A Thousand Cuts

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The envelope was on her keyboard, wedged between two lines of keys so that it announced itself as soon as Lucia’s desk came into view.

Her first thought was of the headmaster; that the envelope heralded some official censure. The envelope, though, did not look official. It was windowless, plain white, with her first name only printed in oversize capitals. And whereas formal correspondence was usually confined to a taut paragraph or two on a single sheet of A4, the envelope on Lucia’s desk bulged.

Lucia looked about her. No one was paying her any notice. Walter was at his desk, leant back on his chair, his feet raised as usual and his keyboard on his lap. Charlie was on the phone, Harry was frowning at his computer screen and Rob was clutching a mug of coffee in one hand and excavating a nostril with the other.

Lucia dropped into her seat and let her bag slide from her shoulder. Her monitor blocked her view of the rest of the office but she leant sideways to check again whether anyone was watching. Nobody had moved. Lucia turned her attention back to the envelope. She picked it up.

It squished, like a Jiffy bag. The seal was taped shut, as though the gum had not proved strong enough, and Lucia noticed with distaste that there was a wiry black hair trapped at one end under the Sellotape. She turned the envelope over and looked again at the writing on the front. It said LUCIA – nothing more, not an underline or even a full stop.

She shouldn’t open it. She knew she shouldn’t open it. But there was an inevitability to events now. She shouldn’t open it but until she did her day was at a standstill. Probably Walter or one of the others had left the envelope and their lives too were in abeyance now until the trap they had set was sprung. The sooner Lucia opened the envelope, the sooner they would laugh and the sooner Lucia could tut, roll her eyes, throw the contents into the bin and get back to pretending that this sort of thing was beneath her, that it did not bother her, that in no way did it make her feel small or vulnerable.

Or perhaps she was being paranoid. Perhaps the envelope contained something of hers that she had lost or forgotten or lent to someone and it was simply being returned. What that thing might be she could not think but that did not in itself rule out the possibility. She would open the envelope and catch sight of what was inside and remember instantly what, why, when and who. It would be such a trivial thing that she would cast it, envelope and all, into her bottom drawer. Then she would spend the rest of the morning trying to ignore the voice in her head that mocked her insecurity, her cowardice, her pervading sense of relief.

Lucia worked her finger under the seal. She wrenched the envelope open. As she did so its contents burst outwards and Lucia knew in that instant that she should have trusted her initial instinct and left the envelope alone.

Hair. The envelope was stuffed with hair. Short, black and coiled, like the single strand that had almost escaped. It fell in clumps on to Lucia’s desk, her keyboard, her lap. It clung to her fingers. As Lucia recoiled, the envelope dropped and the last of its contents spilled out on to the carpet and vanished against the charcoal gloom.

‘We all chipped in.’

Lucia held her fingers splayed in front of her. She blew, almost spat, at the hair that still coated them. She looked up.

‘Me, Rob and Charlie. We didn’t ask Harry because we didn’t think he could grow any yet. Bless him.’

Lucia glanced over at Harry. At the sound of his name he raised his head.

‘You know what it is, don’t you?’

Walter had shifted so that he was leaning with both elbows on the filing cabinet that stood next to Lucia’s desk. Rob and Charlie were on their feet now and carrying their grins closer.

‘Lulu. Are you listening? I said, you know what it is, don’t you?’

Lucia shook her head: not an answer, rather an expression of her incredulity.

‘Like I said, we all chipped in.’ Walter was leering now, playing to his audience. ‘We just thought that, with everything that’s happened, you were probably missing him. You know: your pal. Bumfluff.’

Rob and Charlie sniggered. Lucia looked again at her hands, at her desk, at the envelope on the floor. She opened her mouth. She shut it. She looked at Walter but Walter was silent now. He was grinning. He was waiting.

‘You better be joking,’ Lucia said at last. ‘You better be fucking joking.’

Rob and Charlie laughed. They tapped palms.

‘Don’t you like it?’ Walter said, feigning offence. ‘I was sure you’d like it.’

Lucia could feel the curdled expression on her face. She swallowed, shut her eyes, tried to force herself to look less disgusted, less disgusting. As though they had been moulded from rubber, her features rebounded and settled into the same position: her brow creased, her nostrils flared, her teeth bared and her lips pulled taut.

‘Hey, guys. What’s going on?’ Harry had moved to Charlie’s side. He was smiling but warily.

Lucia looked at him but it was Walter who answered. ‘Nothing for you to worry about, Harry my lad. We were just giving Lulu here a gift we prepared for her. She doesn’t seem very grateful.’

Again Rob and Charlie guffawed.

‘Gift? What kind of gift? Hey, Lucia. Is everything okay?’

Lucia heard Harry’s words but could not think how to respond. She looked from Harry to the envelope on the floor and back to Harry. Harry edged forwards. He followed Lucia’s gaze.

‘What is it? What’s wrong? Christ, Lucia, what’s that? What is that?’

Lucia did not answer. She looked at Walter.

Harry turned. ‘Walter? Jesus. What the hell is wrong with you?’

Walter laughed. ‘Easy, Harry. It’s just a little joke. Just some harmless fun.’

‘Fun? This—’ Harry gestured to the envelope, to Lucia ‘—this is your idea of fun?’ He took a step towards Walter. Walter’s expression hardened.

‘Careful now, Harry. Don’t start making trouble for yourself. ’

‘Harry,’ said Lucia. ‘Harry, please. It doesn’t matter.’

‘Lucia—’

‘Please,’ she said again. ‘Please.’

Harry shook his head. He glared at Walter.

‘That’s a good lad, Harry. You listen to Lulu here. Mummy knows best.’

‘Walter—’ Lucia began but a holler from across the room cut her off.

‘Is she in yet? Lucia!’

Cole was at his door, one hand on either side of the frame and leaning out into the office proper. ‘Where the fuck have you been? Get in here!’

‘Guv, I—’

‘Now, dammit.’ Cole turned away and disappeared behind the partition. With a glance at Harry, Lucia started towards the chief inspector’s office. Walter, though, was blocking her path. She was about to tell him to move, to get out of her way, to shove him aside if it came to that but in the end there was no need. Walter took half a pace back and, with a dip of the head and a sweeping gesture with one arm, ceded the ground to Lucia. She noticed him wink at Charlie as she passed.

At the threshold to Cole’s office, Lucia hesitated. She turned and saw the others still watching her. She stepped inside and shut the door behind her.

‘Guv,’ she said. Cole was facing the window, one hand on his hip, the other massaging the well-shined skin of his forehead. ‘You wanted me, Guv.’

‘Come in. Sit down.’

Lucia did not want to sit. She moved towards the only chair on her side of the desk and stood behind it. She gripped the cool metal frame and realised that her palms were sweaty. She let go of the chair and wiped her hands on her trouser legs.

‘You’re on suspension, Lucia. You’re out. Collect what you need and go home.’

Lucia was silent. Gently, she nodded. Cole still had his back to her and rather than looking at him she looked at his desk. There was a tube of Colgate, she noticed, by the telephone. There were piles of paper and foolscap folders, and over these and what little surface of the desk was visible, there were fluorescent pink Post-it notes dotted like acne. Some were blank but most had on them a short note, invariably bracketed between question marks. Lucia found herself wondering what would happen to conviction rates in north-east London were the Post-it notes suddenly to become unstuck. Or perhaps more cases would come to court rather than growing stale in an atmosphere of indecision.

‘That’s it, Lucia. You know why. You don’t need me to tell you why.’ Cole turned to face her. He had not shaved, Lucia noticed. Either he had been running late that morning or he had been nervous about bringing a razor to the skin under his nose and around his lips, blotched as it still was with cold sores.

‘No,’ Lucia said. ‘You don’t need to tell me why. But you could tell me who.’

‘Who. Who what?’

‘Who it is that Travis can count on to be such a good friend to his cause.’

Cole shook his head. ‘I told you before, Lucia: don’t be naive.’ He moved behind the desk.

‘Come on, Guv. What am I going to do with it if you tell me?’

Cole sighed. He rubbed his head again. ‘Then why do you need to know, Lucia? Why do you always need to know?’

Lucia almost laughed. She almost reminded the DCI what she did, what they both did. She resisted. She said instead, ‘Elliot Samson’s father told me that the school was changing status. He mentioned a government scheme, private funding, more autonomy. He said it was one of the first.’

Cole shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know about that.’

‘There’s a lot of money involved in that sort of thing, I would imagine. A lot of commercial interests.’

‘Probably. Possibly. Who the hell knows?’

‘I don’t suppose a public prosecution would look particularly good, would it? Chances are it would scare a few people the government wouldn’t want to see scared.’

Cole sat down. He picked up one of the sheets of paper on his desk and peered under the Post-it note that was attached to it.

‘Or is it more straightforward than that? Is it closer to home? The superintendent,’ Lucia said. ‘Your boss. I notice he’s on the school’s board of governors.’

Cole looked at Lucia without raising his head. ‘Careful, Lucia.’

‘I doubt he’d be too keen to be dragged into all of this, would he? I expect he would rather we left Mr Travis and his school well alone.’

Cole put down the paperwork he was holding. ‘For an officer who has just mouthed her way into a suspension, Detective Inspector May, you seem remarkably reluctant to shut the fuck up.’

Lucia glared. She bit down on the retort that was wrestling for control of her tongue. Cole exhaled into the silence and returned his attention to his desk.

‘So what happens now?’ Lucia said at last.

‘There’ll be a hearing. You’ll be reprimanded. Demoted maybe, at least for a while. You’ll be advised to request a transfer.’

‘A transfer? To where?’ Lucia narrowed her eyes. ‘Advised by whom?’

‘To anywhere you like that’s not CID. By the disciplinary board. By your colleagues probably. By me.’

‘By you,’ Lucia echoed. ‘And if I don’t?’

Cole’s lips curled into a humourless smile. ‘Then I expect that you will be transferred anyway.’

‘You can’t do that.’

‘I can and I will. What’s the big deal, Lucia? You and I both know it’d be doing you a favour.’

‘A favour? In what way would it be doing me a favour?’

Cole reclined in his seat. He gestured with a nod towards the door. ‘Before. Just now. What was going on out there?’

Lucia folded her arms. ‘Why don’t you tell me?’

‘Watch your tone, Inspector.’

‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. But I’d be interested in hearing what you think you saw. Sir.’

For a moment it seemed that Cole would not answer. He was glowering at Lucia and almost as she returned his stare she could see the skin on his face reddening.

‘I saw trouble where before there was calm,’ he said. ‘I saw disruption and discord where before the officers in this department would have counted their colleagues as their closest friends. That’s what I saw, Inspector.’

‘Before. You mean before I joined.’

‘Yes, Lucia. Before you joined.’

Lucia bobbed her head. ‘And that’s what you saw. That’s all you saw.’

The DCI nodded.

Lucia pulled herself upright. ‘You’ve spoken to Travis from what I understand,’ she said. ‘The two of you must have found you had plenty to discuss. You must have found yourselves getting along like sergeant majors at a reunion.’

‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’ said Cole.

Lucia was on her way to the door. She stopped and turned before she answered. ‘Nothing that will worry you, Chief Inspector. It just seems to me that you and Travis have in common a certain way of seeing things.’ She made to move away and then checked herself again. ‘Although, thinking about it, maybe seeing isn’t quite the right word.’

Harry called out to Lucia as she strode from her desk towards the exit. She glanced towards him and half raised her hand but she did not slow. Walter said something as she passed his chair but Lucia ignored him. When she reached the door to the stairwell, she swung it harder than she had expected to. The handle hammered into the already cracked plaster and the sound of wood and glass and metal trembling fled down the stairs and into the depths of the building.

Lucia followed.

As she stepped on to the street she barely noticed the heat. She passed a newsagent, then turned back and went inside. From the stooped Bangladeshi man behind the counter, she bought twenty Marlboro reds and a box of matches and did not wait for her change. She found a bench. It was coated with graffiti and bird muck – like every bench in London, so it seemed – and smeared at one end with something that was probably but not necessarily banana. Lucia sat down anyway. The bench faced the road. Almost immediately a bus pulled up to the kerb. Its doors opened and the driver looked at Lucia and Lucia looked at the driver and the doors closed and the bus pulled away. Lucia took out a cigarette and with her third match managed to light it.

She smoked. Three buses later, she was still smoking. Four or five filters lay at her feet, two of them at least still smouldering. After using it to light another cigarette, she threw the one she was holding to the floor. The first drag of the new cigarette tasted even worse than the last one of the old. Each lungful, in fact, marked a steady decline; Lucia took no pleasure, no relief from what she was doing. She inhaled a second time, coaxing the flame towards the filter, but she drew too hard and she gagged. She coughed. She leant forwards and she retched. She was sick, and her sick splattered across her shoes and swamped the cigarette butts on the ground. Another bus pulled up but did not stop long enough even to open its doors. Lucia spat. She sat upright, wiped her mouth on her sleeve. She had tears in her eyes and though it was the shock of throwing up that had summoned them, she found herself unable to halt their flow. She buried her head in the crook of her elbow. She cleared her throat and spat again. The packet of cigarettes was clutched in her hand, she realised. It was squashed now, from where she had gripped it as a reflex to her stomach muscles contracting. She cast the packet on to the bench, into the banana, and stood up.

For some time Lucia walked. She realised she was drifting towards the school so she took a left and then another and found herself on the borders of Finsbury Park. It was a weekday, not yet lunchtime, and the sun was barely discernible, yet the grass was strewn with blankets and bodies and barbecues ready to be fired up. Lucia found a spot away from the crowd and lay back. She could taste tar and vomit. Her throat felt as though she had just woken up from sleeping all night with her mouth open. She craved water but now she had stopped moving the thought of getting to her feet once again and heading off in search of some filled her with lethargy. It was London and it was summer, Lucia reasoned; it would have to rain eventually. When it did, she would still be lying here. She would part her lips and angle her face to the sky and let the raindrops hit her face and run into her mouth.

But in the end she could not wait. She got to her feet, allowed a moment of dizziness to pass, then wandered towards the gates of the park. In a Sainsbury’s Local she queued to buy some water. Even before she had left the shop she had drained half the bottle and immediately regretted having done so. The water, so cold it was barely fluid, made her head pound and her stomach ache. She was hungry, she realised. She had not eaten since yesterday evening and it was now almost… what? She asked a passer-by. Four. It was gone four. She should go home, she told herself. Except that she did not want to go home. Not to her flat, at least. Instead she walked again, and found a cafe she knew well, and sat by the window picking at a piece of chocolate cake and staring at the building opposite.

She drank tea. Three mugs of it, until the light outside began to fade and the owner of the cafe started to sweep up around her. When the cafe owner left so did Lucia. She lingered though, huddled in the doorway, pacing the length of the block and back again, leaning with one heel raised against the wall of the office block next door. All the time she watched the building opposite. The lights on the third floor were still off. The curtains were not yet drawn. There was no one at the entrance or visible in the stairwell. So Lucia waited, turned away, then turned back and checked again.

It was late when finally he came home. At first she was not sure it was him but when he dropped his keys and cursed and bent on to the balls of his feet to pick them up, she knew. Before she could reconsider she crossed the road. She stopped between two cars, just shy of the kerb. She said, hey, and the sound caught in her throat. She said it louder. And the figure in front of her turned and stepped out of the shadow towards her.