Emma returned to her hotel, undressed and went straight back to bed. She lay awake wondering if Kolowski might be having second thoughts about whether he’d arrested the right man. She still couldn’t work out why Jelks had allowed Harry to be sentenced to six years, when it would have been so easy for him to prove that Harry wasn’t Tom Bradshaw.
She finally fell asleep, grateful not to be woken by any nocturnal visitors.
The phone rang when she was in the bathroom, but by the time she’d picked it up, there was only a dial tone.
The second call came just as she was closing the door of her room on her way down to breakfast. She dashed back inside and grabbed the phone, to hear a voice she recognized on the other end of the line.
‘Good morning, Officer Kolowski,’ she replied.
‘The news isn’t good,’ said the detective, who didn’t deal in small talk. She collapsed on to the bed, fearing the worst. ‘I spoke to the warden of Lavenham just before I came off duty, and he told me that Bradshaw has made it clear he doesn’t want any visitors, no exceptions. It seems that Mr Jelks has issued an order that he’s not even to be informed when someone asks to see him.’
‘Couldn’t you try to get a message to him somehow?’ begged Emma. ‘I’m sure that if he knew it was me—’
‘Not a hope, lady,’ said Kolowski. ‘You have no idea how far Jelks’s tentacles reach.’
‘He can overrule a prison warden?’
‘A prison warden is small fry. The DA and half the judges in New York are under his thumb. Just don’t tell anyone I said so.’
The line went dead.
Emma didn’t know how much time had passed before she heard a knock on the door. Who could it possibly be? The door opened and a friendly face peered in.
‘Can I clean the room, miss?’ asked a woman pushing a trolley.
‘I’ll only be a couple of minutes,’ said Emma. She checked her watch and was surprised to find it was ten past ten. She needed to clear her head before she could consider her next move, and decided to take a long walk in Central Park.
She strolled around the park before making a decision. The time had come to visit her great-aunt and seek her advice about what she should do next.
Emma headed off in the direction of 64th and Park, and was so deep in thought about how she was going to explain to Great-aunt Phyllis why she hadn’t visited her earlier, that what she saw didn’t fully register. She stopped, turned and retraced her steps, checking every window until she reached Doubleday’s. A pyramid of books dominated the centre window, alongside a photograph of a man with slicked-back black hair and a pencil moustache. He was smiling out at her.
THE DIARY OF A CONVICT:
My time at Lavenham maximum security prison
by
Max Lloyd
The author of the runaway bestseller
will be signing books in this store
at 5.00 p.m. on Thursday
Don’t miss this opportunity to meet the author
GILES BARRINGTON
1941
16
GILES HAD NO IDEA where the regiment was going. For days he seemed to be perpetually on the move, never able to sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time. First he boarded a train, followed by a truck, before he climbed up the gangway of a troop carrier that ploughed through the ocean waves at its own pace, until it finally disgorged 1,000 soldiers from the Wessex at the Egyptian port of Alexandria on the North African coast.
During the voyage, Giles had been reunited with his chums from Ypres camp on Dartmoor, who he had to accept were now under his command. One or two of them, Bates in particular, didn’t find it easy to call him sir, and found it even more difficult to salute him every time they bumped into each other.
A convoy of army vehicles awaited the Wessex Regiment as they disembarked from the ship. Giles had never experienced such intense heat and his fresh khaki shirt was soaked in sweat within moments of him stepping on foreign soil. He quickly organized his men into three groups before they climbed on board the waiting trucks. The convoy progressed slowly along a narrow, dusty coastal road, not stopping for several hours until they finally reached the outskirts of a badly bombed town that Bates announced in a loud voice, ‘Tobruk! Told you so,’ and money began to change hands.
Once they’d entered the town, the convoy dropped the men at various points. Giles and the other officers jumped off outside the Majestic Hotel, which had been requisitioned by the Wessex as their company HQ. Giles pushed his way through the revolving doors and quickly discovered there wasn’t much majestic about the hotel. Makeshift offices had been crammed into every available space. Charts and maps were pinned on walls where paintings had once hung, and the plush red carpet that welcomed VIPs from all over the world had worn thin with the continual tramping of studded boots.
The reception area was the only feature to remind them this might once have been a hotel. A duty corporal checked off Second Lieutenant Barrington’s name on a long list of new arrivals.