Feeling irritated, she headed over to the key hatch, pushing her tally, number 268, through the slot. In return the officer slid through a set of three keys. It was her passport to Halvergate. Janet held them so tightly the metal dug into her fingers. The officer, a heavy man in his late forties with a tobacco-stained moustache, leaned forwards against the glass.
‘When you get to the VP wing, wait for Terry. He’s coming to meet you.’
‘Thanks,’ said Janet.
She left the lodge and walked across the sterile area, a tarmac square surrounded by high fences and barbed wire, like a giant cattle pen. As she unlocked the gate to the yard, a deafening beeping rang out across the empty space until she closed it again. A large sign by the handle told her, ‘Lock it, Prove it!’
Janet faced the jail that overshadowed her. HMP Halvergate was a nondescript 1950s prison, its redbrick dulled by years of battering wind, its small barred windows set like narrowing eyes against the weather. The building looked sullen and unloved. Scaffolding stuck out from one side of it; clearly there was a half-hearted attempt at repair going on. Nobody was working on it this morning, a security lapse she could not imagine occurring at her old workplace, HMP Leyland.
She shook her umbrella slightly, the rain cascading over its edge, and headed for the vulnerable prisoners’ wing, D block. At the doorway she looked up at the unwinking eye of the CCTV camera. Another beep, and the heavy metal swung inwards. She hurried in, securing the lock and shutting out the wet.
Stamping her feet on the mat, she put down the umbrella and clipped the keys to the metal chain at her belt. The small entrance hall was empty. No sign of Terry. She waited.
Even standing still, Janet looked restless. All her movements were sharp, like a small bird of prey, alert to every passing shadow. In the rain, her red hair had darkened at the edges, separating into wet tendrils. Dark eyes, fringed by ginger lashes, marked the only colour in her chalk-white face.
Janet became aware of the hum of Halvergate’s ventilation system, a deep rumbling that pulsed constantly through the corridors. She looked down at her watch, impatient, when a voice made her turn.
‘Dr Palmer?’
Facing her was a lean man with close-cropped curly black hair, greying at the temples. His olive skin had an unhealthy pallor beneath it. Terry Saunders, the specialist officer on D block. She held out her hand. ‘Please, it’s Janet.’ He shook it vigorously, squeezing so hard that the ring on her middle finger dug into her skin. She nearly winced.
‘You’re starting the assessments today?’ He had a strong Norfolk accent and didn’t answer her smile with one of his own.
‘Yes. I thought we could start with the six men already on the treatment programme, before moving on to the ones you’ve picked out from the waiting list.’
She found herself talking to the air. Terry had buzzed through to the offices that skirted the housing block and headed down the corridor without waiting for her to finish. She only just caught the barred door before it swung shut between them, scraping her fingers on its edge.
‘You know,’ she called after his retreating form, ‘I’d rather see inmates in my own office.’
‘Dr Helkin always liked a more neutral space.’
Janet jogged to catch up. ‘If that’s how you’ve set it up for today that’s fine, but in future for one-to-one work I’ll hold assessments in my office. I find it builds a better rapport.’
Terry stopped, making her jump back to avoid crashing into him. Her eye level only just reached the diamond Prison Officers Association badge on his black tie. She looked up and saw he had freckles spattered across his nose and cheeks, like paint flicked from a brush. They spoke of sunny afternoons and looked out of place on his pinched face.
‘Dr Palmer, I know you’ve done this job before but I know these men. Some of them aren’t the sort you want to invite into your private space. You’ll have to trust me on this.’
Janet felt tempted to remind the patronising man that she had spent the past four years at a maximum security prison whose infamy left Halvergate in the shade. But there was no point standing on pride, not when Terry held all the answers to her questions.
‘Is there anything more I should know about any of the inmates here?’ Her dark eyes searched his. ‘Dr Helkin’s notes have significant gaps. Anything further you can tell me, I’d appreciate it.’
Terry shrugged, then looked away. He talked to the floor. ‘I just think you should be careful, is all.’
Janet waited for more, but Terry clearly felt this cryptic remark had ended the conversation. ‘Well, in any case,’ she said, ‘I have to go to my office to pick up my files. I’ll need whatever case notes there are to hand.’
‘I’ve already brought them over for you,’ said Terry, moving off.
The room set aside for her clinic was not inviting. Icy cold, no carpet, no window; just a couple of ill-matched chairs and a tiny plastic table covered with half-empty folders. Janet tried not to curse Terry as she picked up the first one.
Dr Helkin had left the post due to ‘stress’, she’d been told, which she took as a euphemism for being given the shove. Her predecessor had left almost no record of his last eight months in the post, which was itself a disciplinary offence. It was all the more perplexing because his first month had been a model of good data keeping. But there was nothing on the spate of suicides in the VP wing at Halvergate, nothing on rapist Ryan Spalding’s escape from hospital, and nothing on the latest sex offender treatment programme, which had come to an abrupt end halfway through. When she opened the folders for the five men who had killed themselves – Kyle Reeder, Ahmed Ali, Ryan Spalding, Mark Conybeer and Liam Smith – there were no written observations at all. Instead she found a couple of scrawled notes referencing cases in unnamed volumes. Janet couldn’t imagine John Helkin getting a job elsewhere in a hurry.
Collecting information on prisoners was close to an obsession for Janet, and she wasn’t used to assessing people with so little guidance. Her old shared office at HMP Leyland came into her mind’s eye, its shelves packed with folders, the filing cabinets a hive of meticulously collated data. She redid her ponytail, scraping back the hair until it pulled at her scalp. Opening a new file, she smoothed out the pages.
Janet liked to think of her job as reminiscent of an engineer working in the bomb disposal squad. She approached each inmate as a potentially explosive device whose wiring had to be studied, understood and finally disabled. While her colleagues at Leyland struggled with the emotional pitfalls of working closely with sex offenders, torn between compassion and disgust; Janet knew that her apparent detachment was unusual.
She spent the morning meeting two men who had been on Helkin’s treatment programme. The lack of information on either made it a challenge to assess them. But although Majid Ashraf and Duncan Fletcher both complained of the cold in Terry’s consultation room, Janet soon lost any sense of it. Concentration took over, and the outside world telescoped inwards to a single point of interest – the character of the man in front of her and the risk he posed.
In the short break before her third inmate she saw with surprise that here, at last, was one man whose notes Dr Helkin had bothered to update, however inadequately. He’d written ‘unaffected’ repeatedly for the past three months.
Michael Donovan, a thirty-nine-year-old prisoner, was in for the rape of his partner. The assault had been particularly violent and he’d been up for her attempted murder too, but was subsequently cleared of that. Of course, there was no copy of the judge’s comments at sentencing, or anything else that might be useful. Janet wrote a reminder to send off for more details and read on. A university graduate and computer games designer, Michael was three years into an eight-year sentence. He had initially refused to join any rehabilitation courses, but after being transferred to Halvergate ten months ago had agreed to join the sex offender treatment programme. Helkin’s notes gave no record of Michael’s initial assessment or his progress. On her fi
rst day, the deputy governor Richard Smith had broken the news to her that no tapes of the group sessions had been kept.
She drummed her fingers on the table. Her predecessor’s eccentric bookkeeping defied belief. And that ‘unaffected’ comment was both ominous and unhelpful. Unaffected by what? The rehabilitation programme? Depression? Dr Helkin’s own peculiar brand of forensic psychology?
Terry popped his head round the door, holding out a small plastic cup. ‘Done a tea run. D’you want one before I bring Michael in?’
She smiled, surprised by the offer. ‘Great, thanks.’
Her colleague stepped into the room. ‘I’ll bring him in then?’
‘Whenever you like.’
He hesitated, as if about to say something, then put her tea on the table and left.
‘Sod it!’ Janet yanked back her hand from the burning cup, spilling tea on her thigh. Terry must have asbestos hands. She bent to brush the drops off her trousers at the same moment that Michael Donovan walked in.
Janet rose to shake his hand, but he stood frozen, staring at her face. He made no move to meet her outstretched arm, leaving it to hang in mid-air. His eyes drifted down from her face to her chest, his gape widening. She glanced down in annoyance, then flushed. Her red enamel cross shone, swinging lightly on its short chain. It must have slipped out from under her jumper when she spilled the tea. Officially, she shouldn’t be wearing it. She stuffed it back undercover. She knew what was coming next, the tedious questions about her faith asked either in belligerence or plaintive hope, to which her answer was always the same: ‘It’s just a necklace, it means nothing.’
But Michael Donovan didn’t speak. Instead he continued to stare at the space where the necklace had been, as if it were a charm keeping him rooted to the spot. Janet wondered if the man was well. She gestured across the table. ‘Please, take a seat.’
Her voice broke his reverie. ‘Not what I was expecting,’ he said, looking up and smiling at her. ‘Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.’ He laughed at her bemused expression. ‘Ephesians, Chapter 6. Forgive me, I’m no Bible basher, but you get time to read all sorts in here, and there’s no denying the Good Book’s poetry.’
Janet scraped her chair back and sat down. She nodded curtly at him, determined to restore the session to normality. Donovan continued to smile as he folded himself slowly into the seat opposite. Where her previous two inmates had sat upright, looking anxious or even aggressive in the uncomfortable chair, Michael Donovan managed to drape himself over it. He was an immensely attractive man, with smile lines around his mouth. The perfect symmetry of his face reminded her of the angels in the Sistine Chapel, and his flesh looked too rosy for the drab light at Halvergate. Janet thought she must seem like a ghost beside him. Whatever had first surprised him about her appearance, he now exuded confidence. There was an amused look in his blue eyes, as if he were the one giving the consultation. Perhaps his earlier startled reaction had even been faked, designed to unsettle her. A game player then.
She leaned forwards, her arms resting on the table, watching him. ‘My name’s Janet Palmer. As you probably know, I’ve replaced John Helkin as Halvergate’s psychologist and I’m here to guide you through the sex offender treatment programme. Any questions about that, or about anything else, we can go over in today’s meeting.’
‘Janet?’ Michael over-enunciated the word, spitting out the consonants. ‘What a lovely name.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, although it hadn’t sounded like a compliment. She pulled her ponytail tighter. One rust-coloured curl came loose, like a broken spring. ‘So, you find reading helpful here?’
He spread his hands in an expansive gesture. ‘Of course, I like reading everywhere. But life’s other charms are somewhat limited in Halvergate.’
‘Are you reading anything interesting at the moment, besides the Bible?’ She took up her pen.
There was a beat as he studied her. ‘Utopia, by Thomas More.’
Janet looked up from her notes, surprised. ‘Unusual choice,’ she said. ‘And are you impressed by his ideal society?’
‘A little too like Halvergate.’ He laughed. ‘All those rules. And punishments. So, how about you? Got anything interesting on the go?’ He stroked his neck, eyes narrowed.
It was a while since Janet had come across a prisoner who flirted with her so soon, or so obviously. It was never an encouraging sign. ‘I’m not much of a reader,’ she lied.
‘You surprise me.’
‘So, you’re three years into your sentence for rape, and you’ve completed the first part of the programme put in place by John Helkin.’ She folded her hands. ‘How do you feel that went?’
‘Presumably you’ve got his notes.’
‘But I’d be interested to hear your perspective.’
Michael sat back even further in his chair. ‘Fascinating.’
‘Are you able to expand on that?’
‘I found it immensely helpful. Especially the role play considering the attack from the victim’s point of view.’ The corners of his mouth twitched. ‘Though of course it made me feel even more guilty.’
The lie seemed less offensive than the lack of effort he put into telling it. For the first time, Janet felt some sympathy for Helkin and his ‘unaffected’. Fine, she thought. Let’s see how much Michael felt like smiling at a parole board after failing the treatment.
‘It was a violent offence, and one which I understand you denied at the trial. What prompted your change of heart?’
‘I’ve had time to reflect, Dr Palmer. Remorse in my case has been slow, but none the less potent for that.’ He stared steadily at her as he spoke. Janet did not believe a word. She made a quick note, conduct psychopathy checklist.
‘It’s encouraging that you’re feeling remorse. Of course the flip-side is often depression. Have you been suffering from low moods recently?’
‘I’m sure they’ll take a turn for the better now you’re here.’ He tilted backwards, resting his arms behind his head. All he needed to complete the picture of smugness was to prop his feet up on the table.
The sight of him balanced so precariously, with two legs of the chair off the ground, made Janet uneasy. ‘Perhaps you could just talk through the offence in your own words.’ She tipped her head to one side in a movement that was supposed to be encouraging, but instead was reminiscent of a sparrowhawk.
‘Oh, it was terrible,’ Michael began. ‘I still don’t understand why I acted like I did. My girlfriend Karina wanted to try out something kinkier than usual. I tied her up, and then, well.’ He shrugged. ‘I got carried away.’
Janet knew ‘carried away’ was a poor description of the violence Michael had inflicted. ‘What do you think caused you to hurt her? Were you angry with her for something?’
‘No. It just gave me a thrill.’
‘What gave you a thrill?’
He stared at her, unblinking, across the small table. ‘Seeing the pain in her eyes.’
Without meaning to, Janet put her hand to her jumper, feeling the reassuring shape of the panic alarm hanging round her neck. Michael smiled as if he understood the gesture. ‘And what do you think about that pain now,’ she asked. ‘Does it still excite you?’
‘Of course. But I also feel dreadfully guilty about it.’ Michael looked down at his hands, running a thumb over fingernails that, Janet thought, looked beautifully manicured for a man restricted to two showers a week. He sighed. ‘Poor Karina.’
She had worked with enough rapists to see Michael was still enjoying a sense of power over his victim, even several years after the event. She paused, writing down his response. ‘Was it the first time you had been violent towards a woman, or was it perhaps something you’d wanted to do for a while?’
‘It had never occurred to me before, but once you’ve tried it . . . Well, an experience like that is impossible to forget.’ Michael continued to study his fingernails.
‘
Do you feel that you might want to rape other women, besides Karina?’
‘All men want to rape women.’ Michael looked up, the words an unpleasant counterpoint to his angelic face. ‘If they tell you otherwise, I’m afraid it’s just to spare your feelings. The only difference between me and those on the outside is that not all men have the balls to do it.’
Janet felt her own dislike meet his provocation like an electric charge. Instead of holding his gaze she looked down at her papers. ‘I’ve heard that argument in prison many times before, Michael,’ she said. ‘I’m sure it’s a view John Helkin has already challenged, and we’ll certainly pick up on it again as a group.’ She closed the file in front of her. ‘But unless there’s anything else you’d like to ask or go over, I think we’ll leave it there for today.’
Instead of answering, Michael stood up to leave, towering over her, before she had a chance to rise from her chair. ‘Well, it’s been a pleasure meeting you, Janey.’
Janet felt a surge of rage, far out of proportion to his rudeness. ‘I’m not Janey.’
Michael Donovan looked delighted. ‘Forgive me. Your first name sounds so harsh. I’m not sure it suits you.’
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The Death Knock Page 34