A Thousand Cuts (16 page)

‘You don’t know me, Philip. You’re David’s friend really, not mine. I’ve seen you what. Twice in six months.’

‘That’s twice more than I’ve seen David. And he was a colleague. He became a friend by default. He became a friend because we became friends.’

Again Lucia shook her head. ‘You don’t know what I’m thinking. You wouldn’t want to know what I’ve been thinking, why I’ve been doing what I’ve been doing.’

‘Tell me,’ Philip said. ‘Tell me why you think you’ve been doing what you’ve been doing.’

Lucia stopped. She bit down hard and returned Philip’s gaze.

‘Tell me,’ Philip said again.

‘Fine,’ said Lucia. ‘I will, if you want to know. It’s because I feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for the man who murdered three children. I can put myself in his situation and I can imagine doing what he did.’

Philip did not hesitate. ‘Nonsense,’ he said.

‘I told you.’ Lucia resumed pacing.

‘You feel sorry for him. I can’t say I agree but I can empathise. That’s all though. That’s where it ends. You could never do what he did. None of us could. Maybe one person in a hundred million could do what he did.’ Philip took Lucia’s shoulder and brought her to a halt. ‘Lucia. Listen to me. It’s not pity that’s guiding your judgement on this. If I know you at all, you came to a decision in spite of how you felt, not because of it. You were right and your boss was wrong. Morally. You were right.’

‘He was jilted, Philip. The woman he loved dumped him and started sleeping with the bloke he despised more than anyone. There’s your motive. I didn’t mention that before, did I?’

‘A contributing factor,’ Philip said. ‘Nothing more. This man, why did Szajkowski despise him? Because he tormented him, am I right? And his affair with this woman. Who’s to say it wasn’t conceived as part of the same torment?’

Lucia began to move again, three strides one way, three strides back. ‘Szajkowski’s sister,’ she said. ‘She told me about Samuel, about how cruel he could be. She told me he was a bully himself.’

‘Sibling rivalry,’ Philip countered. ‘Prejudicial and unsubstantiated and therefore inadmissible. Irrelevant too, probably, because all brothers fight with their sisters. Please, Lucia. Will you please stand still for just a moment?’

Lucia stopped. She allowed Philip to reach for her hands. ‘Sarah Kingsley,’ she said. ‘The girl who died. I spoke to her father. He said something about lashing out. About twisting pain into anger. That’s me, Philip. That’s how I feel.’

‘He was bullied, Lucia. He was being bullied and the school knew about it and the school refused to act. It was negligent. As an employer, as an organisation responsible for the well-being of its staff, the school was negligent. Those are the facts.’

‘Didn’t you say, Philip? Didn’t you tell me that I was wrong? Didn’t you tell me to drop the case?’

‘I told you to drop the case. I never said that you were wrong.’

‘You should be gloating then. You should be telling me you told me so. You should be delighting in the fact that you were right.’

‘That’s hurtful, Lucia. That’s a hurtful thing to say. Besides, I wasn’t right. I was telling you to ignore your conscience. Since when could that be considered right?’

Lucia bit her lip, twisted her head away. She felt a tear at the corner of her eye. Before she could free a hand to catch it, the tear was loose and running towards her mouth. She rolled a shoulder across her cheek and then slid past Philip and out of his grip and sat down again on the bench.

‘What do I do?’ she said. She spoke to her feet. ‘What should I do?’

‘If you mean should you quit, the answer is no. Not now. Not while you’re feeling like this.’ Philip rested a hand on the arm of the bench. ‘If you mean what should you do about Szajkowski . . . Well.’ He exhaled through his nostrils. ‘I don’t know, Lucia. The honest answer is, I don’t know.’

Lucia felt an urge to laugh. She gave in to it but the laugh came out as a sob. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes as though to force her tears back inside.

Philip cleared his throat. ‘Lucia. Maybe this isn’t the best time. It’s just, I have a small confession to make.’

‘A what?’

‘Don’t get angry.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Just don’t get angry when I tell you this.’

‘What did you do, Philip?’

‘I . . . ’ Philip coughed again. ‘I spoke to David.’

Lucia pulled herself upright. ‘You did what?’

‘I didn’t mention your name.’

‘I should hope not!’

‘But he guessed anyway.’

‘Oh, Philip!’

Philip showed Lucia his palms. ‘It’s not my field, Lucia. I deal with chief executives. I deal with CFOs, with accountants. What do I know about criminal law?’

‘It’s not exactly David’s field either.’

‘It is. Just about. He came to us from the CPS. He deals with civil litigation at the firm he works for now.’

‘That’s not the point, Philip.’ Lucia was shaking her head. She could feel her tears evaporating as her cheeks burnt. ‘You know that’s not the point.’

‘Lucia, please. I thought it would help. I thought David might be able to help. You came to me for legal advice but you may as well have asked your conveyancer.’

Lucia glared at Philip, then turned her face away. After a moment, she allowed her eyes once again to meet his. ‘What did he say?’

Philip shrugged a guilty shrug. He winced. ‘He said what I said.’

‘He said what you said.’

‘That’s why I almost didn’t mention it. He said there was no precedent. He said the only thing that came close was a case a few years back of a pupil suing a school. He said that even if you could find a prosecutor ambitious enough to take it on, it would never come to trial. He reminded me that it was an election year.’

‘You sound like Cole. My boss. You could be Cole talking.’

‘I don’t agree with it, Lucia. I’m just telling you how it is.’

Lucia stood. She wiped her eyes again and adjusted her blouse. She stepped past Philip and cast around to get her bearings. ‘Which way’s the tube?’

‘Take a cab. I’ll expense it.’

Lucia shook her head. ‘I’d rather take the tube. I’m sorry, Philip. You’re busy and I’m wasting your time. All I’m doing is wasting time.’

‘Don’t say that. Please don’t say that. I just wish there were something more I could do.’

‘You’ve done enough.’ Lucia brushed her lips against his cheek. ‘Thank you. You’ve done all you can do.’ She made to go.

‘Lucia. Wait. There’s one more thing. It’s not important but I said I’d mention it.’

Lucia waited. She knew what was coming and she knew she should be angry but she was not. ‘I’m not going to talk to him, Philip.’

‘Just a phone call. You don’t have to go and—’

‘I’m not going to talk to him, Philip.’ She turned and she started walking. She did not know whether Philip could hear her but she said it again anyway. ‘I’m not.’

I’m not sure either. I’m on a boat, I think, and I’m wearing this jumper that I liked. It had a flower on it.

Do you wanna know my earliest memory of Sam?

He’s pinching me. I was four, I think, maybe five so he would of been seven, I guess, maybe eight. I’m on my back and he’s got his knees on me and I’ve got one arm free and I’m hitting him but he’s ignoring it or not feeling it cos he’s focused on my other arm and he’s pinching me here, here, here, all the way up and he’s pinching me and he’s smiling. I remember it clearly. It’s like it was on the TV just the other night.

He hated me. I hated him but he hated me first. He resented me. That’s what Annie says. She says he didn’t hate me he resented me but I looked up the word resent and it basically means that he hated me. I knew what resent meant already by the way. I’m not stupid, I just like to check. I have a dictionary, Annie got it for me, and I like to check what words mean cos sometimes they mean something different from what you think they mean, not a lot always but enough to change what you’re saying when you don’t want it to. Do you know what I mean?

I’m glad cos not everyone does. Some people use words without even caring what they really mean. They just say em and think about what they’re saying after they’ve finished saying it.

My dad was good at words. He’s dead now. He drowned. I was ten. But he used to have these books, they were full of puzzles: crosswords and wordsearches and what are those ones where the letters are all mixed up and you have to put em back in the right order? Like on
Countdown
, at the end, the ones I can never get.

Right. Anagrams. So my dad would sit there every night with one of them books and sometimes he’d let me sit with him, if I was quiet and I didn’t wriggle, and I’d help him or I’d try to. I could do the wordsearches, I was good at em, but I don’t like crosswords, I never liked crosswords. Sam could do crosswords. Sometimes if Dad got stuck he would ask Sam and Sam would say it’s this or it’s that or sometimes he would just shrug but most of the time he would know. Sam went to university in the end. Dad said he would and he did. He shouldn’t of though, that’s what Annie says. He should of stayed with me, that’s what Annie says. Annie says that if Sam had stayed it would of been better for everyone: me, she says, Sam, she says, her, she says, them kids. But I’d rather have Annie than him. I’d of run away if they’d of made me live with him.

Annie? Annie’s like my mum. She’s not my mum but she looks out for me. Ever since they moved me here, Annie stops by and checks up on me. They give her the bus fare, that’s what Annie says. For stopping by. Sometimes she comes to the supermarket too. That’s where I work. If Annie comes I get an extra break but she doesn’t come all that often.

Do you wanna know how my real mum died?

It’s okay, I don’t mind saying. My brother killed her. Not Sam. My other brother. But he’s dead too, he died at the same time. He didn’t mean to kill her but he did. He killed her with complications. I was eight.

Do you wanna know what Sam did when she died? He burnt her clothes. Her dresses and her trousers and her jumpers and her skirts. He took em out of her wardrobe and he made a big pile in the garden and he burnt em. My dad and me, we found him. My dad did really but when he started shouting I found the both of em too. When I found em, though, my dad had stopped shouting and he was hugging Sam instead. Sam was crying. I could see he was crying but he was hitting too. He was hitting my dad, on his back and on his arms, but my dad was just hugging him. I watched. The fire went out after a while and Sam stopped hitting but he didn’t stop crying. Him and my dad, they just stood there. There was smoke. There was lots of smoke.

After Dad died, we got taken away. They took us from our house and I thought we were coming back but when we left that was it. I had this necklace, it was my mum’s, I left it there and they said they’d fetch it but they never did. I cried about that necklace. I cried about that necklace almost as much as I cried about my mum, which is a silly thing to do, I think, that’s what Annie would say if I ever told her. Now when I cry I cry about Mum or about Dad, not about the necklace. I don’t cry as much as I used to though. I have Annie and she’s like a mum. I have necklaces too, other necklaces, although not one of em is as pretty as my mum’s was.

Sam and me, we were in the same place but we slept in different rooms. He slept with the boys and I slept with the girls. So we were in the same place but it didn’t feel like we were. We didn’t talk to each other hardly ever. I don’t reckon Sam talked to anyone hardly at all, not if he could help it. That’s what got him in trouble. That’s why they moved us. It was Sam they wanted to move, for his sake, they said, but cos he was my brother they moved us both. I didn’t want to go. I told em, move Sam, don’t move me. Just cos he’s my brother. Just cos he can’t stand up for himself. But they moved us both.

It was the same at the next place. It was the same at every place. Sam sat and Sam read and Sam always got into trouble. He ruined it. He ruined things. I made friends but cos of Sam we were always leaving. I told him once, I said, why do you keep wrecking things, why can’t you be normal, and he called me simple, he said I was retarded, he said I was the one who wasn’t normal. I hit him and he hit me back. He hit me harder. He had a temper. Most of the time he didn’t show it but he showed it in front of me. They gave us these dolls at one place. They were rubber and you could bend em and twist em and try to snap em but you couldn’t break em. They told us, use em when you’re angry, use em when you’re stressed. But Sam didn’t use his. Sam used me.

Do you wanna know what he did once? He cracked my head against a wall, against a corner. This was in the third place we were at. We were in my room, I can’t remember why but I remember we were arguing. He’s calling me simple again, saying he can’t understand why I like it here, in this place. I say to him, what’s wrong with here, at least it’s somewhere, at least it’s where we are, not some place where we’re going. And he says, what are you talking about, stop talking nonsense, you shouldn’t talk at all if all you can talk is nonsense. I say, it’s not nonsense, it’s sense. I say, I just like being where I am and I don’t like moving and I wish just for once he wouldn’t ruin things. Cos he was already having trouble and we were already thinking we’d be moved again, which now I come to think of it is the reason we were arguing in my room. And I was only talking, that’s all I was doing, but Sam, he decides to hit me. So course I hit him back and then he hits me again and then we’re fighting and grabbing each other and falling over and wrestling like they do on TV and the next thing I know I don’t know nothing. When I wake up I’m on a bed and one of the wardens is looking down on me. He’s putting something on my head and it hurts. Also, I know then that we’re definitely gonna be leaving again and that hurts almost as much.

It left a scar. I needed stitches so it left a scar. You can see it if I move my hair. Here. No, wait, it’s this side. Here. See? Sam did that.