Simon Lelic: The Child Who

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 people 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.

It was shabbierthan 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.