L's Untitled Genesis Story, Parts 1 and Beginning of 2
One.
The first time Quillsh Wammy saw L Lawliet, the child was sitting, scrunched up with knees to his chest, in a chair that dwarfed him in an interrogation room in the Winchester Police Station, staring off into space. Even just looking in through the observation window, Wammy knew the boy was in shock. His black hair, longer than most boys’, stuck up in all directions, and there were dark circles under his equally dark eyes. He looked as though he had just seen something traumatic, which, of course, he had. Leaving him alone in such a bleak grey room, usually reserved for criminals, struck Wammy as cruel.
He was about to comment on it when the officer beside him, a woman with chin-length blond hair, said, “Don’t even say it, I know. We couldn’t get him anywhere near the children’s room.”
The station had a play room, for children like L, victims of one crime or another. It had bright colours, toys, and a generally deceptive atmosphere that none of them ever bought, but was slightly more comforting than this. It was a room Wammy was familiar with, as most of the children bequeathed to his care were orphaned by something sudden and violent. Although he would become the exception to so many rules, L was no exception to this one.
Earlier that morning, Wammy had received a call from the Winchester police, and by then he had already seen the news, so he had a fair idea it was coming. What had happened was ludicrous and horrific: the boy’s house had exploded. The Lawliets had lived in the country outside Winchester proper, so by the time the fire engines rolled up, the impressive estate had been reduced to charred timber and ashes. Even a village idiot could deduce there were no survivors.
Except that there was a survivor. Standing on the back lawn, in a pea coat and scarf to battle the December chill, was the Lawliets’ eight-year-old son, greeting the hose-toting firemen with a blank, wide-eyed expression. According to later reports, the men who had spotted him thought at first they were glimpsing a ghost.
All this was explained to Wammy over the phone, along with the obvious details that there was no way the house could have blown up on its own, even with a gas leak. It was too spectacular an explosion, too Hollywood, seen for miles around and expelling a small scale mushroom cloud into the air. The fact that the boy had gotten out without a scratch was beyond miraculous; it was impossible. He had to have been removed before the fact.
“So you’re telling me someone planted explosives in the Lawliets’ house, had a crisis of conscience, and carried the boy out before detonating the bombs and murdering his parents before his eyes?” Wammy had asked the officer. To him, that wasn’t much a crisis of conscience; more like a deliberate act of sadism.
The officer’s tone indicated she suspected the same. “What I’m saying is, we haven’t been able to get him to speak a word since we found him at 3 this morning. So none of us have any real idea what happened.”
The indication was clear; Wammy was wanted for consultation on this. This happened often with the children who went to his care, and he did the best he could, although sometimes there was just nothing to be done. In this instance, however, the boy had seen something. It was all a matter of coaxing it out of him.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Wammy had said into the phone. “And what is the child’s name?” The officer had said it several times, but Wammy was certain he misheard. Now in his mid-sixties, he worried his hearing wasn’t what it used to be.
“L,” the officer repeated.
No, it was exactly as he had thought. “And what does L stand for?” he asked, thinking it must be a nickname. Short for Lucas, Louis, Lawrence, Lysander.
“L stands for L,” the officer said. “That’s his name.”
L Lawliet.
There was a certain poetry to it, Wammy had to admit.
Back to the present, with the boy on the other side of the glass from him, sitting, staring. The Lawliets had no living relatives, and while L had been home schooled, his test scores on record were staggeringly high. Without a doubt, he fell into Wammy’s jurisdiction. Although police questioning had gone nowhere, everyone involved thought that if they could give L some time to process all that had happened, get him to a more stable environment, he might open up and be able to assist the police in their investigation. At this point, it was all up to Wammy.
He excused himself from the officer and slipped into the interrogation room. L did not look up when he entered. Wammy sat across from the boy and studied him. He was not an unattractive child, although very pale, which made the dark eye circles even more prominent. There was something vaguely Asian about his features as well, and a quick look at the case file confirmed his mother had been half Japanese. That also accounted for the black hair, still glossy although disheveled. The boy had his mouth buried in the cream-coloured scarf, giving the illusion that he was gagged. Still in the coat, as well, and hugging his knees so tightly his small knuckles were white.
“Hello, L,” Wammy said, with as much cheer as he could muster without sounding fake.
L stopped staring off and looked at him immediately. It threw him off-guard. The boy had every right to be shell-shocked, but these eyes were not glazed over in the manner Wammy had been expecting. Also, in the harsh overhead light, it became clear that his eyes weren’t totally black, but a very dark grey. L stared at him, unblinking, with a comprehension of the situation Wammy thought he would have had to explain carefully. No words had been exchanged, but Wammy knew the child was very intelligent. No, beyond that, even. It was … unsettling.
Deciding to skip right to the point, he said, “My name is Mr. Wammy. I run an orphanage for gifted children called Wammy’s House, here in Winchester. It’s a nice place and I think you might like it there.”
L said nothing, just continued to stare at him, and although there was no change in his expression, Wammy knew he understood what was being said.
“I know nothing can ever replace your parents, L, and no one would try. But I think the best place for you would be with us, and not a public orphanage.” He gave a benevolent smile, although behind it he was thinking of how a child so delicate would get torn to pieces in the regular system. L Lawliet of the sing-songy name would end up as grime on the bottom of some hardened urchin’s shoes.
Slowly, L nodded, as if coming to the same conclusion.
“Good, good,” Wammy said, still smiling. “And, of course, the police are working hard to catch who did this to your parents. They’ll stay in close contact with us, and may want to speak with you again. I can understand why you’ve not cooperated thus far, but I can promise you, they are on your side. Anything you tell them will help them catch the bad man.”
Again, L nodded, and dropped his gaze, ducking his head. Wammy hoped he hadn’t spoken too soon about the boy’s parents. He’d been an orphan for less than twelve hours, after all. All Wammy could see now was the unruly mop of hair and a bit of his nose. The grip on his knees had tightened and he was shaking slightly.
Wammy was tempted to cross the space between them and place a reassuring hand on the tiny shoulder - the child was clearly suffering - but then L did something that kept him frozen in his seat. The boy, still hanging his head, pulled up his chin slightly, so that his mouth was free of the scarf, and spoke.
“It’s not that I’ve not cooperated, Mr. Wammy,” L said, with maturity and elocution that shocked him, especially when delivered in the voice of a prepubescent boy. The accent was unsurprisingly upper class, like Wammy’s own, but the inflection was not a child’s. Wammy wondered for the first time exactly what the boy had been taught by his home-schooling mother. And, despite L’s wounded posture, the body curled up on itself, nearly fetal, shaking with grief and confusion and fear, everything he said sounded perfectly calm. “I’m just still thinking.”
Still thinking? About what? Wammy nearly blurted out his reaction, but something stayed him. The moment had turned too bizarre; he was afraid if he demanded an explanation the child would resume his vow of silence.
“That’s fine,” Wammy said, struggling to mask his surprise. “You may think all you like. In fact, it’s encouraged.”
This time, L did not even nod. After several seconds of nothing confirmed the boy would not volunteer any more information, Wammy cleared his throat and stood. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, L, I need to speak with the officer. Then we’ll get you out of here.”
He exited the room and found the blond-haired police officer looking at him expectantly. He repeated what L had said and she frowned so deeply creases appeared on her forehead. “What’s he got to think about? Either he saw something or he didn’t. And unless he had a really lucky bout of sleepwalking, he definitely saw something.”
Although Wammy agreed, he said, “Well, I don’t think it’s a good idea to push him; he was already shaking like a leaf. I’ll take him to Wammy’s House and we’ll see what a few days of rest can do for him. In the mean time, you can follow up your other leads.”
The officer scoffed, and Wammy got the impression that if he had not known her a long time, she would have found his statement offense. As it was, she gave him a wry smile. “What other leads? The blast was so strong it disintegrated whole rooms, never mind the devices used to make them. No motives either: parents had no rivalries, no enemies. That kid’s the best lead we got.” She sniffed with contempt. “And he’s holding us up ‘cos he’s thinking.”
Wammy held up his hands in surrender; a peacemaking gesture. “I’ll see what I can do, all right?”
He returned to the interrogation room. L had stopped trembling, but otherwise hadn’t moved. Wammy moved to the boy’s side, adjusted his bowler hat, and held out his hand. L looked at it curiously, then reached out and took it. His thin hand, despite all the layers he wore and the indoor temperature, was freezing. Then, with the limberness of a child, he stood up directly on the chair without having to extend his legs, and leapt down with no trouble at all. He looked up at Wammy, and held on tightly.
And that was how Quillsh Wammy came to acquire the century’s greatest detective.
Two.
L’s entrance into Wammy’s House came without much fanfare. It was a Saturday, and, free from classes, the children ran about in the yard as the first flakes of a snowfall began to drift downward, high on the excitement of precipitation and the coming Christmas holiday. If the snow fall picked up, they would soon be herded back inside, given hot chocolate, and allowed to read in the library through the afternoon.
At the high front gate, L froze, and although his expression was unreadable due to the scarf obscuring half his face, his grip on Wammy’s hand tightened like a vise. The glimpses of the children through the wrought iron bars and their loud laughter seemed to frighten him.
“It’s all right,” Wammy said to him, but the boy did not appear to hear.
Down the street, at the Winchester Cathedral, a city landmark and the longest cathedral in Europe, the church bells were ringing. It was a wedding; Wammy had seen a flutter of ivory and lace emerging from a limo as he had driven by, with attendants in blue awaiting her arrival. Perhaps L had seen it too from the back seat, but regardless, it seemed now that the bells had caught his attention, and he listened to them, transfixed.
“Let’s go, L,” Wammy said, gently but with authority, opening the gate with his free hand.
It took a light tug, but then L moved forward obediently, his small legs working double time to keep up with Wammy’s adult strides. He regarded the other children warily, like a gazelle watching lion cubs at play - harmless now, but likely to go for the jugular sometime. This was why Wammy was against homeschooling; the children never integrated properly. Hopefully it was a hurtle L could overcome, although in the back of his mind, he suspected he had already glimpsed signs that would keep L apart from other children forever. He did hope he was wrong.
Thus, L entered Wammy’s House, which would become his home for the next five years, at which time he would take up detective work full time and travel the world solving cases at the age of thirteen.
***
Whenever a new child came to Wammy’s House, Wammy himself took care to follow the adjustment process closely. This was doubly important in L’s case, since the police were so eager to get his testimony. What Wammy saw in those first few days wasn’t exactly encouraging, but it was to be expected. Although other children lost their parents in traumatic ways, very few had watched it happen, so L’s behaviour could certainly be attributed to that. Still, it was difficult to tell if the way he acted was a direct result of his parents’ murder, or if he had carried on as such before that.
He still sat - or, more accurately, crouched, Wammy decided, upon watching him do it several times - in that peculiar, vaguely fetal fashion. He still spoke very little. The other children appeared to frighten him, and vice versa. More than once Wammy heard L referred to as “that weird boy” and had to reprimand several children. Bullying was one of the worst offenses at Wammy’s House, but even he couldn’t deny that, unfortunately, the description fit.