“I understand you wanted to speak to me,” Salazar said. He looked concerned. “This was the first day of your appeal, wasn’t it? I saw it on the news. Would you like something to settle your nerves a little?”
Jess hesitated. This was her window, but whatever she said couldn’t be unsaid. And if she made her plea to Salazar and he refused her, there would be no hope left at all.
“It’s… Actually it’s private,” she said. And then, taking the plunge, “It’s about drugs.”
68
Sally fought an invisible battle against himself that lasted for several very long, very full seconds.
Drugs.
Why would it not be? A lot of Fellside’s inmates were junkies or former junkies. Moulson might not mean illegal drugs at all. She might mean the drugs that he prescribed. She might have a medical condition she’d forgotten to disclose. She might have any of a thousand things to confess, to request, to reveal.
But something in her face warned him. Out of nowhere, he was terrified, naked under her asymmetrical gaze.
“Well,” he said, “I don’t think I’m necessarily the best person to—”
“You know Grace?” Moulson interjected. “Harriet Grace, in G block?”
Sally kept his face neutral with a colossal effort. He crossed to his desk and sat down because he knew his legs were shaking and he didn’t want DiMarta to see.
“Patience,” he said, shuffling some folders meaninglessly. “Would you mind leaving me and Ms Moulson alone for a moment or two?”
DiMarta stared at him, nonplussed. It was against regulations, of course. There was meant to be a nurse present whenever Salazar saw any of the inmates. Sometimes that rule had to go by the board in the barely coordinated chaos of their working lives, but actually to ask for privacy when privacy wasn’t allowed…
“I was due a break anyway,” DiMarta said, her tone a little stiff. It hurt her that Sally didn’t trust her discretion. She’d thought they had a rapport. But it didn’t matter. She was taking all the holiday she’d accrued to whittle down her notice period, so this was her last week at Fellside. Soon she and her family would be stepping off the plane in Monfortinho, and the Yorkshire moors would be a fading memory.
When the door closed behind her, Salazar turned back to Moulson. She was still sitting on the straight-backed plastic chair in which DiMarta had examined her. He faced her with daunted courage, like a Christian in the arena who’s seen the lion limping and thinks a deal might be done involving thorns.
“What was it you…?” he invited her.
“Harriet Grace tried to use me as a drug mule,” Moulson said. “She’s going to kill me if you don’t help me.”
The doctor raised a hand, trying to ward the information off before it landed, but Moulson went on anyway. “I had to pick up a packet from the courthouse in Leeds. The toilets there. The middle cubicle. I think she does the same deal with everyone who’s got an appeal coming up.”
“But then… where is…?”
“Where are the drugs? I flushed them just before you came in. I picked the package up, but then I didn’t want to deliver it. That was why I fell on the stairs. I made it look like an accident, but it wasn’t. It was all I could think of. That if I got signed in here, she might not be able to reach me.”
Sally listened aghast. Everything Moulson was saying fitted into the gaps in what he already knew like cogwheels locking their spiky little teeth and starting to move. This was the big secret, the part of Grace’s operation that he was purposely locked out of. He knew it all now, the whole chain of supply. Apart from Grace and Devlin, he was probably the only one in the whole of Fellside who did.
But if Moulson wanted asylum, she’d chosen the worst place in the whole prison to look for it. He couldn’t help her – not when Grace already had him on her payroll. When she found out Moulson was here, she’d send Devlin to fetch her, and Sally would have no option but to hand her over.
“I understand your problem,” he mumbled, looking anywhere but in her eyes. “But there isn’t anything I can do for you.”
“Please,” Jess begged him. “If you just sign me in here for a few days, until I think of what to do next. I made a promise. I made a promise to someone who needs me. There isn’t anyone else he can ask, so if I…” She swallowed visibly, her gaunt throat bobbing. “If I die, he’s alone.”
“Yes, yes, I see that,” Sally said. He didn’t ask who this mysterious someone was – he thought the story was a fiction to give more weight to her plea. “I know what Grace can do. But I can’t get involved. You should go to the governor. Tell him everything.”
“You think he’ll help me?”
Sally’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. No sound came out of it.
Will he help you? In my experience, no. He’ll smile in your face and leave you hanging. This was what he thought, but he didn’t say it, because at that moment, Devlin walked into the room, throwing the door open without knocking.
The Devil didn’t even look at Sally. His eyes went straight to Moulson and it was clear that he wasn’t surprised to see her there. He must have heard from Ratner or Corcoran by this time, or seen the incident report.
“Just come to take her back to her cell,” he said. “If you’re finished with her.” He walked straight towards Moulson, reaching out with his right hand.
That was what did it, if any one thing did it. Devlin’s certainty. Devlin being so sure that finding Moulson in the infirmary meant that he owned her and owned what happened to her next.
Sally planted himself in Devlin’s way. It only took one step, which was probably just as well. The doctor might not have been capable of a longer journey right then.
“I’m not,” he said. “Not finished. Not at all. I’m sorry, Dennis. This prisoner has a suspected concussion and I’m keeping her in overnight.”
Devlin looked at Sally like he’d trod in a dog turd and the dog turd had tried to put the blame on him. “What?”
“I’ve signed her in,” Salazar said.
“Sign her out again.”
Moulson was watching all this with wide, scared eyes. Devlin come to bring her to Grace without pretence or subterfuge. The doctor standing in between them like the world’s softest rock.
“This is my surgery, Dennis,” Sally said. “And it’s my call.”
“Trust me, Sally,” the Devil said, “it really isn’t.”
“Well, my clinical opinion is what counts here. Suspected concussion. It’s written in the register, and there it stays.”
Devlin’s gaze was on the doctor now: the immediate obstacle, the matter in hand. His right fist came down to rest on the handle of his nightstick. “A concussion. You’re sure about that?”
“No. But I don’t have to be. I’m going to keep her under observation.”
Devlin unshipped the nightstick, slowly and with great deliberation.
Sally gave a ragged laugh.
“What’s funny?”
“It’s funny that you think you can threaten me with that.” Sally’s voice was high and strained. “Are you going to kill us both, Dennis? Beat our brains out in the middle of the admin block? I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
Devlin raised the nightstick like a teacher’s pointer. Sally tensed but all the Devil did was tap him on the shoulder, very lightly. “I didn’t say a word,” he said coolly, “about hitting anyone. A concussion. Fine. You’re the doctor, Sally. You’ve got to take all the risks into account. You’re doing that, right? Weighing up the risks?”
Sally stared into the other man’s eyes for a second longer than he should have done. He saw what was boiling in there and almost lost his nerve.
But he still managed to get the word out. Somehow. “Yes.”
“Then I’ll leave you to it.”
The Devil put his sidewinder back in its holster. He gave Moulson one more curious glance before he turned on his heel and walked out.
Sally ran into the bathroom where he threw his guts up into the sink. He did it for a long time, until all he was getting was a thin, clear trickle like saliva.
“Thank you,” Moulson said from behind him.
“Lock the door,” Sally told her, his voice slurred.
“I haven’t got the key.”