The Sinner

by Martyn Waites

  ‘Which face?’

  He opened his eyes. What had he said? He was suddenly sweating, shaking from more than the coffee. He stared at her.

  ‘Which face?’ she asked again.

  He hadn’t known he had said that. She had done it to him again. Forced him to admit something about himself that he hadn’t realised he was thinking or feeling.

  ‘You know which one.’

  ‘You need to say it.’

  His voice had shrunk to near a whisper. ‘My father.’

  Louisa nodded, as though her hypothesis had been confirmed. There was no triumph in her gaze though, just acknowledgement.

  ‘So all the time you were taking revenge on people you thought had done you wrong, you were trying to attack your father.’ Not a question, a statement.

  He nodded.

  ‘So what are you going to do about this new person? The one you claim is responsible for you being in here?’

  ‘He is responsible.’ The words whiplash quick, coated in anger.

  ‘Is he? Aren’t you ultimately responsible for your own destiny? That’s what you’ve said previously.’

  Foley didn’t answer. He knew to answer either way would incriminate him.

  ‘Dean?’

  ‘I trusted him. And he betrayed me. That’s the facts.’

  ‘So how did you feel when you saw him again? Did you want to take revenge on him for what he did? Are you planning on doing that? And if you do is it because of what he did to you or who he represents?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know. I really don’t know.’

  ‘Were you and he close?’

  He couldn’t look at her, didn’t trust himself to speak. He nodded.

  ‘Very close?’

  ‘Brothers,’ he managed.

  ‘And if you do decide to take revenge on him, this brother figure, for betraying you, how would you do that?’

  He frowned at her.

  ‘You’ve just said that when you administered punishment beatings before you did them personally. Would you do that this time? Could you do that? To someone you considered a brother? Or would you have to get someone else to do it for you?’

  He looked at her, frowning.

  ‘Come on, Dean, I’m not stupid. I know the sway you’ve got in this place. The hold you have over people. You say the word and something would happen to this man.’

  ‘That’s not—’

  ‘Yes it is true, Dean. We both know that. What I want to know is, what would be the point? For you, I mean. You could have him beaten up, even, I don’t know, killed. But what would be the point? He’s been out of your life these past, what is it, four years? I’m sure you don’t regard him as someone close to you anymore. So what would you gain?’

  Foley said nothing.

  ‘Or do you think it’s something you have to do yourself? Are you trying to prove something? I mean, you wouldn’t be trying to hurt someone who can never be hurt again. It wouldn’t be your father. Not this time. And it wouldn’t be to save face on the out. So ask yourself. Why would you do it? And what would you gain?’

  Foley stared at the floor. The coffee had gone cold. The room felt dark, as though a thunderstorm was about to hit. He felt tired. So, so tired.

  ‘I want to go back to the wing now, please.’

  *

  He was escorted by the same officer. Neither attempted conversation.

  He felt like he had just done six rounds in the ring. The sessions did that to him. On other occasions he had screamed and thrown furniture. Other times he had curled up into a foetal ball and sobbed his heart out. But this time he just felt . . . different. Exhausted, but like a door had been opened inside him and he didn’t know which way he should go. All he knew was that he had better regrow his shell by the time they reached his cell.

  Public persona back in place, he stepped onto the wing. And almost immediately ran straight into Clive.

  Foley took in the other man’s dishevelled appearance, reddened features and black eyes. ‘Well, well, well . . . Killgannon’s done a number on you, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Clive spat through missing teeth. ‘Got solitary for it, though. Bastard.’

  Foley laughed. ‘Come into my room.’

  The officer led the way to Foley’s cell, let them in, then, dismissed, drifted away.

  ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘I reckon Killgannon thought he was being clever,’ said Clive. ‘Attack me, get put in solitary. So you can’t get to him. Or so he thinks, anyway. But you can get him anywhere, can’t you, boss?’

  Foley said nothing. Heard Louisa’s words rattle round his head, spinning so fast they gave him a headache.

  He blinked them away. ‘Why?’

  Clive frowned. ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why did Killgannon go for you?’

  ‘Like I said, so he could get put in solitary. For protection.’

  ‘I know that, Clive. I was on the wing and saw it happen. He could have gone for anyone. Why you and not someone else?’

  Clive became suddenly impatient to be away from there. He could sense the mood in the cell had changed. ‘Because I led him to you. And he was angry because of it.’

  ‘And that was all?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Clive, nervously, ‘That was all.’

  Foley stared at him, unflinching. The kind of gaze Louisa had given him.

  Clive wilted. ‘Well, I may have said something to annoy him. Nothing really.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Nothing, just . . . to spark him off, see what he would do.’

  Foley felt his anger rising. ‘Like what?’

  Clive knew he had no choice but to tell the truth. ‘I mentioned his dead niece. That’s all.’

  Foley turned his back on Clive, walked as far away from him as he could in the cramped space. Clive kept prattling on.

  ‘Shut it.’ Foley turned back, eyes blazing.

  Clive shut it.

  Foley’s voice, when he spoke, was dangerously calm and low. ‘That was a bad thing to do, Clive. A very bad thing.’

  ‘Yeah, I realise that now, Mr Foley, but—’

  ‘Don’t interrupt. You did a stupid thing. An unnecessary thing.’

  Clive shook. ‘I’m . . . I’m sorry . . .’

  ‘So you should be, Clive. And you will be. But first you need to be taught a lesson.’

  Clive was almost sobbing now. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because . . .’ Foley thought. About his session with Lousia. About what had been said, what he had experienced. The conclusions about himself he had reached. ‘Because it’s what I have to do. Because you’ve done me wrong and I have to punish you for it. Simple as that.’ The words said like a learned piece of church ritual. He sighed, felt something slip away inside him.

  Clive was openly sobbing.

  ‘Baz.’

  His right-hand man stepped into the cell.

  Put something into it, he thought. ‘Little task that needs attending to, if you don’t mind. Clive here’s been a naughty boy and spoken out of turn, upsetting someone very badly. As such he needs to be taught a lesson. Nothing too major, just so he won’t do it again.’

  ‘What about a fall?’ asked Baz.

  ‘Yeah. A high one. With some stairs for a bit of variety.’

  Baz nodded. Smirked.

  ‘Please, Mr Foley, no, please . . .’

  Foley turned to Clive. Regarded him with contempt. ‘We’re all responsible for our own destinies, Clive. Be a man. Accept responsibility for yours.’

  Baz dragged Clive out of the cell. Foley heard him pleading all the way up the stairs until, after a little while, his pleading crescendoed into a scream, then silence fell across the whole wing.

  He sighed once more. Felt, in his mind’s eye, Louisa giving him that stern gaze.

  Seeing right inside him.

  Even when he closed his eyes she was still there.

  26

  DS Nick Sheridan li
ked to think of himself as a decent man. Conscientious and diligent in his work, always putting in as much effort as he could, a staunch friend and supportive colleague. One of the good guys, making a difference by catching the bad guys. Or women. Or however they preferred to be referred to. He didn’t differentiate. At home a loving husband to Carrie and a great father to Chloe and Baxter. He also refereed non-league football matches. Just a hobby, but one he took seriously, bringing his rigorous sense of right and wrong to bear on the pitch. He saw it in part as an extension of his police work: creating as fluid and exciting a game as he could while at the same time not allowing impropriety to go unpunished. Rigorously enforcing fair play in all things. So to have doubts about his colleagues and their attitude towards an investigation was no small thing for him. And to actively take steps to investigate for himself was unheard of. It challenged every belief he had been brought up with, the very bedrock of his existence. Nevertheless, something told him to persist. And he listened to that voice.

  No police station was ever silent and Middlemoor, the Exeter headquarters for Devon and Cornwall, was no exception. With its flat-fronted red brick façade and pitched roof, it resembled anything from a redundant Territorial Army base to a factory in an old Norman Wisdom film. Inside it had been gutted and renovated according to the best practices of every generation of police commander, every Home Office initiative. Currently the Serious Crimes Squad worked out of a large open plan first floor office, all workstations and access cards.

  Sheridan was still at his desk even though the rest of his shift had long since gone home. He was waiting for an unobtrusive time to start investigating, when he wouldn’t attract too much attention from the night shift.

  The office was still well lit, the overhead strip lights and desk lamps turning the windows into mirrors against the darkness beyond. Night shift tended to be on call more than day shift, reactive not proactive. As such he found himself alone in the office. He had made small talk with the few officers he had encountered, telling them he had reports and court documents to finish before he could go home. Trading weak jokes and bonhomie, they left him to it.

  He had thought of working from someone else’s computer in case anything was logged but decided that his own would be secure enough. There was a legitimate reason he was searching for these things, after all. He logged into the Police National Computer. Quickly found who he was looking for.

  Dean Foley. Plenty on him and what led to his subsequent imprisonment. But it was less informative than he’d been expecting. Sheridan knew all the facts already. There was only a mention of Killgannon by the pseudonym ‘Witness M’ and a note that nothing more could be revealed about his identity for fear of being compromised in the field. It stated that Witness M had infiltrated Foley’s gang under the name of Mick Eccleston and was reporting back to his handlers. It was his first-hand testimony that led to Foley’s arrest and imprisonment for drugs, people trafficking, assault, robbery, intimidation, extortion and anything else they could find to throw at him. And it had stuck.

  As he read through something caught his eye. The fact that there had been another undercover officer involved in Foley’s gang. ‘Witness N’. Witness N had been placed first but hadn’t been as successful as Killgannon. For some unspecified reason there was no mention of Witness N anymore. Sheridan tried a search under that name. Came up with nothing.

  That was as much as he could discover. The rest he knew, even down to which prison Foley now resided in. Which made Sheridan wonder. Had Harmer not known Killgannon was really Witness M when he assigned him to cosy up to Cunningham? Or had the information somehow slipped through the net? Or the line of thought Sheridan didn’t want to pursue but knew he had to: had Beaker known about Foley’s presence and still assigned him? Or even worse, assigned him because of Foley’s presence?

  It made no sense. Or none that Sheridan wanted to countenance. He sat back, came out of the PNC.

  What next? He looked over at Harmer’s closed door.

  He knew what he had to do. And he didn’t relish it one bit.

  He stood. And caught his reflection in the glass. He looked furtive, a criminal about to commit a crime. Felt immediately guilty because of it. Maybe that’s all he was. An untrustworthy sneak spying on his colleagues. In a way he hoped so. He wanted to be proved wrong. But there was that niggle again. Telling him that he was right. That there was something wrong and he had to find out what it was. No matter how unpleasant the outcome.

  He crossed to Harmer’s door, tried the handle. Unlocked. He knew he should feel pleased about that but it just made what he had to do all the more unpalatable. He looked round once more even though he was the only person in the office. He felt he was being watched through the night-mirrored windows. Or maybe that was just his sense of guilt again. He stepped in Harmer’s office, opened up the screen, tapped in Harmer’s password. Finding it had been easy. His porn name. Name of first pet, mother’s maiden name. The team had played that game one night in the pub. Harmer, not wanting to appear standoffish, contributed his. Then, still drunk later, let it slip he would use it as his password. Sheridan, good copper that he was, had filed the information away. He never thought he would need to use it, especially under these circumstances.

  When requested he typed in ‘LolaCraddock’ which he supposed could have been a real porn name given some adjustment or imagination, and he was in.

  But he didn’t actually know what he was looking for. He just hoped he would recognise it when he saw it. If he saw it. He still hoped that he was imagining things.

  And yet . . .

  He scanned the files for anything that looked out of place, anything alluding to the current investigation. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. Everything seemed in order. He was going to leave things at that, reluctant to delve further into a superior’s work, when something caught his eye. A file. No. Two files. He checked their names.

  Witness M.

  Witness N.

  Sheridan sat back, heart hammering away.

  He had been right. Damn it, he had been right.

  He didn’t know whether to congratulate himself or commiserate with himself.

  He did neither. He opened the files.

  27

  Tom heard the key turn, the sudden noise resonating round the empty cell. Even though an opened door usually signified the beginning of something, that deep, heavy metal sound seemed more suited to an ending. Maybe it was time for him to leave solitary, Tom thought. Or knowing this place, maybe it was just lunchtime.

  Tom sat up on the rudimentary bed, regarded his visitor. A young woman, quite well dressed, looked back at him. She smiled. The gesture seemed more about showing she was no threat than any kind of kindness. Prison wasn’t a place where kindness flourished. Or if it did, it was swiftly punished.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, dismissing the officer who had opened the door for her.

  ‘Have to stay with you,’ the officer said, unmoving. ‘Hostage risk.’

  She turned towards Tom. ‘You’re not going to take me hostage, are you?’

  Tom frowned. ‘Why would I do that?’

  She turned to the officer. ‘I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.’

  The officer clearly didn’t want to move. ‘Will you state you’re taking full responsibility for your own safety, then?’

  ‘I will.’

  The officer reluctantly left, but not before saying he’d just be down the corridor.

  ‘Hi,’ she said again. ‘I’m Dr Bradshaw. Louisa.’

  He nodded. ‘Tom Killgannon.’

  ‘I know.’ She looked round. The only piece of furniture in the room was the bed. ‘May I sit down?’

  ‘Be my guest. Didn’t know I was getting visitors. I’d have run the vacuum round.’

  She laughed. It sounded genuine. She sat down at the far end of the bed, away from Tom. He didn’t move. The only other seat was the toilet in the corner. ‘How’ve you been?’

  The que
stion invited a full answer, one Tom was unprepared to share. He had been dragged off the wing as soon as he assaulted Clive. The officers were on him straight away, hitting the alarms for backup and using the kind of restraining techniques he had used in his previous life. Some of them had got in body shots while he was restrained, the clever, sadistic kind that left little or no mark but instantly debilitated him and hurt like hell for ages afterwards.

  He was dragged straight off to the CSC, the Close Supervision Centre or Seg Block as the inmates called it. The place was a prison within a prison, no natural light in the corridors, no way to tell day from night. Once the key was turned and he was left alone, he could have been deep underground for all he knew.

  He’d paced the tiny floor until the adrenaline rush wore off then lay on the bed as the pain the officers had inflicted replaced it. And there he had remained. His claustrophobia, already bad in his usual cell, went into overdrive. It was like a cheap public toilet in some brutalist car park, tiled walls, disinfected floor, stainless steel pan and washbasin. A bed that provided the barest minimum of comfort. A small window of reinforced glass in the cell door so wing staff could observe him, shattermarked and blood smeared by the force of a thousand fists and headbutts. If his injuries hadn’t been so debilitating he would have screamed himself hoarse. Instead he just lay on the bed, trying to hold himself together, eyes closed.

  Sometime later that night – he thought it was still night – an officer brought him a tray of food. His first instinct was not to touch it. Foley had people all over the prison – why not the kitchens too? Could it be poisoned? Or worse, could someone in the kitchens have tampered with it just because he was in solitary and they assumed he was a paedophile or a rapist? He knew from urban legend the kinds of things that were put into prison food. Everything from excrement to broken glass.

  He had no appetite. Left the tray by the door.

  Later, after a fitful spell of sleep, he was awakened by the key in the door and an officer telling him it was time for exercise. He was led out to a small cage, still inside the prison within the prison, and told to walk round it for half an hour. If he wanted a shower now was the time to do so. He did so.