‘He’s an eleven-year-old,’ boomed Croll. ‘Where else would he go except a bloody playground? This is a joke.’
‘I think there’s a strong case to be made for the defence. Most of the evidence is circumstantial. It rests on the forensics but Sebastian has a legitimate reason for having the victim’s blood on his clothes. We’ll know more after speaking to the pathologist and forensic scientists, but right now it looks like the kids fought, and the victim subsequently had a nosebleed which caused blood transferral on to Sebastian’s clothes. Sebastian has an alibi – you, Charlotte – from 3 p.m. that afternoon and the later sighting of the boys is questionable. The police didn’t find any CCTV images to back up their case against him. This was a bloody murder, but Sebastian didn’t come home covered in blood. He didn’t do it.’
‘It’s all just a mistake, you see,’ Charlotte offered, her voice cracking. ‘Even with forensic things, the police often make mistakes.’
‘What would you know?’ said Croll, his voice a whisper. ‘Leave the country for two weeks and you let him get arrested. I think you’d best stay out of it, don’t you?’
Charlotte exhaled suddenly, her fragile shoulders rising almost to her ears. She reddened under her brown foundation at Croll’s criticism. Daniel caught her eyes.
‘Daniel,’ said Croll, his voice now so loud that Daniel could almost feel its vibrations in the table on which they leaned, ‘you’ve done a fine job and we thank you for stepping in like this. Thank you for your help at the police station and for taking things this far, but I’ve got some contacts of my own. I think we’ll want the case passed to another defence team. We don’t want to take any chances. I don’t mean to be rude, but I feel the need to cut to the chase here. I don’t think you’ve got the experience we need … You understand?’
Daniel opened his mouth to speak. He thought about telling Croll that Harvey, Hunter and Steele was one of London’s leading law practices. Instead he said nothing. He stood up. ‘That’s your decision,’ he said quietly, trying to smile. ‘It is entirely up to you. You’re entitled to choose the defence team best suited to you. Good luck. You know where I am if you need anything.’
Back out on the street, Daniel took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, squinting in the sunshine. He hadn’t been let go for years and tried to remember if he had ever been let go so quickly. He felt injured by Kenneth Croll’s dismissal, but he didn’t know if it was his pride or the lost chance to defend the boy that hurt. Daniel stood in the street and looked up at Parklands House. It was a cruel name for a prison.
He started to walk towards the train, telling himself that the case would have been difficult, especially with the media attention it was bound to generate, but he was reeling. It was hard to walk away. The day was still and warm and yet it felt like walking into the wind. He felt the tug and pull at his body again, taking him off course. He had not felt like this in a while, but it was familiar; it felt like leaving and losing.
6
After school he made his way back to Minnie’s house. He walked slowly, his satchel hanging off his shoulders and his tie loose. He picked up a stick to beat the grass on either side of his path. He was tired and thinking about his mam. He remembered her sitting in front of the mirror in her bedroom and putting her eyeliner on and asking him if he thought she looked like Debbie Harry. She looked pretty with her make-up on.
He blinked twice as he remembered the eyeliner running down her cheek and the lop-sided smile when she injected. She didn’t look pretty then.
He looked up and saw the kestrel again, hovering over the moor. Daniel stood and watched as it snatched a field mouse from the grass and carried it off.
He didn’t hear them come up behind him, but someone pushed his right shoulder, hard, and he lurched forward. He turned and there were three boys.
‘Oi, new lad!’
‘Fuck off an’ leave me alone.’
He turned but they pushed him again. He tightened his fist but he knew he would get chinned if he went for them. There were too many of them. He stood still and let his satchel fall to the ground.
‘Like living with the old witch, do ya?’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘What you doin’ that for? You a poof? Oooo!’ The biggest lad wiggled his hips and rubbed his palms against his chest. Daniel’s knife was in his bag but there was no time to get it. He charged the big lad instead and hit him in the stomach with his head.
He hurt him.
The lad retched as if he might throw up, but the other two boys pulled Daniel down. They kicked his body, legs, arms and face. Daniel put his elbows over his face but the boy who had called him a poof grabbed his hair and pulled his head right back. Daniel felt his chin lifted and his neck stretch. The boy’s fist smashed into Daniel’s nose. Daniel heard the crack and tasted the blood.
They left him bleeding in the grass.
Daniel stayed curled up in a ball until he heard their voices fade. There was blood in his mouth and his body hurt all over. His arms started to tingle and itch. When he squinted at his forearm he saw that it was covered in white spots. He was lying in a bed of nettles. He rolled over and on to his knees. He wasn’t crying but his eyes were watering and he wiped them with the raised nettle sting on his forearm. The tears seemed to help the sting for a moment and then the itch returned.
An older man walked past with his dog. It was a Rottweiler and it snarled at him, saliva and wrinkled nose. The bark and snap of its chain made Daniel jump. He got to his feet.
‘You all right there, lad?’ the man asked, looking backwards at Daniel as he walked on.
Daniel turned and ran.
He ran across the Dandy to Brampton station. He didn’t have money for the bus or the train, but he knew the way to Newcastle. He ran holding his side where he had been kicked, and then walked for a few strides before trying to run again.
Cars growled past with such speed that it affected his balance. His mind was blank, reduced to the pain in his nose, the ache in his side, the blood in his throat, the angry sting on his arm and the lightness of himself, burnt out and lifted up like papers in a chimney. The blood from his nose had dried on his chin and he rubbed it off. He couldn’t breathe through his nose but he didn’t want to touch it in case it bled again. He was cold. He rolled down the sleeves of his shirt and buttoned the cuffs. His nettle-skin rubbed, swollen, against the cotton of his shirt.
Home. He wanted to be with her, wherever she was. The social worker had told him that she was out of hospital. He would be home when she welcomed him, when she took him into her arms. He almost turned back, but then he pictured her again. He forgot the cars and the hard road and the blood in his throat. He remembered his mam putting her make-up on and the smell of her, all talcum powder after her bath. It made him forget the cold.
He was thirsty. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He tried to forget his thirst and remember instead the tingle of her fingers through his hair. How long was it, he tried to remember, since she had done that? His hair had been cut several times. Had she even touched this hair that now grew on his head?
He was walking along, counting months on his fingers, when a van drew up beside him.
Daniel stood well back. The driver was a man with long hair and tattoos on his forearm. He rolled down the window and leaned over to shout to him.