A Life for a Life

by Andrew Puckett

  ‘I suppose I am.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because what’s happened to those two people is not fair,’ she said after a pause. ‘I know you can’t make life fair and nor should we even want to, but that’s no reason to ignore its more grotesque anomalies.’

  *

  Frances was up and dressed in a summer frock. His first impression was of a plain but not unattractive face with very clear grey eyes that watched him intently as he approached her.

  ‘Mr Jones?’

  He nodded. ‘Miss Templeton.’

  ‘Won’t you sit down?’ She indicated another chair.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Close to, he could see that her skin was dry, almost papery, and that there were lines around her mouth and jowl that made her look older than her years.

  She said, ‘Agnes – Mrs Croft – told me that you might be able to help Fraser.’ Her voice was low, clear, with a slight accent, a sort of citified West Country that he thought must be Avonian.

  He said carefully, ‘Assuming that what he told me was the truth, then I might.’

  ‘It is the truth.’

  ‘Then what I’m looking for might help him.’

  ‘What exactly are you looking for?’

  Tom explained, then said, ‘If he’s right about Alkovin, and even more to the point, about the corruption, then it could give others a motive for killing Dr Flint.’

  Frances grimaced. ‘Well, I’m the living proof he’s right about Alkovin.’

  Tom thought quickly, said, ‘Did Fraser feel as strongly about it before he went to America?’ It wasn’t the direction he’d intended going, but it was on offer, so he took it.

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Then whatever made you agree to be treated with it? Didn’t you believe him?’

  ‘Oh, I believed him, but…’ She hesitated. ‘But “clinical depression” was just words to me then. Hearing about it and living it are two very different things.’

  He started to say something but she overrode him. ‘When Dr Flint diagnosed me, my one idea was to get cured. Her figures clearly showed that Alkovin produced better remission and I thought: What’s a bit of depression compared with a better chance of living?’ She sighed. ‘I had no idea what clinical depression could be like.’

  ‘Bad?’

  She looked away, then back at him. ‘It’s like a black hole. Every atom of hope is sucked out of you, and no matter how often you tell yourself it’s the drug doing it, you don’t believe it.’ Her words came faster. ‘It gets so you believe that the people around you, even those who love you, they aren’t just unsympathetic, they’re actually conniving at your misery… it gets worse and worse and at last you snap and go out of control.’ She swallowed. ‘Fraser told me how I hit him, threw things at him, but I can’t remember doing it.’ She tried to smile, but it came out lop-sided.

  Then she told him how it was the morning after she’d been diagnosed that Fraser had gone to see Connie and they’d had the row that led to his suspension… ‘It was she who hit him, you know, not the other way round.’

  ‘He does seem to have made a habit of that recently,’ observed Tom. ‘Being hit by women, I mean.’

  She smiled suddenly, brilliantly, and her face took on a radiance that astonished him.

  Then it faded as she said, ‘It’s occurred to me since that she reacted like that because she knew deep inside that he was right. It makes her phone call to him plausible.’

  ‘Are you still being treated with Alkovin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why, for God’s sake?’

  ‘Because to change now might compromise my chances of a cure. I’ve been on Prozac for a couple of weeks and it’s stopped the depression.’

  ‘So why on earth didn’t you take it earlier?’

  ‘Because Dr Flint wouldn’t allow it. She doesn’t – didn’t, that is – believe in prophylactic treatment.’

  ‘I see,’ said Tom. What he saw, more clearly than ever, were Fraser Callan’s reasons for hating Flint. ‘You mentioned the phone call just now, when Dr Flint asked Fraser round to her house, but you weren’t actually there at the time, were you?’

  ‘No, more’s the pity.’

  ‘Could you tell me about that day, from your point of view?’

  ‘All right…’ She told him how she’d decided to drive to her mother’s.

  ‘What time did you leave?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not sure, about half-past ten, I suppose.’

  ‘How about arriving?’

  ‘I think around eleven – does it matter?’

  ‘I’m trying to get all the details of that day right in my head…’ What he really wanted to find out was why Callan hadn’t made more effort to bring her back home after he’d been released by the police. ‘What did you do, once you got to your mother’s?’

  She shrugged. ‘Chatted, had lunch, then went out shopping. It was that that did for me.’

  ‘But you still intended to go back home?’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t feel up to driving by then. I rang Fraser but couldn’t get any reply. It wasn’t until the next day that I found out why,’ she added.

  ‘But he rang you, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So why didn’t he come and collect you?’

  ‘At the time, because it seemed simpler that way, although I realise now that it was because he didn’t want me to find out about Connie—’

  Of course not! But in what sense…?

  ‘—I suppose he didn’t think he’d be able to hide it from me.’

  ‘You didn’t realise anything was wrong from the way he spoke on the phone?’

  ‘No. But by that time, I felt so near to collapse I was happy to stay at Mum’s… If only I’d known…’

  ‘Can you remember the next day?’

  She nodded, her face becoming pinched again. ‘I remember waking up… I’d had a terrible dream and I felt awful. I remember having a row with Mum, and then nothing – until I woke up again and Dr Parker, our GP, was there.’

  ‘When did you find out what had happened to Dr Flint?’

  ‘Not till the day after.’ She smiled again, wanly. ‘Mum had Dr Parker tell me in case I threw another wobbly.’

  ‘Did you?’

  She shook her head. ‘I haven’t had one since. Dr Parker says it’s the Prozac.’

  ‘Good stuff, then?’

  She nodded. ‘And some.’

  ‘Did it surprise you, Fraser hitting a policeman and making a run for it?’

  ‘Of course it did. He’s always been a bit short-tempered, but I’ve never known him to be violent before.’ She continued: ‘In a funny kind of way, it’s rather flattering. He did it for me.’

  ‘It’s made things a lot worse for him.’

  ‘Oh, I know that – I did say in a funny kind of way.’

  ‘You know that the police are wondering whether Fraser killed Dr Somersby as well?’ said Tom, changing tack.

  ‘There’s no as well about it,’ she said sharply. ‘Besides, I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life.’

  ‘Why d’you say that?’

  ‘Because they got on so well.’

  ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘It was obvious, you could see they had an affinity. This was before we started going out together,’ she added.

  ‘What about Dr Flint?’ Tom asked. ‘Did Fraser ever have any affinity with her?’

  ‘I know they had a one night stand, if that’s what you’re getting at,’ she said drily. Then she added, ‘I think it had more effect on her than him.’

  ‘In what way?’

  She thought for a moment, then said, ‘I think she still wanted him afterwards, and then realised that he didn’t want her… I’m sure it’s a factor in the whole business, why she hated him so much, why she was so bloody-minded when he tried to tell her about Alkovin.’

  ‘Her feelings were that obvious?’

  ‘Oh no, they w
ere always very correct in public, I don’t think anyone else knew about the one night stand.’

  ‘But it was generally known they disliked each other?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have said it was generally known… Terry Stroud certainly knew, and maybe some of the others.’

  ‘He’s the one who heard Fraser threatening to kill her?’

  ‘He’s exaggerating. Besides, it was just after Fraser came back from America and found I was ill.’

  He took the opportunity to go over everything she knew about the dispute. It didn’t differ significantly from Callan’s account. Then he asked her to contact him if she remembered anything else, and got up to go.

  ‘I hope you’re feeling better soon,’ he said, the words sounding limp and inadequate in his ears.

  ‘Thanks.’ He was half-way to the door when she said, ‘What would really make me feel better is some good news about Fraser. You will try, won’t you?’

  *

  At that moment, Fraser was on his way to gaol.

  He was sitting handcuffed in a cubicle, one of eight cubicles in a large van belonging to Group Four, although he was the only prisoner. There was no window and nothing to look at, not even graffiti. From the steady roar of the engine, he guessed they were on a motorway.

  His troubles, Agnes had explained to him the previous evening, had come at a bad time. The local prisons were even more overcrowded than usual and he was being sent to Her Majesty’s Prison Ship Derwent, a converted car ferry moored off Portland Island. She told him she was looking for the best available counsel, and that Tom Jones was investigating the corruption angle. His mouth turned down at that and Agnes told him that Jones was probably the nearest thing they had to a friend at that moment. The aloneness he’d felt as she’d left was one of the worst moments.

  The van ground on. His mind turned to Frances – she’d be into the third course of drugs by now and he wondered how she was feeling…

  There was a click and he looked up to see an eye peering at him through the spy hole. The sight of it, for the second it lasted, seemed to encapsulate his whole life.

  At last they came to a stop he sensed was final. The cubicle door opened.

  ‘Let’s be ’avin’ you then, sunshine.’

  The back of the van was opened and he stumbled out, blinking in the sudden brilliance. A heavy, black chain link fence stood in front of him, about twenty feet high. Behind it and to the left was a massive structure, perhaps fifty feet high – was that a ship?

  A prison officer emerged from a hut and, selecting a key from the huge bunch hanging from his belt, unlocked the gate. Fraser was led forward.

  ‘Remand prisoner for delivery,’ the Group Four flunkey said as he handed over some paperwork.

  They passed through another gate, then another. Into a terrapin hut. He was signed for and his hands uncuffed. The flunkey left and he was told to sit down.

  After a few moments, another prison officer came in and gestured to him. ‘This way.’

  Another gate and a long passage that he suddenly realised was the gangway to the ship, then yet another gate to be unlocked – did that make five or six?

  A reception area, clean, bright, windowless – he was told to strip. His clothes were searched and returned to him. He was told he could keep one spare set of clothes and some books, but his other possessions would be stored.

  A senior officer called McIlroy gave him a book of rules and went through some of them with him. Fraser listened, but he was only half there; it was as though he’d been put into a faulty time machine and the other half was somewhere else.

  ‘… and because of the present overcrowding, you’ll be sharing a cell with two putative illegal immigrants—’

  ‘What?’ His other half returned with a bang. ‘I was told I’d get a cell to myself.’

  McIlroy looked up. ‘I’m sorry, Dr Callan, but we are accommodating you in accordance with the regulations laid down for remand prisoners. Maybe in a week or two the situation will improve.’

  ‘But… these illegal immigrants… who are they?’

  ‘Romanians. They’re good lads.’

  ‘Romanians…’ He swallowed. ‘I’ve heard about what goes on in prisons… What if they try to…?’

  McIlroy said stiffly, ‘You’ll find nothing of that kind occurring in this prison.’

  Oh, great… that’s a real feckin’ comfort…

  He allowed himself to be led up a flight of stairs. On the landing, two men in brown prison clothes were cleaning the floor and looked up incuriously as he passed.

  They stopped to pick up some bedding, then went up another flight, then another – how high was he going?

  There was a smell, the smell of school, of bodies, the smell of institutionalised humanity.

  A brightly lit corridor – everything was bright. They stopped at a door. The officer slid it aside and peered.

  ‘Nobody in, your chance to make yourself at home.’

  Fraser followed him inside. The cell was about eight feet by ten. There was a single bed on one side, twin bunk beds on the other.

  ‘Looks like you’ve got the top bunk.’ The officer tossed the bedding on to it. ‘You make your bed while I fetch your toilet tackle.’

  Fraser started to sink down on to the single bed before remembering it was someone else’s. In a daze, he looked round the cell… In one corner was a triangular table and a chair, beside it a small chest of drawers with a bowl and jug. Beside that, in the other corner, was a pale blue rectangular object with a white lid and he realised he was looking at a chemical lavatory.

  There was a noise outside, then the door slid open and two men came in. They wore T-shirts and jeans. One had thick dark hair, stubble and deep brown eyes; the other was fair with blue eyes. They both stared at him.

  14

  He froze as they stood there staring; he’d realised he was going to have to say something when the fair one said carefully, ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi,’ Fraser responded warily.

  ‘Hi,’ said the dark one, appraising him.

  The two of them looked at each other; the fair one said something in what Fraser assumed was Romanian, then turned back to him. ‘You,’ he pointed, ‘in – here?’

  Fraser nodded. ‘Yes.’

  The fair one pointed to himself. ‘Ilie Groza,’ he said, and held out his hand.

  Fraser took it – it was rough and hard with a fierce grip.

  ‘Fraser Callan,’ he said.

  ‘Fra-ser?’

  He nodded.

  The other one said, ‘Petru Branesco,’ as they repeated the handshaking ritual, then hauled a plastic pouch from his jeans, sat on the bed and rolled a cigarette. He offered the pouch to Fraser, who shook his head.

  ‘No, thanks.’

  Petru shrugged and handed the pouch to Ilie. He waited for him to roll, then lit up for them both. The air filled with acrid smoke and Fraser hoped the air conditioning worked.

  Ilie looked at Fraser again, then picked up a dictionary from the table and thumbed through it.

  ‘You,’ he said to Fraser, ‘you – snare?’

  Snare…? He looked at the word Ilie was pointing to, and for the first time that day, smiled.

  ‘Snore,’ he said, and Ilie repeated it.

  ‘I don’t think so…’ Fraser said, then shrugged and shook his head.

  ‘Petru,’ said Ilie, pointing, ‘him – snore. Bad.’

  It was at this point that Fraser realised they probably weren’t planning a raid on his virtue that night – then there was a noise from the door and the warder came in.

  ‘You lads got to know each other all ready then? Good, saves me trying to introduce you.’

  He handed Fraser a plastic bag with a string-pull neck. ‘That’s your kit – soap, flannel, toothbrush – and here’s your card for the phone. It’s gotta last you a week, so don’t lose it. If you do, you’ll have to pay for another. OK?’

  He nodded to the other two and left. Petru gave his ret
reating back a one-fingered salute.

  ‘Bastard,’ Ilie said, but not until he was well out of earshot. It was one word he didn’t have to look up, Fraser reflected.

  He was looking something up now, though. He pointed at himself and said, ‘Mech-anic.’ Then at Petru. ‘Boulder.’

  Fraser was wondering dimly whether this was a reference to Petru’s bravery or to Peter the rock of the Church when Ilie mimed bricklaying.

  ‘Ah, a builder.’

  ‘Da! Yes. Bil-der.’ He pointed at Fraser interrogatively. ‘You?’

  Fraser took the dictionary from him and looked up doctor, for which the Romanian word was – doctor.

  ‘Doctor,’ he said. ‘Medic.’

  The two Romanians looked at each other. Petru said something which Ilie answered in a sharp burst of Romanian. Petru shrugged again – it seemed to be his favourite gesture.

  Fraser started making up his bed on the top bunk to cover the moment. The blankets were grey and rather coarse and the sheets looked like linen, although it was more likely to be rough cotton, he reflected. He hadn’t made up an old-fashioned bed since he’d left home, and now it was especially awkward because he had to reach up and over to do it. He’d just about finished when a fist pounded on the door and a mocking voice intoned, ‘Dinner is served, gentlemen.’

  The two Romanians obviously knew what this meant. They stubbed their cigarettes, got up and stuffed their baccy pouches into their jeans. Fraser wasn’t hungry, but decided he might as well go with them.

  In the corridor, it seemed as though the whole wing was on the move as prisoners streamed out of their cells, some in jeans, some in prison garb. Fraser went with the crowd, keeping close to Ilie and Petru. At the moment, they were the nearest thing he had to friends… discounting Jones, that is, he thought wryly.

  They turned into a large dining area and joined a queue. Fraser looked round. He’d subconsciously expected long, school-type benches, but instead there were ranks of tables and chairs for four. Ahead was an army-style canteen where men in chefs’ hats served food across a stainless steel counter.

  The queue shuffled slowly forward. Ilie and Petru picked up trays and plastic cutlery. On offer were fried fish, stew with dumplings, vegetable curry and rice, chips, baked potatoes and cabbage. The Romanians had stew and chips. Fraser took stew, potatoes and cabbage.