A Thousand Cuts (6 page)

The shop was empty but for Lucia, the boy wizard and, at the cash register, a sales assistant who looked like she should have been in school. The sales assistant was on the phone, to a friend it seemed; a boyfriend. Lucia lingered by the till for a moment. She pretended to be interested in a stack of Moleskine notebooks. Finally, she rested her wrists on the counter and smiled at the girl.

‘Hi,’ she mouthed.

The sales assistant ducked away and muttered something into the mouthpiece. She turned back to Lucia with the receiver cradled between her chin and her shoulder. ‘Hi,’ she said. Lucia could not tell whether her eyebrows were raised or whether they had been plucked and painted that way.

‘I’m looking for a children’s book,’ Lucia said. She gave the girl the fragments of information she had glimpsed between Elliot’s fingers.

The girl frowned and turned to her computer. She spoke to her boyfriend over the clicking of her nails on the keys. There was to be a party, Lucia learnt. Someone who was supposed to be going wasn’t and someone who wasn’t supposed to be going was.

‘Lloyd Alexander,’ said the girl after a moment. ‘Try children’s classics. No, not you,’ she said into the mouthpiece and, looking at Lucia, gestured to the rear of the shop with her chin.

It was fantasy. Escapism. Not a genre with which Lucia was particularly familiar but she could imagine its appeal to a boy for whom reality offered no refuge.
The Book of Three
had first been published before Lucia was born. Even on the copy she found, the edges of the pages were a greyish yellow, discoloured like a smoker’s fingers. She replaced the book and scanned the shelves, noticing as she did so authors’ names she had worshipped once but long forgotten. Blume, Blyton, Byars. Milne, Montgomery, Murphy. The books she had read, though, would be of no interest to him. She neared the end of the section and almost gave up looking but before she could turn away a title caught her attention. With her index finger she prised the book free. The jacket design was new but the image it presented was familiar. Lucia smiled and flicked backwards through the pages, pausing every so often to read a sentence, a fragment of speech, a chapter heading. She carried her selection to the counter.

 

Lucia had a retort prepared but Walter was not at his desk. The department was virtually empty.

‘Where is everyone?’ She allowed only her head to enter the DCI’s office.

‘He’s in court,’ Cole said. He was poking at his upper lip, frowning into a mirror propped almost flat on his desk.

‘Who is? What?’

‘Your fiancé. He’s in court.’ The chief inspector glanced at Lucia before returning his attention to himself. ‘What did the kid say?’

He wanted her to ask him how he knew where she had been. She wanted to ask too. Instead she watched as he prodded and winced. She stepped across the threshold. Her curiosity must have shown on her face.

‘One of the uniforms saw you,’ said Cole. ‘At the hospital. So what did he say?’

‘He didn’t say anything. He doesn’t say anything.’

Cole gave a grunt. ‘You know it doesn’t matter, don’t you? You know it’s not part of this case.’

‘It’s linked.’

‘It’s not linked.’

‘Of course it’s linked. Everything’s linked.’

‘Everything’s linked? You’ve got till Monday, Lucia. Remember you’ve only got until Monday.’

Lucia checked her watch.

‘Have you seen Price?’

‘Price? Why do you want to see Price?’

‘I don’t. I mean, it’s nothing. Nothing important.’

‘Well I haven’t seen him.’

‘Never mind.’ Lucia was already leaving.

‘It’s not linked, Lucia.’

She showed him the back of her hand.

 

Price was smoking. Lucia stood closer to him than she needed to.

‘Some weather, huh?’ They were on the top floor, on the terrace behind the canteen. They called it the terrace but really it was a balcony and a bench and an overflowing ashtray. Price gestured to the sky, to the unrelenting blue. ‘Thirty-eight at the weekend, that’s what they’re saying.’ He coughed out a laugh and sucked at his cigarette. ‘You’re lucky you don’t have to wear uniform no more. These trousers don’t breathe. Might as well be made of rubber.’

Lucia considered her own outfit: dark trousers, white blouse. The only difference between Price’s clothes and hers was that she had had to pay for hers herself.

‘Tell me about the Samson boy,’ said Lucia. ‘Elliot Samson.’

Price frowned, puffed smoke from his nostrils. ‘Christ, Lucia. It’s a nice day. The sun is shining. What do you have to bring that up for?’

Lucia watched Price stub his cigarette against the wall and, ignoring the ashtray beside him, flick the filter towards the city skyline.

‘Did he speak to you?’ she said. ‘Did he say anything?’

Price shook his head. ‘He couldn’t. His face was too messed up.’

‘He was conscious?’

‘Yep. Right up until the ambulance took him away. Probably for some time after. He felt every rip, scrape and bite.’

‘Who did it? Do you know?’

‘Sure I know. Plenty of people seem to know.’

‘And?’

‘And what? And the kid isn’t speaking. And no one saw it happen. And the school doesn’t seem to care.’ Price took another cigarette from the box in his shirt pocket. ‘Same school, right?’

Lucia was looking at the traffic below. A delivery van had pulled up alongside a taxi that had been travelling in the opposite direction. The drivers were leaning out of their windows, waving hands, flicking gestures, ignoring the horns of the cars caught behind them. ‘Sorry?’ she said.

‘Same school. The shooting. The teacher. Same school, right?’

‘Same school,’ Lucia said. ‘Right.’

Did I love him?
What a question.

How can I say I loved him after what he did? How can I admit that to myself? I tell myself now that I never loved him and I pray that what I tell myself is true. Otherwise, Inspector, I feel sick. Just the thought of him, after what he did: it makes me want to be sick.

I was fond of him. I can admit that much. I pitied him. I thought that he deserved pity, if you can believe that.

He didn’t settle. He didn’t fit in. The headmaster didn’t like him, TJ didn’t like him and because the two of them didn’t like him none of the others were anything more than civil to him. Why would they be? TJ can be a nuisance if he feels like you’re not on his side - everything with him is sides - and you don’t want to upset the headmaster, not in this school. Not in any school, I suppose, but particularly not in this school.

And he didn’t help himself. Samuel, I mean. He had his untidy little beard and his scruffy black hair and he always wore one of two suits. One lace was invariably undone, one button on his shirt missing or misaligned. I know, I know: appearances shouldn’t matter. But they do, don’t they? Everyone knows they do.

He was reticent, stand-offish. He answered, he never asked. I say he answered but he didn’t answer how you or I might answer. How are you? someone might say to him. Fine, thank you, he’d reply. And that would be it. Hi Samuel, what are you up to? Reading, he’d say and not look up from his book. He wasn’t rude exactly but the others, they didn’t like that. They assumed him arrogant. They thought him aloof. Veronica Staples, the woman who died - the woman he killed - she said to me one time, she said, he’s like an Oxford don at a children’s party, and that about summed him up.

Veronica was a friend of mine, Inspector. She was a friend. She had children, you know. Two children. One of them is a teacher too. Beatrice: she’s training to become a teacher. What must they think? What must they be feeling?

No, thank you. I have one in my pocket. I’m fine, honestly. I’m just, I don’t know. Just being silly, I suppose. I’m fine.

What was I saying?

Samuel, yes. He was what you might call an outsider. He was an outsider right from the start. It was easier to ignore him than to engage with him. It was easier to laugh at TJ’s little pranks than to act like a prude and stand up for him. Him and TJ, they had a little set-to at the start of term. Samuel said something and TJ got upset and I don’t really know what happened but it looked like men being men, nothing more. But after that TJ pretty much decided that he and Samuel were mortal enemies and that he would get his revenge one minor humiliation at a time. Pathetic, I know, but harmless enough. He’s just a kid, TJ. He acts like one of the kids. He’s always out there with them, playing football, playing basketball. They call him TJ not Mr Jones and the headmaster stands for it because with TJ the kids don’t act up. Order: the headmaster demands order and TJ is one of the very few teachers in this school capable of bringing it.

So the first thing TJ does is tell Samuel to turn up one Friday in jeans. Says it’s Jeans for Genes day or something and that all the teachers are doing it. This is before Samuel suspects that TJ has a grudge against him. I mean, maybe he suspects but he’s still the new bloke, isn’t he? He still has to listen to what TJ says. So Samuel does and the headmaster sends him home to change - like he’s a kid, he sends him home, because teachers don’t wear jeans in this school, oh no, that would not be appropriate at all - and the headmaster has to teach Samuel’s morning classes himself. Which he hates doing, particularly a subject like history. The next thing TJ does is leave Samuel a note signed by the headmaster saying his lesson has been moved to a different room, a different floor. So while Samuel is up in the attic - that’s what we call it up there, the attic - while he’s up there waiting for his class to turn up, his kids are where they should be, shouting, laughing, throwing chairs probably, until one of them ends up with a bloody lip and starts wailing. The headmaster hears all this and he storms into the room and screams at them to be quiet, to maintain order. And naturally he blames Samuel, assumes Samuel was late, and Samuel doesn’t say anything because he knows by now what’s going on and he knows enough to know that you don’t go squealing, you don’t go telling tales.

There were other things too. All silly things, childish things, like TJ spilling - tipping - his coffee on to Samuel’s lap just before Samuel’s sixth-form class. Or the time he stuck an L-plate on Samuel’s back and Samuel walked around for half a day before he realised he was wearing it.

I shouldn’t laugh. I’m not laughing really. It wasn’t funny then and nothing’s funny now.

But that’s what drew me to him. I felt sorry for him, it was as simple as that. I mean, he wasn’t bad looking either. Not good looking, not what most people would describe as handsome, but he seemed sweet. He had nice eyes. They were green, almost grey. He had kind eyes, that’s what I thought at the time. What an idiot.

The first time we spoke was after that incident I mentioned, the run-in he had with TJ. The headmaster’s leading TJ away and Samuel is left standing there, looking shocked, to be fair, looking dazed. The rest of the room has gone quiet and after TJ and the headmaster have left, people start to clear their throats, to raise their eyebrows, to whisper. No one looks at Samuel but everyone is watching him.

I can’t bear it. I feel as awkward as he looks. I mean, he has his glass of wine in his right hand and he swaps it to his left. Then the glass is back where it started and his left hand is twitching at his side. Next he’s fiddling with his tie and looking up at the ceiling and then he’s wandering along the buffet table, not picking up any food. I meet him by the angel cake.

Don’t let him bother you, I tell him and he smiles this curious smile.

That’s just what I was telling myself, he says, which makes me laugh. I laugh a bit too loudly, a bit enthusiastically, and I hear my laugh how the others would have heard it, which you don’t often do with your own laugh, do you? It’s hideous. I cut myself some cake.

He asks me my name and I say, Maggie. I say, you’re Samuel, and he nods. He asks me what I teach and then says, please don’t make me guess. I say, sorry, and he says, never mind. Music, I say. I teach music, or try to. He says, oh, and nods.

Do you like music? I ask him because even though I could say a hundred things, it is the only thing I can think of to say.

I do, he says.

What music do you like?

I like the Russians, he says. I don’t like Mozart.

You don’t like Mozart? Why not?

Too many people like him, he says. Too many people enthuse about how wonderful he is.

Is that a reason not to like him? I ask. I like Mozart, you see, Inspector. I love Mozart. All the more so now.

Yes, he says. I think it is.

And I say nothing because I don’t agree with him and I don’t want to start another argument. He starts one instead.

You don’t agree.

No, I say. It’s not that.

You think I’m wrong.

Well, I say. No. I mean, yes, I do think you’re wrong but that’s fine. You’re entitled to your opinion.

I know, he says. What’s yours?

I put down my cake. I don’t really want it and the piece I’ve cut is enormous. In my opinion, I say, music shouldn’t be constrained by opinion. If music talks to you, you should let it. You shouldn’t shut it out just because of what someone else thinks or says or does.

He grunts. He smiles.

What? I say.

You have to say that, he says.

What? I say again. What do I have to say?

What you said. You have to say what you said.

Why? Why do I have to say that?

Because you’re a music teacher, says Samuel. You have to pretend to be open minded.

Pretend? You think I’m pretending?

Maybe, he says. And he tears himself a corner from my slice of cake.

That’s my cake, I say.

I thought you didn’t want it.

When did I say I didn’t want it? I do want it.

Here then, he says.