A Thousand Cuts (7 page)

I don’t want it now. And when I say this I realise I’m being rude, like the fact that he’s touched it has contaminated it somehow.

I think, says Samuel, I think it’s time I left. It was nice to meet you.

Yes, I reply. That’s all I can say. He leaves and everyone else seems relieved but I just feel like a fool.

The thing with Samuel, you see, is that he had opinions. Have you noticed how these days nobody has an opinion? People say too much and they don’t listen but when they speak they talk about nothing. Samuel seemed aloof because he was quiet but if you were ever to talk to him - and I mean talk to him, not chat with him, not try to pass the time - he would talk to you right back. He would listen to what you had to say, genuinely listen, and he would consider it and often dismiss it and he would tell you what he thought himself. And his opinions could seem conceited or misconceived or sometimes a little scary but at least he had an opinion.

Here’s what I think, I tell him when I catch up with him in the staffroom on the first day of term. Here’s my opinion, since you value opinion so much. Mozart was the second greatest composer who ever lived. He was a genius. Tchaikovsky was a moron and Rachmaninov a sentimental fool.

What about Prokofiev? he says, no hesitation, no surprise in his tone.

Second tier, I say. B list. Also a sentimental fool.

And he nods and I say, just don’t tell the kids I said that. If they ask, tell them I said Prokofiev was a genius too.

After that we talked more and more. Never in company. Never if anyone else was around. If we happened to be in the staffroom and someone else walked in, we stopped talking, we just did. I don’t know why. I think I assumed he preferred it that way and maybe he assumed that I did too. Maybe he assumed it would be easier for me. You know, because of who he was, because of what the others thought of him. But we were fooling ourselves. Everyone knew. All the teachers knew, the headmaster knew, even the kids knew. Somehow the kids always know.

I was the one to ask him out of course. He would never have asked me. It took some courage, I can tell you. Some courage and, from the bottle we keep hidden under the sink for emergencies, a nip of whisky.

The first time, I ask him to go to the movies with me. There’s something European on at the Picturehouse and I think that because it’s European he’ll like it. I don’t know, I just assume that he’ll be into foreign films. As it turns out, I love it and he hates it. He calls it pretentious. I think it’s exquisite. It’s in French and I love French. Such a musical language, so lyrical. I find myself just listening, not following the subtitles, not really knowing what’s going on. He takes in every word, I suppose, because afterwards he’s all why did they do this, no one would ever do that, who in the world talks like that? So analytical, so overly analytical.

The next time I ask him to an exhibition, to the Caravaggio at the National Gallery. I almost don’t but I feel guilty about not asking him out again because I don’t really want to, not after the film. So I decide an art gallery will be just the place. You know, quiet, formal, an afternoon not an evening. I’ll make it clear that I only want us to be friends.

It’s wonderful. I have the most wonderful time. Do you know anything about art, Inspector? I know nothing about art. I know what I like and I admire most things I could never do. Samuel, though - he can paint. Did you know that? He’s a painter. What am I saying? He was a painter. He was.

No, I’m fine. Really. I’m not crying because of that. You know, because of him. It’s just, I don’t know. The whole thing is just—

Well. Anyway. Samuel, he could paint. He said he hadn’t for some time but he knew so much about it and he was so enthused, so delighted by the whole thing. Isn’t it refreshing to be with someone who has passion? And to be surprised by someone having passion whom you’d assumed had none? Or not none exactly. I mean, I knew about the teaching, I knew how important he thought teaching was but I had no idea there was anything else that inspired that same enthusiasm in him.

We stay in the gallery until it closes. We sit and we walk and we watch the other visitors. Samuel is so funny. He talks about the paintings and he talks about the other people too, making jokes, constructing little caricatures - you know, the pompous art student, the wannabe actor turned tour guide, the philistine American. I thought at the time that he was being funny but maybe, thinking about it now, maybe he was actually being cruel.

We had sex once. Not that day, another day, months later. He wasn’t good at it but I didn’t mind because I’m hardly an expert myself.

You’re recording this. I keep forgetting you’re recording this.

What does it matter? We had sex and it was bad. It was awkward before and it was awkward during. I was a little drunk. Samuel was too. He didn’t drink much as a rule and neither do I but we’d finished most of a bottle of shiraz. We’re at my place and I’ve made him some dinner and we’re watching a film but it isn’t very good so I turn it off and I put on the stereo—

You know what? I don’t want to talk about this. Can we not talk about this?

We broke up. That’s how this ends. I say we broke up but that sounds so conventional and our relationship was anything but conventional. Apart from that one time, there was no physical involvement. We didn’t even kiss. I’m embarrassed to say that, I don’t know why. But it’s the truth. We didn’t kiss, we didn’t hug, we didn’t even hold hands. Once or twice we held hands but only if we were crossing a road or he was helping me from the bus or something silly like that. And it wasn’t just that. In a normal relationship, you don’t hide your affection like it’s something to be ashamed of, you don’t hide your lover from your friends and from your family and from yourself sometimes, even from yourself.

We argued. I suppose in that sense it was a normal relationship. Samuel was having a difficult year. There was the headmaster and there was TJ but also there were the kids. Although with the kids I couldn’t help. I didn’t try because it was beyond me. What they did - what they would do to Samuel - I just couldn’t understand it. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself. No, when we argued it was about nothing in particular. It would start off as being about something - about TJ maybe, about his pranks - but in the end it would be about nothing. Nothing and everything.

I would probably have broken up with him sooner had he not been having such a difficult time. There it is again, you see: pity. I’m a hopeless judge of character, Inspector. I must be a hopeless judge of character. Everyone else could see he wasn’t normal. Why couldn’t I?

No, thank you, I’m fine. Let’s just get this finished. Can we please just get this finished?

Was he angry? What makes you say that? He had no reason to be, if that’s what you mean. No reason at all. I mean, he expected it. He must have expected it. He wasn’t the easiest of people to read, that was part of the problem, but surely he must have expected it. I don’t know though. He didn’t seem angry at first but things got bad for him afterwards, which can’t have helped. They were bad before but they got worse. So maybe his anger grew. Maybe his bitterness festered. Maybe he talked himself into resenting me because I know one thing for certain, Inspector, I’ll tell you one thing. They say he was aiming at TJ when he shot Veronica. That’s what everyone thinks. I know better. He wasn’t aiming at TJ, Inspector. He was aiming at me. He was aiming at me and Veronica died instead.

The gates were open;
the playground had become a car park. It was full of vans: white vans mainly, vans that would have been white had they not been so encrusted with grime. Cleaning contractors, rubbish removers, flooring firms, a plumber. Men in paint-stained clothes sat in the shaded sanctuary of their cabs, the cigarettes that dangled from their sunburnt arms adding to the heat of the engines, the tarmac, the sun. Crumpled Coke cans and tabloid newspapers lined the dashboards that Lucia passed. She caught a headline, something about the weather and the temperature and the beginning of the end of all things.

She ignored the stares. The shadow of the Victorian red-brick loomed and drew her in and all of a sudden she felt chilled. She climbed the stairs to the entrance, passed the uniforms and pushed through the doors.

There was no one she could see. From the assembly hall she heard scraping furniture and baritone voices and the sounds of men at work, disconcertingly jolly given the origins of the mess they were clearing.

She almost left. She had come to the school out of habit. She had come the first day and the second and the third, and after that she had found that she could not not come. But it was Friday and on Friday, she knew, the crime scene was to become a school again.

She almost left but she hesitated long enough for the headmaster to spot her. She considered ignoring his call, pretending not to have heard, but he was striding from the assembly hall towards her and covering the ground quickly and if she turned away now it would be too late.

‘Detective Inspector May.’ His voice held her still. Seconds passed and he was upon her.

‘Mr Travis.’

‘Inspector.’ His smile, as a smile, did not convince. The polo shirt he wore seemed equally ill-fitting, an attempt at smart casual by a man not comfortable dressing down. The collar and sleeves had been pressed, the buttons were fastened to his throat.

‘I was just leaving,’ said Lucia.

‘And I thought you had just arrived,’ the headmaster replied. ‘I saw you from the window. I saw you cross the courtyard.’

‘I forgot the day. I forgot that it was Friday.’

‘I almost did myself. It’s as if the holidays had started already. Come, let me show you what’s been happening.’

‘Really—’ Lucia began but Travis was already on the march towards the hall. She followed.

‘You’ve been busy, Inspector.’ The headmaster moved his chin to his shoulder as he spoke but he did not look at her directly.

‘As have you, I’m sure.’

Travis nodded. He turned away from her. ‘I wonder what it is that you have discovered.’

Lucia watched the back of the headmaster’s head, tracking his over-long neck into the slope of his narrow shoulders. She noticed the surplus skin on his elbows, just visible below the sleeve line of his shirt and, in that one sagging patch, the same shade of grey as his hair.

‘Not as much as I would have liked,’ Lucia said. They stopped at the doors leading into the hall. ‘More than you might imagine. ’

‘After you, Inspector.’

Lucia tried to slide past the headmaster without making any contact but brushed against the skin of his outstretched arm.

‘You’re not cold, surely,’ Travis said. ‘It is difficult to remember the sensation of feeling cold, do you not find?’

The hall had already been cleared, cleaned. The furniture she had heard scraping on the freshly shined floor was of a different kind from the chairs she was used to seeing in the room. The desks that the workmen were setting up in rows folded in on themselves so that they also formed a seat. They did not look like they would stack but they did. They were piled ten high at the back of the hall, though the stacks were diminishing as the workmen surrounded them and plucked at them and bore three units at a time to the opposite side of the room.

‘Exams,’ Travis said. ‘We are two weeks behind as it is.’

Lucia looked across the hall for the rope. It was gone. All the ropes on all the climbing frames were gone. ‘Will they not find it difficult to concentrate?’ Lucia said. ‘Being in here?’

The headmaster acted as though he had not heard. He raised his voice to a workman, told him not to space the desks so tightly together. He tutted and turned back to Lucia. ‘You were telling me what you had uncovered, Inspector. You were telling me what your questioning had revealed.’

‘You asked,’ Lucia replied. ‘That’s as far as we had got.’

‘It is classified then. You feel I cannot be trusted.’

‘No. Not at all. The investigation is still ongoing.’

The headmaster raised one eyebrow. ‘That surprises me, Inspector. I was under the impression that your enquiries were now complete.’

‘Then you were misinformed, Mr Travis. They are not.’

‘Well,’ said Travis. ‘I shall know next time to talk to you directly. I shall know not to put my faith in the chain of command.’

‘The chain of command?’

‘I spoke to your superior, Inspector. I spoke to DCI Cole. He telephoned me, in fact. He informed me that your investigation was drawing to a close.’

‘He telephoned you? How considerate of him.’

‘Indeed,’ the headmaster said. ‘He seems a considerate man.’

Lucia looked about her. She watched a stack of desks wobble as one of the workmen tugged at the column next to it. It was going to fall and it fell and Lucia flinched at the noise even though she was braced for it. She turned to the headmaster, expecting an outburst, but the headmaster was focused on her.

‘We will be having a memorial service,’ Travis said. ‘On Monday, at ten o’clock. Not in here. Outside. There is an area of the playing field that seems suitable. Perhaps you would be kind enough to join us.’

‘Thank you,’ Lucia said. ‘I won’t.’

‘You have an investigation to complete.’

She nodded. ‘That’s right.’

The headmaster smiled. He appeared to contemplate. ‘Tell me, Inspector,’ he said at last. ‘Why are you here?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘What I mean to say,’ the headmaster went on, ‘is that it seems as though you have something on your mind.’

Lucia held his eye. She spoke before she could reconsider. ‘Elliot Samson,’ she said. She watched for some reaction but there was none. ‘He was a pupil here, is that right?’

‘He is a pupil here, Inspector. He was and he is.’

‘Of course. And you know what happened to him, I assume?’

‘Naturally I know.’