Odd Child Out: A Novel Read online

  Back in the truck, the faces of the other passengers were swaddled against the sand and wind. Maryam passed out: heavy body sweat-soaked, and clutching blood-dark material between her legs. Nur held her and his breathing shuddered as the engine revved. Sofia cradled her new brother. She kept him warm. She put her face up close to the baby’s and gazed at him. In the starlight she examined his sealed-up eyes, his damply soft flesh and hair, and she knew that she loved him.

  As the truck swayed and skidded on the track through the desert, that thought brought her a feeling of warmth, even though she was very afraid.

  Sofia breathes in suddenly—almost a gasp—and it snaps her out of her reverie. She types an email to her headmistress thanking her for the invitation and telling her she would like to give it some thought.

  When that’s done, she lapses once again into thinking about Abdi, and how strange it could be to be born between places, as he was, under the gaze of smugglers and thugs. Where would you belong, really? How would it affect you, deep in your bones? Would you know that threats had torn you from your mother’s sweaty, terrified body?

  She doesn’t dwell on it too hard, though, because her attention is soon diverted by the buzz of her social media notifications and all the distractions of the present.

  Sofia doesn’t think about Abdi again that night. Nor do her parents, apart from a brief discussion once they’re tucked under the duvet, when they sleepily debate whether Abdi should give up chess club to make more time to study exams he’s due to take this summer. They have so much hope that he will get the results he needs to apply to a top-rank university.

  All is quiet in the household overnight. It’s in the frigid early hours of the morning that the buzzer to their flat begins to ring repeatedly, long and loud, before dying away like a deathbed rattle as the battery fails. Nur climbs out of bed to answer it. He’s hardly awake enough to be on his feet.

  “Hello?” he says. He can see his breath.

  In response, he hears a word that he learned to dread at an early age: “Police.”

  THE INVESTIGATION

  DAY 1

  It’s a good moment putting my ID badge back on after so many months off. Detective Inspector is a title I worked hard for.

  The air is crisp and cold and the traffic seems lighter than usual on my morning journey to Kenneth Steele House, the headquarters of Bristol’s Criminal Investigations Department. I make good time on the new road bike I bought when I had time on my hands, between therapy sessions and tedious teaching duties. The ride feels very sweet.

  Here and there, I see evidence of fallout from a march that took place in the city center a week ago: a huddle of yellow traffic cones like part-felled skittles wait for collection near the waterfront; a few boarded-up windows punctuate the reflective panes.

  The march started as a small-scale problem, a nasty little anti-immigration demonstration by a neo-Nazi group, the only redeeming feature of which was that it was anticipated to be very sparsely attended. It might have petered out after a couple of hours if it had been well managed—it should have done—but things got out of hand. Medium-scale rioting and looting led to some large-scale embarrassment for the police. The whole debacle left a nasty taste in the mouths of many city residents.

  I don’t dwell on it as I coast down the road to work, though. I’m focused on holding my head as high as I can when I walk back through those doors into the office.

  Detective Chief Inspector Corinne Fraser doesn’t look any different from when I last saw her, months ago: gray eyes, frizzy slate-colored hair only partially tamed by a severe bob cut, and a gaze as penetrating as a brain scan. She gets up from her desk and gives me a warm, two-handed handshake, but wishes me luck in a tone that makes it clear that I’ve got work to do to regain her trust. It’s a welcome back, but an unnerving one. It’s vintage Fraser.

  My other colleagues greet me nicely enough. Mostly it’s in a hail-fellow-well-met sort of way that feels pretty genuine, though one or two of them don’t hold eye contact for as long as they might. There’s no shame, Dr. Manelli once said, in what happened to me, in the fact that I flipped my lid publicly, but I reckon some of my colleagues might be feeling it on my behalf. I try not to take it personally. That’s their problem, I tell myself. My job is to prove how good a detective I am.

  It’s during “Morning Prayers,” her daily briefing meeting, that Fraser hands me the Feeder Canal case. I get the feeling she’s glad to have some poor soul to allocate it to. Its priority level is made clear by the fact that it’s the last item on the agenda before a housekeeping request that we make an effort to reuse the plastic cups at the water cooler.

  Fraser asks a familiar face to précis the details of the case for me.

  Detective Constable Justin Woodley throws a half-smile my way and clears his throat before reading from his notepad. I haven’t had much to do with him since he witnessed me throwing up into the front garden of a major witness on the Ben Finch case. It was a humiliating reaction to a bit of bad news.

  Water under the bridge, I tell myself. Hold your nerve. I nod back.

  “A fifteen-year-old boy fell into the canal last night, just down the road from here by the scrapyard. He was fished out by emergency services and they took him to the Children’s Hospital. He’s in very bad shape currently, in intensive care and in critical condition. He was with another lad who was found canal-side. Not injured, but in shock, and he’s being checked over at the Royal Infirmary.”

  “And they want someone from CID because . . . ?”

  “There’s a witness. She says she thought there was some funny business going on between the lads before the fall into the canal. She’s the one who called it in. She’s still at the scene.”

  “What does the lad who wasn’t injured say?”

  “He’s not spoken to anybody yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s just not speaking, apparently. Whether it’s can’t speak or won’t speak, we don’t know.”

  Woodley flips his pad closed.

  “I believe the victim’s a white boy, and the other kid is from the Somali community, so sensitivity is paramount,” Fraser chips in.

  “Of course,” I say.

  Fraser continues: “I’m sure it won’t surprise you to hear that budget is tight to nonexistent, so I’m not going to press the investigation button on this one unless there’s very good reason to. If we can put it to bed easily, then let’s do that and let uniform handle it. Jim, you and Woodley will be working together on this.”

  Fleeting eye contact tells me that I’m not the only one feeling nervous about that.

  Woodley and I take a walk down to the scene. It’s less than half a mile up Feeder Road from Kenneth Steele House, and it’s not Bristol’s most scenic destination.

  We pass beneath a stained and graffiti-tagged concrete overpass that moves four lanes of traffic from one corner of the city to another. It’s oppressive. Even on a nice day the underside is gloomy and the shadow it casts is deep.

  Beyond the overpass, the properties that border the canal-side road are mostly warehouses, lockups, and the odd automotive place, and most of them have high-visibility security in the form of spiked or barbed perimeter fences.

  “Does this case sound like a hospital pass to you?” Woodley asks.

  “I don’t know. Depends what the witness saw. It could be something or nothing.”

  “Did he jump, or was he pushed?” He makes it sound like a teaser. I forgot that Woodley had a sharp sense of humor. I find myself smiling.

  “Something like that.”

  Woodley clears his throat. “Full disclosure: I cocked up really badly on a case. I lost some evidence.”

  I take a moment to absorb that. I guess I’m not the only one who’s walking wounded, then.

  “What was the case?” It matters.

  “Child abuse.”

  “Did it cost you a result?”

  “Yes. The dad was allowed back to his family.
He was guilty as sin. My fault.”

  It’s the very worst kind of case to make a mistake on.

  “Happens to the best of us,” I say, though I’m sure that doesn’t reassure him at all. I’m not sure what else to say. I’m in no position to judge him, but now I understand why Fraser has us working together. We’re the last kids to get picked for the team. We’ll sink or swim together on this case.

  “For what it’s worth,” he says after we’ve walked on a bit, following the canal’s path, “on the Ben Finch case I thought your work was solid. Lots of people did. You went after what you believed.”

  I look at him. Nose like a ski jump, a small patch of thinning hair appearing on his scalp, and those clever eyes, searching mine for a reaction. He still wants to be a player, I think. That’s good for us both.

  “Thanks. I . . .” but I don’t know what else to say; it feels too soon to be having this discussion with a colleague. I’m not ready. Woodley doesn’t push it.

  Farther up, we pause at the edge of the canal to take in the scene. The water looks soupy and uninviting. Sludgy pale brown mud banks up the sides and the foliage along the water’s edge looks as if the long winter has depressed it terminally. A fisherman is huddled in wet weather gear a few hundred yards to the east.

  Beside us, there’s an abandoned warehouse and a modest Victorian pedestrian bridge that spans the canal. The path across it is weed-covered and trash-strewn. Underneath a layer of black paint that’s peeling like a bad case of psoriasis, the structure looks rusty enough that it’s unlikely to last another hundred years.

  Across the water, we can see the scrapyard where the incident took place.

  I can’t imagine what business two teenage lads would have around here. It feels like a wasteland. They must have been mucking about. Daring each other to trespass, or looking for somewhere to sneak a drink or smoke a joint.

  “I think this case is a minnow,” I say. I look into the murky water. There’s nothing to see except the legs of a shopping trolley that’s gone belly-up on the bank. “Small fry. But it’s better than traffic duty.”

  In retrospect, I misinformed Woodley, because neither of us recognized this case for what it was really: menacing, strong, and smooth, perhaps not making waves at first, but able to turn on a dime and surprise you with a razor-toothed bite. This case was actually a shark.

  Of course I didn’t recognize it. Nobody else had, so why should we?

  Fraser would never have let us have it if she’d known better.

  Darkness is dissolving over the city, lingering only in pockets, as the Mahad family arrives at the accident and emergency department at Bristol Royal Infirmary.

  They have very little information, no more than a scant outline of what’s happened to Abdi.

  The officers accompanying the Mahads greet two colleagues outside the rear entrance to A&E. They’re speaking to a man who has his back against the wall and blood matted in his hair. He’s sucking hard on a cigarette. He’s talking about salvation. Half of his face is in darkness, but a caged light fixture throws out just enough of a glow to show Sofia that his pupils are pinpricks. When he catches sight of Maryam, his agitation increases.

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” he says. “They wear them dresses so they can hide bombs under them.” He lurches toward the Mahads. “You can go back to your fucking country! You’re ISIS, you fucking terrorists!”

  The officers react instantly, containing him, but not before a gob of his spit has landed near Sofia’s feet.

  Nur stands between his family and the man and ushers the women into the hospital. His face is perfectly composed, though his chest heaves. He knows that these are the words of an ignorant and almost certainly crazy man, but they still wound.

  Inside, the waiting area is filled with rows of chairs arranged in an airport configuration so the injured and unwell can pass the time by eyeballing each other. The police officers make sure the family bypasses the queue at the reception desk. A nurse takes them down a narrow corridor where there are bays containing beds, each with a curtain at one end that offers scant privacy.

  A police officer stands at the entrance to one of the bays, mainlining takeout coffee. He steps aside so the Mahads can slip past the drawn curtain.

  Abdi lies in bed. He looks at his family, yet he seems not to see them.

  His parents and sister search his face for clues as to what he’s been through, and find nothing to reassure them. He hardly resembles the boy they love.

  There’s no animation in his face, no spark of life in his eyes, no twitching of the muscles around his mouth to hint that he’s about to smile or gently tease. He’s withdrawn to a place that’s blank and still.

  At the sight of him, Maryam feels fear flap darkly inside her. She doesn’t dare look at Nur in case she sees her mounting sense of dread mirrored in his expression.

  “Oh, Abdi,” she murmurs.

  Sofia watches her mother lean in toward Abdi and place her cheek against his. She sees how Maryam tries to embrace him fully, but Abdi does nothing to reciprocate. Maryam withdraws and takes his hand instead. Sofia thinks there’s a strange energy between them.

  The space around the bed is cramped, but Sofia and Nur shuffle around each other so that they can try to embrace Abdi, too. He responds to neither of them. Both think that he feels somehow rigid yet not really there. They shuffle back, and stand awkwardly around the bed, trying to not stare, not knowing what to do or where to put themselves.

  Sofia watches her mother for a cue, because Maryam often sets the emotional tone in their family. Sofia’s not sure whether their mother will question Abdi, chide him, or tuck the blankets up around him and stroke his forehead. She expects Maryam to do one, if not all, of those things. She thinks of her mother’s love as a soft rain. It drenches gently, and when it’s warm, it’s the most gorgeous feeling in the world. When it’s cold, not so much. Either way, Sofia experiences Maryam’s love as intense and unwavering.

  Maryam stares at her son for what feels like a long time. She looks to Nur, and reading her silent request, he takes her place at Abdi’s bedside.

  “Abdi, we’re here for you. Whatever happened, you can tell us about it.”

  He runs the back of his fingers gently across the boy’s temple.

  Abdi flinches and moves his head across the pillow.

  Sofia feels the prickling of tears. She thinks she would probably rather see Abdi physically injured than in this state.

  “It’s okay,” Nur tells him. “It will be okay. Nobody will be angry.”

  Abdi shuts his eyes.

  Nur persists. “Abdi, can you tell me what happened?”

  Nothing. Sofia can hardly bear to watch.

  In the bay next door, a doctor’s treating somebody, and she tunes in to and out of their conversation.

  “Why did you do it?” the doctor asks. He gets a mumbled response from his patient that Sofia can’t quite hear through the partition.

  “Abdi.” Nur won’t give up. It’s killing him that Abdi’s unresponsive. He shakes the boy’s shoulder gently and Abdi rolls onto his side, turning his back.

  “Why?” The doctor’s voice is raised in the bay next door.

  Nur looks at Maryam and she shrugs. She doesn’t know what to do to get through to Abdi, either. Her hand covers her mouth.

  “Why did you do it?” the doctor says again. “Tell me why you did it.”

  It must be a suicide attempt, Sofia thinks. It’s unbearable to listen to. No wonder Abdi’s in such a state. He shouldn’t be here.

  As Nur makes another attempt to get Abdi to talk, Sofia whisks back the curtain, surprising the police officer outside.

  “Why is my brother here?” she demands, her shyness forgotten as she thinks only of getting Abdi home. “This is the wrong place for him to be treated. He should be at the Children’s Hospital. He’s only fifteen.”

  “The only ID we found on him was a library card, so if he won’t talk to us, we can’t know
his age,” the officer says. A strip light flickers above them. “We had to guess, so we assumed sixteen or over because he’s a big lad.”

  Sofia doesn’t really care what the explanation is. She wants action.

  “Well, he’s fifteen, and we’d like to take him home.” She’s convinced that Abdi’s in shock, that he’ll talk to them and become a more recognizable version of himself again if they can just get him out of here.

  She waits for the doctor to come out of the bay next door and presses him for an update on Abdi.

  “He checks out fine physically,” the doctor says, stripping off a pair of bloodstained gloves and tossing them. “But we think he could be suffering from shock. You can take him home, but you’ll need to make sure he’s warm and comfortable and keep an eye on him.”

  “Has he said anything at all since he’s been here?”

  She thinks of the way Abdi behaved when he came to meet her after one of her days on placement at this hospital. There was nobody on the ward he didn’t greet effusively. No hand he didn’t shake and no end to the questions he asked the consultant who took the time to chat with them.

  “I don’t believe so. It’s possible he’s suffering some kind of emotional trauma relating to what he’s witnessed.” The doctor seems to take pity on her, throws her a bone. “Resting up at home will certainly be better for him than being here.”

  Sofia replaces Nur at the head of Abdi’s bed as her parents go to complete the discharge paperwork.

  “Rest, Abdi,” she whispers to him. She lays a hand tentatively on his shoulder, and he lets her leave it there for a moment before shrugging it off.

  “Okay,” she says. “I’ll leave you be. We’re going home soon.”

  She folds her hands into her lap and remembers that when Abdi was a baby he followed her everywhere as soon as he could move, and tried to copy everything she did. If she studied his face in the minutes after he was born, he studied hers a million times in the years that followed. She remembers his gummy smile, his baby-tooth smile, his gappy smile, and the smile after that, when his new adult teeth seemed too big for him. She feels that the two of them were knitted together at his birth and always would be.