Simon Lelic - A Thousand Cuts

I would probably have broken up with him sooner had he not been having such a difficult time. There it is again, you see: pity. I’m a hopeless judge of character, Inspector. I must be a hopeless judge of character. Everyone else could see he wasn’t normal. Why couldn’t I?

No, thank you, I’m fine. Let’s just get this finished. Can we please just get this finished?

Was he angry? What makes you say that? He had no reason to be, if that’s what you mean. No reason at all. I mean, he expected it. He must have expected it. He wasn’t the easiest of people to read, that was part of the problem, but surely he must have expected it. I don’t know though. He didn’t seem angry at first but things got bad for him afterwards, which can’t have helped. They were bad before but they got worse. So maybe his anger grew. Maybe his bitterness festered. Maybe he talked himself into resenting me because I know one thing for certain, Inspector, I’ll tell you one thing. They say he was aiming at TJ when he shot Veronica. That’s what everyone thinks. I know better. He wasn’t aiming at TJ, Inspector. He was aiming at me. He was aiming at me and Veronica died instead.

The gates were open;the playground had become a car park. It was full of vans: white vans mainly, vans that would have been white had they not been so encrusted with grime. Cleaning contractors, rubbish removers, flooring firms, a plumber. Men in paint-stained clothes sat in the shaded sanctuary of their cabs, the cigarettes that dangled from their sunburnt arms adding to the heat of the engines, the tarmac, the sun. Crumpled Coke cans and tabloid newspapers lined the dashboards that Lucia passed. She caught a headline, something about the weather and the temperature and the beginning of the end of all things.

She ignored the stares. The shadow of the Victorian red-brick loomed and drew her in and all of a sudden she felt chilled. She climbed the stairs to the entrance, passed the uniforms and pushed through the doors.

There was no one she could see. From the assembly hall she heard scraping furniture and baritone voices and the sounds of men at work, disconcertingly jolly given the origins of the mess they were clearing.

She almost left. She had come to the school out of habit. She had come the first day and the second and the third, and after that she had found that she could not not come. But it was Friday and on Friday, she knew, the crime scene was to become a school again.

She almost left but she hesitated long enough for the headmaster to spot her. She considered ignoring his call, pretending not to have heard, but he was striding from the assembly hall towards her and covering the ground quickly and if she turned away now it would be too late.

‘Detective Inspector May.’ His voice held her still. Seconds passed and he was upon her.

‘Mr Travis.’

‘Inspector.’ His smile, as a smile, did not convince. The polo shirt he wore seemed equally ill-fitting, an attempt at smart casual by a man not comfortable dressing down. The collar and sleeves had been pressed, the buttons were fastened to his throat.

‘I was just leaving,’ said Lucia.

‘And I thought you had just arrived,’ the headmaster replied. ‘I saw you from the window. I saw you cross the courtyard.’

‘I forgot the day. I forgot that it was Friday.’

‘I almost did myself. It’s as if the holidays had started already. Come, let me show you what’s been happening.’

‘Really—’ Lucia began but Travis was already on the march towards the hall. She followed.

‘You’ve been busy, Inspector.’ The headmaster moved his chin to his shoulder as he spoke but he did not look at her directly.

‘As have you, I’m sure.’

Travis nodded. He turned away from her. ‘I wonder what it is that you have discovered.’

Lucia watched the back of the headmaster’s head, tracking his over-long neck into the slope of his narrow shoulders. She noticed the surplus skin on his elbows, just visible below the sleeve line of his shirt and, in that one sagging patch, the same shade of grey as his hair.

‘Not as much as I would have liked,’ Lucia said. They stopped at the doors leading into the hall. ‘More than you might imagine. ’

‘After you, Inspector.’

Lucia tried to slide past the headmaster without making any contact but brushed against the skin of his outstretched arm.

‘You’re not cold, surely,’ Travis said. ‘It is difficult to remember the sensation of feeling cold, do you not find?’

The hall had already been cleared, cleaned. The furniture she had heard scraping on the freshly shined floor was of a different kind from the chairs she was used to seeing in the room. The desks that the workmen were setting up in rows folded in on themselves so that they also formed a seat. They did not look like they would stack but they did. They were piled ten high at the back of the hall, though the stacks were diminishing as the workmen surrounded them and plucked at them and bore three units at a time to the opposite side of the room.

‘Exams,’ Travis said. ‘We are two weeks behind as it is.’

Lucia looked across the hall for the rope. It was gone. All the ropes on all the climbing frames were gone. ‘Will they not find it difficult to concentrate?’ Lucia said. ‘Being in here?’

The headmaster acted as though he had not heard. He raised his voice to a workman, told him not to space the desks so tightly together. He tutted and turned back to Lucia. ‘You were telling me what you had uncovered, Inspector. You were telling me what your questioning had revealed.’

‘You asked,’ Lucia replied. ‘That’s as far as we had got.’

‘It is classified then. You feel I cannot be trusted.’

‘No. Not at all. The investigation is still ongoing.’

The headmaster raised one eyebrow. ‘That surprises me, Inspector. I was under the impression that your enquiries were now complete.’

‘Then you were misinformed, Mr Travis. They are not.’

‘Well,’ said Travis. ‘I shall know next time to talk to you directly. I shall know not to put my faith in the chain of command.’

‘The chain of command?’

‘I spoke to your superior, Inspector. I spoke to DCI Cole. He telephoned me, in fact. He informed me that your investigation was drawing to a close.’

‘He telephoned you? How considerate of him.’

‘Indeed,’ the headmaster said. ‘He seems a considerate man.’

Lucia looked about her. She watched a stack of desks wobble as one of the workmen tugged at the column next to it. It was going to fall and it fell and Lucia flinched at the noise even though she was braced for it. She turned to the headmaster, expecting an outburst, but the headmaster was focused on her.

‘We will be having a memorial service,’ Travis said. ‘On Monday, at ten o’clock. Not in here. Outside. There is an area of the playing field that seems suitable. Perhaps you would be kind enough to join us.’

‘Thank you,’ Lucia said. ‘I won’t.’

‘You have an investigation to complete.’

She nodded. ‘That’s right.’

The headmaster smiled. He appeared to contemplate. ‘Tell me, Inspector,’ he said at last. ‘Why are you here?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘What I mean to say,’ the headmaster went on, ‘is that it seems as though you have something on your mind.’

Lucia held his eye. She spoke before she could reconsider. ‘Elliot Samson,’ she said. She watched for some reaction but there was none. ‘He was a pupil here, is that right?’

‘He is a pupil here, Inspector. He was and he is.’

‘Of course. And you know what happened to him, I assume?’

‘Naturally I know.’