Chapter Five
The door had barely clicked shut behind Niall before someone was tapping gently on it again. This time Louis made a valiant attempt to knock some of the dust off his clothes and rub his face to try and wipe off some of the dirt before he told his next visitor to enter, but judging by the look on Zayn’s face it made little difference.
“I know,” Louis sighed, “Don’t even say it. Cleaning is a messy business.”
Examining the room, Zayn murmured “Well, don’t give up your day job.”
“This place was a lot messier before I cleaned it!”
“Mmmm.” Taking a seat, Zayn focused his attention on Louis. “Could you attribute your desire for cleanliness as a subconscious need for organisation and closure in your daily life?”
“Hey, I’m the psychiatrist here; take note of who has the coolest chair.”
“I know.” Zayn grinned. “But I wanted to see whether I could be a psychiatrist myself. Was I any good?”
“If you were being one of those annoying, old-fashioned textbook psychiatrists, then you were spot on. But personally, I prefer to say things that actually make sense rather than paraphrase tired language from a psychological dictionary.”
“Good.” Pause. “Are you taking notes?”
Louis’ pen scratched against the paper and he didn’t look up. “Yeah, sorry. I need to get a recording device set up. I’ve written myself a memo.” He waved vaguely at a lurid yellow post-it note pinned to the pot that housed his limp plant.
“It’s, uh…it’s kind of distracting.”
“Oh, is it? Sorry.” Louis put the pen down.
“Thanks. What are we supposed to talk about, then?”
“Anything you like, really, but so far I think that discussing ‘your big mistake’, as Niall likes to call it, is as good a place to begin as any. You know what I mean. Tell me about the plasma screen TV-stealing business.”
Zayn reached up and ruffled his hair absently as he considered. “Well, it was never intentional. I never set out with a deliberate plan to steal TVs. I was working in the repossession business, as a bailiff. That’s how it started.” He looked anxiously at Louis.
“Interesting career choice.”
“It pays well. I didn’t enjoy it. But what happened was, we repossessed this house, and this woman had a flat screen HD TV – a pretty expensive one, too – and we ended up selling it to pay off some of her debts. We got heaps of money for it – that’s what gave me the idea. A friend of mine worked in a factory and we reckoned we could make a killing if we sold the TVs at a cheaper price; you know, retail prices. So every so often, he’d sneak a few off the production line and we sold them. We had a proper little business going on. The problem was overconfidence, I think. Tried to take a few too many. We got caught.”
“Ah.”
“What really annoyed me was that he let me take the wrap for the entire thing. He claimed that I threatened him into it. I’m not the threatening type, ask anyone – but people expect you to be, when you’re in the line of work that I was. So he got off with community service and I got thrown into this place.”
“That would explain your trust issues,” Louis murmured.
“Huh?”
“According to my sources, you’re not one of the chatty ones around here.”
“Well, people think I’m a hard nut. Who am I to prove them wrong? I don’t really have anything worth saying to any of that lot anyway. If I wanted to talk to them, then I would.”
“Perfectly understandable. Although from what I’ve heard, you’re not that talkative with your family, either.”
“Who’ve you been talking to?” Zayn asked irritably. “It’s nobody’s business but mine; they should keep their noses out.”
“People see things around here, Zayn,” Louis answered mildly; “they get bored and have nothing else to do other than gossip. There’s not much you can do about that.”
“Mmm,” Zayn agreed disapprovingly. “I just…I don’t…well. You’ve never met my mum. She always thought I’d do well for myself; I got good grades in school, and she kind of expected me to move on to do big things. I used to tell her that the bailiff thing was just something to earn my keep while I figured out what I was going to do with my life. Somehow I don’t think that landing in a prison cell was quite her idea of how she wanted me to turn out.”
“Yeah, I know the problem. My mum isn’t exactly supportive of me working here.”
“At least you can look her in the eye,” Zayn said bitterly. “At least you know you’ve done nothing wrong. I can hardly look at my mum, and she can barely speak to me from shame.”
“But is keeping everything bottled up really a solution? Surely speaking to her would be a better option.”
“What would I say? She’d never understand why I did it. I don’t even get it half of the time. It’s like… it’s like I didn’t realize I was doing something wrong until I’d done it and been arrested for it. It felt like I was helping people; I was doing them a favour by getting them discounts. That’s how I saw it. I never really thought of it as stealing.”
Louis nibbled the end of his pen and sat back in his chair. He had a feeling he was going to have a few problems sorting out the rift between Zayn and his family, and if he couldn’t do that, the guy was going to be left as a social outcast with trust issues for the rest of his life. Welcoming the challenge, Louis nodded and got ready to start delving a little further into Zayn’s mind.
* * * * * *
Louis couldn’t remember the name of the next person to enter his office. A stocky, balding middle-aged man about twice Louis’ age – and weight – settled down in the chair that Niall and Zayn had occupied before him. It creaked ominously, and Louis winced in pity. He probably shouldn’t be feeling sorry for the furniture, but honestly, the guy was huge, and Louis wouldn’t have liked someone that size sitting onhim. The man had a fluffy pale brown beard, like a cat’s fur, and a very long, flat nose. His eyes were a pale, watery blue. He didn’t have a very memorable face, so Louis forgave himself for forgetting the name that went with it. Clasping a pair of beefy hands in his lap, the man looked placidly at Louis with little interest.
“Hi,” Louis said, and then added apologetically, “sorry I’m such a mess. I was cleaning.”
Sitting silently in his chair, the man didn’t comment.
Well, you’re a chatty one, Louis thought dryly, but he shook the thought away. “Remind me of your name?”
“Brian.”
“Brian…with an I or a Y?” asked Louis, pen hovering above the paper.
“With an I,” Brian said limply.
“Excellent.” Louis wrote it down. “Now, then, Brian. Perhaps we should begin with talking about how you came to be here.”
“In a van.”
Louis laughed, then spotted the confusion on the man’s face and realized that he hadn’t been joking. Straightening his face – and trying not to worry about the blatant simplicity of the man’s mind – he nodded and remedied his statement. “I meant why were you sentenced?”
“Oh. Drink driving. I hit a little girl with my car.”
His voice was emotionless. Louis wondered whether that was some kind of intentional technique Brian used to stop himself from getting too upset over it. If so, perhaps there was more depth to the man than he had originally assumed.
“Well, you must feel terrible about that.”
“No, not really.”
“Excuse me?” Louis was shocked.
The man wasn’t being intentionally malicious; his face was blank and his eyes dazed, as if Louis’ reaction had surprised him. “I feel pretty bad for hitting her. But I’m not really upset that she’s dead. I didn’t know her.”
Okay, the man was about as deep as a puddle.
“I don’t understand,” Louis admitted, not taking his eyes off the man as he took notes so quickly that his hand almost flew off the paper. He wouldn’t be surprised if the words he was writing were sprawling across the page and overlapping each other.
Brian shrugged. “I felt bad for killing her, but why should I care that she’s dead? I didn’t know her. She wasn’t anything to me. Why should I feel awful because some stranger died?”
Louis would have been disgusted if he hadn’t felt so sorry for the guy. Clearly Brian was so painfully logical that he had no feelings for the girl he had killed. It had been an accident, and he felt bad over it, but the true death of the child meant little, perhaps nothing, to him. He didn’t know her, therefore he saw no reason to be sad that she was gone. It was almost horrifying to meet someone who was that narrow-minded – and yet Brian wasn’t a bad person. He was just…shallow.
Swallowing, Louis suggested, “But how must her mother have felt?”
Brian shrugged.
Not to be discouraged, Louis determinedly continued, “It must have been a nightmare for her.”
“Mmm.”
“Her little girl is dead. She isn’t coming back.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, how do you think that would feel?”
Another shrug.
Louis almost lost his temper. “Do you have children, Brian?”
“Yeah.”
“How would you feel if they got hit by a car?”
For the first time, an actual emotion flashed through Brian’s pale blue eyes. “Pretty bad,” he said quietly. “Like my life wouldn’t be worth living.”
“Exactly. How do you feel about that little girl you ran over now?”
Brian considered briefly, then shrugged. “I’m sorry for killing her, but…I’m still not sad that she’s dead. She wasn’t my child.”
Louis almost started ripping his hair out at that point. This guy was going to be hard work. He persevered, but the rest of Brian’s replies were mostly monosyllabic, or just irritating blank looks or shrugs. In the end, when Louis’ constant checking of his watch paid off and their twenty minutes was up, he waved Brian out of his office with an enormous sense of relief. Eyeing his note sheet, which apart from a few lines at the start, was blank, he pulled a face. Eventually, he scribbled down something vague about communication issues, feeling that it would be more polite to say that the man had difficulty expressing his emotions than that he simply didn’t have any. Cramming the piece of paper into the very back of his file, he sighed and rubbed his eyes exhaustedly.
Another knock on the door disturbed his moment of peace.
Louis’ patience was wearing very thin, but he plastered on his best friendly expression and managed to yell “Come in!” without sounding too close to murder. His foul mood evaporated an instant later as Harry Styles stepped into the room with a casual smile on his face.
“So this is Casa de Louis, huh?” he asked, grinning.
“Yup, this is me. Me and my mess.” Louis shook his head fondly. “I’ve even got a plant!” He gestured excitedly at the plant.
Walking across to the desk, Harry examined the wilting leaves and disappointing lack of flowers. “Bit droopy, isn’t it? Have you tried watering it?”
“If I water it any more, it’ll be swimming in its own personal pool,” Louis snorted.
“Well, you want to be careful. There’s such a thing as over-watering, you know. They don’t like to be given too much.” Harry flicked the stem. “It’s a shame; looks like it could have been a nice plant. What is it, some kind of cactus?”
“Actually, I think it’s a begonia,” Louis admitted, “either that, or a tomato plant. Don’t ask me; I’m not a gardener. Anyway, enough of the horticultural lessons! Take a seat.”
Harry did so, and they looked at each other for a while.
“I’ve been talking to Niall and Zayn,” Harry told him. “They said that you always ask about ‘our big mistake’.”
“It seems like a good place to start.”
“You’re sure you want to hear the details of what I did? I didn’t steal a few TVs or a few thousand quid, Louis. I killed someone. Violently. It wasn’t pretty.”
Louis rolled his eyes. “Listen, mate, I just listened to a guy tell me for twenty minutes that he wasn’t sorry for killing a three year old girl because she ‘wasn’t his’. I think I can take it.”
“On your own head be it,” Harry murmured, and he started fiddling with a loose thread on his sleeve.
Patiently, Louis waited. When it became clear that Harry had no intention of saying anything else, he said “You said yesterday that you killed that man because he ‘had it coming’.”
“I did.”
“What made you say that?”
“Because it’s the truth. He deserved every single stab in the chest that I gave him – all thirty-seven of them. And he would have had a good few more besides, if I’d gotten my way.”
Louis felt his mouth tighten into a disapproving line. “Oh yes, because murder is an excellent way to resolve a situation.”
“And you think sarcasm is any better?” Harry retorted.
“Don’t try and change the subject. We’re discussing why you think murder is okay.”
“This world has too many people like that guy. Too many disgusting people. He was going to hell anyway; I only sped up the process.”
Horrified, Louis said “But…you killed him. So now you might be joining him.”
Harry shrugged. “So be it. At least I saved all the good people from him. Anyway, I don’t believe I’ll be punished for doing what I did. It was the right thing to do. He was a horrible person – a monster. The world is far better off with one less person like him in it.”
“What makes you any better than him? You killed him. You’re just as terrible as he is.”
“I killed him to save everybody else.”
“You can’t justify murder. You ended someone’s life. If that doesn’t make you a monster, I don’t know what does.”
“Maybe I am a monster – but I’m the right kind of monster. I did what I did for a reason.”
“Come on then, what was your reason? Tell me your reason, and make it good! I don’t want any rubbish about the world being a better place without him; I’m not buying that. You give me one good, solid reason why you had a reason to kill someone.”
Harry was silent.
Louis started shaking with anger. “You didn’t have the right to kill him. You didn’t have the right. Nobody has a right to take anybody’s life away from them, no matter who they are.” Furiously gripping the desk, he focused on not exploding. He was struggling not to leap out of his seat and start yelling.
“Oh really? Is that what you think? You can’t think of anyone who was so evil that they needed to die?”
“I can’t think of how murder helps anything. That way, we’re all monsters. If we killed people every time they screwed up, there wouldn’t be a single person left on this planet.”
“Really?” Harry repeated, one eyebrow raised.
“Really. Nobody should be allowed to play God. Nobody should be able to snatch someone’s life away – especially not like that.”
“He deserved it.”
“Nobody ever deserves it!” Louis snapped.
Harry leapt out of his chair and slammed his hands down on the desk in anger. “So you think he should have been able to get away with what he did? This is a guy who follows a fourteen year old boy home from school and then attacks him because he’s had the courage to admit that he’s gay. This is a guy who punches that boy until he’s unconsciousness and kicks him so hard that he breaks six ribs, and then leaves him bleeding in the gutter. Then this guy goes to the pub and boasts to his mates that he ‘punched the little queer faggot’s head in’ and gets bought a round of drinks for it. You really think that guydeserves to live?”
Stunned into silence, Louis blinked at him.
“He would have done it again,” Harry said breathlessly, sitting down heavily. “He would have done it again.” Looking helplessly up at Louis, he asked “what else could I have done?”
“You could have called the police,” Louis answered limply.
Harry laughed bitterly. “Oh, yeah, great. Where’s the evidence? That kid – Michael – would never tell anyone who did it. He was too scared. And it’s hard to mumble a good statement through a mouthful of broken teeth. I saw what happened, and I wasn’t going to let it slide. Michael was a good kid. He was a friend of mine; I grew up with him. I was so proud of him for coming out. He was so brave.” Taking a deep breath, he continued sharply, “but some people are so full of hate that they’ll do anything to anyone. Michael got facial reconstruction surgery out of it – the guy who went for him got what was coming to him. He got as much pain as Michael did and hopefully a lot more. And I’ll never regret that. I struck a blow for the kid. That’s all anyone could ask for.” He buried his face in his hands.
Louis watched him for a while, disgusted with himself, because even as Harry struggled not to cry, shoulders heaving, Louis couldn’t help but notice how attractive he was. He wanted to touch the loose curls falling around Harry’s face – more than that, he wanted to step around the desk and hug Harry, because he hated to see people cry and worst of all, it was his fault. The urge to comfort the crying boy in front of him was almost unbearable; he had to cling to his chair to stop himself from throwing himself down onto the floor and begging Harry to stop.
Eventually, after a few more minutes of sniffing, Harry wiped his eyes and sat up. His face was damp and red, and his eyes looked swollen. Louis felt a twist of guilt deep in his stomach, and he stared at the floor, speechless.
“Can I go now?” Harry asked faintly.
They weren’t even halfway through the session, but Louis couldn’t face that miserable, guilt-inspiring expression and sad eyes for another second. Looking away, he waved a hand inadequately and Harry gratefully chose to interpret that as a yes. Getting to his feet, he rushed out without looking back, wiping his damp eyes again with the back of his hand.
The moment he was gone, Louis instantly reached into his pocket and snatched out the crumpled resignation form. He flattened it out on the desk, smoothing out the creases and tracing over the dotted lines with one finger. Right at that moment, he could scribble a few words and then shove that tiny piece of paper at the first person he came to, and then he would be free of this place and all the worry, all the annoyance, all the stress. He could get rid of all of his mother’s anxiety, and leave behind all the people he didn’t understand. Best of all, he could walk away and forget Harry Styles, and never again have to look at the boy who pretended he was untouchable and yet was haunted by something he’d done that he knew was wrong as much as he knew it was right, and the confusion of not knowing whether he should have done it or not.
He wouldn’t sign the form. Not today, at least. But he could.