Shadow Sands

by Robert Bryndza

  “You’ve grown into a handsome young man,” she said.

  “The siren sounds when someone escapes?” asked Jake.

  “We test it on Monday mornings at nine a.m.,” said the woman.

  “We’re here to see Peter Conway,” said Kate. The penny dropped, and the woman’s attitude changed toward Jake, and she went back to being stony faced as she printed off their visitors’ passes.

  “The last time it went off was when your father escaped. He killed a doctor here too,” she said, slipping the passes across the counter. “Go down to the main gate there, and someone will be waiting for you.”

  They walked up to the main entrance in silence. The hospital housed some of the most dangerous criminals in the United Kingdom, but the grounds were beautifully kept, ordered and peaceful. The only giveaways were the high fence and the viewing towers dotted around at intervals, where armed guards sat in crow’s nests, watching.

  “The doctor he killed. He sliced open her throat with a homemade shank, didn’t he?” said Jake, breaking the silence.

  “Yes. Her name was Meredith. She had a husband and a little boy,” said Kate. It was always better to tell the truth, she thought.

  “Mum, I’m a bit scared,” said Jake.

  “A bit?” said Kate. “I’d be worried if you weren’t scared . . . He’s going to be behind a thick piece of glass. He can’t touch you.”

  This all seemed crazy. How would seeing this monster help Jake to explore his past? They carried on walking in silence and reached the main entrance.

  Peter Conway had struck a deal: Kate would go in first and visit him for one hour. Then he would meet Jake. Kate had driven to her parents’ house in Whitstable the day before, where they’d talked and talked about the past and the implications of Jake meeting Peter. Glenda had said something that stuck in Kate’s mind.

  “You have to demystify Peter Conway, Catherine, for your own sanity, and Jake’s too. He’s many things—a monster, Jake’s father, the reason our family was blown apart—but he’s also just a person. He’s held all of us in his grip for too long.”

  There was a lengthy process for Kate and Jake to go through security: two sets of X-ray scanners, a body search, and then more locked doors until they arrived in a reception area, which was large, airy, and painted white.

  A glass partition ran down the middle of the space, meeting a perpendicular glass wall. The glass continued through it, marking off a visitors’ room. On each side of the outside partition were security guards, sitting at desks with monitors. The screens had images of the visitors’ room and the corridors outside. Kate and Jake were met by a man who introduced himself as Dr. Grove. He was dressed informally and put them at ease.

  “The law prevents us from recording your visits. You will need to leave all mobile devices, computers, tablets, and laptops with the security guards before you go in,” he said.

  Kate and Jake took their phones out and handed them to the officer at the desk.

  “If you wish to terminate the interview, please signal, and one of the officers here will let you out. Jake, I’ll take you to the cafeteria whilst your mother meets with Peter.”

  “Good luck, Mum,” said Jake, and he went off with the doctor. One of the security guards went to the glass door and keyed a number into a pad. The door clicked and buzzed open.

  “Remember, signal if you need me,” he said with a smile.

  Kate went through the door, and it closed behind her with a click and a buzz. All background noise ceased. The officer outside went back to his desk, talking to his colleague. His mouth was moving, but there was no sound. Kate turned back and looked around the room. It was starkly lit and painted light green. Three of the walls were windowless, and the fourth was a floor-to-ceiling thick glass partition that looked into an identical room. A square plastic table and chair were bolted to the floor, and this was mirrored on the other side of the glass.

  There was movement outside, and a man with a stooped gait was being escorted with his hands behind his back. It took her a moment to realize it was Peter Conway. When they had worked together, all those years ago, he had been an athletic man, six feet tall, and even until recently, in a rare picture of him in his cell, he had seemed like a caged animal. His large frame constrained in the small space.

  The man approaching the glass partition looked almost elderly. He was rail thin. His shoulders were curved and hunched over. His face and mouth were sucked, and he had deep lines around his face. His thinning gray hair was tied back in a ponytail. He wore thick reading glasses, jeans, and a pale-green pullover. His hands were cuffed behind his back, and the two orderlies with him were armed with batons, Mace, and Tasers in their belts. He wasn’t wearing a mesh “spit hood.” Kate had read that Peter had to wear it at all times in communal areas. He’d bitten several orderlies and patients over the years.

  Kate couldn’t hear what the guards were saying since the sound system was muted. They got him seated opposite her. Peter didn’t look up. He was asking the officers something. It was then that she saw he had no teeth. Just gums, and this was what made him look so old.

  Suddenly, the sound activated and his voice came over the speaker implanted in the glass of the partition.

  “I want them now.”

  “You’ll get them when we leave,” said one of the orderlies. He slipped off Peter’s handcuffs. The other orderly stood to the side, ready with a Taser in his hand.

  “Remain seated until we leave, Peter,” said the orderly, pocketing the cuffs. He placed a small plastic box on the table, and they then both retreated backward toward the door. It buzzed and opened, and they left, closing it behind them. When the door buzzed and locked, Peter reached for the box on the table and picked it up. He turned away, and when he looked back, he was more the man she remembered.

  “Hello, Kate,” he said, smiling with a row of perfect, white false teeth. “You’ve put on weight.”

  45

  Kate and Peter sat in silence, looking at each other from each side of the thick glass partition.

  Her mother had asked her what she was planning to wear for the visit. Glenda seemed concerned that she should look her best for the occasion, and it struck Kate as rather warped, that she should dress up for the man who had tried to kill her. Twice. In the end Kate had decided to wear what she would wear for a normal day at work: smart blue jeans and a green woolen jumper. The irony wasn’t lost on her that, today, she and Peter were wearing similar outfits.

  Kate thought she would feel afraid when she saw Peter, but now, she didn’t know what to feel.

  “What happened to your teeth?” she asked, breaking the silence. He smiled. It was a creepy Hollywood smile.

  “You’ve heard the phrase, I’ll kick your teeth so far down your throat, you’ll need to stick a toothbrush up your arse to clean them?”

  “Yes.”

  “The inmate who threatened me was true to his word. By the time he finished, I was only left with my back molars intact,” he said. “He also broke my nose and my left cheekbone.”

  “You’ll have to point him out to me. I’d like to shake his hand,” said Kate.

  “You wouldn’t want to touch his hand after you know where it’s been,” said Peter, still smiling. “He’s a nasty, violent pedophile.”

  Kate didn’t let him see her revulsion. They sat in silence for a full minute, refusing to break eye contact. She suddenly sighed and sat back.

  “So. What are we going to talk about for the next . . .” She checked her watch. “Fifty-seven minutes?”

  “Have you been anywhere nice on holiday?” he asked.

  “No. Have you?”

  “No, but I hear solitary confinement is very nice this time of year.”

  This was a flash of the man she once knew. For a moment he seemed normal, making a stupid joke. Acknowledging their shared discomfort. She wanted to smile but stopped herself. This was surreal. After all he’d done to her, he’d almost made her laugh. It reminded he
r how dangerous he was.

  “Why do you want to see Jake?” asked Kate. “You’ve never been bothered you have a son.”

  “Jake wanted to see me. That pisses you off, doesn’t it?”

  “What are you going to say to him?” she said, her voice hard. Peter put up his hand, waving her away. She saw how his fingers were bent and misshapen with arthritis.

  “I’m happy just to look at him and hear his voice.”

  “He doesn’t look like you,” said Kate, more stridently than she wanted.

  “That’s a shame. I was a handsome bastard. Wasn’t I?” Kate raised an eyebrow. “Yes. I was, whether you like it or not. I got into your knickers, and my, you were wet when I got in there.”

  Kate got up.

  “You’re just a sad, dirty old man who has to put his teeth in a cup by his bed. I’ve got better things to do with my time,” she said. She went to and knocked on the glass door, feeling her face flush with embarrassment.

  “Kate, Kate . . .” He stood up. “I’m sorry . . . Come back. Let’s start again. For Jake. That’s the deal, isn’t it? You see me, I see him?”

  There was desperation in his voice, and Kate, despite every fiber of her being wanting to leave, knew Jake had to see his father. If only to see he was a pathetic old man. She took a deep breath and came back to her chair. They both sat down. There was another long silence. Peter took off his glasses and polished them on his pullover.

  “You said you had better things to do than visit me,” he said, slipping the glasses back on. “Like what?”

  “I have a life, Peter. It’s none of your business,” she said, but she didn’t sound convincing.

  “It was Jake’s counselor who suggested that he meet me. He’s having counseling because you found a dead body when he stayed with you in the summer,” said Peter, leaning closer to the glass and pointing to emphasize the you. “Jake saw the body, too, didn’t he?”

  “Yes. We were diving in a reservoir,” she said.

  “What did the body look like?”

  “It was a young lad, only a few years older than Jake,” she said.

  “Was he badly beaten?”

  “His body was covered in lacerations. The police thought at first he’d drowned and been run over by one of the maintenance boats that patrol the reservoir.”

  “What do the police think now?”

  Kate hesitated. “They think it was his friend.”

  Peter sat back.

  “Hmm. But you think different, don’t you?”

  “It doesn’t add up as a crime of passion.”

  “Were they lovers?”

  “No. I mean passion as in a flash of anger, violence.”

  Kate went on to describe the circumstances of Simon’s death and Kirstie Newett’s story of her abduction, and then she found herself telling him about the whole case, the other missing people, and Magdalena. Kate could feel herself unloading the burden of the case onto Peter, and he listened intently.

  “Simple Simon saw something on his midnight walk by the reservoir.”

  “Yes,” said Kate.

  Peter closed his eyes and recited, “Simple Simon met a pieman, going to the fair . . . Said Simple Simon to the pieman, let me taste your ware.” He opened his eyes and stared at her. “Do you think Simon was closeted? Gay?”

  “No.”

  “He wasn’t cruising for sex at night by this reservoir? There was no pieman whose wares he tasted, and then things turned nasty?” Kate looked at him skeptically. “I’m not teasing you. You have to take a step back and think about these things.”

  “No. Simon saw someone by the water,” said Kate.

  “Why don’t you think it was Geraint?”

  “Geraint didn’t have access to a boat; I think Simon was pursued by someone in a boat after he was stabbed.”

  “Could Geraint have seen Simon being pursued by this person in a boat?”

  “He could have done, but he would have said something. He was on probation when it happened. Wouldn’t he have jumped at the chance to blame someone else?”

  “What about the old man, the drifter? The one who has Simon’s knife,” asked Peter.

  “He found the knife in the mud by the water. I don’t think he saw anything . . . I don’t know . . .” Kate rubbed at her eyes, feeling the confusion of all the conflicting information.

  “Where is this drifter now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Simon had no enemies that you know of. He wasn’t rich. His friend had no designs or motive to kill him. So, logically, Simon was killed because he saw something.”

  “How can you be so sure?” asked Kate.

  “I have nothing to lose. I can look at it objectively. Throw into the mix a rich, influential family, it’s quite a case.”

  “What about Magdalena?”

  “She’s probably dead already. What is it? Eight days since she went missing? You need to focus on finding her body. He’ll need to get rid of it. That’s the point where the two strands of the case will collide.”

  Kate looked down at her hands, feeling bleak. Bleak for her personal life, her connection to this monster in front of her, and bleak that she didn’t have the power to solve the case and save Magdalena.

  “You were a good police officer,” said Peter.

  “That’s an odd thing for you to say.”

  “You were.”

  “So were you, Peter,” she said, looking up at him. “Think of all the good you could have done.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “You always were an idealist, Kate. You thought that as a police officer you could do good. The bad is already out there. A police officer can’t spread goodness any more than the tooth fairy. All they can do is stop people from doing more ‘bad’ things . . .” His bent fingers lifted up to put the word bad in air quotes.

  “Why were you a police officer?” she asked. “It’s a genuine question, if we’re talking about ‘good’ and ‘bad.’”

  He clicked at his dentures with his tongue.

  “I like to solve puzzles. I didn’t care about the nature of the perceived crimes. It didn’t give me any great rush when I got the bad guy and arrested him. I just wanted to outwit them. Solve the puzzle.”

  “A murder case being a puzzle,” said Kate.

  “Yes. It’s a superior feeling when you work it out. And of course, for me, the reverse was exciting, getting away with it.”

  “Is that why you hate me? Because I caught you? I got to feel superior?” asked Kate.

  “I don’t hate you, Kate. You were the only one who solved the puzzle, and for that, you had to go.”

  It chilled Kate to hear him talking so matter-of-factly. She had a flashback to the rainy night in her flat, when she solved the puzzle and knew he was the Nine Elms Cannibal. He’d known. He’d shown up at her door and forced his way inside.

  Peter had cornered her in the bedroom of her small flat, and he was on top of her, pushing a knife into her abdomen . . . His face crazed, blood pouring from the gash in his head, lips curled back over pink-stained teeth.

  She had carried on fighting as the blood pooled on her belly. She’d thrown him off and hit him hard over the head with a lava lamp.

  She’d limped to the phone to call the police, all the time looking at the knife sticking out of her belly. The pain had been so bad, but she’d known if she pulled it out, she would have bled to death.

  How close had he stabbed to the tiny embryo growing inside her? How close had the knife come to killing Jake?

  There was a buzzing sound, and Kate looked up. Their meeting had come to an end. The scar on her belly tingled.

  “It sounds like a fascinating case. I would say that I hope you catch him, but part of me hopes you don’t. You will let me know when you find Magdalena’s body?” said Peter. The spell had been broken, and the old Peter, the police officer she’d known, had vanished.

  Kate went to answer, but the sound was cut between them. She wanted to gi
ve him a parting shot, but he couldn’t hear her. Kate looked up and saw Jake was waiting at the door to come in and see his father.

  46

  It was a long journey back from Great Barwell Hospital to Ashdean, and Jake was quiet in the car for the first part of the journey. It wasn’t until they pulled over on the motorway services that Kate asked him what he had talked about with Peter. They ordered coffee and found a corner with empty seats.

  “He seemed really nervous,” said Jake. “Did you see when I went in, he was fiddling with his mouth?”

  “He’s got false teeth,” said Kate.

  “Okay. I thought they looked really white.”

  Kate smiled and took Jake’s hand. “Did he scare you?”

  “No.”

  “Did he talk about anything horrible?”

  “Mum, stop it,” he said, embarrassed, pulling his hand away. There was a pretty teenage girl on the other side of the café who was looking over. He stirred his coffee and looked at the table.

  “What did he say to you?”

  “I dunno. We just chatted. He wanted to know all about my iPhone.”

  “Your iPhone?”

  “Yeah. He said that when he’d been arrested, he didn’t have a phone; he had a car phone, and mobile phones were still new . . .” Kate recalled the bricklike handset with an antenna that she’d had in 1995. “I told him about, you know, iPhones, the App Store, and how I use it for stuff. I went back and asked the security guys at the front desk outside the room if I could have my iPhone back and show Peter my photos and stuff, but they wouldn’t let me . . .”

  “What else?”

  “He asked me what music I liked, cos as part of the whole iPhone conversation I told him that I get all my music on iTunes. He said I was lucky, he used to have to go and buy records, and his mum only played the records that she liked. He had to ask her permission to buy a record. Even if he had the money. He said that a couple of times he’d come home with a record she hadn’t heard, and she’d only give it half a minute of a listen, and if she didn’t like it, she would snap the record in half.”