Chapter 8 — EVERY BRUISE HAD A STORY

Daniel moved out on the Monday, four days later, into the Ardmore — the same hotel, three floors above the restaurant, which I did not think about at the time and which I think about now.

He went without an argument. That surprised me.

He sent me a text on the Tuesday morning that I have kept.

*Val. I know how it looked. I lost my temper with him about the phone and I have never done that before and it will never happen again. I'll do whatever you want — counselling, a programme, anything. But I'm asking you not to let a kid we don't know anything about turn one bad night into something it isn't. Please don't do anything irreversible while you're angry.*

I read that message about thirty times and I want to explain what is in it, because it is a masterpiece and I did not see it for six days.

*One bad night.* — There were eight months.

*A kid we don't know anything about.* — Move the question onto Nick.

*Turn one bad night into something it isn't.* — Pre-emptively name the truth as an exaggeration.

*Don't do anything irreversible while you're angry.* — Your judgement is compromised. Wait. Give me time.

There is not one threat in it. There is not one lie in it that you could prove.

I did not answer it.

What I did instead, on the Wednesday, was ask my son to tell me every single one, and I sat with a legal pad, and it took two hours and eleven minutes and I filled nine pages.

I am not going to reproduce them.

I will say two things about that list.

The first is that the first one — the actual first one, February the ninth — was not violent. Daniel took Thomas's wrist and held it too hard for too long while explaining something, and let go, and said "sorry, bud," and that was it, and Thomas told me he did not even think it counted and had only remembered it because of what came after.

The second is that seven of the incidents on those nine pages happened within twenty-four hours of a phone call Daniel had taken and left the room for.

Thomas noticed that himself. He said it about halfway through, in the flat way children say the thing that cracks a case open:

"It's usually after he talks to the Larkfield people."

I said, "The what people?"