Simon Lelic - A Thousand Cuts

She sought the boy’s eyes, which were focused on the book he held resting on the peak of his drawn-up knees. ‘Elliot?’ she said again. She had been told he would not answer but she hoped he would nonetheless.

‘What are you reading?’ she asked and when, again, the boy did not respond she edged forwards and bent to read the title from the cover. The words, though, were obscured by the boy’s index and middle fingers, which were crossed, Lucia noticed, as though he were wishing for a happy ending as he read.

Elliot turned a page. He had to unfold his fingers to do so and Lucia caught a surname, a fragment of the title: The Book of something by someone Alexander.

‘Can I sit? Do you mind if I sit?’ She perched on the edge of the bed, facing the wall. ‘Dr Stein says you’re almost better. He says you’re almost ready to go home.’

The boy turned another page. Lucia watched his eyes. They drifted from one page to the next and settled somewhere in between. For a moment Lucia did not speak. She looked at her feet and behind her and at the boy again. He turned another page.

‘Is it good? Your book. What’s it about?’

Slowly, as though hoping she might not detect the gradual movement, Elliot allowed the book to slide from his knees until it was resting, hidden, against his thighs. His eyes did not stray from the pages in front of him.

‘You don’t have to talk to me,’ Lucia said. ‘I just wanted to see you. I just wanted to check that you were all right.’ It surprised her, as she said this, that what she was saying was true. What had happened to the boy was not part of her investigation so technically she had no business here. The doctor could have denied her entry. The parents could arrive and ask her to leave and she would have no choice but to do so.

She glanced across her shoulder. The door was still closed, the rest of the room still empty. She did not know how strict the hospital was about visiting hours but she was taking a chance that Elliot’s parents would not arrive until the allotted period began.

‘You’re a quick healer,’ Lucia said. She focused again on his stitches. She tried to count them. ‘It must have hurt, what they did to you.’

The boy turned a page.

‘You’re very brave, Elliot.’ She said this in almost a whisper, though she had not meant to speak so softly. She cleared her throat. ‘You’re very brave.’

She could not find it in the bookshop.

A cardboard Harry Potter tracked her steps and threatened her with a wand and did not back down when she scowled at him. After checking in the children’s section, she ceded her ground. She wove her way to the general-fiction aisle but could not find it there either.

The shop was empty but for Lucia, the boy wizard and, at the cash register, a sales assistant who looked like she should have been in school. The sales assistant was on the phone, to a friend it seemed; a boyfriend. Lucia lingered by the till for a moment. She pretended to be interested in a stack of Moleskine notebooks. Finally, she rested her wrists on the counter and smiled at the girl.

‘Hi,’ she mouthed.

The sales assistant ducked away and muttered something into the mouthpiece. She turned back to Lucia with the receiver cradled between her chin and her shoulder. ‘Hi,’ she said. Lucia could not tell whether her eyebrows were raised or whether they had been plucked and painted that way.

‘I’m looking for a children’s book,’ Lucia said. She gave the girl the fragments of information she had glimpsed between Elliot’s fingers.

The girl frowned and turned to her computer. She spoke to her boyfriend over the clicking of her nails on the keys. There was to be a party, Lucia learnt. Someone who was supposed to be going wasn’t and someone who wasn’t supposed to be going was.

‘Lloyd Alexander,’ said the girl after a moment. ‘Try children’s classics. No, not you,’ she said into the mouthpiece and, looking at Lucia, gestured to the rear of the shop with her chin.

It was fantasy. Escapism. Not a genre with which Lucia was particularly familiar but she could imagine its appeal to a boy for whom reality offered no refuge. The Book of Three had first been published before Lucia was born. Even on the copy she found, the edges of the pages were a greyish yellow, discoloured like a smoker’s fingers. She replaced the book and scanned the shelves, noticing as she did so authors’ names she had worshipped once but long forgotten. Blume, Blyton, Byars. Milne, Montgomery, Murphy. The books she had read, though, would be of no interest to him. She neared the end of the section and almost gave up looking but before she could turn away a title caught her attention. With her index finger she prised the book free. The jacket design was new but the image it presented was familiar. Lucia smiled and flicked backwards through the pages, pausing every so often to read a sentence, a fragment of speech, a chapter heading. She carried her selection to the counter.

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.’