The Child Who

by Simon Lelic

  ‘You didn’t hear him. The judge, what he said. If you’d been there, you would’ve heard him. They hate me. Everyone does.’

  Again Leo reached out. He could not stop himself. Daniel recoiled and Leo’s hand swung to his side.

  ‘Not everyone hates you.’ Again the voice but he ignored it. Better to lie, surely. Better to give the boy something approximating hope. ‘They don’t understand, that’s all. They’re angry and they’re upset and they’re looking for…’ Blood, was the word that came to mind. ‘… for someone to blame. What you did was an awful thing, Daniel. You do understand that, don’t you?’

  The boy, a mess of snot and tears, nodded. He sniffed, wiped his nose on his sleeve.

  ‘And when someone does something awful, other people, they… they get angry. They get so angry, sometimes, they forget about the other things that matter. Like understanding. Like compassion. Like forgiveness.’

  ‘I said I was sorry! They didn’t believe me! But I am! I really really am!’

  ‘I know. I know you are. And they’ll listen. In time. The hurt will fade and… and…’ The hurt will fade. To whom was he lying this time? ‘The important thing, Daniel, is for you to get help. Karen. You remember Karen? She wants to help you. She’s determined to. And there are other people like her. Kind people, not…’ Not what?

  The boy was shaking.

  ‘You need to let them help. That’s important too. You need to trust these people, Daniel. Karen especially.’

  ‘She was there! I saw her! She didn’t say anything! I thought you said she was gonna say something!’

  ‘I know but it’s… it’s complicated. She—’

  ‘And you! I trusted you!’

  Leo looked down, away. He caught Garrie, the security guard, watching. Leo had forgotten he was in the room. Neither man held the other’s eye. There was just the sound, in that moment, of Daniel crying and trying not to.

  ‘What’ll happen now?’ the boy managed to say. ‘Where will they send me?’

  Leo pressed his lips, shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Stash, one of the older boys: they sent him to prison. Last week. Proper prison. With murderers and that.’

  ‘He was eighteen. Grown up. Didn’t you tell me that? You’re twelve, Daniel. They’ll send you somewhere like here. Not a prison but a…’ Leo shook his head again. The semantics, once again, failed him.

  ‘But I’ll be eighteen! In, like, four or five years or whatever. They’ll send me to prison then. Won’t they?’ The boy stared hard, watching for the lie.

  Leo hesitated, then nodded, as fractionally as he could manage. Even such a minor affirmation, though, was enough. The boy seemed to wither. He let out something between a moan and a wail.

  This time when Leo reached, Daniel allowed himself to be enfolded. The boy pressed his face to Leo’s chest and gripped with an intensity that belied his narrow frame. Leo, in turn, wrapped his arms around the boy’s shoulders, encircling them easily. Daniel was Ellie-sized, Leo realised: just as meagre, just as fragile. ‘Shh,’ he said, ‘hush now,’ and, thinking of the last time he had held his daughter, he had to stop himself from clinging too tight.

  Bobby was waiting for him in the corridor. That he had been watching, listening, seemed unlikely but the expression he wore – apprehension, tenderness; mainly sorrow – would no doubt have been the same if he had.

  ‘He’ll be grateful,’ Bobby said. ‘When he gets a chance to think about it, he’ll realise he was glad you came.’

  Leo said nothing. He wiped an eye.

  ‘I’ll walk with you,’ Bobby said. ‘Shall I?’

  This time Leo nodded. They fell into step.

  Leo cleared his throat. ‘Have his parents been? His mother?’

  Bobby inhaled, nodded on the out breath. ‘They came. They weren’t here long. She… Mrs Blake… She seemed to take it hard. The stepfather too, in his way.’

  They reached a set of doors, negotiated them awkwardly. For several paces afterwards they walked in silence.

  ‘What about Daniel?’ Leo asked. ‘How long will he stay here?’

  Bobby drew his lips sideways. ‘As long as they let him. Not long, probably. Not once the Home Secretary makes up his mind and they draw up a sentence plan. But it was only ever a stopgap, as you know. We’re not really set up for boys as young as Daniel.’

  Leo sniffed. ‘Is anywhere?’

  Bobby turned slightly, as though deliberating whether to take offence on his peers’ behalf. ‘There are some good institutions around, Mr Curtice. All things considered.’

  ‘All things considered?’

  Bobby shrugged. ‘Facilities like ours don’t tend to be a priority. In terms of funding, I mean. We’re up there in government minds with asylum seekers and single mothers. Down there, rather.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me.’

  ‘No. I don’t suppose it does. But we do okay. We do, others do. It helps when you get the right people. You’ll find, actually, that boys of Daniel’s age receive the best care of all. It’s only as they get older, turn into adults, that sometimes they… I mean, it’s inevitable really that at some point they’re…’

  ‘Set adrift.’

  Bobby glanced.

  They walked on.

  ‘He’s scared, you know,’ said Leo. ‘Terrified, actually.’

  Bobby nodded. Both men watched the floor as it passed beneath their feet.

  ‘Is he right to be, do you think?’ Leo regretted the question almost as he finished asking it. He shook it off. ‘Don’t answer that. It was a stupid thing to ask.’

  They passed through another set of doors and found themselves in the main lobby. They slowed, then stopped alongside the security desk.

  Bobby exhaled audibly. He seemed actually to be considering Leo’s question. ‘You never know,’ he said, finally settling on his answer. ‘He’s due a little luck, wouldn’t you say?’

  He was, that much was certain. And, possibly, he would encounter some. But that Bobby could think of nothing more encouraging to say did nothing to give Leo hope.

  Bobby held out his hand. Leo took it.

  ‘Listen. Mr Curtice. About your daughter. I just wanted to say…’

  But Bobby got no further. He seemed to realise that Leo was no longer paying attention. Leo was looking, instead, across Bobby’s shoulder, at the two guards chuckling now behind the desk. The younger man, lank-haired and wispy-chinned, and with a complexion that suggested he worked too many night shifts, had said something that had made his older, fatter colleague laugh. And Leo had heard every word.

  ‘You.’ He let his hand slip from Bobby’s and moved beyond him, towards the desk. ‘What did you say?’

  The guards looked up. They were seated, chairs drawn together, but they rolled apart slightly as Leo edged closer. The younger man swallowed.

  ‘Say it again,’ Leo said. ‘What you just said.’ He reached the counter and peered across it. On the surface, spread between the two guards and two empty coffee mugs, was a copy of the morning’s Post. Daniel’s Photoshopped features projected outwards from the newspaper’s front page.

  ‘Mr Curtice? Is something wrong?’ Bobby was at Leo’s shoulder. Leo raised his finger and pointed.

  ‘You. Say it again. What you just said.’

  The younger guard shied from Leo’s glare. ‘I… I’m sorry, Bobby. I was just… It was a joke. That’s all.’ He looked to his colleague, who looked conspicuously away.

  ‘What did you say? Mervyn? What did Mr Curtice hear you say?’

  Leo stared at the newspaper. At the picture in the newspaper.

  ‘I just said… All I said was…’ Another look towards his friend. ‘That some people would… um… do anything. To, um. To get their picture in the paper.’ He said this last part in a rush. ‘It was a joke, Bobby. That’s all. I didn’t mean for anyone to hear.’ He glanced through his eyebrows at Leo.

  Leo was shaking his head. ‘You said kill. You said, some peo
ple will kill to get their picture in the paper.’ He did not look at the guard as he spoke. He just stared at the Post’s front page.

  25

  It was shabbier than he had expected. Or as shabby, perhaps, as he should have expected, given the outfit that was operating inside. It was a four-floor box of bricks, devoid of architectural flourish and dating, probably, to some time between the wars. The windows on the bottom two levels were papered off, as though the rooms beyond were being used for storage. Indeed, the building as a whole had the look of one of those places people rented by the square foot to dump their junk. Only the sign – the Exeter Post’s red-on-white masthead, underscored with the name of its listed counterpart – confirmed to Leo that he had found the right place. The sign, and the clutch of hacks smoking in the doorway.

  He was not among them. Leo got a good look at each of their faces because, after he had raggedly parked his car on the double yellow lines in front of the building, every one of them turned to study his. But the face for which he was looking was not there. Assuming Leo would recognise it. He would, though, surely. He had to.

  He shoved his way through the group and towards the entrance, knocking someone’s arm and catching his on an outcrop of ash. He said sorry, did not turn, and pushed, pulled, until he found the right combination to open up a gap in the double glass doors.

  Another security desk awaited him; another guard. This one seemed to have noticed the minor scuffle Leo had generated outside and rose, as Leo lurched across the lobby towards him, onto his size twelves.

  ‘Can I help you?’ He voiced the question as a challenge.

  Leo was already looking over the guard’s sizeable polished head at the floor directory on the wall; and, beyond that, to the staircase and a treacherous-looking lift. There was no listing for the art department, if such a thing existed, but editorial was on the third floor. He aimed himself at the stairs.

  ‘Hey!’ The guard stepped and grabbed. Leo tried to dodge but found himself rooted.

  ‘Let go of me!’ Leo tugged at the man’s grip.

  ‘Do you have an appointment? Sir? You can’t just walk in here, you know.’

  ‘I’m not, I’m… I’m a solicitor! I’m here to see… to see…’

  ‘ To see who?’ The guard released his hold on Leo’s lapels but built himself into a wall across his path.

  ‘One of your journalists. Covering the Forbes story.’ It was the only thing he could think of to say. He barely had a face to go on, after all, let alone a name.

  ‘Oh yeah? Which one?’ The gorilla folded its arms.

  And then it came to him. Not the name he needed but a name nonetheless. ‘Cummins,’ he said. ‘Tim Cummins.’ The name on the byline. A man he had encountered, once in a while, amid the press gang that haunted the local courts.

  The guard frowned. His lips gave a twitch and his arms, reluctantly, loosened.

  ‘Is he here? Please tell him Leo Curtice is here to see him.’ Leo straightened his jacket, settled his shoulders and fixed the man looming over him with his best supercilious stare.

  Tim Cummins emerged from the lift with a finger in his teeth. He was precisely as unshaven as he was the last time Leo had seen him – on the steps outside the police station the day following Daniel’s arrest – which made him think the man’s sloth might be affected; a provincial attempt at Fleet Street flair. But then he withdrew his finger, nibbled at whatever piece of breakfast he had dislodged and extended the same hand for Leo to shake.

  ‘Mr Curtice. Leo! What brings you to these parts?’

  ‘Tim. Thanks for seeing me.’ Leo swallowed his distaste. He glanced towards the security guard, who was loitering with malcontent.

  Cummins seemed to notice too. ‘Relax, Tiny. Stand down. Mr Curtice here is a personal friend.’

  From the snarl that bubbled on the guard’s lips, he appeared not to appreciate the nickname.

  The journalist herded Leo away from the guard and towards the lift. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘listen, buddy. I am so sorry about this business with your daughter.’ He shook his head at the floor, worked a fingernail once more between his teeth. ‘But if there’s any way I can help. I mean, you’d be surprised how much traction an interview will get you. Have you thought about that? A one-to-one. Just me and you. We’d keep things tasteful, I promise. Tug a few heartstrings but all for a good cause.’ He raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Actually,’ said Leo, ‘there is something you can do to help.’

  ‘Really? Great. Just say the word, buddy.’

  ‘I’m looking for a colleague of yours. A photographer.’

  Cummins let his disappointment show.

  ‘He said he was freelance. He was young, ish, and wore a cap. It had a logo on it. A picture of a shark or something. It looked American. From a baseball team maybe.’

  ‘Football. The Miami Dolphins. But… er… I’m not sure who you mean. We have so many snappers, Leo – particularly the jobbing kind. It’s a big paper, buddy.’

  It was not. It was a local rag with tabloid airs. And Cummins was lying.

  ‘Listen, Tim. This is important. It’s to do with my daughter. I’m asking for help. Please. I need your help.’

  They reached the lift. Cummins jabbed a button, summoning his means of escape. ‘Sorry, Leo.’ He spoke to the lights above the doors. ‘Can’t help you. I’d love to, you know I would, but Tiny over there: he probably knows more of the faces that come and go here than I do. Why don’t you ask him?’

  The guard was on the phone now, seated and angled towards the wall.

  ‘This photographer,’ said Leo to Cummins. ‘He followed us. Me and my family. To Dawlish. All we were doing was buying ice cream.’

  Cummins glanced.

  ‘He said he was working for the Post,’ Leo said.

  Cummins hit the call button again. He sniffed, gave his head a single shake. ‘I can only apologise, Leo. Darryl Blunt, our lifestyle editor: he thinks he’s running OK! I’ll have a word with Daz on your behalf. Tell him to keep a leash on his paparazzi.’ He studied the lights, tapped his foot.

  ‘It was you,’ Leo said. ‘Wasn’t it? You sent him. You’ve been sniffing for an angle on the Forbes story from day one.’ How does it feel: isn’t that what Cummins had asked him, that day outside the police station? How does your family feel about your involvement in this case?

  The lift arrived. Cummins beamed.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this is me. Good to see you, Leo. Thanks for stopping by.’ He seemed to consider holding out a hand but did not. ‘Best of luck with… er… everything.’ He darted into the empty compartment and started jabbing at one of the numbers.

  ‘Tim. Please! I just need his name. His address. Anything!’

  Cummins gave a lazy salute. ‘Take care, buddy.’ The doors of the lift began to close.

  Leo glanced over his shoulder, at the guard still whispering into his phone. He looked at Cummins, at his fleshy grin about to vanish behind a sheen of metal. And then he sprung: between the doors and into the lift, in pursuit of his very last hope.

  He had lied. The address was a fake. The name too, probably. Leo had half a mind to go back there. Not half a mind: he would. Right now. He would call the police if it came to it, or threaten to, or—

  He stopped mid-step, squinted at Cummins’s scrawl on the scrap of paper. Unless… this was it. Was it? The address, after twenty minutes searching, seemed to match. Flat 2, 2b Plymouth New Road, which did not sound like a real address at all – but here, on a door that looked like a fire exit, was a 2 and a drunken b. There were no names on the buzzers so Leo pressed the middle one of the three. He held it, until the buzzing gave way to static.

  ‘Yeah? Who’s there?’

  ‘Mr, er…’ Leo checked the name again, then changed his mind and slipped the note into his pocket. ‘Er… Archie? Is that you?’

  ‘Yeah. S’right. Who’s that?’

  ‘This is, um, Tim Cummins. From the Post.’ Leo put on his deepest, fattest vo
ice. ‘I need to talk to you.’

  ‘Tim? What’s up? Can it wait? I’m not exactly up yet.’

  Leo looked incredulously at his watch. ‘No! It can’t! I mean…’ Deeper. Fatter. ‘Just let me in. Er, buddy. It’s important.’

  There was a groan, followed by a rasping sound: an intercom receiver, perhaps, being dragged across sandpaper skin. And then a pause, which extended – until a siren-loud buzzing beckoned Leo in.

  The hallway was windowless and unlit. Leo stood blind amid a stench like bins until a cleft of light broke the darkness on the landing.

  ‘Hit the lights,’ came a voice. ‘The switch right beside you.’

  Leo reached for the wall, then pulled back. He headed instead for the hulking shadow of the staircase.

  ‘On the wall. Right beside you. Oh for God’s sake. Here.’ Movement: the silhouette of a shuffling dressing gown. And then the bulb in the hallway came on, casting a light as thick as the lingering odour. Leo was only halfway up the stairs.

  ‘Tim? Is that… You! What the hell are you doing here?’

  Leo accelerated. He started bounding up the stairs two by two.

  Archie, the photographer, took fright. He did not wait for Leo to explain but dived from the light switch on the landing back towards his apartment door. He tripped, on the cord of his dressing gown, and fell through the doorway. He landed with a yelp just as Leo scrambled to the threshold.

  ‘What do you want? What are you doing here?’ Archie rolled onto his heels and hands. He scrabbled backwards as Leo advanced.

  ‘The photographs. The ones you took of my family. I need to see them.’

  ‘But how did you…’ Archie collided crown-first with a wall. His hand slipped beneath him and he crumpled once again onto the grubby carpet. He reached for his head and screwed up his eyes. ‘Ow. Fucking ow.’

  Leo hesitated. The man in front of him was a mess. Beneath his robe, which was hanging from one shoulder and gaping across his girlish frame, he had on boxers and a vest: the type Leo wore, and that made even Leo feel old. His eyes were slits and his skin pale. Symptoms of spending too much time in a darkroom, Leo would have said, had he not seen the man looking perfectly healthy the last time they had met.