The Child Who by Simon Lelic

an urge to sweep the hair from her skin, to tuck his daughter beneath the bed sheets on which she lay. He sighed again. The mattress was pressing his knees and he thought about lowering himself onto a corner. He brushed it with his fingertips instead, trailing his touch across the balled-up cat. ‘I’ll make you a deal,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you about my day and then you can tell me all about—’
    ‘I don’t want to hear about your stupid day!’
    Leo flinched. ‘Ellie, I—’
    ‘Go away! Just go away!’
    Leo parted his lips. Ellie, listen, he was about to say but when Ellie turned towards the light he was distracted by the flush to her skin. It only covered one part of her face: a raging red that extended down the left side of her neck and to her collarbone, too lopsided and vivid to be explained by Ellie’s anger. Leo could not stop himself reaching.
    ‘Leave me alone!’ Ellie wrenched her chin from Leo’s touch.
    ‘Switch on the light.’ When his wife did not respond, Leo turned. ‘Meg. Switch on the light.’
    This time Megan obeyed. Ellie winced and Leo stared. Once again he reached and this time Ellie allowed her face to be turned.
    ‘I couldn’t get it off,’ she said. She began to cry. ‘I scrubbed but I couldn’t get it off.’
    Leo heard his wife’s exclamation. He felt Megan draw to his side. His attention, though, was on his daughter’s skin: blotched from the ink but scoured, too. Along her jaw line and below her cheekbone there were sketches of blood, as though she had been dragged along tarmac.
    ‘Ellie,’ Leo said and barely heard himself. His fingers gravitated towards his daughter’s wounds. This time Ellie flinched and Rupert, reluctantly, stirred.
    ‘Don’t!’ Ellie shuffled towards her headboard. She was sobbing now. ‘Just go,’ she said. ‘Please. Just leave me alone!’ And she thrust her face into her bloodied pillow.
    They pieced it together. In the living room and with barely a discussion they worked out what, when, why. Who, they did not tackle. In one respect, they could hardly hope to. In another, they both already knew.
    Ellie’s coat was taken from her just as Felicity’s had been. The ink: it was Felicity’s blood. They might have used fairy lights, had they found any. They might have threatened to drag her to the river.
    ‘I’ll talk to the school,’ Leo said. He glanced at Megan, who was beside him on the sofa, staring at the blank television screen. ‘Her teacher. The headmistress. I’ll go in first thing.’ Although, as he spoke, he was struggling to see how he could afford the time. After the riot Daniel had changed his story, had admitted what everyone else had already known. So there was the confession to get on record and the remand hearing to discuss and the boy’s parents to deal with because everything was moving at such a pace that Leo had not really had a chance yet to—
    ‘First thing,’ Leo said. Megan sniffed and fiddled with her tissue and seemed not to have sensed his vacillation.
    Leo shuffled closer and reached an arm around her shoulders. ‘It’s kids, Meg. It’s kids being cruel like only kids can be.’
    His wife pulled away from him.
    ‘Meg? What’s wrong?’
    Megan hesitated before answering. ‘I was spat at,’ she said.
    ‘What?’
    ‘We were. Ellie and me. Yesterday, at the supermarket. I wasn’t going to tell you but . . . after today . . .’ Her voice seemed colder all of a sudden.
    ‘Spat at? By who?’
    ‘By a woman. A mother. She was my age, younger. She had a shopping trolley and two children and as she passed me she turned and spat.’
    ‘What? Are you sure? I mean—’
    ‘I’m sure, Leo. I’m perfectly, one-hundred-per-cent sure.’
    ‘No. I know. I just meant, why? Did you say something to her or—’
    ‘It wasn’t my fault!’
    ‘Calm down, Meg. I’m not saying it was. I’m just trying to understand what happened.’ He shook his head. ‘Why on earth would someone spit at you? Do