Lisa Ballantyne - Guilty One

‘Wanna game, man? One down, like.’

The lad who asked him was short, like Daniel, with red hair and mud splattered down his grey trousers. He wiped his nose with his sleeve as he waited for Daniel to reply.

Daniel jumped off the wall and walked towards him, hands in his pockets.

‘Wae’aye, man.’

‘Can you play, like?’

‘Aye.’

The game made him feel good. He had had a dark, heavy feeling in his stomach since the fight with Minnie over the necklace and he felt it lift for a moment as he ran the length of the muddy pitch. He wanted to score, to prove himself, but there wasn’t achance. He played hard and was out of breath when the bell rang.

The boy who had asked him to play came up at the end. He walked beside Daniel, with the ball hooked under his arm.

‘You play all right. You can play again tomorrow, if Kev isn’t back.’

‘Aye.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Danny.’

‘I’m Derek. Are you the new lad?’

‘Aye.’

A boy with black hair tried to punch the ball out of Derek’s hands.

‘Give over. It’s mine. This is Danny.’

‘I know,’ said the boy with the black hair. ‘You’re the new foster kid at Flynn Farm, aren’t you? We’re the next farm down. Me mam told me that Minnie the Witch had a new one, like.’

‘Why d’you call her a witch?’

‘ ’Cause she is one,’ said Derek. ‘You better watch, like. She killed her daughter and then killed her husband on the grass outside the house. Everybody knows.’

No secrets, Daniel remembered. Everyone knows your measure.

‘Me mam saw her husband dying and called the ambulance, but it was too late,’ said the boy with the black hair. He was grinning at Daniel and showing the gaps between his teeth.

‘Why’s she ’ave to be a witch? She might just be a murderer?’

‘Why she never get charged then? Me dad says you only ’ave to look at her to see she’s not right. You could end up like her last one.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘She was only at Minnie’s for about a month. Nob’dy at school even knew her name. Right quiet lass. She went into this mad fit in the playground and died.’

The boy with the black hair dropped to the ground in imitation of the fitting child. He lay with his legs open and sent his arms flailing, palsied and electrified.

Daniel watched. He felt an urge to kick him suddenly, but did not. He shrugged his shoulders and followed them back to the school.

5

Daniel felt cold after his run. He appreciated the rare chill, knowing that the Tube would be stifling on a day like this. Fixing his tie, he viewed the room behind him in the mirror, early sun streaming through the bedroom window. He had to be at the police station by eight thirty so that questioning could begin again, but took time, as he always did, to get the knot just right. He bit down on a yawn.

Last night, with a beer after midnight, he had checked the number for City General Hospital in Carlisle. He had decided not to call, but had taken note of the number anyway. If Minnie really was sick, he knew she would have been taken there. Just the thought of her being ill and dying brought a pain to his breastbone, causing him to take a deep breath. Then it would be replaced with the burn of his anger for her, dry in his gullet – still there after all this time. He would not call her. She had been dead to him for years anyway.

Back in the interview room, Daniel inhaled the stale air of yesterday’s questions as he waited for Sebastian. Sergeant Turner’s eyes were bleary. The older man pulled gently at his collar and straightened his cuffs. Daniel knew that the police had been given a verbal report from forensics confirming blood on Sebastian’s clothes, which had been positively identified as belonging to Ben Stokes. The CCTV film had been scrutinised by police who had yet to confirm a sighting of the boys.

Sebastian was tired when the officer brought him in. Charlotte followed, removing her shades only when she sat down, her fingertips trembling.

Sergeant Turner went through the routine of identifying himself, stating the date and the time. Daniel took the lid off his pen and waited for questioning to begin.

‘How do you feel this morning, Sebastian?’ said Sergeant Turner.

‘Fine, thanks,’ said Sebastian. ‘I had French toast for breakfast. It wasn’t as good as Olga’s though.’

‘Olga will make you some when you come home,’ said Charlotte, her voice rough, almost hoarse.

‘You remember we took your clothes, Sebastian, to send them to the lab for testing?’

‘Of course I remember.’

‘Well, we have a verbal report from the lab which says that the red marks on your shirt were actually blood.’

Sebastian pursed his lips, as if he might kiss someone. He sat back in his chair with one eyebrow raised.

‘Do you know whose blood might have been on your shirt, Sebastian?’

‘A bird’s.’

‘Why, did you hurt a bird?’

‘No, but I saw a dead one once and I picked it up. It was still warm and its blood was all sticky.’

‘Did you see the dead bird on the day that Ben was killed?’

‘I can’t remember exactly.’

‘Well, as it turns out, the blood that was on your shirt didn’t belong to a bird. It was human blood. It was Ben Stokes’s blood.’

Sebastian surveyed the corners of the room and Daniel was sure he saw the boy smile. It wasn’t a large smile, more a small curving of his lips. Daniel could feel his heart beating.

‘Do you know how Ben’s blood might’ve got on to your shirt, Sebastian?’

‘Maybe he had cut himself, and when we were playing it kind of rubbed on to me.’

‘Well, the special doctors that looked at your shirt are able to tell a lot of things about the kind of blood that’s on your shirt. It turns out that the blood that is on your shirt is what’s called expirated blood. That’s blood that was blown out of Ben’s mouth or nose …’

Charlotte covered her face with her hands. Her long nails reached up her forehead into the roots of her hair.

‘There’s also an aerial spatter of blood on your trousers and your shoes. That’s blood that’s been dispersed as a result of force …’

Now both of Sebastian’s eyebrows were raised. He looked up into the camera. For a moment, Daniel was transfixed. It was the sight of the pretty young boy looking upwards into the eye of authority; all the unseen people watching him, upstairs, looking at his childlike expressions and trying to find cause to blame. Daniel remembered the saints that Minnie had prayed to, her soft, full fingers fervently twirling the beads of her rosary. There had been arrows to assail St Sebastian, yet he had lived. Daniel could not remember how he had died, but it had been a violent death. Even as the police officers produced further evidence of Sebastian’s guilt, Daniel felt a stronger need to defend him. The witness had come forward to say that he had also seen Sebastian fighting with Ben much later in the day, in the adventure playground, after Sebastian’s mother said he returned home, although the sighting was not confirmed on CCTV. Daniel was not intimidated by this, or the forensics. He had undermined such evidence often enough.

Daniel could sense the police officers’ excitement as they persisted with their questions. He was waiting for them to step over the line – almost wanting them to go too far so that he could put a stop to it.

‘Can you explain how Ben’s blood might’ve got on to your clothes, Seb?’ Turner asked again, his jowls heavy. ‘The scientists tell us that this kind of blood on your clothes might suggest that you had hurt Ben and made him bleed in this way.’