Simon Lelic - The Child Who

‘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.

‘What do you mean, Daniel?’

Daniel switched his attention to his other thumb. ‘I wanted to talk to her. That’s all.’ He seemed to ponder this for a while, to the point Leo felt an urge to offer another prompt. But, ‘She was scared of me. Even before I’d said anything.’

‘Why do you think she was scared of you?’ Beyond talking, Leo kept as still as he could.

‘I… I dunno. Probably cos I’m, like… you know. Ugly. Or… I dunno.’ Still the boy stared at his hands. ‘I asked her to kiss me. Just cos I knew she wouldn’t.’ He glanced but failed to hold Leo’s eye. ‘I was only joking. I wasn’t going to make her. But she – ’ again Daniel looked puzzled ‘ – she made this face. Like… Just this face.’

‘Go on.’

Daniel dropped his chin. ‘She walked away. She was laughing, like she wasn’t scared any more, and I… I dunno. I liked it better when she was.’

Daniel’s hands stopped writhing. He clasped them together, aligning the knuckles of his thumbs.

‘She walked away,’ Leo said and the boy nodded.

‘I followed her. Not on purpose. I just started walking the same way she did and it ended up that I was following her, along the riverbank. It was cold and I… I just wanted to be moving.’

‘Did she… Was she aware…’

‘She saw me. She pretended she didn’t but she did. She started singing. To annoy me. Stupid songs like the Spice Girls and that.’

‘Why do you think she was trying to annoy you?’

‘I dunno. It was annoying though. She knew it was.’

Leo nodded, once. ‘And what happened after that?’

‘I was getting closer, just cos she was walking so slow. She did that to annoy me too. I could tell. Walking like she didn’t care who was following.’

‘Did you speak to her? Did you say anything?’

The boy, almost undetectably, shook his head. ‘I got to like… I dunno. Like a bus-length away. She was still singing, even louder than before. I…’ A drop fell from Daniel’s eye and burst on the back of his thumb. ‘I picked up a stone. I threw it. Not to hit her but… I dunno. It landed closer than I thought it would.’

‘What kind of stone? You mean like a rock?’

‘I don’t remember. It was just a stone. I didn’t hit her with it.’

‘No. Sorry. Go on.’

‘She heard it land. The stone, I mean. She turned. She looked, like, angry. Properly angry, like teachers get. She didn’t say anything, though. She stuck her tongue out. And then…’

Leo waited. ‘And then?’

‘Then she ran.’

Daniel was crying freely now. The tears drew no sound but they filled the boy’s eyes to the point that he was blinking, wiping, just to be able to see.

‘Would you like to take a break, Daniel? Can I fetch you some water or something?’

The boy shook his head, more forcefully this time. ‘I chased her,’ he said. ‘Just cos she ran. I wasn’t even trying to catch her but she – ’ he sniffed ‘ – she tripped. Slipped on some ice maybe. She fell. It wasn’t my fault she fell but when she did I… She was just…’

‘You caught up with her.’

Daniel nodded. He ground his knuckles into his eye sockets. ‘She was crying. Shouting, too. Kept going on about her coat. Her stupid coat.’

Her coat. Felicity’s crimson overcoat. Leo thought of bulls, of beasts: of the instinct – irresistible; incomprehensible – to charge.

‘She said she’d tell. She said she knew who I was and that it was my fault her coat was ruined. Even though it wasn’t. Even though I didn’t do anything. Even though it was her fault for running, for tripping, for looking at me like… like…’

Leo could imagine, all too readily, what had come next. An exchange of abuse, perhaps of blows. Felicity’s terror dictating her volume; Daniel, the louder Felicity grew, ever more desperate that she should keep quiet. Him seizing her. Her flailing at him. Daniel shoving and Felicity falling and then… and then…

‘I just went mad. Just, like, mad. Her coat – her stupid coat – I ripped at it just to annoy her, to piss her off, to make her as cold as I was. But her blouse, it ripped as well. And I… Her skin, she… It…’ Daniel swallowed and his narrow neck bulged. ‘I just went mad.’

Mad indeed.

But not mad enough.

‘The assault,’ Leo said. His voice did not falter. ‘Is that when it happened?’

Daniel nodded.

‘And Felicity. Was she conscious? Was she awake, I mean?’

Another nod, followed by a shake of the head. ‘I hit her. With a stone. She wouldn’t be quiet, not even for a minute. So I hit her.’ Daniel stared at his open palm. His fingers curled, as though testing the shape of some unseen object, and then balled themselves into a fist. ‘I didn’t mean to kill her.’ He searched for Leo through glistening eyes. ‘I didn’t. But then, when I saw what I’d done to her, I… I looked around me and…’

The fairy lights. The gravel. The river. And it was the river, despite what Daniel had believed at the time, that ended her life.

Leo turned away.

He brought squash. He brought biscuits. He set the tray on the floor between them and lowered himself back into the chair.

‘I thought you’d be hungry. I know you said you weren’t but you should try and eat something.’

Daniel said nothing. He was back at the pillow end of the bed, the sheets covering every part of him now except his neck and his puffed, pale face. Beside him, on the built-in shelf that was the bedside table, was an array of figurines: soldiers, mainly, with rifles abutting their shoulders or grenades poised to be thrown. There was a phalanx facing the window, another angled towards the door. They were on guard, clearly. Against what, Leo could not tell.

He opened the packet of Bourbons. He offered it to Daniel but the boy declined. Leo took out a biscuit for himself. He set it, after a moment, on the arm beside him.

‘The arraignment,’ he said. ‘We still have time – three weeks or so – but at some point we need to decide.’