Convictions

by Julie Morrigan

  ‘No problem. I’ll go and pick her up now, okay?

  ***

  By the time Ruth got back to the hotel, Penny had spoken to her sister in Liverpool and arranged to go and stay with her and her family for a few days. Her bag was packed and her train ticket had been booked online, to be picked up at Central Station in Newcastle. She had decided not to drive and, judging by the bottles of wine on the bedside cabinet, one empty and one half empty, that was a very wise decision.

  They drove to the police station in silence, Ruth uncertain about the wisdom of letting Penny meet with Tina in the state she was in. In the long-term, however, she reckoned it was for the best: Tina would need regular visitors, and her mum was her only close living relative. Besides, she had no power to stop her.

  Rather than take Penny into the cell to meet with her daughter, Ruth set up the interview room. Karen Fitzgerald had rustled up mugs of tea and a plate of biscuits, and sitting around the table there was a sight more normal than perching on the edge of the bed in the holding cell. Ruth and Penny went in first, then Karen brought Tina along.

  Penny had disapproval etched on her face even before her daughter was in the room with her and it only deepened as she saw Tina walk through the door.

  ‘Well?’ she demanded immediately.

  ‘Mum …’

  ‘Well?’ Penny repeated.

  ‘Well, what, Mum?’

  Penny rolled her eyes. ‘Well, what the hell were you thinking?’

  ‘They were going to let him out.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, that made you angry.’

  Tina paused and Penny just stared at her. Ruth set a mug of tea in front of each of them. ‘Let’s have a cuppa, folks,’ she said. ‘Tina, come and sit down, love. Penny, help yourself to a biscuit.’ It wasn’t a biscuit she needed, it was a square meal to soak up the booze, but Ruth figured every bite would help.

  Tina sat at the table and fidgeted with her mug, kept her eyes on it most of the time, but flicked little glances up at her mum to see if she gave any kind of reaction to what she had said. ‘Mum, I just wanted to make you happy,’ she said, after a few minutes. Penny continued to stare at her. ‘I wanted to make you proud of me,’ she finished in a whisper.

  ‘You aren’t capable of that.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Ruth.

  Tina sat unmoving at the table, her eyes on her mug of tea. She looked more resigned than shocked. Ruth felt anger build and while she tried her best to keep it under control, she couldn’t keep an edge out of her voice. ‘Okay, Penny, time for you to go.’

  ‘I haven’t finished my tea.’ Penny reached her hand out for a biscuit and Ruth moved the plate away.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You have.’

  Right on cue, Karen Fitzgerald opened the door of the interview room. ‘Mrs Snowdon,’ she said, ‘we have a car ready to take you back to your hotel.’

  Penny stood up ready to leave. ‘Well, bye-bye then, pet,’ she said. ‘I’m going to Auntie Sammy’s. I’ll be back in a week or so.’ Tina didn’t move. ‘No doubt Ruth will keep me up to date with everything.’ Penny patted Tina’s shoulder as she went past, then looked at Ruth, rolled her eyes and shook her head. Ruth gritted her teeth; she was glad when Fitzgerald took the woman out and the door closed behind them.

  ‘You’ve got to put that out of your mind,’ she told Tina. ‘Concentrate on what’s happening to you right now.’

  ‘She hates me.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s not true.’ Ruth tried to sound reassuring, but she was beginning to think the kid might have a point.

  ***

  ‘George Cotter has been moved out of intensive care and into a private room,’ Karen Fitzgerald was telling Ruth over a glass of wine.

  ‘How can he afford that?’ Ruth asked, taking a sip of chilled Chardonnay. ‘Is he banking on a pay out for false imprisonment?’

  ‘Over my dead body,’ said Karen. ‘No, he has a benefactor.’

  Ruth raised an eyebrow. ‘Who?’

  ‘Do you remember he was a churchgoer? When we questioned him initially, he’d been to church on the Sunday.’

  Ruth nodded. ‘“Hallelujah, praise the Lord” types.’

  ‘That’s them. Well, it turns out the church is pretty well off.’

  ‘I thought churches all over the place were falling down for lack of funds?’

  ‘Not this one. It’s well established, popular, and the good people of the church all tithe, as per the Bible.’

  ‘They do what?’

  ‘They each give ten per cent of their income to the church.’ Karen sipped her wine. ‘In fact, some give more than that. The pastor devotes all his time to the church, he’s paid out of church funds. They also run a youth group, a crèche, and, every Friday, a free luncheon club for the elderly of the area.’

  ‘Busy people.’

  Karen snorted. ‘Propaganda. These are all just ways to recruit more people for the church. More people equals more money coming in.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought the elderly had much to give.’

  ‘Well, a lot of them struggle finding cash but own their own homes. The church believes in investing in the future. Sometimes they score for the whole house, sometimes they have to settle for a chunk of the kids’ inheritance. You can bet however it happens, they make a profit on a weekly plate of mince and dumplings.’

  ‘You don’t think very highly of them.’ Ruth topped their glasses up from the bottle in the ice bucket.

  ‘No, I bloody don’t. Cheers.’ Fitzgerald tipped her glass to Ruth and took a sip. ‘Anyway, church funds have been made available to Cotter to cover private medical costs. I think the church has been helping out Cotter’s wife, too.’

  ‘Sounds like they look after their own.’

  ‘Don’t you find it odd that they’re happy to support a child killer and his wife?’

  ‘Well, the wife was never suspected of any involvement and, so far as the rest of the world’s concerned, Cotter has now been shown to be innocent.’

  ‘Yes, but I did some digging and guess what? The pastor has been visiting Cotter in prison every fortnight since he was banged up. He saw him more often than the wife did.’

  ‘Trying to sort out the lost sheep, do you think? Or was he never convinced of his guilt in the first place?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Fitzgerald. ‘But I think it’s bloody strange.’

  ‘How’s Cotter looking?’

  ‘I think he’ll pull through. Bastard doesn’t deserve to, but it’ll go better for Tina if he does.’

  ‘She’s got sod all else in her favour.’ Ruth raised her glass. ‘I never thought I’d hear myself say it, but here’s to George Cotter’s full and speedy recovery.’

  Chapter 8

  A couple of weeks later Ruth pulled her car to a halt outside of Weardale prison and headed in to see how Tina Snowdon was coping. Weardale housed both adult and young offenders in the same institution, so when inmates reached the grand old age of twenty-one, all staff had to do was move them to an adult wing.

  Before she met up with Tina, Ruth had a meeting with Mary McCluskey, her personal officer, to hear what the official word on the girl’s progress was.

  ‘Under the circumstances she’s doing about as well as could be expected,’ Mary told Ruth over a cup of tea, her accent pure Belfast. ‘She was very withdrawn for the first week, she hardly left her room. That’s not unusual, of course, but we couldn’t allow it to continue. She’s had some visitors, you know how much that normally helps, although I have to say, her mother is something of a mixed blessing.’

  ‘Her mother’s a bloody nightmare.’ Ruth sipped her tea.

  ‘Christina says she looks forward to seeing her and I think in some way, on some level, her visits do help. But they also upset her. The woman can be very harsh.’

  ‘Penny thinks the wrong little girl escaped when the two kids were abducted. She’s spent all her time since then making sure Tina knew t
hat.’

  ‘You’ve known them a long time?’

  Ruth nodded. ‘I was the FLO when it happened.’

  ‘Christina speaks very highly of you. She looks up to you.’

  ‘She’s a good kid. Did she tell you she stabbed Cotter to try to make her mother proud of her?’

  ‘Such a waste.’ McCluskey put her hand to her chest and Ruth noticed the shape of what looked to be a large, ornate crucifix underneath the woman’s clothing. ‘How is Mr Cotter?’

  ‘He’s going to make a full recovery. I’d never have believed it possible. I was there when she stabbed him and I didn’t think he’d make it to the hospital, never mind pull through.’

  ‘Better for Christina this way,’ said McCluskey.

  ‘True. We should be thankful for that, at least. How’s she getting on with the other girls?’

  ‘Well, she’s mostly kept herself to herself, but she’s made one friend. Leanne, a girl on the hairdressing course. I put Christina to work in the salon when she told me what she’d been planning before she was arrested. I’ll get her on a course, help her to get a qualification.’

  ‘What about her exams? She was due to take those in a few months,’ said Ruth.

  ‘Don’t worry, things will be sorted out so she studies and sits them,’ McCluskey told her. ‘I think we can safely assume she’ll be with us for some time.’

  ‘Yes, I think you can,’ said Ruth. ‘By the way, is it her idea to use her full name, or is that something you prefer to call her?’

  ‘It’s Christina’s decision. She wants to change, and using her full name is one way she can remind herself of that. Also, she says she thinks it sounds more grown up.’ McCluskey stood up. ‘You can visit her in her room. I’ll get Brenda to show you where it is.’

  ***

  ‘Hey, kiddo, how’re you doing?’

  ‘Ruth!’ Tina jumped up from the seat she occupied at the little desk in her room and hugged Ruth.

  So, Christina,’ said Ruth, hugging her back, ‘I hear you’ve got yourself a job in the hairdressing salon.’

  ‘Yes, it means I can keep my hand in. It was Mary’s suggestion. I told her how I’d been working for Vanessa in her salon before I came here.’

  ‘Vanessa’s been to see you?’

  ‘Yes, she has. She’s going to try to come every few weeks.’

  ‘Good,’ said Ruth, and meant it. Vanessa seemed like a good influence, and Tina couldn’t have too many of those in her life.

  ‘She still thinks I can go and work for her when I get out of here. And since Mr Cotter hasn’t died, there might not be too long to wait.’

  ‘That’s one of the things I came to tell you,’ Ruth said. ‘He’s going to make a full recovery.’

  ‘I never thought I’d feel this way, but I’m actually relieved.’ Tina sat back down. ‘I still hate him for what he did, but it makes no sense for me to throw my life away over him.’

  Ruth wondered if she was hearing Mary McCluskey’s words coming out of Tina’s mouth. Whoever had got Tina thinking like this, she was grateful to them. The kid sounded more positive, more hopeful, than Ruth could ever remember hearing.

  ‘Hi.’ A girl who looked to be a little older than Tina came into the room.

  ‘Ruth, this is Leanne. Leanne, this is Ruth. She’s—’

  ‘A friend of the family,’ said Ruth.

  ‘Christina, we have a date to go to the gym,’ said Leanne.

  ‘Oh, I hadn’t realised the time.’

  ‘It’s just over an hour to lock up.’

  Tina looked at Ruth.

  ‘Go,’ Ruth said. ‘I’ll be back soon, we can talk more then.’

  ‘Thanks, Ruth.’ Tina hugged her, then grabbed a bag from the floor and went out with Leanne.

  ***

  ‘Tell me about Leanne,’ Ruth said to Mary McCluskey. ‘What’s she in for?’

  ‘Shoplifting,’ said Mary. ‘But on a pretty big scale. She wasn’t just taking things for her own use, she was part of a gang that stole to order.’

  ‘How did she get into it?’

  ‘It was the family business. She was just following in everyone else’s footsteps. Catching Leanne with such a big haul last time gave the police the lever they needed to bring the whole thing down. Leanne and her brother went into Young Offender Institutions, and her older sister, parents, auntie and granny got prison. Granny got the shortest sentence, followed by the brother, who’s a juvenile. They’re the only two currently out.’

  ‘Jesus, must have been one hell of an operation.’

  Mary nodded. ‘Massive. As well as all the stuff they had in the house and in a lockup, would you believe they had boxes of cash in the cupboard under the stairs?’

  ‘What’s Leanne like as a person?’

  ‘She seems to have been okay here. She’s buckled down and got on with things, and she seems to have been a positive influence on Christina. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was Leanne who suggested she started using her full name and gave herself a fresh start.’

  ‘I sense a “but” coming,’ said Ruth.

  Mary nodded. ‘She came here from another institution. She’d become very unpopular there in a short space of time and was moved for her own safety.’

  ‘Do you know what she did to warrant it?’

  ‘I haven’t found out any details,’ said Mary, ‘although I haven’t given up hope yet. All I know so far is that there seems to have been some trouble between her and the other girls, one of them in particular.’

  ‘Well, that’s not necessarily so surprising,’ said Ruth. ‘These places can be pressure cookers. Keep an eye on things, though, won’t you? Tina’s had enough to cope with in her life. She seems as though she’s on a high now. I’d hate for her to come crashing down.’

  ***

  A week later, Ruth was back at Weardale. She had read up on Leanne and her family of thieves and was interested to see just how much influence she held over Tina.

  Checking in with Mary McCluskey, she discovered that she had got no further in her attempts to find out what had happened in the last YOI Leanne had been held in. ‘To be honest,’ said Mary, ‘I’ve been so busy this past week, that all I’ve done is send a follow up email to my contact there. I’ll get on the phone when I get the chance.’

  Ruth visited Tina in her room again, and this time took more notice of the surroundings. She appeared to have quite a few of her things from home, including the bunny toy that Ruth would forever associate with Annie’s disappearance, so she assumed Penny must have made something of an effort.

  The room was a basic rectangle with blue walls, and white ceiling and woodwork. There was also a cupboard with shelves and a hanging rail, and a tiny bathroom containing a lavatory and a wash basin. The single bed had a metal frame and the barred window had curtains that matched the faded duvet cover. Tina had covered the walls with photographs and pictures of actors and musicians that she had cut from magazines. Pride of place was reserved for a poster of MC Boyz, the band after whose concert she and Annie had got in such difficulties. Ruth was bemused: she would have thought that the memories attached to that would have put Tina off them for life, and yet her fondness for them endured.

  The space, or one very like it, would be her home for three years, after which she would move to an adult prison wing. Ruth didn’t expect that, even taking into account her young age, the unusual circumstances, and Cotter’s survival, Tina would have her freedom in time to avoid that.

  ‘I hear you’ve got your trial date,’ Ruth said, once they had greeted each other.

  Tina nodded. ‘It’s in five months’ time.’ She frowned. ‘It seems like ages. I didn’t think it would all take so long.’

  ‘That’s actually not too bad,’ said Ruth. ‘I’ve known it take a year or more. I appreciate that nothing seems to happen very quickly, but that’s because people want to make sure they get everything right. If you can, put it out of your mind and get on with your life. When you do get sentenced,
however long you’ve spent in here will be taken into account. It’s not like you have to wait and then start your time again following the trial.’

  Tina nodded. ‘I’m trying, I really am. Focusing on the positive, keeping up with the work in the salon, thinking about my exams.’

  ‘Good girl,’ said Ruth. ‘What about the other girls in here? How are you getting on with them?’

  ‘Fine, with most of them. Leanne’s my best friend. I do most things with her.’ Ruth noticed that Tina looked away and blushed slightly, but before she could question her further, Leanne popped up in the doorway.

  ‘Oh, hello again,’ she said, when she saw Ruth. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine, thanks, Leanne. How about you?’

  Leanne nodded. ‘I’m good. I’ve just come to call for Christina. It’s time for our trip to the library. We go there to study.’

  Ruth smiled. ‘Well, I certainly don’t want to stop you doing that,’ she said to Tina. ‘Not with your exams on the horizon.’

  Tina hugged her. ‘Thanks for coming to see me, Ruth. I really appreciate it.’

  ‘I’ll see you again soon,’ Ruth told her. Leanne scowled briefly, then Tina picked up her books and things and the two girls headed off down the corridor. Ruth watched them go, arms linked and heads close together as they strode toward the library.

  ***

  Later in the day, Ruth headed to the Snowdon house to see Penny. She wasn’t sure what to expect, but was pleasantly surprised when she found Penny had company and was sober.

  ‘This is my sister, Samantha,’ she told Ruth as she joined the women at the kitchen table.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Samantha. ‘Would you like some tea? It’s freshly made.’

  Yes, please,’ said Ruth. ‘You live in Liverpool, don’t you?

  Samantha poured the tea and passed a mug to Ruth. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘I decided to pop over to see Penny for a long weekend. My husband’s looking after the kids.’