The Child Who

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 there’s bound to be a lot of attention. I just wanted you to know that… that it’s to be expected. That it’s nothing to worry about. That it might be uncomfortable for a while but it will pass.’

Ellie regarded him.

‘Honestly, Ellie, that’s all.’ Leo held his daughter’s gaze for as long as he dared divert his from the road ahead. Slowly, Ellie withdrew into her seat. She resumed her vigil of the passing pavement.

Leo tried to think of something else to say that was not a condescension or a cliché or in fact an outright lie. He opened his mouth but it was his daughter who spoke first.

‘Did he do it?’

Leo turned halfway, then fully. ‘What?’

‘Did he do it.’

‘What? Who?’

‘Dad.’

‘Ellie, I… You know I can’t…’

‘You must know. Right? You’re his lawyer. Right?’

‘I’m his solicitor. Which means that whether he did it or not, or whether I think he did it, is entirely beside the—’

Ellie rolled her eyes.

‘Don’t roll your eyes at me, young lady.’

‘I didn’t.’ She spoke to the window.

‘You did. I saw you. You just did.’

‘You weren’t answering the question.’

‘I was! I was explaining, if you’ll let me, the role a solicitor, in circumstances such as these, is obliged, by professional necessity, to—’

She did it again.

‘Ellie!’

‘You’re still not answering.’

‘I was, I—’

‘You sound like a teacher. You sound like Mr Smithson.’

Which, for a moment, flummoxed him. ‘Ellie. There is nothing wrong with explaining, when an explanation is needed, how things—’

‘You’re dissembling.’

It was a word he never thought he would hear from a teenager. ‘I’m what?’ He had to smile.

‘Dissembling. Don’t laugh. It’s a word.’

‘I know, but—’

‘It means talking shit.’

‘Eleanor!’

‘What? It does. Mum used it and I looked it up and basically it means you’re talking—’

‘That’s enough!’

‘– so you don’t have to answer.’ Ellie’s voice withered into silence.

Leo was open-mouthed. He gripped the wheel and emptied his lungs through his nostrils. Dissembling. Ha. He would have to remember that at the office this afternoon.

‘What’s funny?’

‘What? Nothing. I was just… Nothing. You shouldn’t swear, Ellie.’

His daughter watched him as they drove. The turn-off towards Ellie’s school was approaching and Leo signalled left. He hated this part of their journey. In the time it took him to make the detour, he would cede to his rival commuters all the ground he had worked so hard the past three miles to gain. It seemed so futile. Just like work, he had often thought. Every case, like every car, was as one-paced and nondescript as the next. If you managed to get past one, there would always be another. And another, just as long as you remained on the road. That, at least, is how it had been.

‘Dad.’

‘Mm?’

‘If he did it… I mean, okay, you’re his solicitor and whatever, blah blah blah. But if he did it…’

Leo was about to interrupt but was distracted by the brake lights on the car in front. They flickered and flicked off and then finally fixed on red.

‘… why are you defending him?’

The driver ahead seemed to have stalled. There had been a gap at the junction but he – she? – had changed his mind at the last moment. The car behind Leo’s blared its frustration. Leo glanced in the rear-view mirror, then dragged a palm across his eyes.

‘Dad?’

‘Ellie. Sorry. What did you say?’

‘I said, why are you defending him?’

Finally the gap became a chasm and the car ahead peeled right. Leo accelerated in its wake and the Passat lurched clumsily to the left.

‘Defending… What? No. I’m not defending him, Ellie – not in the sense you mean. I’m representing him is what I’m doing. There’s a difference.’ Leo took a breath. ‘One of the great things about this country, about our legal system, is that everyone, no matter how heinous the alleged crime, has the absolute, unimpeachable right to qualified representation, to trial before a courtroom. Habeas corpus, it’s called. It’s a question of process. Which means, in this case, that…’ Leo interrupted himself when he caught sight of his daughter’s expression. ‘Mr Smithson. Right?’

His daughter nodded. ‘I know he gets to have a lawyer. I’m not stupid. What I mean is, why does he get you?’

‘Me? He gets me because…’ Leo lifted a shoulder. ‘Because I was there. Because it’s my job.’

‘You could say no, though. If he did what they say he did, you should say no.’

Leo made a face. ‘It’s not that simple. I mean, there are other…’

‘You could, though. Couldn’t you? You should. I really think you should.’

Ellie wore an adult, earnest expression that did not sit easily on her fragile features. She looked pale, almost grey. She looked, in fact, as if she was close to tears – although these days it was often difficult to tell.

‘Look, darling. I don’t get to pick and choose who I represent. It doesn’t work like that. And anyway…’ He had not yet said it, not out loud. ‘I want this case. I really think I do. You might not understand that yet but one day, I promise, you will. This is a good case, Ellie. This is good for my career.’ And that was the point: for all his father’s misplaced pride, what had Leo really been doing with his life except mopping up the spillage from the high-street bars? This case was something more: a chance, as his father had put it, to make a difference.

‘Even though you said it would be awful?’ Ellie asked. His daughter’s tone was even but her expression was ominously rigid.

‘I didn’t say that. I didn’t say awful.’

‘You did. You said it would be awful and you said we should all be worried.’

Leo laughed. He could not help it.

‘Could you please pull over now.’

‘Ellie. Please. I didn’t say awful, I said uncomfortable – that it might get uncomfortable, not that it would necessarily. And I said you shouldn’t be—’

‘Dad! Pull over. Let me out. Please, let me out.’

‘It’s raining, Ellie. We’re still a block away.’

‘Pull over. Just here. Please, Dad. Dad!’

‘Okay, okay!’ Leo braked, harder than he had intended, and swung the car to the kerbside. ‘Ellie, look…’

His daughter had unbuckled her seatbelt and her fingers were reaching for the door catch.

‘Wait,’ said Leo. ‘Ellie! Don’t I at least get a…’

But his daughter was already gone.

He should have been braced for the frenzy at the police station. A twelve-year-old boy was helping the police with their inquiries; for the time being they were not looking for anyone else. For the stringers, TV reporters and local hacks, it was as enticing an invitation as an open bar.

Leo almost made it through. He was of average height and build and wore nothing more arresting than a high-street suit. Aside from his boxy, decade-old briefcase, he might have passed for an overdressed journalist or a face-man for the local news. The local newsmen, however, were all in attendance, having grabbed prime position by the doors. They knew Leo; Leo knew them. It was the crime reporter from the Post who spotted him first.

‘Mr Curtice! Leonard! Over here, Leonard!’

‘Excuse me,’ said Leo. ‘Thank you. Sorry. Excuse me.’ He sensed the television cameras tracking him and trained his gaze at shoulder height.

‘Leonard! Leo! Hey, Leo.’ A hand around Leo’s elbow and he turned.

‘Tim. Hi. Sorry. If you’ll excuse me. I really have to…’ Leo tried to forge ahead but the scrum enclosed him. The grip on his arm tightened.

‘What’s going on, Leo?’ Tim Cummins pressed his stubbled, fleshy face towards Leo’s. ‘Who have they got in there?’

‘I can’t comment, Tim, you know that. If you’ll excuse—’

‘Can’t comment on what, Leo? You’re not denying that this is your case?’

‘Please, Tim, I really should be—’

‘Who’s the client, Leo? Is he local? Will he be charged?’

Leo shook free his arm. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, with more force this time. He shoved and the journalists closest to him stumbled. Cummins dropped his notebook. He let it lie, raising himself instead on his tiptoes.

‘You have a daughter, right, Leo? How do you feel about what happened to the Forbes girl? How does your family feel about your involvement in this case?’

Leo felt himself flush. He did not look back but pressed his way onwards, leaking from the crowd and through the doorway.

Inside it was no less frantic. Exeter Police Station was an inert place, usually: a city-sized precinct for small-town misdemeanours where business was conducted with languid efficiency. Not today. Officers – some uniformed, others suited – streaked from doorway to doorway, bearing files or flapping pages and with an air that there was somewhere else they needed to be.

Leo’s entrance, nevertheless, did not go unnoticed. The desk sergeant was waiting. A tall man, wide too, he had his long arms locked and his hands splayed on the counter. Leo gave a twitch in the officer’s direction. It was ignored. Leo straightened his jacket and pinched his tie-knot and failed to stop himself checking across his shoulder as he started forwards. Cummins, he saw, was pressed against the glass of the door, his hands around his eyes. How do you feel? he had asked. How does your family feel? As though Leo’s family were anyone’s business but his own.

Leo approached the desk. His jacket was twisted and he shrugged a shoulder. He glanced back towards the entrance, then faced the man on reception. There was no question about who would speak first.

‘Good morning,’ Leo said. He cleared his throat. ‘I have an appointment. With a client.’

The desk sergeant drew back. ‘Your name… sir?’ The desk sergeant’s was Brian and he surely knew Leo’s.

‘Curtice,’ said Leo through a frown. ‘Leonard Curtice.’ He allowed his expression to settle. ‘I’m sorry if I’m late but there was quite a crowd on the—’

‘Sign here. Then go through there.’ The desk sergeant flicked his chin towards a set of double doors.

So this would be the way of things, Leo thought as he recrossed the lobby. Howard had warned him, just as he in turn had warned his daughter, but still he had not been prepared. It was discomfiting, he would admit. But no matter. Yes, his daughter was upset but she was, after all, only fifteen years old – she could not be expected to understand. As for the desk sergeant, the local hacks, anyone else who had assumed he had sided with Felicity’s murderer: their ignorance, surely, was their problem. At least now Leo understood. At least, now, he knew the extent of the hostility he would have to deal with.

He shifted his briefcase from left hand to right and once again adjusted his tie. He passed through the set of double doors. There was an escort waiting for him on the other side. The man nodded and the nod gave Leo heart. He called Leo ‘sir’ and without a hint of a sneer. He behaved properly, professionally, and Leo resolved to do the same. He would talk to Ellie and he would bear all the rest. Here, now, he had a job to do.