Simon Lelic - The Child Who

Blake was shaking his head as Leo spoke. ‘Listen to me. Please. You’re not—’

Leo held up a hand. ‘Even if she’s…’ Leo registered the horror spreading on Vincent Blake’s face. ‘You just need to tell us. Now.’ He had intended to sound intimidating. On the final word, however, Leo’s voice cracked.

There was silence. Leo, the men around him, watched Blake. Blake looked at each of them in turn, as though willing for someone in the room to admit the joke. He focused on Leo.

‘Curtice. This is me!’ He pressed his fingers to the faded logo on his sweater. ‘You know me,’ Blake was saying. ‘You know my family. You said it yourself. You were trying to help us! Why would you help us if you didn’t trust us?’

‘Not you,’ Leo hissed. ‘Never you!’

Blake shook his head. ‘I admitted it. Didn’t I? I wrote the notes. But that’s all. Honest! That’s all I did!’ He checked around again in desperation. ‘Okay,’ he said, and splayed his hands again. ‘Maybe I sent a mate of mine round to your house and all. But he didn’t do anything, did he? Gave your wife a bit of a scare but there was no harm done. Was there?’

Leo sat motionless. The man with the beard. The man Megan saw. Leo had forgotten all about him.

‘I told him you owed me money,’ Blake was saying. ‘I said to him, throw a brick into your living room or something. But he couldn’t even manage that, could he?’ Blake reclined slightly and muttered, as though revisiting some lingering grievance. ‘Twenty-mill units, he tells me. Your double glazing. Says he took a proper look but a brick would have bounced right off. But if he’d done it right, if he’d chucked it at one of the corners…’ He raised his eyes, seemed to realise he owed the room an explanation. ‘Glazing’s my trade,’ he said. ‘Pat’s, too: my useless mate. It’s how I got this.’ He fingered his crooked nose, the scar across it. ‘Cash-in-hand job. Almost lost a bloody eye. At least I get my disability now but I should probably be claiming for the undercover work too.’ He tested the room with a smile. It faltered. ‘The beach,’ he explained to Leo. ‘The day I followed you. I mean, I was wrapped up pretty tightly so I’m assuming my ugly mug’s how you…’

Leo made to cut him off and Blake held up his hands.

‘Whatever,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter. The point is, you’ve got me all wrong. The notes, the brick: I had my reasons. But that was it, Leo. Honest. That, for me, is where it stops.’

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘You said you had your reasons. What were they?’

‘What does it matter? I told you what I did. I told you what I didn’t do. It’s not helping your kid, keeping me here like this.’

‘You’re lying. You can’t explain, which means you’re lying!’

‘No!’

‘Where is she? Tell me where she is!’ Leo half rose from his chair. He felt a hand settle lightly on each of his shoulders.

‘Mr Blake,’ said DI Mathers. ‘You said you wanted to talk to Mr Curtice. So far you haven’t told him anything you haven’t already said to us.’

Blake fiddled with something unseen. ‘No. Well. I said Curtice, didn’t I? I didn’t say you and Hulk Hogan over there too.’

‘Meaning what, Mr Blake?’

‘Meaning it’s none of your business!’

‘Mr Blake—’

‘Actually. You know what? I’m leaving. You’ve got no evidence. You haven’t charged me. You haven’t even arrested me!’ Blake stood and appeared surprised when the constable let him. He seemed to take heart – until the detective inspector cleared his throat.

‘Vincent Blake,’ he said. ‘I am arresting you on suspicion of murder.’

Blake’s eyes stretched wide. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘There’s no need for—’

‘You do not have to say anything unless you wish to do so—’

‘Wait! Just wait a minute!’

‘– but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned—’

‘OKAY!’

The room went quiet.

‘Okay,’ Blake said again, more softly this time, as though wary of severing the silence. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Look.’ He sat down. ‘I’m cooperating. Okay?’

The inspector, at Leo’s side now, folded his arms.

‘But I’m not gonna say anything till we’re alone. Till you guarantee me nothing’s being recorded.’ Blake pointed at Leo. ‘And Curtice here,’ he said to Mathers, ‘is a solicitor. Which means I’m covered. Right? Leo? I’m covered, right?’

Leo had no idea what logic was playing in the man’s head. ‘Right,’ he said.

Mathers looked across the room towards his colleague. He considered Blake, then Leo, seated at the table. Then, with a grimace, he gestured for his junior to follow him out.

‘Hey,’ said Blake and the inspector, in the doorway, paused. Blake glanced warily at Leo. ‘Don’t go too far,’ he said.

‘Blake.’

Daniel’s stepfather had slid from his chair the moment the policemen had left the room. He bent, gathered his cigarette packet, and bore the remains back to the table.

‘Blake!’

Blake twitched.

‘Talk,’ Leo said. ‘Quickly. Your so-called reasons.’

Blake set aside his plunder. He glanced over at the door and scanned the ceiling, as though to check they were not being monitored. ‘It wasn’t personal,’ Blake said. ‘Okay?’ He smiled. ‘I like you, Leo. Always did. So just remember that this had nothing to do with—’

‘I don’t care! All I care about is my daughter!’

‘Okay, okay.’ Blake shuffled. He edged his chair a little further from the table. ‘I’m just saying, that’s all. But you wanna know why, right? And that’s the problem, Leo. You were always banging on about why .’

Leo felt his face crease.

‘ Why this, why that. Wouldn’t shut up about the bloody trial .’ Blake sniffed another smile. ‘The why’s the why. Get it?’ He drew a cigarette from his pack.

‘The trial? You wrote the notes to put me off a trial?’ Leo watched Blake watching him through the flame of his lighter. ‘That doesn’t make sense. What difference would it have made to you if we’d gone to trial?’

‘What difference?’ Blake winced at the stupidity of the question.

‘A trial would have been about Daniel!’

‘Bollocks,’ said Blake, sputtering smoke. ‘It would’ve been about us. Me and Steph. Steph most of all. Why , right? You wanted everyone to find out why.’

‘For Daniel! For your stepson’s sake!’

‘Yeah, yeah. So you say.’

‘It’s true!’

‘So what if it is! Daniel wasn’t the only one with something at stake. Ask your shrink friend if you don’t believe me.’ Blake put on a voice. ‘Tell me about his past. Tell me about your past.’ He sneered, shook his head. ‘Dragging shit up is all she was doing. Looking for someone else to blame.’ Blake dragged, exhaled, dragged again. He threw the filter to the floor.

Leo watched him. ‘We were right,’ he said. ‘Weren’t we?’

Blake turned.

‘About the abuse. About what Daniel went through.’ Leo tightened his eyes. ‘You. You abused him.’

‘No!’

‘Is that why you married her? Because she had a child? Someone you could get at whenever you—’

‘No!’ Blake stood. ‘I said, no! Okay?’

Leo hesitated. ‘Who then? His father? His real father, I mean.’

Blake, slowly, settled himself. He shrugged. ‘No. Maybe. I don’t know.’

Leo waited.

Blake looked and looked away. ‘There was a bloke,’ he told the floor. ‘One in particular. One of Steph’s friends.’ He spoke the word with disdain. ‘This was after Frank left her. She kind of… fell apart. Started drinking. Started seeing blokes. Started, you know. Being with them. It was how she “got by”,’ he added, as though mimicking – ridiculing – a phrase that, in private, had become a euphemism. I coped . Isn’t that how Stephanie had put it talking to Karen?