‘That’s for you to decide, Dean. You’ve been talking about how you should take revenge against this person for what he’s done to you in the past. Yes, it may be emotionally satisfying for a while but in the long term it may well cause more upset than not.’
‘But it might not.’
‘That’s for you to interpret how you wish. Same with your dream. You tell me that you don’t think you can take revenge anymore. That you won’t get anything beneficial out of it, even though you’ve been thinking about him the whole time you’ve been in here and what you’d do to him if you saw him again. Does that sound about right?’
Foley nodded.
‘And how d’you feel about that?’
‘I dunno, honestly. I’ve got a reputation in here. Can I speak honestly?’
The question, asked abruptly, threw her off guard. ‘No point in being here otherwise.’
‘Right.’ He nodded, making his mind up about something. ‘My reputation. I know you know about it. And you maybe think of me differently because of it, I don’t know. But somewhere like this, a reputation’s all you’ve got. And if that goes you’ve got nothing. So I have to decide what to do. And it might not be the answer you want to hear. Or I want to hear. But I have to do something.’
‘You know I have to report you if you’re going to—’
‘Yeah, I know all that. But you don’t know who this bloke is. And I haven’t said anything about him to you so there’s no way you could tell anyone anything. It’s just . . .’ He sighed. Put his head in his hands. ‘I get tired of all this. So tired. But I don’t know what to do. What can I do?’
‘I’ve given you all the help and advice I can. The tools to cope. You’ve got to make that decision on your own.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I think that’s it for today, Dean. Sorry.’
He looked up at her like he had been cut adrift.
‘I think you’ve got plenty to be getting on with, though. A lot to think about before our next session, don’t you?’
Foley leaned forwards once more. Exasperation in his voice. ‘But I need to know what to do. I’m . . . I can’t just go on like this . . .’
‘I’m sorry, Dean, this is all I can do here. If you need someone to talk to on the wing then I’ll—’
Foley stood up. ‘You haven’t been listening, have you? I can’t do that. I can’t talk to anyone on the wing. Because they’d know then. They’d know. Everyone’s going to be expecting me to do this, and if I don’t, I’ll be weak. And I’ll have had it. So no. It’s here or nothing.’
Louisa sighed. ‘OK, Dean. Let me see what I can do. I’ll juggle some things around and see you again this week. That’s the best I can do, OK?’
Foley sighed. Looked round like the room was just another prison cell. ‘Suppose it’ll have to.’
‘Leave it with me.’
He left.
37
DC Blake looked at the crime scene at Double Locks. Not the spot where her partner was murdered, not the place where she betrayed him. Nor where she had taken justified action to protect her investment. Just another crime scene.
She shouldn’t have been there. By law, she was too close to the victim to be part of the investigation. But she had to find a way to control the flow of information, shape the way it was used. Guide it away from herself. So she had turned up at the scene, ostensibly to see if she could be of any assistance. Play the role expected of her.
The Double Locks crime scene was a few days old. The novelty for rubberneckers had worn off. Barely anyone gave it a second look now. The white tent and erected fence hid the car park from the towpath and the sight of white-suited officers going painstakingly about their business was now deemed boring. Once onlookers realised it wasn’t like on the telly, and police work was as exciting to watch as any other job in the public sector, they drifted away and left them alone. The only aggravation came from the owners of the pub who were waiting for the all-clear to reopen, complaining of lost revenue. Blake knew what they really meant: come and see the site of the latest grisly murder! Follow the signs! Read the information placards! Then stop for food and refreshment! And bring your friends and family! She couldn’t blame them, they had a business to run. But the investigation would take as long as it had to.
DCI Harmer was with her. ‘Must hurt, seeing all this, Annie. Could get very emotional for you.’
‘I just want to be on the team, Dan,’ she said, deliberately using his first name, playing up the intimacy between them, her voice lowered, matching the words, ‘Part of this investigation.’
His expression looked pained. ‘Too risky. You were his partner.’
‘All the more reason, then. Plus, I owe it to him.’
He didn’t reply, just stared at the forensics going about their business in their white tent.
She kept working on him. ‘Dan,’ seductive now, the promise-laden tone one he could never refuse, ‘come on. I knew him better than most.’
‘Maybe you didn’t.’
She frowned. ‘What?’
He looked at her then, opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. Deciding whether to share something with her or not. ‘They’re going to question you, you know. This team.’
‘They already have.’
‘Another time, I mean.’ Again, that indecision. She knew he would talk to her though. She waited. ‘Listen, between you and me, there’ve been some irregularities discovered concerning Nick Sheridan.’
She frowned, barely suppressing a smile. Kept acting. ‘What kind of irregularities?’
‘Well . . .’ He looked round, checked they weren’t being overheard. Leaned in closer. ‘His computer was taken away, checked over. Looks like there was some . . . there’s no way to say this gently. It looks like he was bent.’
She assumed a wide-eyed look. ‘No . . .’
‘ ’Fraid so. It seems he was taking payments. From whom, we don’t know. Or why. But the evidence is all there. It’s being examined now.’
‘Not Mr By The Book Nick Sheridan.’
‘I’m as surprised as you are, Annie.’
‘Then that’s all the more reason for me to be on this team. You need me there. Someone has to make sure findings like that don’t taint the rest of us.’
Harmer frowned. ‘You think there might be more?’
‘God knows. But if that’s what they’ve found so far, we might need damage limitation.’
He nodded. ‘You’re right.’
She smiled and he looked at her as if just seeing her for the first time. ‘You done something to your hair?’
She smiled, put her hands to the ends, fluffed it out, arching her back as she did so. ‘You like it? You’ve always said how much you find redheads attractive.’ She leaned forwards so he could get a good view of her cleavage. ‘Haven’t you?’
‘You remembered.’
Of course I bloody remembered, she thought. Everything gets filed away for future use. ‘I did. I also bought something to wear to go with it . . .’
Harmer could barely control himself. ‘And . . .’ He looked round, seemingly wishing he was somewhere more private. ‘Do the collar and cuffs match?’
Blake felt a bit of sick in her mouth at the words. Harmer imagined his blokey badinage was the kind of thing women loved to hear. God, it was like being shagged by David Davis.
She giggled appropriately, leaned right in to him, mouth to his ear. ‘Who said anything about cuffs?’
He just stared straight ahead as the meaning behind her words sunk in.
‘Usual place, usual time tonight?’ she whispered.
He nodded as vigorously as a cartoon dog.
‘So I’m on the Sheridan investigation?’
How could he refuse?
*
She drove away from Double Locks, back to Middlemoor. Her official title was team liaison. She couldn’t be seen to be working with the investigating team directly, but was privy to everything that went on. That suited her
perfectly.
They were looking for the woman Sheridan had been seen with the night of his death, focusing on her as the lynchpin of the investigation. A drinking companion, dressed in figure-hugging black, black hair scraped back. Leaning into him over the table, a suggestive smile on her face all the time they talked. No one had managed to trace her yet. Blake had been questioned, of course, but cleared. Figure-hugging black had never been her style. And no one would ever suggest an affair between her and Nick Sheridan.
Along with the DI brought in from Avon and Somerset to oversee the investigation, she had interviewed the other drinkers in the pub that night. Most of them had barely looked at her, just took her for the female sidekick of the leading investigator. And she was happy to let them believe that. The general public, bless them, were always eager to help an investigation, believing that they might hold the clue that could unlock the whole thing, bring a murderer to justice. So they would explain what they saw on the night in question in as much painstaking, boring, unwanted and unnecessary detail as possible. All the while never noticing that the woman they were talking about was sitting right next to them.
She should have been on the stage.
Inside Blackmoor was going to plan too.
Just the way she liked it. No surprises.
In control.
38
Down – hold – up again. Down – hold – up again. And again. And again. Tom was keeping himself fit. Sit-ups in a cell was cramped enough, in a shared cell just about impossible. But he had to keep himself fit, keep himself sane. Keep himself ready.
Evening. Association time but neither of them had left their cell. Cunningham lay on the top bunk, singing softly to himself. He had the kind of voice Tom would have expected given his choir background, high and clear, even at low volume. Something in Latin, Tom thought. Some religious piece or perhaps even opera. Nothing he recognised. Cunningham tuned out of the room when he sang to himself, and it was something he had been doing more and more since Tom came back onto the wing. So with Cunningham doing that and Tom doing his exercises, it was like two different worlds coexisting in the smallest space possible, or so Tom thought.
Everything was back to the way it had been. At least superficially. Cunningham’s face had lit up when he returned. There were red marks and welts on his face and arms, they looked like they stung. Perhaps Tom’s presence had stopped other inmates bullying and abusing his cellmate. Perhaps that was why he was so pleased to have him back.
Earlier, Tom had tried talking to Cunningham, with some success.
‘So I hear you’re looking to get out, visit your mother?’
Cunningham jumped as if he had been shocked. ‘Who told you that?’
‘Thought everyone knew. They’re waiting for you to give up some information then you can go, yeah?’
Cunningham thought about Tom’s words, smiled. ‘Yeah . . .’
Tom saw, in that moment, why Cunningham hadn’t given up the location of his bodies yet. The power it gave him. Not only over the police and prison staff, but the families of the victims themselves. He was enjoying it.
‘Why not tell them? Then you can get out? Seems simple.’
‘It’s not. Not that simple. It has to be . . . I have to see my mother when . . . when the time is right.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘She’s still in the hospital. There’s nothing they can do for her. They’re going to send her home to die.’
Tom couldn’t work out what kind of emotion was behind the words. But he kept talking. ‘So you want to see her at home, right?’
Cunningham nodded.
‘Why don’t you tell them what they want to know, then arrange to see her when she’s back at home?’
Cunningham stood up, his eyes angry little dots. ‘Because I’m doing it my way. My way. Don’t tell me . . . don’t tell me . . .’
Tom held up his hands. ‘OK, OK . . .’ He waited for Cunningham to calm down. ‘Hey, here’s an idea. Why don’t you tell me? Then I can tell them when you want me to?’
Cunningham looked at him, something like joy appearing briefly in his eyes.
‘I mean,’ Tom continued, ‘that’s what friends are for, helping each other out when they need to.’
Cunningham said nothing, but it looked as though a war was being waged behind his eyes. Like a cartoon character with a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. Tom waited.
Eventually Cunningham turned away, looking like he had lost his train of thought, or lost interest in the conversation. That was when he began to sing.
And didn’t stop.
Tom, realising he wasn’t getting anywhere but needing to do something in that small space, started his sit-ups.
As he exercised, he thought. The phone call. Blake. Anger and fear danced within him, each vying for prominence. He tried to tame the fear but couldn’t. Too overwhelming, too all-embracing. He was stranded, in prison, alone. His only contact with the outside world gone. His life in danger.
He’d walked back to his cell, numb. Lain there all night, not knowing if he slept or not. Unsure even whether he heard Cunningham’s night terrors. Just letting the enormity of his situation sink in. Trapped. Stranded.
The next day had been the same. Every movement around him became a potential threat. He was ready to retaliate, his body tensed and coiled, get the first punch in, make it count, make it dirty. Don’t be fair, just win. Everyone from the inmates to the officers. They could come at him one at a time or all together. He just had to be ready.
He thought about pulling his razor apart, melting the blade into his toothbrush with a lighter. He decided not to risk it. If he was discovered with it he’d be busted down to basic, and he didn’t need that. So he started exercising.
Push-ups, sit-ups, squats, anything he could manage in that cramped space to make his body harder, stronger. Focus his mind away from the ever-present fear. As he worked out, he planned. What to do next, how to get out of there.
Just walk up to the Governor and tell him who he was and what he was doing there. And be disbelieved. With no backup and no way to find out if Sheridan was working with anyone else besides Blake, his claims would make him the laughing stock of the wing and an even bigger target than he already was. Quint? There was nothing his old commando mate could do either. He was only insurance in case anyone tried to get to him through Lila or Pearl. No. There was only one way out that didn’t involve serving his whole sentence.
Get Cunningham to confess.
Dr Bradshaw had said doing so would reduce his sentence. He wondered how sympathetic she would be to hearing his whole story. First though, he had to get results.
He finished up, having reached his number, rolled over on to his back, stared at the ceiling while he got his breath back, about to start on his push-ups.
He didn’t get that far. An officer put his head round the door.
‘On your feet, Killgannon, you’re wanted.’
Tom frowned. ‘Where?’
‘How do I know? Just told to come and get you.’
‘Not my turn for a shower, is it?’ He was sweating profusely from his workout and beginning to stink out the cell. That was why aftershave was almost as valuable as tobacco in prison. ‘Could do with one, though.’
‘Come on.’
Tom got to his feet. Cunningham stopped singing to himself, lowered himself down from the bunk.
‘Not you,’ said the officer, pointing, ‘just him.’
Cunningham wordlessly got back on the bunk. Tom frowned. That seemed odd.
‘Come on.’
Tom was led off the wing. He recognised the officer as one of the two who had given the art group the tour of the topping shed. And that seemed to be where they were headed now.
Tom shivered from more than just the cold. He was off the wing, out in the open night air. The sweat dried to his body, turned suddenly freezing. This wasn’t right, he thought. Something was going on. Then
he realised. This is it. This is Foley’s attempt on me. He steeled his body, ready for attack.
The officer reached the door to the topping shed, took out his key to open it.
‘In there.’
Tom turned to face him. The officer flinched. ‘You coming as well?’
The officer became tongue-tied. ‘I . . . there’s someone in there who’ll, who’ll tell you what’s . . . Just get in.’
Tom stared at him, unmoving. Eyes unblinking. ‘How much are they paying you for this?’
The officer turned away, unable to face him.
‘Pathetic,’ said Tom. ‘Fucking pathetic.’
The officer said nothing.
‘At least give me a weapon to defend myself.’
The officer looked up. Conflict in his eyes. But he had made a decision. ‘Just get in there.’
He gave Tom a shove through the door, locked it behind him.
Tom looked round. Or tried to. The room was in darkness. His fingers played along the wall, searching for the light switch. He found it, flicked it on. The room was illuminated by the overhead striplights. It seemed to be as it was the last time he had been inside. Except for one thing. The makeshift noose and rope tied from the central roof beam. The chair beneath it.
Two shapes detached themselves from the shadowed piles of stacked chairs. Two huge inmates. Tom had never seen them before – or didn’t think he had – but he knew the type. Prison enforcers. Big, covered in tattoos, both professionally done and prison marked, with the kind of dead eyes that only came to life when they were taking someone else’s. One had a mohawk, one had a beard but a bald head. Other than that they were indistinguishable
‘Come to give me a message?’ he asked, body already tensing into a fighting stance.
‘Yeah,’ said Mohawk. ‘It’s behind us.’ He pointed to the noose.
Beardy reached into his jogging bottoms pocket, brought out a cell-made shiv. Mohawk did likewise. They began advancing towards him. ‘You going to give us any trouble?’ asked Mohawk. ‘Be easier if you didn’t.’
Tom smiled. No humour reached his eyes. He looked round for potential weapons. Couldn’t see any, except the stacked chairs. Better than nothing. But only just.
The Sinner Page 19
