A Thousand Cuts (26 page)

‘Sex.’

‘No! Hell. Not sex.’ A corner of his mouth twitched upwards. ‘At least, not right away.’

Lucia rolled her eyes. ‘I’m trying to be serious, David. I’m trying to have a serious conversation.’

‘So am I, Lucia. I mean, what am I supposed to think? You can’t deny that you’ve been giving me some mixed-up signals.’

‘That’s not true,’ Lucia said. ‘You know that’s not true.’

‘You hugged me. When you first saw me, you hugged me.’

‘That was a reflex! It was platonic.’

‘You were laughing at my jokes all evening. They weren’t even that funny.’

‘I was being polite, David. Your jokes are never particularly funny.’

‘You let me kiss you goodnight.’

‘You kissed me goodnight? When did you kiss me goodnight? ’

‘When you were lying down. On the couch.’

‘Lying down? With my eyes closed? Sort of breathing heavily? That’s called sleep, David. That’s called being asleep. You may have kissed me but, trust me, there was no consent.’

David shifted. As he moved, the tablecloth twisted. He ran a hand across the surface to flatten it out. ‘Well, anyway. The point is, you spent the night at my flat. Wearing just my T-shirt and a pair of knickers.’

Their table was tucked in one corner, against the bar and away from the entrance. Behind Lucia a Kentia palm loomed, close enough for her to feel the tips of its leaves against her hair. She felt prickles, too, of attention from the table across from theirs. When she spoke again, she kept her voice low. ‘You need to get that image out of your head,’ she said. ‘Because it was a mistake. Clearly it was a mistake. I should have waited until morning. Maybe I shouldn’t have come at all.’ She made to stand. Before she could extricate herself from the palm, however, David reached across and put a hand on her forearm.

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Wait. Sit down, Lucia, please.’

The waiter arrived with their food, blocking Lucia’s only path out of the restaurant. She hesitated. She glanced at David.

‘Please,’ he said. ‘Please sit down.’

Lucia sat, on the edge of her chair, and the waiter set the plates in front of them. The tart was brown. As far as Lucia could tell, that was the only characteristic it shared with the chocolate cake she had pictured in her mind. She nudged her plate towards the centre of the table and watched as David prodded his pasta with his fork.

‘Look, David. I’m sorry. If I gave you the wrong impression, I’m sorry. But surely you can’t expect me . . . I mean, after what you did . . . ’

David coughed. He gave the pasta another prod, then set down his fork and raised his head. ‘What can I do, Lucia? You said you needed my help. What can I do?’

Lucia reached across the table and slid her fingers under his. She smiled. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Really.’

David shrugged. ‘I haven’t done anything yet. You haven’t even told me what you want.’

‘No,’ said Lucia. She withdrew her hand. ‘No, I haven’t.’

‘So? Tell me.’

‘For the moment, all I need is information.’

‘Information? What kind of information?’

Lucia propped her elbows in the space where her plate should have been. ‘Start by telling me what you told Philip. After that ... Well. After that, we’ll just have to see.’

Well, he didn’t show me as such but I saw it. The week before the shooting, this was. We were in the staffroom and I was sitting next to him and I spotted it when he opened his briefcase.

I say
the
gun but I suppose it was just
a
gun. I’m only assuming it was the one he used. To be honest, it didn’t even look like it would fire but that sort of tallies with what people have been saying. That it was an antique. A museum piece. From the war or something. That’s what people are saying, isn’t it?

So it was
the
gun, I suppose. It was wedged between a file and a stack of papers, like it was a Thermos flask or his lunch box or something. Like it was anything but what it was.

I say, Samuel, sort of laughing. That’s not what I think it is, is it? He says, pardon me, and I nod. That, I say. In the case. It’s not what I think it is.

Oh, says Samuel. Oh. You mean this?

And he lifts the lid of his case wide and picks up the gun by the handle. His finger finds the trigger and for a moment the barrel is pointing right at my head.

I sort of laugh again. I mean, I wouldn’t make much of a policeman, would I? Someone points a gun at my head and all I can do is give a nervous giggle. But anyway, that’s what I did. And I say, Samuel, I’d rather you . . . I mean if you could not please . . . So I giggle and I can’t even finish a sentence.

Samuel says oh again. He says, no, no, no, don’t worry. And he turns the barrel so it’s pointing at the back of his case, at the upturned lid of his case, and beyond the lid, sitting opposite, is Terence, Terence Jones, TJ to those who know him, and Samuel’s got the gun pointed right at him. And TJ can’t see this because he’s reading the newspaper and anyway the gun’s still hidden by the briefcase. And Samuel, his finger’s there on the trigger and I can tell he’s about to squeeze. As in, fire. The gun. At TJ.

So what do I do?

I do nothing. I watch. It’s all I can do. Like I say, you’d be happy to have me on the force.

But as it turns out the gun doesn’t fire. Samuel pulls on the trigger but it sticks. It doesn’t move. And Samuel looks up at me and he’s not exactly smiling but he looks pretty pleased with himself nonetheless. Do you like cats, Inspector? I like cats. I have three. And Samuel looks like my tabby, Ingrid, when she’s eaten her share of the giblets and Humphrey’s and Bogart’s too.

Samuel, I say. Really. And still I’m struggling to think what to say to him. Because it’s not the type of situation you ever contemplate dealing with, is it? Not if you’re someone like me. I’m interested, Inspector: how would you have reacted, do you think? If you had been me? Because you would have done what was right, I’m sure, and not just because of your training. Although I suppose it’s perfectly obvious to me now. I should have wrestled the gun from him. I should have pinned him to the floor. I should have called for the headmaster, told the headmaster to call the police. That’s what I should have done. That’s what I wish I had done. Naturally that’s what I wish.

But at the time I was waiting for an explanation. That’s what rational human beings do, isn’t it, when they’re confronted with something beyond the scope of their everyday experience? They withhold judgement. They offer the benefit of the doubt. They fear the worst perhaps but they know deep down that there will be a perfectly reasonable explanation. That’s the very phrase people use, in fact, isn’t it? You’ll see, they say. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.

And Samuel gave me one.

He drops the gun into the briefcase, rather carelessly. He clicks the briefcase shut. He says, it’s real but it doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked since 1945. It was my grandfather’s, he says. Or rather, it became my grandfather’s. He stole it. Won it. However you want to look at it. He got it from a German, a Nazi. In Italy. My grandfather fought in Italy.

Which is fascinating, rather, isn’t it? I teach religious studies but my subject and Samuel’s are so intertwined that really the syllabuses should be merged. That’s what I think anyway. Because what’s the study of religion but social history? What’s faith but an empathy with the past? But that’s not why we teach religious studies, I’m told. My views, depending on who you talk to, are old-fashioned or avant-garde. Which is fine, I suppose. I’m not complaining. And I’m in danger of straying from the point. Which is, Inspector, that what Samuel said intrigued me. His explanation was logical and fascinating both. The gun was a relic from the war and he was, he told me, teaching his sixth-formers about Monte Cassino. He wanted to engage them, he said. Show them something that would bring them forwards on to their elbows rather than send them back on to their heels. Which is just the sort of thing Samuel would say because there was nothing he wanted more than to get his kids interested. I mean, all teachers, regardless of their subject, can empathise with the sentiment but for Samuel it had turned into a mission. He was committed. He was determined. He must have been, mustn’t he? To put up with what he did. To keep coming into work after everything that happened.

So I’m convinced but still I manage to keep some sense about me.

Do you think that’s wise? I ask him. It’s a gun after all. And this is a school.

He shrugs.

I say, I mean it, Samuel. I really think you should be careful. The parents, the headmaster, the pupils for heaven’s sake . . . Just imagine how they might react.

Now Samuel does smile and I don’t like that smile at all. But it’s a flicker, a spark that catches and then goes out, and after it fades it’s hard to tell if it was even a spark at all. Maybe you’re right, Samuel says. Maybe you’re right.

I’m glad you think so, I say, because I really think . . . But then the bell goes and everyone gets up because it’s the last double period before lunch. And neither one of us says anything more.

This would have been the Wednesday so it was exactly a week before. After that, I watched him fairly closely. As closely as I could, at any rate. It was hard, though, because we taught in different wings and neither one of us spent a great deal of time in the staffroom. We each had our reasons. He was a fairly solitary figure and I suppose I’ve always been one too. But I like to think that I am happy in my own company. There are moments, naturally, when I crave companionship and usually they coincide with times when there is none on offer. What’s that - Murphy’s law? Anyway, at school when I go to the staffroom it’s usually to hear adult voices. Even TJ, for all his shortcomings, can seem a calming presence after you have been floundering all day amid the shrillness of youth. But Samuel: he was never happy in his own company. If this doesn’t sound too self-important, Inspector, I’ve always seen myself as something of a spiritual barometer in this school. It’s not a role anyone else would recognise, naturally, more an extension of my particular specialisation. Not even that, really. I’m just interested in people. That’s all. I’m nosy, you might say. I like to know how people cope. Within themselves. What drives them. What undermines them. There’s no great skill involved. You just have to listen more than you talk. You seem to listen well, Inspector, so I’m sure you know exactly what I mean. And with Samuel, it was obvious from the very start. Not that he would do what he did. Heavens. How could a balanced individual expect that of anyone? It was obvious, rather, that he was troubled. Sad. Sad is the word. Sad and lonely and unable to break from the mould into which his life had settled.

So he was vulnerable. Extraordinarily so. And he was having a difficult time, as you probably know. But though the gun worried me, I’m not sure that even then, at the time I saw it, he had decided he was going to use it. You’re going to ask me why he was carrying it then, aren’t you? Before the shooting I would have repeated to you his story. I believed him, mainly because I wanted to. Obviously, though, he was lying about it not working. Maybe the safety catch was on when he squeezed the trigger or something and that’s why it didn’t depress. I mean, is that how guns work? I’m not an expert on these things. He didn’t show the gun to his sixth-formers either. I know he didn’t because I asked - subtly of course - Alex Mills, one of the pupils that Samuel and I shared, when he was helping me clear away after class. At the time I was relieved. I assumed Samuel had seen sense and that the matter was at an end. It didn’t occur to me that he’d never had any intention of showing the gun in class.

So why did he have it? I’ll tell you what I think. You heard about TJ’s behaviour, am I right? You heard about the children and how they treated him. Most important, I think, you heard about the football match. They broke his leg, Inspector. Deliberately. Oh I know, I know, they claimed it was an accident and the headmaster believed them but he must have been the only one in the school who did. If indeed he really did. But can you imagine? These thugs had been hounding him for months and for a while Samuel might have been able to convince himself that it was all harmless - traumatic but physically harmless - but then they snap his fibula.

Have you ever broken your leg, Inspector?

A bone then? An arm perhaps?

Well, I have and let me tell you that it hurts. It’s agony. I don’t handle pain very well - I’d not make a very good woman, I’m afraid! - and Samuel didn’t strike me as the stoical type either. So he was scared, Inspector. That’s what I’m trying to say. Maybe the gun . . . I mean, he said it was his grandfather’s. So just having it, carrying it with him, maybe it made him feel better. Safer. Less vulnerable. For all I know, he’d been carrying it since the football match. But like I say, that doesn’t mean he intended to use it.

Something changed though. I was watching him, like I said, and at the beginning of the next week, the week of the shooting, something most definitely changed. I told you that I thought he was scared but I also think he kept it fairly well hidden. Like it was simmering. You know, like a pan on a gentle heat. But then, come Monday. Well. All of a sudden it was bubbling over. There was no hiding it any more. You only had to talk to him. You only had to watch him for a moment. Although, saying that, no one did. No one spoke to him. No one paid him any attention. He was Samuel, after all. The only person the teachers of this school go further out of their way to avoid is Mr Travis, and in the headmaster’s case it is for entirely different reasons.

I spoke to him though. I was watching him. I noticed that the clothes he was wearing on the Monday were the ones he’d gone home in on the Friday. He had two suits, from what I could tell, one beige, one brown, and he never wore the same suit two days in a row. He changed his shirt every day too. And his tie. You wouldn’t notice unless, well, unless you’d noticed but he had a strict rotation. Mondays it was one combination, Tuesdays it was another. There was no great diversity of style. I suspect the shirts had come five in a pack. The ties likewise. Not that I’m snobbish about such things. The clothes maketh the man, that’s what they say, isn’t it? Well Al Capone wore spats and Jesus Christ dressed in rags, which pretty much settles that argument in my mind. But I know how important such things are to other people, to the younger generation in particular. Just look at TJ, for instance. If he’s not in a track-suit, he’s wearing an Italian-made sports jacket and a tie with a knot the size of my fist. Like the footballers do when they’re giving interviews after a game. So that’s why I noticed it with Samuel. He was particular about such things, it seemed to me, but not for aesthetic reasons. It was as though he had established a system in order that he would no longer have to think about that system. On Mondays he wore suit A with shirt B and tie C. He just did.