‘Not at all. That’s not at all why I invited you here. When I met with Daniel he was scared, above all. He was confused. He seemed to struggle with his family history and I thought maybe you could help me fill in some of the blanks.’ Karen hesitated, then added, ‘The truth is, I would not, in normal circumstances, be meeting with you both. But Leo and I go back a while and . . . well . . . I was hoping, I will admit, to be involved with Daniel’s rehabilitation. Depending on the outcome of the case, of course.’
Blake snorted. ‘So you’re looking for a gig. That’s what this is about. You’re looking for freaks to dissect, to write about in some study.’
‘I want to help, Mr Blake. Vincent. May I call you Vincent? I’m genuinely only interested in doing what I can to help your stepson.’
Again Blake sniffed. He made a face that implied it did not matter now what Karen said: he had her number.
It was Stephanie who broke the silence. ‘How can we help? What is it that you want to know?’
Karen regarded each of them in turn. She spoke to Blake. ‘What you said before, about Daniel blaming your wife. What did you mean by that?’
‘What? Nothing. It’s what kids do, isn’t it? It’s what everyone does, all the bloody time. It’s Mummy’s fault. It’s Daddy’s. It’s anyone’s fault but my own.’ Blake looked at his wife looking blankly back at him. ‘Back me up, Steph, for Christ’s sake. You of all people know exactly what I’m talking about.’
Stephanie’s jaw tightened.
‘You think he blames you for something?’ Karen, this time, addressed Stephanie. It was Blake, nevertheless, who answered.
‘I just said. Didn’t I? It’s what kids do. It’s what everyone does. I didn’t mean anything by it.’ He began muttering again, something about something being exactly the type of thing he was talking about.
Karen watched him for a moment. She sighed. ‘You can smoke, Vincent. It’s fine. I’ll open a window.’ She offered Blake a smile.
His eyes narrowed. He wrapped his arms across his chest and reclined on the sofa. Karen looked to her lap.
‘Can I?’
Karen raised her head. Stephanie pointed to her handbag.
‘Of course,’ said Karen. ‘Go ahead.’ She stood and moved to the window and struggled with the sash until it was ajar. She checked around her, then crossed to her desk and tipped some pens from a mug. She set the empty mug on the arm of Stephanie’s chair, and one of the pens and a notepad beside her own seat. Stephanie exhaled towards the window but the draught nudged the smoke back the way it came.
‘You were asking about Daniel’s childhood,’ said Stephanie once Karen was seated. ‘About his home life.’
Blake was glaring at his wife, at the cigarette dangling from her hand.
‘That’s right,’ Karen said. ‘I wondered . . .’ She coughed. Stephanie moved her hand, her cigarette, across her body. ‘I wondered about the kind of things he might have been exposed to,’ Karen continued. ‘This isn’t about blame, you understand. I’m not here to judge anyone. But, well . . .’ She swallowed. ‘Violence, for instance. Physical harm. Vincent is your second husband, Stephanie. May I ask why your first marriage ended?’
‘It ended cos Frank walked out on her. That’s why it ended. Steph would still be clinging to that loser if he hadn’t shaken her off.’
Karen waited for Stephanie to answer.
‘He didn’t hit me, if that’s what you mean.’ Stephanie focused on her cigarette, tapping it repeatedly over the makeshift ashtray even though the ash had already fallen.
‘And Daniel? What was his relationship like with Daniel?’
Stephanie shrugged. She ground out her cigarette awkwardly against the inside of the mug and started fishing right away for another. ‘Normal,’ she said. ‘I suppose. Not like television normal, like kicking a ball to each other in the park, but normal in the neighbourhood we lived in.’
‘Did he ever hit Daniel? Or . . .’
‘No. I mean, not really. He’d give him a tap now and then, I suppose. Mostly when he deserved it. He was a drinker so sometimes he hit him harder than he meant to but he never hurt him. Not properly. He was always quite a gentle man, actually.’
‘He’s doing time for assault,’ said Blake. ‘That’s how gentle he can be.’
Karen considered the scar on Blake’s face; the boxer’s bend to his nose.
‘That’s different.’ Stephanie looked to Karen. ‘Isn’t it? That was business. That’s not what the doctor’s talking about.’
Karen made as though taking down a note. When she looked up Stephanie had a flame to her second cigarette, her eyes drawn together and trained, it looked like, on the tip of her nose.
‘Is it possible,’ Karen said, ‘that Frank ever touched Daniel? Ever interfered with him in any way?’
Stephanie expelled the smoke in her lungs. ‘None. Never. I would have known.’
‘But you said he drank. Might his behaviour have been different when he was intoxicated?’
‘I don’t see why. And anyway I still would have known. Besides, he hated that kind of thing. It made him furious. Really properly furious.’
This time Karen did make a note. ‘What about, I don’t know. Uncles. Male friends. Older boys. Anyone else.’ She did not look at Blake directly but she was watching for his reaction.
Blake did not move. His wife shook her head.
Karen tapped her pen against her notepad. ‘When Frank left,’ she said, ‘Daniel was, what? Eight?’
Stephanie thought, nodded.
‘How did he react?’
‘Who? Danny?’ Stephanie made a show of trying to recall. ‘He – Frank, I mean – he wasn’t around much by that time anyway.’ She pulled on her cigarette and her frown deepened. She held in the smoke for so long that Karen felt sure it was not coming out again. ‘Danny wasn’t happy about it, obviously. But I wouldn’t say he was specially unhappy either. He just . . . I don’t know. Went on being Daniel.’
‘Was Daniel generally happy, would you say? As a child. When he was younger.’
‘That’s what I mean,’ said Stephanie. ‘He wasn’t ever, like, joyous. Is that a word?’ She glanced at Karen and Karen nodded. ‘Danny wasn’t ever that kind of boy. It isn’t his nature.’
‘ To be happy?’
‘ To be . . . I don’t know. Laughing all the time. Things like that. It isn’t Daniel.’
Stephanie finished her second cigarette. She adjusted herself in her seat, transferred her handbag from her lap to the floor. There was the rattle, as she moved it, of pills in a jar. Or mints in a tin, of course. Vitamins, paracetamol – it might have been anything.
‘What about you, Stephanie?’ Karen said. Blake, before, had been fiddling with his packet of Rothmans. The box ceased dancing all of a sudden in his grip. ‘How did you cope when Frank left you?’
‘Me? I . . .’ Stephanie looked down.
‘She coped just fine. Didn’t you, Steph?’ There was malice in Blake’s tone; anger in the look Stephanie, in response, cast towards her husband.
‘I coped,’ she said.
Karen waited for Stephanie to say more. ‘You coped,’ she said after a pause. ‘May I ask what you mean by that?’
‘She means she coped,’ Blake said. ‘What could be clearer?’
Karen left another silence but neither of Daniel’s parents sought to fill it. ‘What about motherhood? More generally, I mean. Did you enjoy it? How did you cope, would you say, with being a mother?’
Stephanie glanced towards her husband. ‘I don’t know. Okay, I suppose. It was hard but everyone finds it hard. Don’t they?’
Karen let the question go unanswered. ‘Hard in what way, Stephanie? Can you explain?’
Stephanie hesitated and Blake leant forwards, forcing himself into Karen’s sight line. ‘This is about Daniel. Isn’t it? I thought this was supposed to be about the boy.’
‘Absolutely,’ Karen said. ‘It’s just background, that’s all. It’s just to help us try to understand—’
‘What’s to understand! What bloody difference does it make whether Steph “enjoyed motherhood”?’ He said this last as though the concept were patently something to mock.
‘Well, actually, Vincent, it does make quite a significant—’
‘Steph didn’t kill anyone. Frank, her ex: he liked a scrap but he never killed anyone either.’
Karen inclined her head. ‘No. That’s true. But—’
‘So what’s with all the questions about them? You wanna help Daniel, that’s what you said. Sounds to me like all you’re interested in doing is digging up the family dirt.’ An idea seemed to strike him. His eyes tightened. ‘Like for the papers or something.’ He smiled. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? You’re digging up dirt to give the papers.’ He allowed Karen an instant to respond but all she could manage was a shake of her head. ‘I’m right,’ Blake said, his smile spreading. ‘Aren’t I?’
Stephanie shuffled forwards, pressing her knees against the coffee table and reaching half-heartedly across it. ‘Vince. Please. I’m sure that’s not what this is about.’
Blake stood. ‘This is over. We’ve said all we’re going to.’
Karen rose to face him. ‘Mr Blake. Vincent. I promise you. This entire conversation is completely confidential. There is simply no way I would—’
‘Let’s go, Steph.’
Stephanie looked up at Karen.
‘Stephanie!’ Blake was halfway across the room. ‘I said, let’s go!’
His wife looked down. She started gathering her things.
Blake waited with his hand on the door handle. There was an unlit cigarette jutting from his lips, a lighter sparking in his grip. He tapped his trainer on the floor as he watched his wife, pointedly avoiding Karen’s gaze. Karen started to speak, to make one last attempt to stop them leaving, but Blake was quicker to find his voice.
‘We just want this over,’ he said and he glowered. ‘Understand? All your prodding, your poking about – it’s not gonna help.’
Karen could think of nothing to say.
‘Leave things alone. Leave us alone. All we want is our lives back to normal.’
And then, of course, Karen could have answered. Your lives will never be back to normal, she might have said. This, the way things are – it’s how they’re going to be.
‘And then they left.’
Leo was stirring sugar into his coffee. There were two empty cups in the centre of the table, a steaming one in front of each of them. Leo stopped stirring and allowed his spoon to drip. He settled it noiselessly on the saucer.
‘Leo? Did you . . . Are you okay?’
He looked up. ‘Sorry? What? Yes, I . . . Sorry,’ he said again. ‘It was a long weekend. That’s all.’ He sat straighter. ‘So what do you think?’
Karen peered at him before answering. ‘To be honest,’ she said, ‘I found it quite upsetting. Not that these things aren’t always upsetting but . . . well . . .’
‘Because of Blake, you mean? He’s like that with everyone. He’s a moron, I told you. Doesn’t give a damn about anyone but himself.’
Karen shook her head. ‘Not because of him. On the scale of obnoxiousness among the people I have to deal with in this job, he barely scrapes a seven. And anyway,’ she said, turning her cup, ‘I’m not sure that’s true.’
‘That he’s a moron?’
‘No. He’s definitely a moron. I mean the bit about him not giving a damn.’
Leo frowned. He started to ask Karen what she meant but she was dangling her arm into the bag at her feet, looking the way she was reaching. She glanced briefly at the tables around them – empty but for two mothers with their babies and an elderly couple crossing forks over a slice of carrot cake – then slid an A4 envelope alongside Leo’s cup of coffee.
‘What’s this?’
‘Just something I found. Something I obtained, rather. Take a look.’
Leo lifted the flap and pulled out the sheets that were inside. ‘What is this?’ He turned from the first page to the last. ‘There was an investigation?’ He turned back again. ‘Why weren’t we told about this?’ He noticed the date and pinned it with his finger. ‘This was after. This was since Daniel’s arrest. Why weren’t we told about this?’
Karen raised a shoulder. ‘I’m guessing they don’t have to tell you.’
Leo read, gobbling the words too quickly for them to properly register. He looked at Karen. ‘How did you . . .’
‘I have a friend.’
Leo looked again at the report. ‘She took a risk, giving this to you.’
‘We’re close,’ said Karen, ‘he and I.’
Leo raised his head. Karen lowered hers.
‘And anyway,’ she said, ‘it doesn’t help particularly. Not in the way you might expect.’
Leo read aloud: ‘“No evidence of abuse is established.”’ He skimmed. ‘“Daniel’s name will not be entered on the Child Protection Register.”’
‘And here . Look.’
Leo tracked Karen’s fingertip. ‘“No connection has been established between any abuse and the alleged offence.”’ He looked up. ‘In other words . . .’
‘“It wasn’t our fault. There’s no way they can pin this on us.”’
Leo sniffed. ‘Well. That’s all right then. So long as social services have got their own arses covered, nobody has anything to worry about. Their jobs are safe.’
‘From what my friend told me, the investigation wasn’t exactly comprehensive. But that was the point,’ Karen said. ‘It was an exercise in self-exoneration.’