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.’
‘For Sophie? You said she was nine. Isn’t that what you said?’
‘She’s nine but she’s getting older. Children do that, Inspector. ’
There was scorn in his tone, which Lucia ignored. She tapped a fingernail against the side of her cup.
‘It’s changing status,’ Elliot’s father continued, less aggressive now. ‘The school is. Did you know that? They’re talking about private funding, more autonomy. It’s on some government scheme.’
‘Scheme?’ said Lucia. ‘What kind of scheme?’
‘A pathfinder scheme, they call it. A public-private partnership. The school: it’s one of the first. So it’s the best that’s available to us and it’s going to get better. And it will be more selective. It will be able to pick and
