‘This is the only place you’re safe. I’m going to lock you in.’
‘No!’ She can see no logic in this. Lock her in here with these animals? She will fight him if she has to. She tries to pull away, he holds her fast.
‘Maggie, until this calms down, you need to be where no one can get at you. I’ll lock you in and nobody will get the key from me, I promise you.’
She is shaking her head.
‘I swear you’ll be safe.’ He is pulling away from her now. He leaves her in the centre of the room and makes for the door.
‘Hamish, don’t leave me.’ Maggie has never imagined anything so pathetic could come out of her mouth.
He turns, one hand on the door. ‘I can’t lock the door from the inside. We’re sitting ducks here. I can’t fight them off for ever.’
‘I know. I still don’t want you to go.’
She sees him unsure of himself, doubtful. Then he seems to step forward. Except he hasn’t moved, she is the one who crossed the distance between them.
‘Thank you,’ she says.
Doors are slamming. Something hard and heavy is being banged against metal. People are coming.
She feels his face reaching down towards hers. She tells herself that he is taking advantage, as all male prisoners would, of a few minutes alone with a woman and that she is allowing it because she might just owe him her life. She tells herself this, as his arms wrap around her, and every muscle in his body seems to tense, and all the while she knows she is a fraud, that she is the one who will kiss him.
She stands on tiptoe as their lips meet.
Her arms cup themselves around his shoulders and she loves the hard play of muscle she can feel under the cotton fabric. Her fingers play with the rough cotton, clutching it into fists, stretching it out like elastic and she knows she is grasping at his clothing because she doesn’t quite dare to do it to his flesh.
In another universe, someone screams.
‘Aw, Christ almighty.’ Wolfe has let her go, stepped back away from her. She is trembling. The reaction of her body to the threat of rape was nothing compared to this.
He bends forward and kisses her one last time. ‘Keep out of sight. Keep quiet. Someone will come.’
She is alone. She hears the door close, the key turn, then Hamish’s footsteps run lightly away down the corridor. She walks to the corner of the room, the one that cannot be seen from the door and sinks to the floor. She waits.
Chapter 90
PETE WALKS INTO the cid room to find a group of detectives gathered around Liz’s computer screen.
‘What’ve I missed?’ he asks, heading to his own desk.
‘Riot at Parkhurst,’ Sunday tells him.
The coffee Pete has brought with him overspills as he puts the cup down too quickly. ‘What are you looking at?’ he calls over.
Sunday names the police intranet site but it takes several seconds to load up. ‘Someone fill me in?’ he says.
‘Kicked off about noon,’ Sunday tells him. ‘Outside normal visiting hours. The place is still in lockdown. No one going in or out.’
Pete double-checks the date, although he hardly needs to. He knows that Maggie is visiting Wolfe today. As a lawyer, she won’t need to stick to visiting hours.
The site loads and he keys in HMP Parkhurst.
‘Can anyone give me an update on Parkhurst?’ Latimer has joined them now. ‘Nobody there’s answering the phones.’
‘It’s saying here the prison staff have regained control, sir,’ Sunday says. ‘The Governor’s quoted as saying it couldn’t be described as a riot, just an hour or so of disturbance, and that’s under control now.’
The page Pete is looking at has been assembled in a hurry. The header tells him it is the official intranet page of HMP Isle of Wight. Side menu bars list procedures, staff members, contact telephone numbers, publicly available documents and others that are confidential to the police. The main item on the home page, though, is a news feature.
Fighting broke out on H wing of Parkhurst Barracks at 1157 hours today and quickly escalated to spread to B and D wings. The prison is still low-staffed after the Christmas break and staff were momentarily caught off guard.
A state of emergency was declared and assistance from the local police service requested. Order was restored at 1323 hours.
Several inmates and three prison staff have required medical treatment. One officer and two inmates have been taken to the local hospital. The ringleaders have been placed in solitary confinement.
Several visitors were on the premises when the disturbances broke out. None of them were affected and all have since been escorted away from the prison.
Prison management are working on the theory that the disturbance was deliberately orchestrated, and that it could even have been intended as some form of distraction. All prisoners, though, have been accounted for.
Pete taps out a phone text.
You OK? You at Parkhurst?
Maggie’s response takes four minutes.