Glass trembles in the door frame as Latimer doesn’t break stride, bears down upon Pete and slaps paper on to his desk. Liz, who’s been perched on its edge, slides off and backs away.
Pete picks up the printed email from a member of the Isle of Wight prison management team letting Latimer know that Hamish Wolfe has sent out another visiting order to Maggie Rose.
‘Doesn’t mean she’ll accept it.’ Pete catches Liz’s eye across the room.
‘She already has.’ Latimer scrunches the email, throws it and misses the waste bin. ‘Pick that up, someone.’
‘One visit, you said.’ Latimer is talking to Pete as though it is his personal responsibility. ‘Tick the box, you said.’
Pete lifts up both hands. ‘What can I say? She told me she thinks he’s guilty. That he can stay where he is. And this was after she met him.’
‘Well, he’s got to her somehow. Which means we have to up our game. All of us.’ Latimer looks around the room, then back at Pete. ‘Go through that file again. Think how she thinks. Second-guess what she’s going to do. In fact, put your own application in. Go and see him.’
‘Why me? Liz is his liaison officer.’
‘You know why you. You know the guy.’ Latimer turns and heads for the door. ‘Step it up, people. I am not losing this conviction.’
Across the room, Liz is wearing a small, tight smile. ‘Sir,’ she calls out. ‘When is she due to see him?’
‘Today. She’s probably with the bastard now.’
Chapter 39
MAGGIE IS MORE nervous this time. Her breathing is too fast, her mouth too dry, and her stomach is trying to churn contents it doesn’t have, because she hasn’t eaten in hours. This time, she sees him the second she steps into the visiting hall. He smiles. She doesn’t.
‘How are you?’ he says when there is nothing more substantial than a piece of re-formed wood between them.
‘I’m good. You?’ She sees the raised pores around his jawline that say he has shaved within the last hour. ‘Can I get you something?’ She glances back at the serving hatch, at the weak beverages and cheap confectionery. ‘Coffee? Something to eat?’
‘No, thank you. You’ve had a long trip – please . . .’ He gestures that she should sit down. He will take nothing from her, and his gallantry is flying in the face of prison visit convention. Every other inmate she has ever visited has been eager to stuff himself with cakes and chocolate.
She sits, checking the chair first. She isn’t wearing white this time, has chosen instead a masculine-cut trouser suit in navy blue. Today, blue hair aside, she looks like a lawyer and the thought helps her pull herself together.
‘You got my letter?’ she says. ‘And you agree to my condition? I assume you must, because the visiting order arrived so quickly.’
‘I agree,’ he sits slowly. ‘For five of our ten questions we can ask the other to elaborate or explain the answer.’
‘I wasn’t coming all this way to get ten one-word replies.’
‘Nor was I.’ He smiles again and, once more, she looks for the game behind the smile. ‘And I only came down one flight of stairs.’
‘So who’s going to start?’
His hands make a go-ahead gesture. ‘Ladies first.’
‘What happened to your sister?’ she says, and notes with satisfaction, and a small level of guilt, that she has surprised and hurt him. He was not expecting to talk about his sister.
‘She died,’ he says.
‘Explain.’
His face tightens, his eyes close briefly, but this is his game and he will play by the rules. ‘We were on a family holiday in Wales. Dad, Sophie and I booked a climbing day at an outdoor activity centre. Sophie and I were similar weights so we climbed together, Dad went with another bloke, but they were close by. We got to the top easily enough, it wasn’t a difficult climb, and then Sophie abseiled down first.’
He stops, takes a breath, swallows. ‘There shouldn’t have been any problem at all. Except she’d picked up the wrong rope. An easy mistake, it was very similar to hers, but it was twenty feet shorter.’
Maggie has no real experience of climbing. ‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning it didn’t reach the bottom of the pitch. And there was no knot in it. She went spinning off the end. I was at the top, watching.’
The image he’s conjured is vivid and horrible, but it is too late to apologize. ‘Did she fall far?’
‘Less than fifteen feet but she landed badly. She broke her neck.’
‘I’m sorry. Your poor parents.’
‘They’ve lost both their children. Dad has just about given up and Mum is . . . well, you’ve seen how Mum is. She was very different when we were kids.’ He gives himself a shake. ‘My turn. What made you change your mind and come visit me?’
Hesitation is against the rules. Hesitation allows time for invention. ‘I came as soon as you asked me to,’ she says.