"L… play with meee!!"
L sighed and looked up from the philosophy book he was reading, as he sat on his bed, knees tight to his chest. "Mello, why don't you try and make friends with the other children your age?"
Mello blinked from where he was sat in the middle of L's bedroom floor, a doll's house next to him, several of the little plastic models strewn around him.
"L is better player." He replied in his disjointed English, he was picking it up fast.
L sighed and gave in easily, folding down the corner of the page he was on before hopping from the bed to the floor.
"What are we playing?" He asked calmly.
Mello grinned in triumph and pointed at the dolls. "That's the mama, and that's the papa, an' those are their children…" he pointed at two smaller dolls. "And this one is… ummm." He whined and looked at L pitifully, "I don't know what this one is."
L smiled faintly. "If it's a rich family, it might be a servant?"
Mello stuck he tongue out, "Who has servants other than the queen?"
L almost laughed, "I did, when I was little. Only a bit older than you. I remember we had a butler who-"
Butlar.
He asked father… about the paintings…
About which were worth the most…
How the security worked…
Where father's hunting gun was kept.
All asked so innocently…
Looking through a gap in the door… watching mother fall, red on her lavender dress…
Forcing his mind from her. The man. The scary man. What did he look like?
L stood up, scattering pieces of plastic.
"L!!" Mello whined, "You made a mess!"
L didn't seem to hear him, his coal-coloured eyes glazing over with horror and realisation. "The bloody butlar!!" He snapped suddenly. "He was the one who…"
He didn't say any more. He raced out of the bedroom door and down the hallway as fast as he could go, knocking over some of the other children as he sped past.
He ran downstairs two at a time, landing heavily and skidding to the door of Quillish's office.
He didn't bother knocking, this was too urgent, and his mind was elsewhere, hiding in a cupboard, watching his mother die.
"I know who killed my parents!" He blurted out.
Quillish paused with his cup of earl grey halfway to his mouth. He raised an eyebrow at his ward. "L, please sit down, calm down, and repeat that at a pace I can understand."
For a moment L felt like screaming. But he didn't. He scurried to the leather chair in front of Quillish's desk and pulled his knees up, closing his eyes and forcing himself to breathe normally, and relax.
"Try again now." Mr. Wammy prompted.
L sighed. "I… I remember who killed my parents."
"I thought you had blocked all of that?"
L nodded. "I had… then Mello said something and… it rushed back… and I remembered our butler asked father about the paintings that were stolen… and about where father kept his hunting pistol." He lowered his eyes, "I didn't put it together because I was so excited… it was my birthday…"
Quillish nodded. "I see… do you specifically remember seeing him shoot the gun? This is very important L. You must be 100 certain that you saw him."
L swallowed.
Closed his eyes and thought back again.
Mother screaming, falling… Oliver wriggling under his hand. Forcing his eyes to peer through the gap.
Like a picture developing, the man's face sharpened in his mind.
"It was him." L muttered. "I remember I didn't like the way he walked around with his eyes half-closed."
Wammy nodded. "I see. That's good, being able to remember details like that will strengthen the argument. Now L, I am going to contact the police about this, and with any luck, they will investigate this butler. What was his name?"
L didn't need to pause, now the memories were coming back hard and fast. "James Last."
Quillish wrote this down. There were more questions after that, all of which he noted down the answers that L could be sure of. As the boy was forced to repeat the hideous event over and over in his mind he bit harder on his thumb, eyes growing darker with fright and misery and the faintest flush of anger.
Once it was over, Wammy told him to go and rest, to do something to get his mind off of what he had remembered in a blinding flash of lightening.
How could he be expected to put that at the back of his mind now? L wondered as he shuffled down the hallway. He hoped Mello had gone and found someone else to play with by now, because he really didn't believe he had the energy to do much over reading on his bed.
Thankfully, as he passed the play room, he noticed his little blonde ward nagging another boy around the same age with red hair to come and play with him, "Because he said so'.
L hurried past and into his room, locking the door behind him and falling back onto his bed, eyes closing.
He didn't want to sleep. In this state sleep would bring only nightmares. But he was so… drained. He felt like he'd played fourteen matches of tennis all at once. He head was hot to the touch, but his arms and legs felt clammy and unpleasant. His mind kept clouding and clearing with the pulse of his heartbeat.
He groaned and turned over.
He could always write to Oliver, he supposed. He wrote as often as he could, faithfully handing the letters to Wammy to be posted. He never got any back, but he assumed it was because the boy would be uncomfortable talking to him, they had only been little when they were separated, after all.
He was still young enough to make himself believe every word of these excuses.
He was certain the boy hadn't forgotten him though, otherwise there'd be little reason for him to keep living.
He nodded to himself and shuffled from bed to the chair at his desk, pulling a notepad across to himself and a pen, before beginning to write in his scruffy handwriting all about what had transpired.
He wrote to his brother about how soon their mother and father would have justice. Soon all the nightmares could be laid to rest. Soon the man who destroyed their word would know the pain they had been through. Soon they could meet again after all this time and go home.
And when it was done, his mind was eased, and he diligently placed the letter in an envelope and hurried to Roger's office, handing it to the ageing man to be addressed and posted, before happily hurrying off to find Mello.
Roger waited a few minutes before moving, to be sure that L had disappeared. Then he made his slow way to Quillish's own office, all the time staring at the envelope in his hands with a mix of pity and guilt.
He didn't knock, there was never any need to.
"L believes he knows who killed his parents." Wammy said before Roger could speak, his chair turned to the window as the head of Wammy's house stared out at the gardens.
L was out there now. He was playing football with some of the other boys.
Roger nodded. "He's written to his brother again too."
Wammy sighed. "I have contacted the police and they have scheduled an interview with this 'James Last'. It may not be legal for them to bring him in this quickly, but the Lawliet's were well-liked enough for the police to bend the rules. And I have never seen L more certain of something."
Roger moved closer to the window to watch the children too. "Yes… it's very likely that this man was the gun man who killed them. But now our problem becomes 'Oliver'." He handed the envelope over to his old friend. "L will want to know why his brother doesn't appear in court, if it gets that far, or at least why he hasn't contacted him about this."
Wammy lowered his eyes behind his glasses. "I think the time has come to tell him the truth." He sighed deeply. Of course he adored all the children, but L was special, L had something in him that Wammy rarely saw in children with such a harsh experience behind him.
A good heart, perhaps a little scarred from experience, but still basically whole and ready to believe.
It hurt him to think that the news he would have to give might well destroy that part of L Lawliet forever.
