Left You Dead

32

Roy Grace turned his Alfa Romeo right into New Church Road. Bruno, hair neatly brushed as ever, dressed in his red school blazer, white shirt and striped tie, grey trousers and black shoes, sat beside him, silent and stroppy. It was 7.45 a.m.

Bruno was in a particularly strange mood this morning, barely saying a word during the half-hour drive in the early rush-hour traffic. In response to his father’s question about what he had on at school today, he just tut-tutted loudly, intently studying his phone. From the sounds coming out of it, Grace guessed he was looking at TikTok.

Attempting again to engage, he asked if he was playing any sport this afternoon, but all he got in response was Bruno sighing loudly in an irritable ‘leave me alone’ fashion.

For a while, Grace turned up the volume on the radio, tuned to Radio Sussex, listening to the news and traffic reports. He’d been hoping to have a good chat in the car with Bruno, but so far that hadn’t happened. He’d learned that ignoring the boy was sometimes the best tactic to get him to speak. The tactic worked now.

‘Why do you think school is so important?’ Bruno asked suddenly.

Roy turned down the radio. ‘You don’t think it is?’

‘Most teachers I have are useless. I know more than them,’ he said.

‘You do?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I don’t think, I know.’

‘You do?’ The small boy’s confidence — and arrogance — at times was breathtaking, he thought.

‘Yeah, I tested my Geography teacher yesterday. I asked him what the capital of Kazakhstan was. He didn’t know.’

‘I don’t know either,’ Grace said.

‘You’re just a police officer, you’re not paid to know the capital of countries. Mr Maitland is.’

‘So what is it?’

‘Nur-Sultan.’

‘Nur-Sultan?’

‘Yes. I know the capital of every country in the world. Mr Maitland doesn’t even know how many countries there are. I asked him, he said there were one hundred and eighty-seven.’

‘How many are there?’

‘One hundred and ninety-five.’

A sleek BMW i8, a car Grace had always quite fancied, travelled past in the opposite direction at what seemed to be over the speed limit. ‘There are one hundred and ninety-three that are member states of the United Nations and just two, the Holy See and the state of Palestine, which are not. Taiwan, the Cook Islands and Niue should also be on the list, really, in my opinion.’

They were approaching the school. ‘You know what I think, Bruno, you should go on Mastermind with your specialist subject as Geography,’ he said, trying to lighten his son’s intense seriousness.

‘Why would I want to waste my knowledge on a quiz show?’ Bruno retorted calmly, but with underlying anger in his voice.

It wasn’t the first time Roy Grace had thought it, as he shot a glance at him. The boy seemed so much older than his years. Were he and Cleo badly underestimating Bruno’s intelligence? Had they put him in the wrong school? Should he be in some hot-house academy?

‘So, you know more facts than your Geography teacher — do you have other teachers where you know more than they do?’

‘Of course, all of them.’

‘Would you prefer to be in a different school?’

Bruno wasn’t yet aware of the headmaster’s threat to expel him.

‘I don’t need to be in this school, it’s a waste of my time and talents. I need to be in a school that will challenge me.’ Bruno glanced disdainfully out of the window. St Christopher’s was coming up on their right. ‘Did you know that the ancient Egyptians, when they died and were mummified, had their favourite pets killed and mummified, to go in the tomb with them?’

Grace looked at him. ‘I wasn’t aware of that, no.’

‘Do you think they did that because they wanted company in their tombs or because they worried their pets would miss them too much — or that no one would take the same care of the animals they did?’

Frowning, Grace slowed, turned into the side street, drove up a short distance before making a U-turn, and pulled up some yards short of the school gate. ‘I honestly don’t know, Bruno. Their whole culture and views on death were very different to ours.’

‘Why don’t our teachers tell us important things like that?’

Grace thought for a moment before replying to his son’s question. ‘Perhaps they don’t believe things like that are important or relevant in our modern world, Bruno.’

‘Education’s a joke, don’t you think? I can learn more from Google than any teacher can tell me.’

It took Grace a few seconds to process this. He’d not particularly enjoyed his own school days, and his performance in class had been disappointing to his parents, only just scraping through essential exams at pretty much the lowest pass grade. The reality was, he knew, that with his academic record he wouldn’t have stood a cat-in-hell’s chance of getting into the police today.

And with similar cockiness to Bruno, he thought, with a grin, That would have been their big loss!

A boy also in a red jacket, about Bruno’s age, jumped down from a Defender that had pulled up in front of them. A young girl, similarly dressed, was disgorged from a Mini. Both entered the gates.

Turning to Bruno, who was unclipping his seat belt, Grace said, ‘Go for it, speak your mind. Tell them what you think they should be teaching you!’

The boy hesitated, frowning. ‘Really? You think so?’

‘Sure. Be brave. Remember, fear kills more dreams than failure ever can.’

Bruno looked puzzled. ‘Dreams? Is there any point in dreaming anything? Look at my mother.’ He shook his head. ‘The teachers aren’t worth it. But is anything in life worth it?’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘My mother had so many dreams, but they were all shattered and there was no way to put the pieces back together. Life sucks. School sucks.’

Before Grace could respond, Bruno opened the door, climbed out and slammed it behind him. Without looking back, he strode towards the school gates, ignoring two other pupils who were also approaching them.

Grace sat still, watching him until he had disappeared. Life sucks. School sucks. He wondered again, as he had constantly ever since discovering that he had a ten-year-old son, what kind of bizarre upbringing Sandy had given him to jade him and make him so cynical.

He was clearly bright, bright as hell.

Dangerously bright.

Heartbreakingly bright.

But Bruno’s unpredictability worried him. The child psychiatrist, Dr Orlando Trujillo, who they’d taken him to see, told them he thought it was just a phase Bruno was going through. Still adjusting to the loss of his mother, to relocating to a new country, that it was his way of putting a defensive shield around himself.

Grace hoped Trujillo was right. He wasn’t sure what else he and Cleo could do, other than looking for a different school for advanced children. But would even that be the right thing? This school here had a terrific reputation.

It was ironic, he thought, as he drove off, rain starting to fall, his focus starting to return to Eden Paternoster and the briefing meeting in half an hour, that he’d always held the view that well over ninety per cent of crimes were committed by people who had suffered terrible childhoods — alcoholic or abusive parents, broken homes. That was exactly Bruno’s upbringing, too. A drug addict, single-parent mother.

They needed more advice, and quickly, if they were to avoid Bruno not being allowed back to the school again after the end of this term. He resolved to get home early from work and talk it through with Cleo. Maybe try to have a heart-to-heart with Bruno — if the boy would be willing to open up even a fraction.