Free The Report by Jessica Francis Kane Page A

determination to the largely inebriated gathering. The group rose behind him, mourners turned protesters turned organized crowd. All Robby had to do was raise his fist to elicit cheers of his name and Emma’s. This was tantalizing, and he did it again and again. He led the crowd up Cambridge Heath, past the public baths and cinema, past the children’s hospital, left on Old Bethnal Green Road, to the police station. As they arrived in front of the dreary brick building, the sound of his dead daughter’s name in the thick, damp air suddenly made him so angry, he kicked his foot through a car window. Then he fell backward and knocked his head on the curb.

Fourteen
    Just before dessert, the club’s tent collapsed, the far end, away from Laurie and William. It happened slowly and softly, the two end poles falling away from the tables, so that the white tent settled over the luncheon like a blanket over a cradle. There were quite a few whoops and hollers. The men at the collapsed end scrambled quickly to escape; those at the other end stood and walked out relatively calmly. With the exception of Smith, who banged a knee against a chair while temporarily blinded under the tent, no one was hurt.
    The members stood in groups about the lawn while the work of cleanup began. Some had emerged with their drinks. New glasses appeared quickly for everyone else. Many told jokes about American manufacturing. Others discussed the relative merits of oak paneling versus white sailcloth as a form of shelter. One older member evaluated the experience against that of his in the RAF during the war; a younger member questioned what the debacle implied for the empire.
    Without saying anything, the older members came to the same conclusion: the garden lunch had failed. Long live the grill room!
    And the younger members decided they should give the tent another try but that in the long run the club would need an addition, a covered veranda of some sort. They proposed various fund-raising ideas.
    Laurie and William stood together in the sun, mostly silent. The mishap had neither improved nor diminished Laurie’s humor. He felt remote, numb. When he did speak to William, saying something about how small the space looked with the tent down, William was preoccupied with his shirt collar. It turned out a beetle was crawling there; he removed it and tossed it into the grass.
    Once they were seated again inside, Laurie decided he would phone Paul Barber when he got home. He was staying at the B and B on High Street, poor chap. He wouldn’t find much to eat, Mrs. Loudon having become enamored recently of the idea (and low cost) of the continental breakfast. But Laurie would cooperate with his film. That would feed the boy’s enthusiasm, at any rate.
    Had it really been thirty years? Laurie couldn’t believe it. His fingers counted out the decades against his leg—’53, ’63, ’73. It was a habit, a dismal summary of the bulk of his life passing in a feathery movement of his fingers against his leg. He couldn’t resist the chance to tell the story again, or at least play a role in what would inevitably be its new iteration. And that morning he’d done something new: he’d broken a rule of the Test and used more than one fly. His last cast before lunch, he’d tried Barber’s clumsy lure and caught his biggest trout of the morning. His excited yelp had made Smith, that river muddier, lose his footing.

Inquiry

Fifteen
    The tragedy does not remain the story. As with any other public property, it is transformed by use. What you want is a loved one, child, friend, to be found, safe, alive. That’s not possible now. A few days earlier you might have accepted an apology from the government, or an explanation of what happened, or a promise that it would never happen again. But none of these things came about, and now you want someone humiliated, forced to resign. You want someone to admit responsibility, someone held accountable. Desperate for these