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Simon Lelic: A Thousand Cuts

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Simon Lelic A Thousand Cuts

A Thousand Cuts: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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In the depths of a sweltering summer, teacher Samuel Szajkowski walks into his school assembly and opens fire. He kills three pupils and a colleague before turning the gun on himself. Lucia May, the young policewoman who is assigned the case, is expected to wrap up things quickly and without fuss. The incident is a tragedy that could not have been predicted and Szajkowski, it seems clear, was a psychopath beyond help. Soon, however, Lucia becomes preoccupied with the question no one else seems to want to ask: what drove a mild-mannered, diffident school teacher to commit such a despicable crime? Piecing together the testimonies of the teachers and children at the school, Lucia discovers an uglier, more complex picture of the months leading up to the shooting. She realises too that she has more in common with Szajkowski than she could have imagined. As the pressure to bury the case builds, she becomes determined to tell the truth about what happened, whatever the consequences…

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Lucia had a retort prepared but Walter was not at his desk. The department was virtually empty.

‘Where is everyone?’ She allowed only her head to enter the DCI’s office.

‘He’s in court,’ Cole said. He was poking at his upper lip, frowning into a mirror propped almost flat on his desk.

‘Who is? What?’

‘Your fiancé. He’s in court.’ The chief inspector glanced at Lucia before returning his attention to himself. ‘What did the kid say?’

He wanted her to ask him how he knew where she had been. She wanted to ask too. Instead she watched as he prodded and winced. She stepped across the threshold. Her curiosity must have shown on her face.

‘One of the uniforms saw you,’ said Cole. ‘At the hospital. So what did he say?’

‘He didn’t say anything. He doesn’t say anything.’

Cole gave a grunt. ‘You know it doesn’t matter, don’t you? You know it’s not part of this case.’

‘It’s linked.’

‘It’s not linked.’

‘Of course it’s linked. Everything’s linked.’

‘Everything’s linked? You’ve got till Monday, Lucia. Remember you’ve only got until Monday.’

Lucia checked her watch.

‘Have you seen Price?’

‘Price? Why do you want to see Price?’

‘I don’t. I mean, it’s nothing. Nothing important.’

‘Well I haven’t seen him.’

‘Never mind.’ Lucia was already leaving.

‘It’s not linked, Lucia.’

She showed him the back of her hand.


Price was smoking. Lucia stood closer to him than she needed to.

‘Some weather, huh?’ They were on the top floor, on the terrace behind the canteen. They called it the terrace but really it was a balcony and a bench and an overflowing ashtray. Price gestured to the sky, to the unrelenting blue. ‘Thirty-eight at the weekend, that’s what they’re saying.’ He coughed out a laugh and sucked at his cigarette. ‘You’re lucky you don’t have to wear uniform no more. These trousers don’t breathe. Might as well be made of rubber.’

Lucia considered her own outfit: dark trousers, white blouse. The only difference between Price’s clothes and hers was that she had had to pay for hers herself.

‘Tell me about the Samson boy,’ said Lucia. ‘Elliot Samson.’

Price frowned, puffed smoke from his nostrils. ‘Christ, Lucia. It’s a nice day. The sun is shining. What do you have to bring that up for?’

Lucia watched Price stub his cigarette against the wall and, ignoring the ashtray beside him, flick the filter towards the city skyline.

‘Did he speak to you?’ she said. ‘Did he say anything?’

Price shook his head. ‘He couldn’t. His face was too messed up.’

‘He was conscious?’

‘Yep. Right up until the ambulance took him away. Probably for some time after. He felt every rip, scrape and bite.’

‘Who did it? Do you know?’

‘Sure I know. Plenty of people seem to know.’

‘And?’

‘And what? And the kid isn’t speaking. And no one saw it happen. And the school doesn’t seem to care.’ Price took another cigarette from the box in his shirt pocket. ‘Same school, right?’

Lucia was looking at the traffic below. A delivery van had pulled up alongside a taxi that had been travelling in the opposite direction. The drivers were leaning out of their windows, waving hands, flicking gestures, ignoring the horns of the cars caught behind them. ‘Sorry?’ she said.

‘Same school. The shooting. The teacher. Same school, right?’

‘Same school,’ Lucia said. ‘Right.’

.

Did I love him? What a question.

How can I say I loved him after what he did? How can I admit that to myself? I tell myself now that I never loved him and I pray that what I tell myself is true. Otherwise, Inspector, I feel sick. Just the thought of him, after what he did: it makes me want to be sick.

I was fond of him. I can admit that much. I pitied him. I thought that he deserved pity, if you can believe that.

He didn’t settle. He didn’t fit in. The headmaster didn’t like him, TJ didn’t like him and because the two of them didn’t like him none of the others were anything more than civil to him. Why would they be? TJ can be a nuisance if he feels like you’re not on his side – everything with him is sides – and you don’t want to upset the headmaster, not in this school. Not in any school, I suppose, but particularly not in this school.

And he didn’t help himself. Samuel, I mean. He had his untidy little beard and his scruffy black hair and he always wore one of two suits. One lace was invariably undone, one button on his shirt missing or misaligned. I know, I know: appearances shouldn’t matter. But they do, don’t they? Everyone knows they do.

He was reticent, stand-offish. He answered, he never asked. I say he answered but he didn’t answer how you or I might answer. How are you? someone might say to him. Fine, thank you, he’d reply. And that would be it. Hi Samuel, what are you up to? Reading, he’d say and not look up from his book. He wasn’t rude exactly but the others, they didn’t like that. They assumed him arrogant. They thought him aloof. Veronica Staples, the woman who died – the woman he killed – she said to me one time, she said, he’s like an Oxford don at a children’s party, and that about summed him up.

Veronica was a friend of mine, Inspector. She was a friend. She had children, you know. Two children. One of them is a teacher too. Beatrice: she’s training to become a teacher. What must they think? What must they be feeling?

No, thank you. I have one in my pocket. I’m fine, honestly. I’m just, I don’t know. Just being silly, I suppose. I’m fine.

What was I saying?

Samuel, yes. He was what you might call an outsider. He was an outsider right from the start. It was easier to ignore him than to engage with him. It was easier to laugh at TJ’s little pranks than to act like a prude and stand up for him. Him and TJ, they had a little set-to at the start of term. Samuel said something and TJ got upset and I don’t really know what happened but it looked like men being men, nothing more. But after that TJ pretty much decided that he and Samuel were mortal enemies and that he would get his revenge one minor humiliation at a time. Pathetic, I know, but harmless enough. He’s just a kid, TJ. He acts like one of the kids. He’s always out there with them, playing football, playing basketball. They call him TJ not Mr Jones and the headmaster stands for it because with TJ the kids don’t act up. Order: the headmaster demands order and TJ is one of the very few teachers in this school capable of bringing it.

So the first thing TJ does is tell Samuel to turn up one Friday in jeans. Says it’s Jeans for Genes day or something and that all the teachers are doing it. This is before Samuel suspects that TJ has a grudge against him. I mean, maybe he suspects but he’s still the new bloke, isn’t he? He still has to listen to what TJ says. So Samuel does and the headmaster sends him home to change – like he’s a kid, he sends him home, because teachers don’t wear jeans in this school, oh no, that would not be appropriate at all – and the headmaster has to teach Samuel’s morning classes himself. Which he hates doing, particularly a subject like history. The next thing TJ does is leave Samuel a note signed by the headmaster saying his lesson has been moved to a different room, a different floor. So while Samuel is up in the attic – that’s what we call it up there, the attic – while he’s up there waiting for his class to turn up, his kids are where they should be, shouting, laughing, throwing chairs probably, until one of them ends up with a bloody lip and starts wailing. The headmaster hears all this and he storms into the room and screams at them to be quiet, to maintain order. And naturally he blames Samuel, assumes Samuel was late, and Samuel doesn’t say anything because he knows by now what’s going on and he knows enough to know that you don’t go squealing, you don’t go telling tales.

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