The Child Who

boy: he had thought of everything.

He goddamn nearly raped her. This is what they all kept coming back to, as though rape were as bad as it could get. It had been enough, certainly, as far as the police had been concerned. Enough blood and guts with which to feed the press and more than enough to persuade the public to be forthcoming. The rest, the truth, would actually have been too much. For Leo, who had followed developments but not with the fervour – the fury – of others in the community, it was already more than he could contemplate. This boy, this child: your client. This is what he did. This is the case, then, fully disclosed. This is your cause for celebration.

He wondered what Terry, in the office, would have said if he had known; whether his rage would have turned murderous or whether it would simply have fizzed itself flat. What possible reaction was there after all except utter deflation? Horror, yes, and anger, certainly, but both depended wholly on conviction, on being convinced that the thing you had been told had actually happened; that contrary to everything you thought you believed about the fundamental principles of humanity, evil was unbound, unlimited – capable, easily, of excelling itself.

And his father. Gone for well over a year now but only in the most literal sense. What would he think? After Leo’s mother had left them and his own career had crumbled – had failed, really, to turn into a career at all – Matthew Curtice had bet his hope on the prospects for his son. He had always been so proud of what Leo did – not of what the job in reality entailed but of his son’s profession. A chance to make a difference, he had said; to achieve something with your life. More than he had ever managed, his father told him – just after Leo had qualified and only weeks before the first of his strokes.

What, though, would his father think now? Of Leo, of his barely concealed delight in being – how had Howard put it? – on this boy’s side.

‘Leo?’

Megan was leaning through the doorway. Leo moved to shuffle away the photographs.

‘It’s late. Are you coming to bed?’

Leo’s watch had twisted face down. He jangled it the right way up. ‘Lord. You should have called me. I was planning to watch the news.’

‘I taped it for you. I looked but I didn’t see you on it.’ She said this last with a smile.

‘No. I wouldn’t have been yet. I mean, that’s not why I…’ He slid a smile back. ‘Thanks.’

‘So are you coming up? You can’t stare at those all night. You’ll give yourself nightmares.’

Leo moved to cover the few photographs that remained on display. His bad dreams were inevitable; Megan might escape for a few more nights. ‘I’ll be up in a bit. Just a couple more minutes. Maybe I should… I’d like to check on Ellie too.’

‘Ellie? Ellie’s asleep.’ Megan took a step into the study. She angled her head to get a view of the file on Leo’s desk. ‘What are you looking at?’

‘Nothing. Just, you know. Paperwork.’ He prodded a protruding edge.

Megan took another step and laid her hands on Leo’s shoulders. ‘How are you feeling?’ She kneaded and Leo exhaled, closed his eyes.

He felt something press against his ankles. The cat, he assumed, had trailed Megan into the room and was weaving her affection in a figure of eight. It was Ellie’s cat, really: Rupert, ‘because she looks like a bear’, which to an eight-year-old had been powerful enough in its logic at the time to trump any misgivings about gender.

‘Tired,’ Leo said, in answer to his wife’s question. ‘But like I’ll never be able to sleep.’ He half turned and reached for Megan’s hand. ‘You?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to feel. Tired as well, I suppose, but more from the thought of it. I’m worried, Leo. I know, I know,’ she said, when Leo smiled and squeezed her hand. ‘But Ellie. That’s all it is. I’m worried for Ellie.’

‘Ellie’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. It’s not like any of us did this, Meg.’

She squeezed back. ‘When are you seeing him?’

Leo shifted and sensed the cat dart away. ‘Tomorrow. First thing. Before they start on him again.’ Megan, for an instant, looked puzzled. ‘The police,’ Leo said. ‘They’ve no intention of hanging around.’

Megan nodded. She kissed his crown. ‘Then come upstairs. Get some sleep.’ She reached the door and held it.

‘I will. I’ll be up soon, I promise. Just a couple more minutes.’

He watched Megan go. There was the sound of the front door being bolted and of the kitchen light being switched off and then of his wife’s leaden footsteps on the stairs. He waited until he was certain she had reached the landing and let his head fall into his hands.

3

Now, here: just say it.

But he said nothing. He allowed the Passat to creep closer to the car in front, then broke the silence by ratcheting the handbrake. He cleared his throat, with as cheerful a timbre as he could manage, then turned to face his daughter and made a sound like he had thought of something funny.

Ellie did not respond. She maintained her dead-eyed stare, one hand cupping her chin, the other a fist in her lap.

Leo again cleared his throat and this time Ellie turned. ‘Can we put the radio on?’ she said, reaching.

‘In a minute.’ Leo moved his hand to catch his daughter’s but she was too quick on the withdrawal. ‘I actually wanted to talk to you.’ Leo let his palm settle on the gear lever instead. ‘About work,’ he continued. ‘My work, I mean.’ The traffic began to move and Leo slipped the car into gear. ‘There’s a… I have a…’ He coughed. ‘The thing is, Ellie…’

‘I know, Dad.’

Leo turned. ‘You know?’ The traffic stalled and once again he applied the handbrake. ‘What do you know?’

Ellie shrugged. ‘Felicity. The boy.’ Again the shrug – barely even that really. ‘The case.’

‘What? How?’

‘Mum told me.’

‘Your mother? When?’

‘Last night.’

‘When last night?’

‘You were working.’

Leo considered. ‘Oh.’

Quiet. Even the traffic outside seemed for a moment to be waiting on what might come next.

‘So what do you think?’ said Leo and the cars ahead released their brake lights. ‘Are you okay with it?’

The shrug.

‘You shouldn’t worry, you know.’

Which, of course, had precisely the wrong effect. ‘Why would I worry?’

‘I said you shouldn’t worry.’

‘But why would I?’ Ellie sat straighter. She faced her father.

‘You shouldn’t,’ Leo repeated. ‘That’s what I’m saying. There’s no reason for you to worry.’ A car from the outside lane was moving into his. There was no cause to but Leo jabbed at his horn anyway. ‘Look at this idiot,’ he said. His eyes twitched towards his daughter but she was clearly not to be distracted. She looked swamped, all of a sudden, in the passenger seat: a child with a grown-up-sized furrow on her brow.

‘What do you mean, though? Tell me, Dad. I’m not some little kid.’

‘Look. Ellie.’ Leo sighed and the sigh, to him, seemed clearly to convey everything his daughter needed to know.

‘Dad—’

Leo lifted a hand from the steering wheel. ‘It’s a nasty business. That’s all. It was a horrific crime and