Simon Lelic - A Thousand Cuts

So that’s it. The end. Can I go now?

we R watchN U.evN f U cnt c us we cn c U

The blind was halfway closed and the overhead lights were off. She almost did not notice him shaking. She stood for a moment by the doorway and then made her way past him to the window.

‘Do you mind?’ she said. He raised his head and turned to look at her. She waited but he said nothing. She pulled at the cord and the slats of the blind flipped wide. Dust scattered, fleeing the daylight. Elliot’s father recoiled.

‘Sorry,’ said Lucia and she angled the slats so that the light was less obtrusive. ‘Are you too hot? Would you like me to open a window?’

Again he did not respond.

‘What about a drink? Can I get you some more water?’

This time he croaked a reply. ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Really.’

Lucia nodded. She hesitated, then moved around the table into his eye line. ‘May I?’ she said and she pulled out a chair. In her hand she held a transparent plastic bag. In the bag was a mobile telephone, a silver Motorola with a colour screen. Lucia sat down. She placed the phone on the table. Elliot’s father looked at it, then looked away.

do aL gingrs smeL of piss?

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. Her hands were resting on the table in front of her. She pulled back, allowing her hands to drop into her lap. Then she lifted them again and this time placed her elbows on the surface, her chin in the crevice between her thumb and forefinger. Finally, she let her forearms fold downwards and clasped her midriff with her palms. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again.

wot hapnd 2 yor fAc? how lng til U dI of cancer??

‘Since when?’

‘I don’t know. Since he started. I don’t know.’

‘But these were recent. They were sent recently.’

‘Maybe he deleted the others. I don’t know. Probably he deleted them. Wouldn’t you?’

‘You didn’t suspect, though.’

‘We thought he was making friends. We were pleased. We thought… I don’t know what we thought.’

‘He didn’t say anything.’

‘No. Nothing. They just used to arrive. He would read them and he would look at the screen for a while and then he would put the phone back in his pocket. Until the next one came.’

‘Did he reply?’

‘Yes. No. I don’t know. I thought he did.’

‘It doesn’t look like he did. Not to these.’

‘Then he didn’t. I guess he didn’t.’

‘It looks like they were sent from a website.’

‘A website. Which website?’

‘There are dozens of them. We’re looking into it but we won’t find anything. We won’t be able to prove who sent them.’

‘I see.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You’ve said that. You’ve already said that.’

f U dont wash dat tng off yor fAc we R goin 2 cut it off

The room was small but he had wedged his chair under the table and created an area in which to pace. He waved an arm and hit the blind without meaning to. As he spoke he spat.

‘They hounded him. They fucking hounded him.’

Lucia watched. She waited.

‘It’s not bullying. It’s worse than bullying. It’s mental fucking torture. That’s what it is.’

He knocked the blind again and then turned on it, swiping at it this time as though it had goaded him. Something fell on to the floor: the valance. He swore. He picked it up. He stood holding it and he looked at Lucia. There was spittle at the corner of his mouth.

Lucia waited. She watched.

He dropped the valance and he wiped his sleeve across his face. He turned and pressed his forehead against the ragged blind, followed by his palms. The room darkened. Lucia closed her eyes.

f U ask any1 4 hlp we wiL burn yor hows

She pressed the evidence bag smooth against the table. Air bubbled in a corner as she ran her hand from one side to the other and she was reminded suddenly of skin blistered by the sun. She moved the bag to one side.

There was nowhere else to look so she looked at Elliot’s father. He held the mobile phone in front of him, his elbow on the table, his thumb twitching as he scrolled. His other hand was across his mouth. Periodically he muttered, shut his eyes, allowed his hand to drift up to his forehead and down again. He had known what to expect when he had asked to look again at the texts. Like Lucia, he was probably already able to recount them by now in the order in which they had been sent, down to the syntax and the spelling so outlandish to his generation. Looking at the screen, though, he would be able to suffer what his son had suffered. He would be able to suffer and his suffering would for an instant displace his grief.

Njoy yor vzit 2 d hospital. I hOp dey mAk U beta so we cn fck U up agen

Lucia carried in two coffees. ‘It’s got caffeine in it,’ she said. ‘That’s the best I can say for it.’

Elliot’s father took the paper cup that Lucia had brought for him. He muttered his thanks, shook his head when Lucia offered the crumpled packets of sugar she held in her palm.

She sat. She looked at her notes, checked her watch, glanced across. Elliot’s father had his hand wrapped around his cup. Lucia’s was so hot she could barely hold on to it long enough to lift it to her lips. He was gripping his and he was staring at his fingers.

‘I need to ask you something,’ Lucia said.

Elliot’s father finally withdrew his hand. ‘I thought that’s what you’d been doing.’

‘Something else.’ Lucia closed her notebook. ‘Something I don’t necessarily expect you to answer.’

He shrugged. He took the lid off his coffee and vapour burst from the cup, intensifying the smell within the room of burnt coffee beans. He set the lid upside down on the table.

‘Why would you send him back?’

Now he looked at her, his expression rigid.

‘I mean, forget about the text messages. You didn’t know. But after what happened. After what they did to him. Why would you even consider sending him back?’

For a moment he held her eye. Then he looked again at his coffee, replaced the lid and slid the cup away.

‘Do you have children, Inspector?’

Lucia shook her head.

‘Brothers with children? Sisters? Do you have friends with children?’

‘No. I don’t.’

‘Then you have no idea.’

It seemed like he would say no more. Lucia lowered her eyes.

‘I work here,’ Elliot’s father said. ‘In the City, I mean. My wife, she doesn’t work. I earn some but not a lot. More than a police detective, I would imagine, but unlike you I have four mouths to feed.’

‘Four?’ said Lucia. Elliot’s father flinched and Lucia realised the implication of what she had said. ‘No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that…’

He looked at the table and rubbed his forehead.

‘It’s just, I didn’t know,’ Lucia said. ‘I assumed it was just the three of you.’

‘We have a daughter,’ said Elliot’s father.

Lucia recalled the bicycle in the hallway of their house, the one that had seemed too small for Elliot. ‘She’s younger,’ Lucia said. ‘How old is she?’

‘She’s nine.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Sophie. Her name’s Sophie.’

Lucia nodded. She liked the name but she stopped herself from telling him so.

‘I was saying,’ said Elliot’s father, ‘that I work here. I have to work here. If we could leave London we would but we can’t afford to. And because we can’t leave, we have to make the most of where we are.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘Property. Public services. Schools, Inspector. We don’t have a great deal of choice so we do what we can with the choices that we have.’ He paused. He sighed. ‘It’s a good school. The results, the tables: compared to the alternatives it’s the best we could manage for him. That’s why we bought a house in the catchment area. For Elliot’s sake. For Elliot’s sake and also for Sophie’s.’