Lucy settled back in her chair. ‘So, how have you been?’
He dug into his hoodie’s marsupial pouch, pulled out a crumpled-up sheet of newsprint, and dumped it on the tabletop. Holding one corner down with his cast so he could smooth the newspaper out with his thumb and two unbroken fingers. Tongue poking out of his mouth as they fumbled their way through the task. Not easy when you’re left-handed, and all you’ve got to work with are three digits on the wrong side.
It was the front page of yesterday’s Daily Standard, the headline, ‘KILLER KID SICKO LIVES NEAR PLAYGROUND’, with a big ‘EXCLUSIVE!’ roundel, above a photo of the man sitting opposite. They’d clearly taken it from a distance, the image pixelated and grainy, catching him as he emerged from a corner shop. Smiling and unaware. Not knowing he’d been caught.
‘Oh.’ That wasn’t good.
There was a smaller picture, inset into the larger one. This was the photo they’d used in all the news reports at the time, and the BBC documentary, and the appeal for more information, and then once a year on the anniversary of the murder. The photo of a smiling young boy with his whole life ahead of him. Glasses, strawberry-blond hair, freckles on his nose and cheeks. All dressed up for his primary-seven photo, in a white shirt and blue-and-red-striped Marshal School tie. The caption underneath it read, ‘BENEDICT STRACHAN (11), TWO MONTHS BEFORE THE MURDER.’
A tear plopped onto the paper, turning it a darker shade of grey as it seeped into the text. ‘You see?’
‘I’m so sorry, Benedict.’ Lucy reached across the table and placed her hand on his unbroken arm. ‘You didn’t deserve this.’
He nodded and another teardrop landed in the middle of the photo.
‘Do you know how they found you?’
He shook his head, pulling his hand free to wipe the tears away. Voice ragged and jaggy as the crying started for real. ‘I only... I only got out three weeks... weeks ago!’
Sodding hell.
Lucy turned the paper around and frowned at the introduction.
The Daily Standard can exclusively reveal that notorious killer Benedict Strachan (27) has been released from prison and now lives opposite a playground frequented by children as young as three years old. Residents in the leafy Shortstaine area of Oldcastle were horrified to learn that their new neighbour is a notorious murderer. ‘I cannot believe they let someone like that out of prison,’ said mum of three Angel Gardiner (25), adding, ‘Life should mean life!’ Karen Johnson (54) goes to the playground three times a week with her grandchildren. ‘They should bring back hanging,’ she said. ‘If you kill someone you should not get to live. An eye for an eye, like it says in the Bible.’
Sicko Benedict shot to infamy sixteen years ago when he and an unnamed accomplice brutally murdered homeless man Liam Hay (31), who was sleeping rough in—
‘They... they printed my address!’ Benedict wiped his eyes again. ‘I can’t... I can’t go back there. What if They find me?’
‘“They”, who, Benedict?’ She folded the paper and placed it off to the side. ‘The people who did this to you?’ Pointing at his cast and his bruises. ‘Didn’t they already—’
‘No: Them!’ The rocking back and forth got more pronounced, wringing a tortured wheeeeek-whonnnnng-wheeeeek-whonnnnng out of the plastic chair. ‘Them. The Them that live in the shadows, controlling everything!’
Ah.
There was stoned, and there was stoned.
Lucy softened her voice about as far as it could go, as if she was talking to a small child with its foot stuck in a bucket of broken glass. ‘Benedict, I need you to tell me what you’ve taken, OK? Do you know how much you’ve had?’
He sat forward, face creasing into a teeth-baring rictus. Probably got a few cracked ribs under that grubby hoodie. ‘They’re everywhere and They’re always watching. They can see everything you do, everywhere you go.’
‘Did the doctors give you something for the pain? Did you take something else along with it? Something of your own?’
‘No one suspects Them, but They’re always there. Always.’
‘I think you need to get some help, Benedict.’ Reaching for his arm again.
‘WHY DO YOU THINK I’M HERE?’ That one bloodshot eye wide and watery and staring. Face flushed where it wasn’t bruised. Little pink flecks of spittle landing on the tabletop between them. Then he shrank back. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. They... Don’t let Them...’
She tried for a reassuring smile. ‘Sometimes medication can make people a bit paranoid, especially if they’ve mixed it with alcohol and maybe cocaine? Heroin? Temazepam?’
‘I’m not on jellies, OK? I’m... trying to warn you. They don’t want me telling anyone what I know.’ He was starting to talk a bit faster now, the words slipping and slurring. ‘But They know you spoke to me in prison. I bet They read your thesis. I bet They know all about you.’
Maybe it was time to have a word with Benedict’s Criminal Justice social worker? Get him enrolled on a rehab programme. Assuming there were any still open after the latest round of budget cuts.
‘Have you talked to anyone about these feelings of—’
‘LISTEN TO ME!’ And the tears were back. ‘Why does no one ever listen to me?’
‘OK, OK.’ She held up her hands. ‘Why are “They” so interested in you? Help me understand.’
‘Because.’ Lowering his voice to a slurred whisper. ‘Because of what happened when I was a kid. Because of what I did.’ A grubby fingertip — poking out the end of his cast — came down to rest on the folded newsprint. ‘They know everything.’
Or maybe he’d just become institutionalized? After all, Benedict had spent more than half his life behind bars — he wouldn’t be the first person to emerge from prison unable to cope with the outside world. Maybe his subconscious decided he’d be better off getting locked up for paranoid delusions instead?
And while it wasn’t exactly ethical to take advantage of him while he was in this state, there was one question still unanswered from that bloodsoaked night sixteen years ago.
Lucy didn’t move. ‘So they know who you were with, that night? The other boy on the CCTV footage?’
‘Of course They know! How could They not know? Are you insane?’ Benedict jerked around in his seat, setting the rubber feet scraiking across the grey terrazzo floor. As if checking for someone lurking over his shoulder. ‘They know everything.’
‘I could help you better if you told me who your friend was, Benedict.’ Trying not to hold her breath as the silence stretched.
His mouth hung open like a battered gargoyle, showing off those missing teeth and the bloody gums they’d been kicked from.
Come on, come on.
Just give up the other boy’s name.
You can do it, Benedict.
Please...
Then Benedict’s one good eye narrowed. His mouth clicked shut. And he stood. Trying to scoop up the bit he’d torn out of the newspaper with the fingertips on his broken arm. And failing. He shoved his plaster-cast into the hoodie’s pocket instead. ‘I gotta go. I... Yeah.’
‘It’s just a name, Benedict, what could it hurt after all these years?’
‘I’ve — got — to — go!’
Sod.
Lucy suppressed a sigh. Nodded. ‘Can you at least tell me who beat you up, so we can arrest them?’
‘Yeah. No. No one. I... I fell down the stairs.’
‘Benedict, you don’t have to—’
‘I FELL DOWN THE STAIRS!’ Then his shoulders curled forwards, head lowered, not looking at her any more. ‘Can I go now? I need to go.’ Sounding more like a scared eleven-year-old boy than a man of twenty-seven.