Guilty

by Jane Bidder

‘But there was something about her that I just couldn’t give up.’

  Why was he even trying to explain his feelings to a kid? Wait! The door was being unlocked and one of the prison officers stepped inside, an unreadable expression on her face. Simon’s heart quickened. They’d found him alive or …

  ‘I’ve got some news for you.’ The woman looked at Spencer. ‘It’s all right,’ said Simon quickly. ‘You can say it in front of him. I just need to know.’

  The woman nodded. ‘There’s been a phone call from your wife. Your son has been found. He’s fine.’

  ‘Stepson,’ Simon was about to say automatically but then stopped. Ben had been found. That was all that mattered. And he was OK. Relief flooded through him followed by anger. How could the little sod have put them all through this? ‘Can you tell me more? Where did they find him? Can I use the phone?’

  ‘Sorry.’ The officer was already backing out. ‘Not during lock-up. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow.’

  Tomorrow? Claire would think he hadn’t bothered. She might not realise he wasn’t allowed to call. Simon sank to the edge of his bed, face in hands.

  ‘It’s all right, man.’ Spencer stood awkwardly over him. ‘He’s not dead, is he? To be honest, I was beginning to think the worst.’

  ‘But I can’t ring home.’

  Spencer nodded. ‘Welcome to the world of prison.’ He lowered his voice. ‘There’s a bloke on the other side of the hut what’s got a mobile. I could put in a word for you if you like.’

  ‘Don’t even think about it!’ screeched Joanna. ‘ If you’re caught, we’ll be shipped to a closed prison faster than you can dial 999.’

  She was right. ‘It’s OK.’ Simon stood up and looked out of the window. It was dark now and you couldn’t even see the Education hut. ‘I’ll wait.’

  After roll-call the next day, it was straight on to kitchen duty. Simon was on carrots. Rounded slices instead of the long thin ones he liked to do at home; enough for 200 odd people.

  At 12.30 sharp, it was lunch. He had a choice of either eating or using that time to get to the phone in G hut. The last option was best because everyone else would be eating but it also meant he’d have to go hungry.

  ‘Claire?’

  Bugger. She had her answerphone on.

  ‘Claire. It’s me. They told me about you finding Ben. I’m so relieved. In fact that doesn’t begin to describe it. It made me think a lot about him and me.’ He paused. ‘If I was too hard on him, I’m sorry. It’s just that my father …’

  He paused again. How could you explain your relationship with your parents in a few minutes on an answer phone? ‘I’ll tell you more when I see you. I would have rung earlier by the way but I wasn’t able to get to a phone until now.’

  Blast. The message time had run out. He’d ring again tonight. Meanwhile, his stomach was lurching on empty. Jogging across camp to the dining room, he arrived out of breath. ‘Sorry, Mr Mills. Dinner’s over.’

  ‘Lunch,’ he wanted to say. ‘It’s called lunch in the middle of the day and dinner at night.’ But what was the point? With any luck, Spencer might have a spare Pot Noodle in return for another reading lesson.

  By the end of the week, he still hadn’t received a letter from Claire. Every time he called, her mobile was off. Clearly she was hacked off with him for not having rung as soon as he got the news about Ben. She thought he didn’t care. Didn’t he realise that he might not be a parent but he still had feelings for the kid? He tried writing her a letter but the words wouldn’t come.

  There was a limit to how many sliced carrots you could throw yourself into every day but at least there was art, thank God. He’d progressed from colour charts now to copying one of the many postcards that Caroline-Jane brought in. The other men fell on them with crows of delight and, not for the first time, Simon realised that small pleasures, on the Out, assumed massive significance on the In. Incredible how you could release all those pent-up emotions on to paper.

  ‘That’s coming on,’ said Caroline-Jane, sitting next to him. He was copying a small boat that was setting sail from the beach. ‘If you made the sail go that way instead …’ Deftly she made the scene come to life.

  ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ he said admiringly.

  She shrugged but he could tell she was pleased. ‘We all do different things in life.’

  ‘I used to be a lawyer in my old one,’ he said quickly. He’d been wanting to get that in ever since they’d met to show he was different from the others. It was gratifying to see the fleeting look of surprise across her face. ‘I haven’t done anything violent,’ he added quietly.

  Joanna laughed nastily. ‘Really?’

  ‘I was involved in an accident.’

  Caroline-Jane stepped back and he became conscious that the others were listening. ‘May I see you after the class, Mr Mills?’

  He nodded, feeling even more of a fool than he had when his parents had taken him back to school after running away at fourteen.

  She waited until the others had left before speaking. By then, Simon’s sketch was almost complete. ‘That’s very good,’ she said nodding at it. ‘You can paint it next week.’

  He nodded, waiting for her to tell him off about being too familiar earlier on.

  ‘What does it mean to you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your painting.’

  He considered. ‘Hope, I think. It’s someone getting away; finding freedom again.’ Stupidly his eyes began to fill with tears and he had to blink them back.

  ‘You know,’ said Caroline-Jane, beginning to clear the paints away, ‘I don’t want to know what my students have done. But most people are here for a reason. There’s no graph which means one crime is worse than another.’

  He nodded. ‘I drew the boat because my stepson went missing by the coast but now they’ve found him. I was hard on him when I lived with him and his mother. Now I wish I hadn’t been.’

  Caroline-Jane nodded. ‘Prison gives you time to reflect. I find that myself even though I go home at night. ‘She put some of the charcoal into a box. ‘Why don’t you send him this painting and tell him why you did it?’

  That night, he wrote two letters. The second was to Hugh. How do you write an apology letter to the man whose wife you had killed?

  ‘Keep it short,’ advised Joanna. ‘He’ll be so mad he might not get to the end of the first sentence.’

  So he did.

  Dear Hugh,

  I am sorry I killed Joanna. I should not have picked up the mobile. I ought to have looked at the map before taking you back so I knew the way. I do wish you hadn’t grabbed the steering wheel, however. If you want to keep sending me more letters telling me how much you hate me, that’s fine. But please don’t do the same to my wife.

  Yours,

  Simon.

  P.S. Do you ever hear your wife in your head?

  By the end of the following week, he received a letter back from Claire. Ben was all right but a bit subdued. It had been a shock for all of them. Meanwhile, her mobile had been cut off because she couldn’t afford her contract any more and the house still hadn’t sold. She was coming to visit the following month. It would be Christmas by then.

  The week after that, he had finished his picture and reluctantly resumed Listening duties in the hut. Thank goodness the child molester had been steering a wide berth around everyone for some reason. With luck he wouldn’t pitch up tonight.

  ‘Wotcha.’

  Simon nodded as a bulky man in a T-shirt, even though it was freezing outside, came in. ‘Cool hair,’ whispered Joanna, referring to his bald pate with two side plaits hanging down from behind either ear. They seemed curiously at odds with the man’s deep voice.

  ‘Would you like to sit down?’

  Some of the men, he’d found, preferred to stand up. Others wanted to look away while they talked. This man chose to sit down, face to face. ‘I’m out of here in two weeks.

  Lucky sod. ‘That’s wonderfu
l.’

  ‘No.’ The man was looking down at his trainers. ‘I don’t want to leave.’

  ‘Why not?’ Simon was dumbfounded.

  ‘I’ve spent more of my life in prison than out of it. Don’t you see?’ His eyes were boring into Simon’s. ‘At first when I got done, I nearly went nuts especially when Patrick died.’

  ‘Patrick?’

  ‘Me son.’ He spoke as though Simon should know. ‘Came off his motorbike by White City and you know what?’ He looked as though he was going to grab Simon’s shirt to drive the point home. ‘This officer, when he came to tell me, said that my son had been killed. I said, ‘Which one?’

  Simon’s blood was beginning to run cold. ‘You had two?’

  The plaits were nodding. ‘Yes and he said he didn’t know which boy it was. So for twenty-four hours I had to sweat it out until I knew whether it was Patrick or Chris.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Simon would have taken the man’s hand if it might not have been misconstrued.

  The Plait Man nodded. ‘After that, I had to get on with it. So I did. Twenty years it’s taken me to get to this stage.’

  Twenty years? Then he had to have been a murderer. Simon felt rather cold despite the fan heater which was blazing out.

  ‘And now I don’t want to leave ʼcos it’s all changed. Me wife’s gone off with someone else. I’m nearly fifty and that’s too old to get a proper job. ʼSides, who’d have me with my record?’

  A Listener’s job, Simon knew, was to listen to someone and not try to solve his problems. You could gently steer them in the right direction but you weren’t meant to give them an emotional prescription.

  ‘If you’re not sure where to live, there’s the St Giles Trust to talk to,’ he ventured.

  Plait Man made a dismissive gesture. ‘I can live with me brother if I want but I won’t know what to do. Here there’s work stuff to take my mind off it. A routine.’

  Simon felt himself struggling. ‘You might find that when you get out, it’s all right.’

  Plait Man shrugged.

  ‘I’ve always found that fearing something is actually worse than when that thing really happens.’ That was better.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘If I were you, I’d try to live each day at a time when you get out. You’ve been away a long time. It’s natural to be fearful.’

  Plait man stood up. ‘OK. Ta.’

  ‘By the way,’ added Simon. ‘Are you still in touch with your other son, Chris?’

  Plait man sniffed. ‘Doesn’t want anything to do with his old man now. He’s an accountant, you know.’ He grinned. ‘I’d never tell him this but I’m real proud of him.’

  Had he helped or had he been useless, wondered Simon as he watched his new client lurching out of the door.

  ‘Well, darling, put it this way,’ purred Joanna. ‘That trite stuff wouldn’t have made me feel any better.’

  Thanks.

  Anyway, he was doing all right with Spencer who could now read the notices in G hut. Suddenly, Simon was being inundated with requests from others who needed help with writing all kinds of things from their names to tricky letters to the wife.

  ‘Fucking hell, man. Open up!’

  Simon woke to the sound of Spencer at the door, rattling the door handle. Everyone else on the corridor was doing the same. Overhead, a helicopter was buzzing and a siren was screaming.

  Something had happened, thought Simon as he staggered out towards the window.

  ‘Shit me.’ Spencer was behind him now as they both watched someone being carried on a stretcher. ‘That’s a stiff.’

  It was too. The blanket was over the entire body but he could just make out something dangling towards the ground.

  It looked like a long plait.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Claire hadn’t been able to believe it when Mrs Johnson had found Ben. He wasn’t dead. He hadn’t been taken in retribution for Joanna. He was alive. Shivering. Blue with cold. But alive.

  ‘I’d say he’s in pretty good shape considering,’ said the doctor at the hospital. ‘You can take him home if you like.’

  Home? He clearly thought they were all still together. Claire felt like a fraud. ‘We’ll go back to my place,’ Charlie had said. Mrs Johnson had slunk off before they’d even got to hospital. When Claire had thanked her, the woman had hugged her tightly back and said they needed time to themselves as a family now.

  A family! She’d thought they’d stopped being that but Ben’s disappearance had proved different. Now, here they were, back at Charlie’s apartment, its Conran dining room table and steel chairs so different from the old mahogany furniture they had had when they were together.

  It felt odd.

  ‘Are Mum and I going back to Mrs Johnson’s or what?’ demanded Ben as he wolfed down the fish and chips they’d bought on the way back.

  ‘I thought you two might want to stay the night,’ suggested Charlie in that casual tone which she knew so well. It generally hid a deeper meaning. ‘In the guest room. It’s a double. I’ve got wireless too and there’s a laptop.’

  Ben didn’t need inviting twice.

  ‘Do you think he’s emailing his friends?’ asked Claire after he’d rushed off.

  ‘I hope so. Either that or Facebook. The sooner he gets back to normality the better. He’s going to feel embarrassed now but it will blow over.’

  So true. For all his faults, Charlie understood how teenage boys ticked, unlike Simon. ‘Where shall I put away the placemats?’ she asked, helping him to clear away. It felt so weird to be asking her first husband about his domestic details.

  ‘In the third drawer down on the left.’

  She opened it. Inside were the silver napkin rings they used to have, each one monogrammed with their initials. ‘H’, ‘C’ and ‘C’. When they’d broken up, they had divided their possessions with a certain amount of tension. He must have had these.

  ‘You’ve kept them,’ she said, indicating the rings as she put them on the table.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘When are we going to talk to him?’ she said, changing the subject.

  ‘Later, when he’s had a chance to unwind. Don’t you think?’

  Yes. Simon would have had a blazing row with Ben by now. Charlie’s approach – going in with a Coca Cola half an hour later – was far better. ‘Your mother and I were worried sick, you know.’

  Ben’s face went stony. ‘I said I was sorry.’

  ‘We wanted to know why you did it.’

  ‘Mum knows.’ His voice was quiet.

  She struggled to find her own. ‘You mean it’s because of Simon.’

  It sounded weird to say his name out loud in front of Charlie.

  Ben nodded.

  ‘You find it embarrassing that your mother’s husband is in prison.’

  Charlie almost sounded pleased.

  Ben nodded.

  ‘It’s not really surprising.’ Charlie reached out and patted his son’s hand sympathetically. ‘It can’t be easy for either of you having to leave your home and live in a couple of rooms. That’s why I’ve got a suggestion to make.’

  Claire looked up in surprise. He hadn’t mentioned this. ‘I propose that Ben comes to live with me for a bit. No, hear me out. Just until you have sold the house and bought your own place. I’m not going to be travelling so much any more so I’ll be here. It will take the focus off you, Ben, just until all this blows over.’

  How could she have trusted him? This was outrageous. It was making Ben choose between them. Yet at the same time, Charlie’s words made sense. If he lived here, his father could protect him in a way that she might not be able to, simply because of her connection with Simon.

  ‘What about Mum?’ Ben was throwing her an agonised look. ‘Can she live here too?’

  She reached out for her son’s hand. ‘I can’t, darling. That wouldn’t be …’ Wouldn’t be what?

  ‘Appropriate,’ suggested Charlie. ‘Your mother is ma
rried to someone else now.’

  ‘What about Slasher?’

  ‘I’m sure we could sort something out. Tell you what. Why don’t you have a shower and go to bed. It’s getting late and you must be exhausted.’

  It was true. His eyelids were drooping and he was almost lying on the dining room table. She waited while Charlie found him a towel and then after he had showered, went into kiss him goodnight. ‘I’ll always love you more, Mum,’ he whispered as he clung to her.

  ‘You mustn’t talk like that, darling,’ she said despite the rush of relief that flooded through her. ‘It’s not a contest.’

  He nodded. ‘If I did live here, I’d still see you every evening, wouldn’t I?’

  She bit her lip. ‘Not every evening because I have to work. But definitely at weekends.’

  His eyes were closing now and she could hear the steady pattern of his breathing. Her heart heavy, she went back out into the dining room.

  ‘You didn’t tell me you were going to do that,’ she said angrily.

  ‘It makes sense.’ Charlie was calmly making coffee in a sparkling chrome percolator. ‘I need to protect him from the repercussions.’

  ‘Repercussions? Is that what you call it?’

  She was beginning to remember now how he always deflected criticism with questions. ‘All right then.’ He put a cup in front of her. ‘Death by dangerous driving. Let’s call it by its real name.’

  ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘Claire, your husband broke the law.’

  ‘So did you! You broke our wedding vows.’

  He sighed, leading the way to his sofa; a black leather design that she had loathed on first sight. ‘Don’t go through all that again.’

  She perched on the edge of a chair instead. ‘Why not? That’s what caused all this, isn’t it? Some woman at work whose name you refused to give me.’ She could feel the anger rising now as all the details came flooding back into her head; details which she had fought to obliterate for so long. ‘If I hadn’t found that lipstick in the car, I’d never have known.’

  ‘I told you. It’s over. It’s been over for years.’

  ‘But you shouldn’t have done it in the first place!’