The Child Who

25

It was shabbier than he had expected. Or as shabby, perhaps, as he should have expected, given the outfit that was operating inside. It was a four-floor box of bricks, devoid of architectural flourish and dating, probably, to some time between the wars. The windows on the bottom two levels were papered off, as though the rooms beyond were being used for storage. Indeed, the building as a whole had the look of one of those places people rented by the square foot to dump their junk. Only the sign – the Exeter Post’s red-on-white masthead, underscored with the name of its listed counterpart – confirmed to Leo that he had found the right place. The sign, and the clutch of hacks smoking in the doorway.

He was not among them. Leo got a good look at each of their faces because, after he had raggedly parked his car on the double yellow lines in front of the building, every one of them turned to study his. But the face for which he was looking was not there. Assuming Leo would recognise it. He would, though, surely. He had to.

He shoved his way through the group and towards the entrance, knocking someone’s arm and catching his on an outcrop of ash. He said sorry, did not turn, and pushed, pulled, until he found the right combination to open up a gap in the double glass doors.

Another security desk awaited him; another guard. This one seemed to have noticed the minor scuffle Leo had generated outside and rose, as Leo lurched across the lobby towards him, onto his size twelves.

‘Can I help you?’ He voiced the question as a challenge.

Leo was already looking over the guard’s sizeable polished head at the floor directory on the wall; and, beyond that, to the staircase and a treacherous-looking lift. There was no listing for the art department, if such a thing existed, but editorial was on the third floor. He aimed himself at the stairs.

‘Hey!’ The guard stepped and grabbed. Leo tried to dodge but found himself rooted.

‘Let go of me!’ Leo tugged at the man’s grip.

‘Do you have an appointment? Sir? You can’t just walk in here, you know.’

‘I’m not, I’m… I’m a solicitor! I’m here to see… to see…’

‘ To see who?’ The guard released his hold on Leo’s lapels but built himself into a wall across his path.

‘One of your journalists. Covering the Forbes story.’ It was the only thing he could think of to say. He barely had a face to go on, after all, let alone a name.

‘Oh yeah? Which one?’ The gorilla folded its arms.

And then it came to him. Not the name he needed but a name nonetheless. ‘Cummins,’ he said. ‘Tim Cummins.’ The name on the byline. A man he had encountered, once in a while, amid the press gang that haunted the local courts.

The guard frowned. His lips gave a twitch and his arms, reluctantly, loosened.

‘Is he here? Please tell him Leo Curtice is here to see him.’ Leo straightened his jacket, settled his shoulders and fixed the man looming over him with his best supercilious stare.

Tim Cummins emerged from the lift with a finger in his teeth. He was precisely as unshaven as he was the last time Leo had seen him – on the steps outside the police station the day following Daniel’s arrest – which made him think the man’s sloth might be affected; a provincial attempt at Fleet Street flair. But then he withdrew his finger, nibbled at whatever piece of breakfast he had dislodged and extended the same hand for Leo to shake.

‘Mr Curtice. Leo! What brings you to these parts?’

‘Tim. Thanks for seeing me.’ Leo swallowed his distaste. He glanced towards the security guard, who was loitering with malcontent.

Cummins seemed to notice too. ‘Relax, Tiny. Stand down. Mr Curtice here is a personal friend.’

From the snarl that bubbled on the guard’s lips, he appeared not to appreciate the nickname.

The journalist herded Leo away from the guard and towards the lift. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘listen, buddy. I am so sorry about this business with your daughter.’ He shook his head at the floor, worked a fingernail once more between his teeth. ‘But if there’s any way I can help. I mean, you’d be surprised how much traction an interview will get you. Have you thought about that? A one-to-one. Just me and you. We’d keep things tasteful, I promise. Tug a few heartstrings but all for a good cause.’ He raised an eyebrow.

‘Actually,’ said Leo, ‘there is something you can do to help.’

‘Really? Great. Just say the word, buddy.’

‘I’m looking for a colleague of yours. A photographer.’

Cummins let his disappointment show.

‘He said he was freelance. He was young, ish, and wore a cap. It had a logo on it. A picture of a shark or something. It looked American. From a baseball team maybe.’

‘Football. The Miami Dolphins. But… er… I’m not sure who you mean. We have so many snappers, Leo – particularly the jobbing kind. It’s a big paper, buddy.’

It was not. It was a local rag with tabloid airs. And Cummins was lying.

‘Listen, Tim. This is important. It’s to do with my daughter. I’m asking for help. Please. I need your help.’

They reached the lift. Cummins jabbed a button, summoning his means of escape. ‘Sorry, Leo.’ He spoke to the lights above the doors. ‘Can’t help you. I’d love to, you know I would, but Tiny over there: he probably knows more of the faces that come and go here than I do. Why don’t you ask him?’

The guard was on the phone now, seated and angled towards the wall.

‘This photographer,’ said Leo to Cummins. ‘He followed us. Me and my family. To Dawlish. All we were doing was buying ice cream.’

Cummins glanced.

‘He said he was working for the Post,’ Leo said.

Cummins hit the call button again. He sniffed, gave his head a single shake. ‘I can only apologise, Leo. Darryl Blunt, our lifestyle editor: he thinks he’s running OK! I’ll have a word with Daz on your behalf. Tell him to keep a leash on his paparazzi.’ He studied the lights, tapped his foot.

‘It was you,’ Leo said. ‘Wasn’t it? You sent him. You’ve been sniffing for an angle on the Forbes story from day one.’ How does it feel: isn’t that what Cummins had asked him, that day outside the police station? How does your family feel about your involvement in this case?

The lift arrived. Cummins beamed.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘this is me. Good to see you, Leo. Thanks for stopping by.’ He seemed to consider holding out a hand but did not. ‘Best of luck with… er… everything.’ He darted into the empty compartment and started jabbing at one of the numbers.

‘Tim. Please! I just need his name. His address. Anything!’

Cummins gave a lazy salute. ‘Take care, buddy.’ The doors of the lift began to close.

Leo glanced over his shoulder, at the guard still whispering into his phone. He looked at Cummins, at his fleshy grin about to vanish behind a sheen of metal. And then he sprung: between the doors and into the lift, in pursuit of his very last hope.

He had lied. The address was a fake. The name too, probably. Leo had half a mind to go back there. Not half a mind: he would. Right now. He would call the police if it came to it, or threaten to, or—

He stopped mid-step, squinted at Cummins’s scrawl on the scrap of paper. Unless… this was it. Was it? The address, after twenty minutes searching, seemed to match. Flat 2, 2b Plymouth New Road, which did not sound like a real address at all – but here, on a door that looked like a fire exit, was a 2 and a drunken b. There were no names on the buzzers so Leo pressed the middle one of the three. He held it, until the buzzing gave way to static.

‘Yeah? Who’s there?’

‘Mr, er…’ Leo checked the name again, then changed his mind and slipped the note into his pocket. ‘Er… Archie? Is that you?’

‘Yeah. S’right. Who’s that?’

‘This is, um, Tim Cummins. From the Post.’ Leo put on his deepest, fattest voice. ‘I need to talk to you.’

‘Tim? What’s up? Can it wait? I’m not exactly up yet.’

Leo looked incredulously at his watch. ‘No! It can’t! I mean…’ Deeper. Fatter. ‘Just let me in. Er, buddy. It’s important.’

There was a groan, followed by a rasping sound: an intercom receiver, perhaps, being dragged across sandpaper skin. And then a pause, which extended – until a siren-loud buzzing beckoned Leo in.

The hallway was windowless and unlit. Leo stood blind amid a stench like bins until a cleft of light broke the darkness on the landing.

‘Hit the lights,’ came a voice. ‘The switch right beside you.’

Leo reached for the wall, then pulled back. He headed instead for the hulking shadow of the staircase.

‘On the wall. Right beside you. Oh for God’s sake. Here.’ Movement: the silhouette of a shuffling dressing gown. And then the bulb in the hallway came on, casting a light as thick as the lingering odour. Leo was only halfway up the stairs.

‘Tim? Is that… You! What the hell are you doing here?’

Leo accelerated. He started bounding up the stairs two by two.

Archie, the photographer, took fright. He did not wait for Leo to explain but dived from the light switch on the landing back towards his apartment door. He tripped, on the cord of his dressing gown, and fell through the doorway. He landed with a yelp just as Leo scrambled to the threshold.

‘What do you want? What are you doing here?’ Archie rolled onto his heels and hands. He scrabbled backwards as Leo advanced.

‘The photographs. The ones you took of my family. I need to see them.’

‘But how did you…’ Archie collided crown-first with a wall. His hand slipped beneath him and he crumpled once again onto the grubby carpet. He reached for his head and screwed up his eyes. ‘Ow. Fucking ow.’

Leo hesitated. The man in front of him was a mess. Beneath his robe, which was hanging from one shoulder and gaping across his girlish frame, he had on boxers and a vest: the type Leo wore, and that made even Leo feel old. His eyes were slits and his skin pale. Symptoms of spending too much time in a darkroom, Leo would have said, had he not seen the man looking perfectly healthy the last time they had met.

‘What’s wrong with you? Are you okay?’

‘No. I’m fucking not.’ The man shuffled until he was sitting, shifting his weight onto his backside and hooking his arms over his knees. He hung his head. ‘I’m fucking dying. What the hell do you want?’

‘I told you, I… Look. Really. Can I get you something?’

Archie laughed, as though tickled by his impending wit. The laugh turned into a cough. ‘Some morphine, maybe. A replacement head. Even a Bloody Mary might do the trick.’

A Bloody Mary? Leo took another step. He leant and he sniffed. ‘You’re hungover?’

‘Actually, scratch that.’ Archie pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. ‘Just the thought of vodka makes me wanna…’

Leo dropped beside him, grabbed his dressing gown and shook the man straight. ‘The photographs! Where are they!’

‘Ow! For fuck’s sa—’

‘I don’t have time for this! I need the photographs now.’

‘Seriously! The decibels! I told you, I’m fucking dy—’

‘I DON’T CARE.’ Each word seemed to strike like a blow. Leo tried standing, meaning to drag the photographer upright. ‘STAND UP. STAND UP!’ He hauled but the man was like a ton of sleeping cat. ‘I’M NOT GOING TO ASK YOU AGAIN! STAND UP! I SAID, STAND—’

‘Okay!’ Archie reached a hand to the wall. He started to claw himself vertical. ‘Just stop shouting, will you?’ He found his feet and dragged a hand across his pallid face. He blinked.

‘The photo—’

‘The photographs. I heard you. Just give me a minute. Okay? Five fucking seconds.’

He looked left, right, then stumbled deeper into the apartment. Leo followed. At the doorway to the living room, he stopped short, marvelling at the scene beyond. It was carnage. A battlefield, with the casualties yet to be removed. There was a girl curled between ashtrays on a flammable-looking sofa, and a man strewn across an armchair. Beneath Jimi Hendrix posters sagging from the smoke-stained walls, record sleeves vied with beer bottles for floor space. There were patches, too, of visible carpet: person-shaped, suggesting not all of Archie’s guests had failed to make it home.

‘I told you I’d delete them. Didn’t I?’

Leo turned. Archie seemed to be searching for somewhere to slump. He settled for a spot furthest from the daylight that was seeping through the blinds, in the shade of a gargantuan rubber plant.

Archie was right. Leo had forgotten. Not forgotten: he had not believed what the photographer had told him in the first place. ‘Did you?’

Archie shrugged, shook his head. ‘Nope.’ He extended a foot, prodded a laptop beside the coffee table with a toe. ‘They’re on there. Help yourself. But hey! Mind the carpet!’

Leo, in his rush, had toppled a highball. The liquid inside merely merged into a pre-existing stain.

‘It’s not working.’ Leo was kneeling now, pressing, holding, prodding the computer’s on button. He looked at Archie, who had his eyes closed.

‘The battery’s buggered,’ the photographer said. ‘You need to plug it in. But seriously!’ At the sound of clinking beer bottles, Archie opened his eyes and raised his drooping head. ‘You’re making a mess!’

Leo knocked over another bottle as he lunged for a power socket. He ignored Archie’s remonstrations and beat the plug into the wall.

‘What’s the password?’ Leo said, when the screen on the laptop prompted him. ‘Archie! What’s the—’

‘Jimi!’ Archie snapped back. ‘That’s i, m, i, all lower case.’

Leo typed two-fingered. ‘And the folder. Which folder? Jesus, Archie, there’s hundreds of—’

‘The date! They’re sorted by date. You’re really not helping my headache, you know. I should call the fuzz or something.’

Archie grumbled on but Leo stopped listening. He was searching the photographer’s hard drive, which was mercifully better organised than the man’s living space. Kneeling over the screen and working his fingertip clumsily on the touchpad, Leo located a directory that was arranged by month. He found February, and then the week, and then the day of their trip to Dawlish. He clicked again, twice in succession, and the screen was filled with thumbnails of his daughter. On the village green carrying her ice cream. In the parlour choosing the flavour. Outside, on the pavement. Emerging, further up the street, from the clothes shop with Meg. In her seat, on the train, marvelling at the sea.

Leo dragged the computer to the top of his thighs and leant his head in close. His daughter. Image after image of his daughter and in not one of them, it struck Leo, was Ellie smiling. He reached a fingertip to touch his daughter’s cheek. He felt instead the coldness of the laptop’s screen.

‘You were on the train,’ Leo said. ‘You were taking pictures of us even before we got there?’

Archie was a ball on the floor, his eyes shut once again and his nostrils pressed into the carpet. ‘I was following you,’ he mumbled. ‘You went by train. Er-fucking-go.’

Leo scrolled again through the thumbnails, focusing on the images of his family crossing the green.

‘How do I enlarge these?’

Archie did not answer but Leo had worked it out for himself. He double clicked an image, scanned it, closed it again. He checked another, and then another, and then another. There was nothing, no one. He zoomed in, then reset the image. He opened another, zoomed, panned out again. A beard. Anyone with a beard. Anyone who looked even remotely like the man Megan had seen at the—

A face. Masked, almost, by an upturned collar, a beanie pulled low over the eyes. Leo zoomed. He stared. And he heard the voice.

Not exactly beach weather is it, Leo?