by Susan Hill
Images.
Let them slide over the surface. Don’t let them burrow.
He read the email again.
Listen, you jerk – this is the woman you fell in love with. The woman with the heart-shaped face and violet eyes. The woman who had an affair with you while looking after her sick husband, and who never once made you feel bad about that. The woman who would marry you tomorrow, love and look after you for the rest of your life, maybe even have children for you. The one woman who actually got through to you so far as to come and live with you in your sacred space.
Rachel.
So now what?
What do you want?
He could answer that immediately. He had no idea what he wanted but he knew what he did not. He had always known that. He did not want a wife, a family, an invasion of his space, a dependent being, someone who tried to second-guess him or look into his mind, let alone his soul. He did not want to be disturbed or disarranged or invaded. He loved Rachel. Yes, he could answer that easily enough, but in his own way, on his own terms. He knew himself too well and far better than anyone else knew him. Cat thought she knew him but she didn’t, his mother had once thought so, but had also come to understand that she didn’t. Rachel? Maybe she knew him better than he thought, but if she did, he couldn’t cope with it.
Dearest Simon …
What had she done? What had happened between them? How could she start to put things right? What, why, how, supposing, if …
Please. Please. Simon?
The image he had now was of her face and her eyes and the expression in them, the last time he had seen her – puzzled, thoughtful, anxious.
He had to let that image glide over the surface of his mind, too, and leave it there.
He looked at the email again, without reading it. She wanted a reply. Deserved a reply.
He had none.
He took the disk out of his inner pocket and inserted it into the drive. The machine whirred softly for a few seconds, then the screen flickered.
He began to read about Will Fernley, the man he must get to know as well as he knew himself.
Sixteen
‘I’ve read up on Fernley’s trial,’ Simon said. ‘He wasn’t giving an inch.’
‘He’s a bloody mute. Except when he’s talking about anything else under the sun and then he’s quite chatty – full of charm, looks you in the eye. Mind you, that was then. Five years banged up has probably changed all that.’
Simon set down his fork and leaned forward slightly. They were surrounded by men and women in the same line of work, no one would be eavesdropping, but his instinct always told him to play safe.
‘Listen, Jed – I’m doing this because you have drawn a blank on everyone connected with Fernley in this Internet ring. You’ve chased every lead, then every shadow until you’ve started chasing yourselves. And as this building we are in houses all the people in the country capable of breaking into just about any of these set-ups, you will have thrown every bit of expertise you’ve got at it. I’m your last resort.’
‘Pretty much says it all.’
They left the canteen and headed out for a walk along the Embankment.
‘Fernley stayed shtum – no names, no places, no admissions – helped get himself a long term as a result.’
‘How has he been inside?’
‘OK. Keeps his head down, polite, affable but he watches out. Nonces have to. Plays a top game of table tennis. Reads a lot – he orders up psychology and philosophy books via the library. We’ve got as much inf as we can but you’ll find out more, hopefully. Whether you’ll get close enough to have him open up further I have my doubts, to be honest. But as you said, last resort.’ Jed stopped. They leaned on the wall and looked out over the river. The tide was low, water dark, litter and driftwood spoiling the sand and shingle edges like a rash.
‘We’re working on your legend this afternoon. Harry’s coming in on that. The one you used last time you did a covert ops won’t do because that was very different circs.’
‘Firearms.’
‘Right.’ Jed looked down. ‘Dirty old river,’ he hummed. ‘I’d have given my back teeth to have written that song.’
‘You do that? Music?’
‘Gigs. Clubs. Out of town mostly. I sing my own stuff.’
‘Play anything?’
‘Sax. I try to go to New Orleans every year – play in the bars, join up with whatever jazz is out on the street. One day I might not be back.’ He held open the door for Simon. ‘One day – when we’ve cleared the rats out of all these sewers.’
It was after seven before the three of them had thrashed out his full identity and legend – the man he would become for his time at Stitchford Therapeutic Community Prison.
‘You know how it goes. From the moment you’re picked up – you are no longer Simon Serrailler, no longer a detective chief superintendent, no longer a copper. You are Johnno Miles. Anything catch you out the last time?’
‘Yes – when someone calls out your real name, and you automatically respond. Harder than forgetting to reply to your new one.’
‘No use saying there probably won’t be any other Simons because there could be four. You’ll be aware. It’s a decent legend I think – we’ve got a good blend of true and false, and as much of the true as we dare keep. OK, last thing. This.’
A small padded mailing envelope. From it Jed took a cheap black plastic watch.
‘Snoopy!’
‘Yeah, sure you’ve used one before. But this is state of the art as of about three months ago.’
‘Three years at least since I had one.’
‘Long time in surveillance terms. Right … this works on GPS, like they all do now. These pretend-fancy knobs? Three are recorded messages. The first is “A-OK”. This knob starts the recorder and you can speak up to eight words, it holds and relays them to my receiver which will be backed up by my deputy, Al Morris. When I’m off he’s on and vice versa. Four of these pressed in quick succession …’
‘Red emergency.’
‘Same as before, yup. Then all hell gets let loose. It also tracks you constantly and it’s pretty tough but it’s not completely indestructible. Other signals from similar devices could conceivably interfere with it but there aren’t likely to be any of those in your nick. It’s showerproof but it won’t cope with submersion.’ He handed it over. ‘It looks cheap, like you got it with a tank of petrol, so not worth nicking, and they don’t have much of a thieving problem in Stitchford, interestingly.’
Harry stood up.
‘And that’s it, Johnno Miles. Best of luck. Next time we meet you’ll be yourself again.’
At six o’clock the following morning, ‘Johnno Miles’ was sitting on the hotel bed, holdall beside him. At five past, the call came telling him a taxi was waiting and by half past, he was in a safe house in another London backstreet, handing over his bag to a monosyllabic young plain-clothes officer and getting another in exchange. He changed into a pair of dark blue jeans, denim shirt, black fleece, navy-and-white trainers. In the bedroom he checked the contents of the bag. Clean set of underwear, two T-shirts, grey jogging pants, four pairs of socks, two navy cotton handkerchiefs, one pair of sports shorts. Shaving kit. Toothbrush and comb. Lee Child paperback. A pack of ibuprofen tablets for backache. Watch on his wrist.
The second cab picked him up and he was away down the street on a pearly morning with a mist floating over the surface of the river. There was already a build-up of traffic and the runners and joggers were out two-deep. Simon watched them as the traffic lights turned to red and had an urge to leap out, throw his new kit over the wall and set off with them, running away, following the tide. The next few weeks would be hard. Freedom was precious and he was no longer free, the system had picked him up and was conveying him along. He had to go with it.
He wondered what Rachel was doing – in bed, hair tucked into her neck, arm outstretched, breathing quietly, or standing at the window of the flat with h
er first mug of coffee, looking at the sunlight touching the flying angels on the cathedral tower. Or somewhere else. He had no idea and could not find out. A sense of complete isolation hit him, as he realised that very few people in the world knew where he was and where he would be for the next weeks and even months. The Chief would be too busy with other things to spare him a thought, the prison governor would be fretting, wondering if he should have authorised this undercover operation at all. But Jed would be concerned, thinking about him, silently wishing him luck. Jed was his contact, listening ear, safety net, minder, overseer. His only contact with Jed, though, was a minute electronic device which communicated the minimum of urgent or significant information.
They had left the Embankment and were heading into the tightly knotted streets of the City. He was in the hands of the driver and the plan now. He knew where he would be by the end of the day. That was all. How he would get there, let alone what it would be like, he had no idea.
Seventeen
There were seven of them in the prison van. Simon had been taken to another safe house in the black cab, then conveyed by a small white van to the back entrance of a huge outer London prison. There he had been frisked, his bag labelled and taken away, before he was put into a holding room. Two other men were already there, four arrived later. The room was the usual – stuffy, windowless, green paint, like every interview and holding room in every police station Simon had ever known. They were given tea in paper cups, and a plate of biscuits between them. They waited for four and a half hours. Lavatory breaks had come twice, and each of them was escorted by a prison officer. There was nothing to read, nothing to look at, nothing to do. He glanced at the others occasionally. They sat with their heads down, hands on their knees, staring at the floor. No eye contact between them. They ranged in age from early twenties through to a couple in their sixties, if not older. They looked wary, defeated, and used to endless waiting. He remembered it now, the waiting, sitting about in pubs, in greasy spoons, in cars, during a covert op, sitting outside police cells, waiting for a balloon to go up.
Waiting.
They shuffled their feet, cleared their throats, sat back, leaned forward again, and closed their eyes. More tea. No biscuits. The duty prison officer left and another took his place. There was no clock. No one told them they could not talk but they didn’t anyway. They were rule-bound.
He had met paedophiles often enough but not six together, convicted, serving time for the offence, waiting to find out if this or any other therapeutic regime under the sun could cure them, take the rotten core out of the apple and make it wholesome again.
He caught the eye of the oldest-looking man. Looked away. So, he’s thinking the same. Paed. Nonce. Another like me.
The brown linoleum was worn away where feet had rubbed into it.
‘Seven for Stitchford? Follow me.’
They filed out, Simon expecting a closed prison van but they were greeted by a people carrier. Climbed in.
‘The journey takes three hours. We have a single pit stop, we’ll be met at the service station by two prison officers from Stitchford, who’ll supervise the break. Then on for the last hour. If you need a pee now put your hand up.’
Two hands.
The doors were opened, and they were escorted out. Three minutes and back.
‘Seat belts on please.’
The gates opened for them and they slipped into the stream of afternoon traffic out of London.
Ten minutes or so into the journey the man in the next seat at the back of the carrier offered Simon a mint.
‘Thanks.’
‘Nobby.’
‘Johnno.’
The man in front half turned. ‘It’s Brian, if we’re getting pally.’
That was it. The others went on silently looking out of the windows.
‘Where you come from, Johnno?’
‘Dartmoor.’
‘Shit.’
‘You?’
Nobby jerked his thumb back to London.
‘Wandsworth?’
‘Pentonville. You been?’
‘Started out in Exeter, got moved to Dartmoor, that’s it, me.’
‘Not bad.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘How long?’
‘Done four and a half.’
‘Out of?’
‘Nine.’
‘Shit.’
‘You?’
But Nobby didn’t answer.
They hit the M1 and a belt of rain that streamed down the windows, blocking any view. Simon put his head back and closed his eyes. ‘Johnno,’ he said inside his head. ‘Johnno Miles. Johnno Miles. Johnno Miles. Giles John Archer-Miles. Johnno. Johnno. Johnno Miles.’
The driver slammed on the brakes, shaking them all up.
‘Christ.’ Man in the row in front of them. ‘Fuckin’ mentalist.’
‘Me?’ the prison driver asked warningly. ‘Or him?’
There was a murmur round the van.
‘Good job.’ He edged forward again.
‘We could play I spy,’ Nobby said. ‘If we could see out the bleedin’ windows.’
Seems normal, Simon thought. People carrier of blokes going from work site A to D, Tuesday afternoon. Usual mixture. Normal. Motorway full of the same. Instead, six of us are convicted child abusers, two are prison officers, one is an undercover DCS. Six men serving time for offences so unimaginably vile most people would cross the street to avoid coming face to face with any of them, the rest would spit, a couple or more would get out a knife. He caught the man in front glancing round. Brian. He bent his head. You had to get used to that, not making eye contact, keeping your head down. Until now. Until the therapeutic community that was Stitchford, where there would be no hiding place, not for any of them. Not even for Johnno Miles. The only one who was hiding so deep he might never crawl out of the hole was Simon Serrailler.
Eighteen
Prison. He’d been in plenty of prisons but Stitchford was relatively new, purpose-built as a therapeutic community. It housed enough highly dangerous lifers to make it a category A, so that whatever the facade, the reality was maximum security. It looked it.
They were not very far from the coast so that by the time they were nearing the prison a sea fret had rolled over them, shrouding the buildings. First came a mile or so of flat land, concrete runways to either side, a few disused hangars – even now, remnants of World War II still lingered.
‘Gawd,’ one of the men said.
It was on two levels, concrete and glass, porridge and grey, perfectly camouflaged in the fog. The usual high perimeter fencing, barbed wire bent inwards, cement posts. The usual gate. The usual security. The van stopped and the driver leaned out. A couple of words and they were waved through. A hundred yards to the main gate which opened automatically. Closed behind them. A wide entrance yard. Glass doors. They drew up. A second or two of silence as the engine died and every one of them looked out again, at the prison into which they had struggled and begged and queued to be admitted. Last chance. If it didn’t work here, Jed had said, a paedophile was at the end of the road, locked in with himself for good. Or for bad.
They jumped out one by one and started to bend, stretch, jump, easing limbs and circulation.
‘Like a long-haul flight,’ Brian said.
Simon nodded.
‘Wouldn’t know,’ another said.
Another holding area. Better. Larger. Windows. Tea and a slab of cake. Sports magazines. Plastic flowers and a living pot plant.
The driver and his mate had disappeared.
One of the men got up and went to try the door. It opened.
‘Fuck me.’
‘How far do you reckon you’d get?’
He hesitated. Sat down again. None of the others had moved, apart from reaching for cake.
How much of prison life was spent hanging about, waiting, waiting, doing nothing? How long now? An hour? Two?
The first two men’s names were called before they’d f
inished drinking.
Then the next.
‘Johnno.’
It was not the fact that it wasn’t his own name that almost caught him out, but the use of a first name. In prison, you were either a number or a surname.
He stood up.
‘Hello, Johnno, I’m Neil. Welcome to Stitchford.’
Hand outstretched. The prisoner he was would not have had anyone proffer their hand to him perhaps for years. Paedophiles expected it least of all. People would sooner shake the hand of a serial killer.
‘Thanks.’
This man does not know who you really are. This man thinks you have sexually abused and filmed others sexually abusing children as young as four years old. This man knows you have been sent down for nine years. This man …
‘I’m a forensic psychologist and head of therapy here. We’ll meet each other again tomorrow morning in your introductory assessment. I hope you settle in quickly – you’ll find everyone wants to help you do that, staff and your fellow inmates. Ask about anything practical and someone will tell you – and there’s a list of everyday info in your room, plus fire drill and so on. Your daily timetable is in there too. You’re on B wing, upper floor, room 6.’
Neil leaned back in his chair. He had a desk in the corner of the room but he was not sitting behind it. Simon had the chair next to him.
‘You asked to come here. You know that, but do you also know that about sixty people a week apply for a place in this community and only a couple are selected?’
‘I got lucky.’
Neil raised an eyebrow. ‘In one sense, you’re dead right. How long ago did you apply?’
‘Fifteen months.’
‘About average. So you understand how much competition there is for a place. Do you know the dropout rate?’
Simon shook his head, though he did.
‘High. High because this therapeutic journey is no walk in the park, Johnno. It’s tough. It drains you. It turns you inside out. It scours you. You expose in public, out loud, the details not only of what you have done – all of it – but how you felt and feel about that. Therapy isn’t a nice lie on a couch with one psychiatrist listening to you talk about your dreams. Forget that. This hurts, there’s nowhere to hide and it’s relentless. It’s why you’re here and it’s what you do, day in, day out, six days a week. Quite a few men think it’ll be a breeze and it finishes them. They’d rather just go back into main prison, with all its misery and risks – and you know what those risks are for paedophiles. They’d face that rather than face up to what they did and what’s inside them and bring it out into the open in front of a dozen or more other people. You’ve been told what happens, you were assessed, you got a place. That’s the start and that’s good. But start is the word. Beginning. Stage one. Are you up for the rest, now you’re here?’