Lelic, Simon - The Child Who
Page 13
They were leaving without him.
Leo, rooted, called out. Ellie by now was already aboard but Megan, behind her, turned. She saw him. There was no question that she saw him. She did not answer, however. She did not wave, nor gesture for him to hurry. She regarded him for half a moment, then turned her back and stepped from sight.
It had, she said, gone something like this.
Stephanie was seated when Karen arrived, facing the door and curiously still. Blake, be-hind her, seemed powered by the both of them: not muttering when Karen walked in but giv-ing the impression he was merely drawing breath. He was pacing, or seemed to have been, because it took him a second or two after Karen entered to rein in his momentum. He came to a halt beside the armchair, partially obscuring his wife and soundlessly broadcasting his hostility. He checked his watch, as though Karen being ten minutes late were the cause of his disquiet. She should have been on time, of course. She had not intended to leave her office that morning but something had come up and it had taken longer than she had expected to deal with and the traffic, on the way back, had been . . .
Anyway. The point was Blake was hostile from the start, just as Leo had predicted he would be.
Karen apologised. Blake took her hand when she offered it, though for half a second she was certain he would not. Daniel’s mother did not stand but smiled up at Karen. She seemed calm. Chemically so, Karen would have said. It was a glaze she recognised. One, sometimes, she prescribed.
Blake was not calm. He acted, once Karen was in the room, in a manner to imply he was perfectly in control but his agitation simmered below his skin.
‘So you’re the shrink,’ he said, restating in his own terms Karen’s introduction. ‘ A shrink,’ Karen said and reinforced her smile. ‘Leo. Leonard. Mr Curtice . . .’ she was
unsure, it struck her then, how they would know him ‘. . . asked me to help out. With Daniel. With the case.’
‘Like you’re not getting paid,’ Blake responded. ‘Like “helping out” isn’t billed by the hour.’
Still Karen smiled. ‘Would you like coffee? Tea? Water or something?’ ‘Let’s just get on with this.’ Blake sat on the join between the cushions on the sofa and
aimed his knees at ten and two. ‘Shall we?’
Karen waited for Blake’s wife to decide for herself, then settled, when Stephanie shook her head, on the armchair beside her.
‘I was hoping,’ Karen said, impartially alternating eye contact, ‘for a little background. I invited you here because I thought, by talking to you, I might glean some insight into—’
But she need not have bothered with the rehearsals. ‘I have a living to earn,’ Blake interrupted. ‘Steph here has soaps to watch. What is it
you want us to tell you?’
‘Well,’ Karen said, ‘I’m not sure exactly. Which is why I thought it important that we should talk. The three of us.’ She endeavoured, with a look, to include Stephanie.
‘Talk. Always bloody talk. That’s all any of you lot seem to do.’ ‘Us lot, Mr Blake? Who do you mean exactly?’ Blake flicked a hand. ‘Curtice. Social services. The do-gooders from that charity that
keeps bugging us, behaving like we’re the bloody victims. And doctors. Don’t get me star-ted on doctors. God knows we’ve seen enough of them over the years to know they’re all full of piss and air.’
Karen said nothing. She watched.
‘This isn’t easy, you know.’ Blake’s tone was a challenge. ‘The waiting. The moving out, the moving in. The so-called bloody protection. And Steph here – she’s completely messed up about Daniel.’
Blake did not look at his wife but Karen did.
‘I’m upset,’ Stephanie said. ‘That’s all Vince means. It’s Danny, obviously, but it’s other things too.’
‘She means her mates. Former mates, rather. Mates who don’t call any more, don’t an-swer when she calls them.’
‘And you, Mr Blake? Are you upset?’
‘Course I am. But he’s not my son, is he? It’s different, isn’t it? I don’t feel so constantly bloody guilty all the time. That’s Steph’s trouble. She’s acting like she’s the one who killed that girl, like it’s her fault Daniel—’
‘Vince. Don’t.’
Blake gave Karen a look: you see what I mean? He patted himself down and located his packet of cigarettes.
‘I’d like, if I may,’ said Karen after a pause, ‘to discuss Daniel’s home life. His child-hood. I’d like to establish a little background.’
‘What’s the point?’ said Blake. ‘He’s not mad, he’s not retarded – that’s what you told Curtice. He’s just screwed up. Right? So he pleads guilty. What choice does he have? How is talking about his childhood gonna change anything?’
‘You want to help him, Mr Blake, don’t you? You want Daniel to understand why he did what he did?’
‘He has to be guilty first. That’s what I read. No one can help him till he tells them he’s guilty.’ Blake turned aside, his voice dwindling into a mutter. ‘Which, the way I see it, he already has.’ He turned back to face Karen. He held up his cigarettes. ‘You’re gonna tell me I can’t smoke in here, aren’t you?’
Karen winced. ‘Sorry.’
Blake gave a sniff. He tucked the packet of cigarettes back into his shirt pocket. ‘We want to help.’
Karen turned to face Stephanie.
‘Of course we want to help. We just don’t see how we can. That’s part of the problem. That’s the reason we’re finding this so hard.’
Karen nodded. ‘I understand. I really do. We all want what’s best for Daniel and the in-formation you give me should help us establish exactly what that might be.’
‘Why are you asking?’ said Blake. ‘That’s what I want to know. What did Daniel tell you? I mean, if he’s trying to sell you some sob story, blame everything that’s happened on Steph . . .’
‘Not at all. That’s not at all why I invited you here. When I met with Daniel he was scared, above all. He was confused. He seemed to struggle with his family history and I thought maybe you could help me fill in some of the blanks.’ Karen hesitated, then added, ‘The truth is, I would not, in normal circumstances, be meeting with you both. But Leo and I go back a while and . well . I was hoping, I will admit, to be involved with Daniel’s rehabilitation. Depending on the outcome of the case, of course.’
Blake snorted. ‘So you’re looking for a gig. That’s what this is about. You’re looking for freaks to dissect, to write about in some study.’
‘I want to help, Mr Blake. Vincent. May I call you Vincent? I’m genuinely only interes-ted in doing what I can to help your stepson.’
Again Blake sniffed. He made a face that implied it did not matter now what Karen said: he had her number.
It was Stephanie who broke the silence. ‘How can we help? What is it that you want to know?’
Karen regarded each of them in turn. She spoke to Blake. ‘What you said before, about Daniel blaming your wife. What did you mean by that?’
‘What? Nothing. It’s what kids do, isn’t it? It’s what everyone does, all the bloody time. It’s Mummy’s fault. It’s Daddy’s. It’s anyone’s fault but my own.’ Blake looked at his wife looking blankly back at him. ‘Back me up, Steph, for Christ’s sake. You of all people know exactly what I’m talking about.’
Stephanie’s jaw tightened.
‘You think he blames you for something?’ Karen, this time, addressed Stephanie. It was Blake, nevertheless, who answered.
‘I just said. Didn’t I? It’s what kids do. It’s what everyone does. I didn’t mean anything by it.’ He began muttering again, something about something being exactly the type of thing he was talking about.
Karen watched him for a moment. She sighed. ‘You can smoke, Vincent. It’s fine. I’ll open a window.’ She offered Blake a smile.
His eyes narrowed. He wrapped his arms across his chest and reclined on the sofa. Karen looked to her lap.
‘Can I?’
with the sash until it was ajar. She checked around her, then crossed to her desk and tipped some pens from a mug. She set the empty mug on the arm of Stephanie’s chair, and one of the pens and a notepad beside her own seat. Stephanie exhaled towards the window but the draught nudged the smoke back the way it came.
‘You were asking about Daniel’s childhood,’ said Stephanie once Karen was seated. ‘About his home life.’
Blake was glaring at his wife, at the cigarette dangling from her hand. ‘That’s right,’ Karen said. ‘I wondered . .’ She coughed. Stephanie moved her hand,
her cigarette, across her body. ‘I wondered about the kind of things he might have been ex-posed to,’ Karen continued. ‘This isn’t about blame, you understand. I’m not here to judge anyone. But, well . .’ She swallowed. ‘Violence, for instance. Physical harm. Vincent is your second husband, Stephanie. May I ask why your first marriage ended?’
‘It ended cos Frank walked out on her. That’s why it ended. Steph would still be clinging to that loser if he hadn’t shaken her off.’
Karen waited for Stephanie to answer.
‘He didn’t hit me, if that’s what you mean.’ Stephanie focused on her cigarette, tapping it repeatedly over the makeshift ashtray even though the ash had already fallen.
‘And Daniel? What was his relationship like with Daniel?’ Stephanie shrugged. She ground out her cigarette awkwardly against the inside of the
mug and started fishing right away for another. ‘Normal,’ she said. ‘I suppose. Not like television normal, like kicking a ball to each other in the park, but normal in the neighbour-hood we lived in.’
‘Did he ever hit Daniel? Or . . .’
‘No. I mean, not really. He’d give him a tap now and then, I suppose. Mostly when he deserved it. He was a drinker so sometimes he hit him harder than he meant to but he never hurt him. Not properly. He was always quite a gentle man, actually.’
‘He’s doing time for assault,’ said Blake. ‘That’s how gentle he can be.’ Karen considered the scar on Blake’s face; the boxer’s bend to his nose. ‘That’s different.’ Stephanie looked to Karen. ‘Isn’t it? That was business. That’s not
what the doctor’s talking about.’
Karen made as though taking down a note. When she looked up Stephanie had a flame to her second cigarette, her eyes drawn together and trained, it looked like, on the tip of her ‘Is it possible,’ Karen said, ‘that Frank ever touched Daniel? Ever interfered with him in
any way?’
Stephanie expelled the smoke in her lungs. ‘None. Never. I would have known.’ ‘But you said he drank. Might his behaviour have been different when he was intoxic-
ated?’
‘I don’t see why. And anyway I still would have known. Besides, he hated that kind of thing. It made him furious. Really properly furious.’
This time Karen did make a note. ‘What about, I don’t know. Uncles. Male friends. Older boys. Anyone else.’ She did not look at Blake directly but she was watching for his reac-tion.
Blake did not move. His wife shook her head.
Karen tapped her pen against her notepad. ‘When Frank left,’ she said, ‘Daniel was, what? Eight?’
Stephanie thought, nodded.
‘How did he react?’
‘Who? Danny?’ Stephanie made a show of trying to recall. ‘He – Frank, I mean – he wasn’t around much by that time anyway.’ She pulled on her cigarette and her frown deepened. She held in the smoke for so long that Karen felt sure it was not coming out again. ‘Danny wasn’t happy about it, obviously. But I wouldn’t say he was specially un-happy either. He just . . . I don’t know. Went on being Daniel.’
‘Was Daniel generally happy, would you say? As a child. When he was younger.’ ‘That’s what I mean,’ said Stephanie. ‘He wasn’t ever, like, joyous. Is that a word?’
She glanced at Karen and Karen nodded. ‘Danny wasn’t ever that kind of boy. It isn’t his nature.’
‘ To be happy?’
‘ To be . . . I don’t know. Laughing all the time. Things like that. It isn’t Daniel.’ Stephanie finished her second cigarette. She adjusted herself in her seat, transferred her
handbag from her lap to the floor. There was the rattle, as she moved it, of pills in a jar. Or mints in a tin, of course. Vitamins, paracetamol – it might have been anything.
‘What about you, Stephanie?’ Karen said. Blake, before, had been fiddling with his pack-et of Rothmans. The box ceased dancing all of a sudden in his grip. ‘How did you cope when Frank left you?’
‘Me? I . . .’ Stephanie looked down.
‘She coped just fine. Didn’t you, Steph?’ There was malice in Blake’s tone; anger in the look Stephanie, in response, cast towards her husband.
‘I coped,’ she said.
Karen waited for Stephanie to say more. ‘You coped,’ she said after a pause. ‘May I ask what you mean by that?’
‘She means she coped,’ Blake said. ‘What could be clearer?’ Karen left another silence but neither of Daniel’s parents sought to fill it. ‘What about
motherhood? More generally, I mean. Did you enjoy it? How did you cope, would you say, with being a mother?’
Stephanie glanced towards her husband. ‘I don’t know. Okay, I suppose. It was hard but everyone finds it hard. Don’t they?’
Karen let the question go unanswered. ‘Hard in what way, Stephanie? Can you explain?’ Stephanie hesitated and Blake leant forwards, forcing himself into Karen’s sight line.
‘This is about Daniel. Isn’t it? I thought this was supposed to be about the boy.’ ‘Absolutely,’ Karen said. ‘It’s just background, that’s all. It’s just to help us try to under-
stand—’
‘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 nor-
mal, 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 upset-ting. 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?’