’s go, Steph.’

  Stephanie looked up at Karen.

  ‘Stephanie!’ Blake was halfway across the room. ‘I said, let’s go!’

  His wife looked down. She started gathering her things.

  Blake waited with his hand on the door handle. There was an unlit cigarette jutting from his lips, a lighter sparking in his grip. He tapped his trainer on the floor as he watched his wife, pointedly avoiding Karen’s gaze. Karen started to speak, to make one last attempt to stop them leaving, but Blake was quicker to find his voice.

  ‘We just want this over,’ he said and he glowered. ‘Understand? All your prodding, your poking about – it’s not gonna help.’

  Karen could think of nothing to say.

  ‘Leave things alone. Leave us alone. All we want is our lives back to normal.’

  And then, of course, Karen could have answered. Your lives will never be back to normal, she might have said. This, the way things are – it’s how they’re going to be.

  ‘And then they left.’

  Leo was stirring sugar into his coffee. There were two empty cups in the centre of the table, a steaming one in front of each of them. Leo stopped stirring and allowed his spoon to drip. He settled it noiselessly on the saucer.

  ‘Leo? Did you… Are you okay?’

  He looked up. ‘Sorry? What? Yes, I… Sorry,’ he said again. ‘It was a long weekend. That’s all.’ He sat straighter. ‘So what do you think?’

  Karen peered at him before answering. ‘To be honest,’ she said, ‘I found it quite upsetting. Not that these things aren’t always upsetting but… well…’

  ‘Because of Blake, you mean? He’s like that with everyone. He’s a moron, I told you. Doesn’t give a damn about anyone but himself.’

  Karen shook her head. ‘Not because of him. On the scale of obnoxiousness among the people I have to deal with in this job, he barely scrapes a seven. And anyway,’ she said, turning her cup, ‘I’m not sure that’s true.’

  ‘That he’s a moron?’

  ‘No. He’s definitely a moron. I mean the bit about him not giving a damn.’

  Leo frowned. He started to ask Karen what she meant but she was dangling her arm into the bag at her feet, looking the way she was reaching. She glanced briefly at the tables around them – empty but for two mothers with their babies and an elderly couple crossing forks over a slice of carrot cake – then slid an A4 envelope alongside Leo’s cup of coffee.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Just something I found. Something I obtained, rather. Take a look.’

  Leo lifted the flap and pulled out the sheets that were inside. ‘What is this?’ He turned from the first page to the last. ‘There was an investigation?’ He turned back again. ‘Why weren’t we told about this?’ He noticed the date and pinned it with his finger. ‘This was after. This was since Daniel’s arrest. Why weren’t we told about this?’

  Karen raised a shoulder. ‘I’m guessing they don’t have to tell you.’

  Leo read, gobbling the words too quickly for them to properly register. He looked at Karen. ‘How did you…’

  ‘I have a friend.’

  Leo looked again at the report. ‘She took a risk, giving this to you.’

  ‘We’re close,’ said Karen, ‘he and I.’

  Leo raised his head. Karen lowered hers.

  ‘And anyway,’ she said, ‘it doesn’t help particularly. Not in the way you might expect.’

  Leo read aloud: ‘“No evidence of abuse is established.”’ He skimmed. ‘“Daniel’s name will not be entered on the Child Protection Register.”’

  ‘And here . Look.’

  Leo tracked Karen’s fingertip. ‘“No connection has been established between any abuse and the alleged offence.”’ He looked up. ‘In other words…’

  ‘“It wasn’t our fault. There’s no way they can pin this on us.”’

  Leo sniffed. ‘Well. That’s all right then. So long as social services have got their own arses covered, nobody has anything to worry about. Their jobs are safe.’

  ‘From what my friend told me, the investigation wasn’t exactly comprehensive. But that was the point,’ Karen said. ‘It was an exercise in self-exoneration.’

  Leo tossed the report onto the table. ‘They still should have told us. Even if it doesn’t help Daniel’s defence, they are morally obligated to—’

  ‘Not so fast.’ Karen gathered together the sheets and started flicking. ‘It doesn’t help in the way you might expect. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t help at all. Read here.’

  She thrust the pages towards him.

  ‘But we knew about this,’ said Leo after a moment. Daniel, as a toddler, had a history of visits to the emergency ward: twice following ‘falls’, once after swallowing household bleach, a fourth time after ingesting tricyclic antidepressants. He thought they were sweets, Daniel’s mother had explained at the time; he must have done. ‘They investigated,’ Leo said. ‘It says so right here. “Concerns were raised but were demonstrated to be unfounded.”’

  ‘Unfounded,’ Karen echoed. ‘Please. A baby has four near-fatal accidents in his first thirty-six months and social services see no cause for concern.’

  ‘They must have looked into it, though. They must have asked questions.’

  ‘It’s where they looked that’s important. It’s what kind of questions they asked, of whom.’ Karen shook her head. ‘I’m not blaming social services,’ she said, not entirely convincingly. ‘They’re underfunded, understaffed, underappreciated. The point is, something was clearly going on. Maybe we knew the facts before but we didn’t know the context. Daniel’s medical record, tied with his mother’s depression…’

  ‘Her depression? How do you know she was depressed?’

  ‘Not was. Is. You don’t need to be a doctor to diagnose that. I’m guessing about when it started but it certainly pre-dates the murder. My hunch would be post-natal. The pills Daniel swallowed could have been anybody’s but most likely they were Mummy’s or Daddy’s.’

  ‘You think Mummy’s.’

  ‘I do. Who gave Daniel the pills, though, is another question.’

  ‘Who gave them to him?’

  ‘Gave them to him, left them out for him to find – it amounts to the same thing.’

  ‘But it could have been an accident. Couldn’t it? You don’t think you’re jumping to conclusions?’

  ‘It could. And yes, I am. But that’s what I’m here for. Isn’t it?’

  Leo puffed his cheeks. He stared at the pages, not seeing the words.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s say you’re right. So what? How does what happened to Daniel as a baby have any conn
ection with the crime he’s accused of now?’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ Karen said. ‘Not if you’re looking for a direct link. Indirectly, though, it explains everything. It sets a pattern. It establishes the nature of Daniel’s relationship with those closest to him and by extension with everyone around him. Depending on who you believe, Leo, it’s what happens to us in our formative years that most influences our behaviour as adults.’

  ‘Show me the child and I’ll show you the man. Who said that? John Lennon?’

  ‘Stalin, actually. Also, the Jesuits. But yes, that kind of thing. And it’s doubly true in the case of sexual abuse.’

  ‘Sexual abuse? Jesus Christ, Karen.’

  ‘What? You’re surprised?’

  ‘No. I mean, I wouldn’t have been. But the pills: that’s one thing. You’re saying he was sexually abused too?’

  ‘I’m saying it’s likely. More than likely. For a start, eighty per cent of abusers have themselves suffered abuse. Daniel was moulded, Leo – he wasn’t manufactured.’

  ‘But the report.’ Leo lifted the pages, knocking his coffee cup. ‘What did it say. It said…’

  ‘It said they found no evidence. But it only dug as deep as it needed to, remember – mainly into the past few years. As far as I’m concerned, it skirted the most interesting period of Daniel’s life.’

  Leo looked again at the pages, searching for what Karen meant.

  ‘There’s nothing to see,’ she told him. ‘And that’s why it’s interesting. Apart from when he was a toddler and the two years just passed, there isn’t any detail at all. Except here,’ she said, pointing to a paragraph barely three lines long. ‘There was a sustained phase of truancy, noted but never explained. It coincides with Daniel’s father leaving home, with his mother…’

  ‘“Coping”. Whatever that means.’

  ‘Exactly. So in the most traumatic period of his life – not counting the actual physical trauma he seems to have suffered – Daniel barely gets noticed. He was sexually abused, probably. His father hit him, then left him. His mother – his only carer – was clinically depressed. But through all of that Daniel was… well…’

  ‘He was alone.’

  Karen nodded. ‘He was alone.’

  The coffee in Leo’s cup had spilled onto the saucer. There were puddles, too, on the wooden tabletop and Leo dabbed at them distractedly with a napkin.

  ‘Can we use this, do you think?’ He was talking to himself as much as Karen but she answered anyway.

  ‘You’re the lawyer, Leo. It’s a narrative but there’s very little in the way of evidence.’

  Leo frowned and raised his head. ‘Why now, though? Why, if Daniel was so damaged, did it take so long for the damage to show?’

  ‘A seed has to grow. Throw on enough manure, sprinkle a few hormones – sooner or later you reap what you sow. And probably the signs were there all along. Someone has to be watching for them, however.’

  Leo pondered. ‘The abuse,’ he said, not wanting to consider it. ‘You don’t think… I mean, his stepfather. Vincent Blake. You don’t think…’

  ‘He seems the type, doesn’t he? But Daniel was, what? Ten when Blake came on the scene? I don’t know. There’s no love lost between them, clearly, but…’ Karen tugged her lips sideways. ‘There’s something interesting, though. Don’t you think? About Vincent’s relationship with Stephanie.’

  ‘Hm?’ Leo was thinking, churning.

  ‘Vincent and Stephanie. He bullies her and she lets him but… I don’t know. There’s something else at work there too. He’s insecure, clearly. Bitter, too, about something.’

  ‘I thought all bullies were insecure,’ said Leo idly. ‘I thought that’s why they ended up being bullies.’

  ‘I suppose.’ Karen looked at Leo and smiled. ‘You should be sitting where I am.’

  Leo did not smile back. ‘I’d be glad to,’ he said. ‘ To be honest, I’d take any chair right now that wasn’t my own.’

  17

  ‘You should have called me.’

  ‘We did call you, Mr Curtice.’

  ‘I mean right away. You should have called me as soon as it happened.’

  ‘It was late. Gone nine. Most solicitors, in my experience, don’t like to be bothered by things they think can wait until morning. Most parents, come to that.’

  Bobby held open the door and Leo passed through.

  ‘That’s up to them. I, on the other hand, would have appreciated being told immediately. You have my home number, don’t you? Do you need me to give it to you again?’

  ‘No, that’s fine, we have it. I apologise, Mr Curtice. These things happen unfortunately, much as we try to prevent them. They’re boys, after all. If there’s a way to make trouble, they’ll find it. But we’ll know for next time to inform you straight away.’

  Leo broke step. ‘Next time?’

  Bobby made a gesture, conceding the poor choice of words.

  The bruises, it turned out, were not as bad as Leo had feared. A black eye, Bobby had told him; a cut lip. Admirably restrained terminology and yet Leo had envisaged Daniel’s eyelids swollen shut, his teeth gapped and veined with blood. In reality it was difficult, but for the discoloration, to distinguish the swelling that had been caused by a knuckle from the puffiness attributable to Daniel’s tears. Not that this made the sight of the boy any more bearable. It was not, after all, the degree of physical harm Daniel had suffered that governed how wretched the assault would have left him feeling.

  And wretched, from the look of him, was the term. He was a bundle of limbs on the bed, his spine to the wall at the pillow end, his knees drawn to his chin and his arms wrapped protectively around his shins. The curtains in the room were shut but the material was pale and the day bright. Even tucked in the room’s dimmest corner, Daniel was exposed.

  Leo closed the door behind him. Garrie, the security guard, had not followed him inside but recently he had tended not to. The door, however, would invariably remain open and it occurred to Leo as he entered the room that this was the first time he and Daniel had ever been properly alone: unaccompanied, unguarded, unobserved. It did not alarm him, as once it might have done. Rather, it saddened him; made him feel ashamed somehow, too.

  Daniel did not speak. Leo felt the boy tracking him as he crossed from the doorway to the chair. He set down his briefcase, easing it to the floor so that it made no sound. He stood, until standing felt wrong, and then he sat. Daniel looked away, tucking his puffy eyes below the peak of his knees.

  ‘What kind of names?’

  Daniel did not reply.

  ‘Pay no attention. Do you hear? It doesn’t matter what they say. It doesn’t matter what they think.’

  Daniel dragged a hand across his cheek. ‘S’easy for you to say.’

  The boy was on the edge of the bed, legs dangling from the mattress, bare feet protruding from his tracksuit bottoms and just about brushing the linoleum. His head hung and when he spoke he spoke to the floor.

  Leo was seated but barely. He had his elbows on his knees and was leaning forwards of the edge of the chair. ‘How’s the eye?’ he said. ‘Do you want some ice or something?’

  Daniel just frowned.

  ‘For the swelling. It’ll make it hurt less.’

  ‘It doesn’t hurt that much. My tummy hurts more.’

  His tummy. They had hit him there too, Daniel had told Leo. The oldest boy had, while the other two had held him by the arms.

  The boy shifted, winced. He wiped again at his eyes.

  ‘Did you speak to your parents?’ Leo asked him. ‘ To your mother? Are they coming to see you?’ He checked his watch. If they were coming then surely they would have been here by now.

  ‘Bobby did,’ said Daniel. ‘He said… Mum said she wasn’t feeling well. She… Sometimes she doesn’t.’

  ‘No. Of course. Well. She’ll come by soon, I’m sure.’

  Daniel raised his head. His features were wrinkled, his cheeks streaked. ‘How much longer am I
going to have to be in here?’

  ‘Here? What, in your room?’ Leo checked the door. ‘We can go out, if you like. I’m sure we can. Do you fancy a walk? Or we could go to the games room, see if the PlayStation’s free?’

  ‘Not in here. In here. This place.’

  Leo felt his lips part. He sighed. ‘A while, Daniel.’

  ‘Until the rain-thingummy?’

  ‘The arraignment? Yes. At least until then.’

  ‘What about after? Will I have to come back after?’

  ‘That all depends. I’m sorry. It really all depends on what happens.’

  ‘I hate it here.’ There was a venom to the boy’s tone, a ferocity to his expression, that Leo had almost forgotten he was capable of.

  ‘I know. I’m doing everything I can to get you out. But, Daniel. You need to prepare yourself for the possibility that you will be here, or somewhere like it, for a very long time.’

  Daniel stared at the air. Leo, watching him, might have said more. He might have said, here, this place you say you hate: it’s not so bad. Compared to the alternatives, it’s about as good as you could hope for.

  But Leo did not have the heart.

  ‘I didn’t mean it, you know.’

  Leo raised his head. They had been talking about what Daniel should wear; about his hair – which had been cropped short – and how it might be better, until the arraignment, to let it grow.

  ‘What didn’t you mean?’ But almost as Leo voiced the question, he realised what Daniel was referring to.

  ‘The girl.’ Daniel was staring at his thumbnail, worrying at the flesh around it with the nails on his other hand. ‘I didn’t mean it.’

  Leo swallowed. He folded his own hands together and felt a tension build in his grip. This, the murder itself: it was not something Daniel spoke about. Not willingly. Every detail Leo had so far managed to procure from the boy had been prised from him, and he had so far volunteered no insight beyond those Leo had gleaned long ago from reading the police reports. When Daniel talked about what had happened, it was as though he were describing a scene from a movie. His detachment was such that Leo might have wondered, had he not known better, whether the boy had been there at all.