’Andy.’
‘Andy.’
Franklin leans forward. The little boy has finished his story, and he is not satisfied with the ending – the way the boy stays in his dark bedroom. Does nothing. Sees nothing.
‘Andy. Did you shoot him?’
‘No.’
The boy shakes his head vehemently. For the first proper time in this interview, he looks properly distressed. Shaken.
‘You’re sure?’ Franklin says. ‘It was John?’
‘Yes. I mean, it must have been.’
‘But you saw it, didn’t you?’
‘No.’
‘You were there and you saw what happened.’
‘No.’
And at that, Andrew begins to cry. For the briefest of moments, Franklin feels a flash of anger.
The boy is lying – about part of it, at least. But at the same time, the tears are real.
The distress is real. There is no longer a trace of the older, wiser, slyer boy he suspected of sitting in front of him before.
Now, he is simply faced with an eight-year-old boy, sobbing his heart out, far smaller – once again – than his years.
Franklin touches the cross inside his shirt.
And he thinks: what of it? What does it really matter whether Andrew was there or what he saw?
The facts remain, and they are obvious. This little boy has been through so much.
He is not evil. Evil is what was done to him.
Evil is to neglect and beat a human being who is at your mercy and should be able to rely on you.
Evil – he realises with another flash, and this time not of anger but shame – is to make a child cry, without reason, without justification.
‘Okay, Andy. Okay.’
He leans back and lowers his voice, tries to sound sympathetic.
‘It’s all right. It’s nearly over now.’
The boy is still distraught and sobbing. But then, his words are meaningless, aren’t they? It isn’t nearly over. It never will be. In one way or another, this child will be haunted by what’s he experienced and what he’s seen for the rest of his life.
‘I want to see my brother. I want to see John.’
And Franklin, thinking of the scene at the house and what was done there, has no choice but to shake his head.
‘I’m sorry, Andy. That’s not going to be possible.’
‘When can I? When can I see him?’
‘I don’t know,’ Franklin says. ‘I don’t know.’