AM02 - The End of the Wasp Season (34 page)

The queue moved closer to the security arch and Leonard leaned towards her. “Did he tell the truth?”

She didn’t pad her sentences. Morrow liked that about her. She shrugged back. “I think he did. Do you?”

Leonard leaned away and smacked her lips, thinking for a moment. “You think he just watched?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know…he could be off his head because of his dad dying as well.”

“His wee sister’s ill too, the attending officer said.” She saw herself abruptly as a small child and Danny watching her in the playground with those haunted eyes and she began to cry like a small girl, covering her mouth and sobbing and trying to slap it off with her sleeve. “For fuck’s sake.”

Leonard handed her a packet of tissues and pretended not to notice.

When they got through the arch the security officer called Morrow aside for a search. She was sun-wrinkled, a maternal fifty-something, and stroked her carefully across her stomach. Morrow saw her glancing at her red eyes. When she moved down to stroke her legs with long, pronouncedly non-sexual sweeps of her hand she asked, “You all right, love?”

“Aye, I’ll be all right.”

The woman stood up and looked at her stomach. “How far on are you?”

“Five months.”

She held Morrow’s eye. She didn’t believe her, thought she was sneaking on to have the baby on the plane.

“Twins,” explained Morrow.

“Oh,” the woman smiled. “No wonder you’re crying.”

The search finished with a pat on the back and a call of good luck and Morrow collected her bag. They walked around to the café nearest to their gate.

“Coffee?” asked Leonard.

“Get me a tea. I’ve got a call to make.”

Leonard went off and Morrow took out her mobile. No answer. It was late so she left a message:

“Hello, this is Alex Morrow, leaving a message for Val MacLea. I’ve changed my mind about talking to you about John McGrath…my nephew, John McGrath. If you think I can be of any use I’d be happy to talk to you, any time. Call me back.”

Thomas was in the library reading a book about the Second World War when they came for him.

“Anderson, Thomas,” shouted McCunt from the door.

Thomas stood up immediately, reflexively, and turned to face the call. McCunt was a nice man, they called him that fondly, to hide the fact that they liked him because he never tried to pretend he was anything other than a prison guard and always gave a warning before putting anyone on report, gave them a chance to dodge it.

“Out,” said McCunt, stepping back, making room for him to move.

A hand on the table slid over to Thomas’s place, asking for the book he’d been reading.

Thomas pushed it across the table. The other boy had a shaved head to show off his fighting scars. They were both reading the same book, didn’t often have library time together and Thomas had got in first today. They’d talked about the book but Thomas suspected they were reading it for different reasons, that they were taking different sides.

“Move,” said McCunt, louder this time.

Thomas went over to him, slipped out into the dark corridor and turned back for further directions. McCunt shut the door, listened for the lock and then turned to him, gave a friendly nod that looked like a headbutt.

Thomas swithered left and right. “Where am I going, sir?”

McCunt nodded left. “Visiting, son.”

It was the wrong time for visiting but Thomas didn’t want to seem insubordinate so he took a couple of steps down the corridor before he said, “But it’s not visiting though.”

McCunt grunted and came after him, shepherding him down the corridor. “Yeah, you’re wanted in visiting, though.”

Thomas’s stomach tightened and he stopped still. McCunt almost bumped into him. “It’s not my mum, is it?”

“No,” McCunt was reassuring, “no, it’s a lawyer’s visit, son, just a lawyer’s visit.”

“Oh.”

Thomas walked on, down the corridor, keeping his eyes down. The lino had been buffed to a glint by the cleaning crew but the smell of heavy disinfectant they used for mopping still clung to the skirting. The smells in the remand block were all pungent, the smell of shit or piss or cum, the stench of onions or mince or pine, all of them concentrated, overwhelming, engulfing. He hated it when he first came, felt as if he was drowning in smell, but he liked it now.

Thomas wasn’t due a lawyer’s visit. His court-appointed lawyer was lazy and slack. Something must have happened. He wondered if Squeak had killed himself.

They took the full length of the corridor to the far door, passing a kitchen vent, walking through a cloud of eggy sponge. The warm wet of spring was in there too, the miracle smell of grass growing. Through the breeze-block wall on their left the Seg boys were running in circles. Through the thunder of their feet Thomas imagined Squeak hanging, lying, bleeding, and felt sad for him, glad for everyone else, but sad for Squeak, stupid, broken, canine Squeak.
I won’t tell them what you did,
as if they themselves didn’t know who had done what to Sarah Erroll, as if moral guilt was like playing tag and Squeak could pass it on by saying it. His thoughts were broken by the instructor’s hollering through the wall.

They reached the locked door at the end of the corridor and McCunt called a redundant, “Stop!”

Thomas smiled and turned back, saw a little smirk on McCunt’s mouth as he reached for the pad and looked up at the camera.

The door buzzed and McCunt pulled it open, stepping back to let him through. Nicer corridor. Less smell, less buff on the floor too because they were timed here when they cleaned, weren’t allowed to linger because it was less secure.

Paler gray walls, windows looking out over a courtyard with grass in it, paintwork less chipped.

They walked down to the visiting rooms’ doors. At the far end was the communal visit room, firmly locked because it led straight out of the prison. Before that, five doors, all the same gray with a bigger than normal window, down at waist height, frosted in parts.

McCunt pulled the keys from his trouser pocket, feeling along the chain at his belt for them, and unlocked the door marked “3,” holding it open.

Thomas stopped in the doorway. It wasn’t his gray-faced crumpled lawyer. Sitting at the table, so big and healthy and prosperous-looking he almost filled the room, was Squeak’s dad.

He stood up. “Thomas.” No trace of tears in his eyes, no redness, no grievous blank stare. Squeak not dead. “Hello,” he said, his voice a cigar smoke rumble, rich as brandy sauce, and the accent a welcome, unfamiliar, RP lilt. Everyone in here spoke in ragged cockney and Manc., some rolling west coast African, some London West Indian, no newsreader Estuary.

McCunt nodded him into the room. Thomas took two steps and the door shut behind him, locked, but McCunt’s shadow stayed in the glass.

“You’re not my lawyer.”

“Sit down.”

Thomas moved around the table, took the seat Mr. Hamilton-Gordon was gesturing to, reflecting that he had the habit of obedience now. He went where he was told, sat for as long as he was told. He was fully conditioned now and should be careful about that.

Mr. Hamilton-Gordon was a lawyer, Thomas remembered. “Oh, you’re
a
lawyer,” he said.

Mr. Hamilton-Gordon sat down too. “How are you, Thomas. Well, I hope?”

It was nice to hear the creamy accent, the soft lyrical timbre of his voice. Thomas had known Squeak’s dad for most of his life, through photos mostly. He always looked cross and didn’t alter his dress according to climate. He wore uncompromising tweed jackets to dinner in St. Lucia, on yachts off Monaco, at dinners in Hong Kong. He was fat but wore bespoke, which did him lots of favors. Today he had a green tweed jacket and pink trousers on. No tie. Weekend home clothes. His hair was a silvery white, touches of black still there, but thick and strong hair, quite long for a corporate lawyer, quite lush. He seemed too colorful for the drab gray room.

He looked at Thomas thoughtfully. His eyebrows grew skyward but had been pruned by a barber: wiry antlers, blunted.

“You’re not my lawyer,” said Thomas again.

“No, I’m not.” He crossed his arms.

“Why are you here?”

“Talk to you. This,” he flicked his finger back and forth between them, “bad blood. No use. Got to stick together. Work it out between us.” He crossed one leg over the other, the outstretched foot boxing Thomas in against the wall, claiming him back from the prison. He swung the foot slowly, a pendulum on a venerable clock.

“Agree? Thomas?”

He gave a reflexive “Yes, sir,” sharp and quick, but Mr. Hamilton-Gordon wasn’t a PO, Thomas didn’t have to call him “sir,” it was a stupid error. He said “sorry” and the big smart man nodded, frowned at the table as if he understood. “Army,” he said, somewhat irrelevantly but Thomas understood him too—Squeak’s dad was putting it in a frame of reference he could understand.

“Thomas, let me say firstly how sorry I am about your father.” He had one hand on the table, the leg across Thomas on the other side, circling him, a formalized embrace. “He was an amazing man.”

“You knew each other?”

“We did,” he said sadly. “We did, we did.”

“From?”

“School.”

“Oh, yes.”

“I was at St. Augustus two years below your father. He was always an extraordinary man. But flawed.” He looked up through his eyebrows to check that Thomas thought that fair and he did. “He was, he was flawed.” He tapped a forefinger on the table top. “His mother was very ill when I knew him.”

“Was she?” Neither Lars nor Moira had much time for family recollections. He didn’t know anything about Lars’s mother but that she was dead.

“She killed herself.” He was looking at Thomas through the gelded eyebrows again, tense.

“I didn’t know that.”

“Your father was younger than you are now. He was at school at the time. It was very difficult for him.” He watched his finger tap out a rhythm and stopped. “Don’t remember the old man too harshly, is what I’m saying. He was flawed but he had a lot to overcome. And he did so. Magnificently.”

Thomas nodded to be agreeable, but thought that whatever Lars had been through, he was still a big shouty fucker.

“You must understand what he overcame.”

“Yeah,” said Thomas. “OK.”

“Are you angry with him?” He flashed a joyless smile.

Thomas considered the question. “I don’t think about him at all now.”

He smiled again, a flash of teeth, gums, eyes unmoving. “Yes. Are you well in yourself?”

“Fine,” he said and wondered about Squeak, was he fine? Was he dead? “Why?”

“Well,” the breath left the big man’s body through the jungle of his nostril hair, noisy, “runs in families, suicide, yes?”

“Really?”

“Yes.” Matter-of-fact. Scientific observation. “Generation to generation. Once the thought is there, it’s always a possibility…” It sounded as if Mr. Hamilton-Gordon was suggesting Thomas might like to kill himself.

“I’m not going to do it,” said Thomas and watched for a reaction. There was none.

“I’ve spoken to your mother. She’s very worried about you.”

“I’m in prison, charged with a disgusting murder. She should be worried.”

“She’s also worried about your sister. Ella has been taken off the antipsychotics.”

“Oh, thank God.” She couldn’t even speak on them. Thomas called her once a week and the nurse held the phone up and she breathed and even from her breathing he could tell she was sad.

“She’s been moved to a private clinic.”

“They took her off them?”

“It’s private. Very expensive. A work colleague of mine is on the board.” He looked up again. “Your mother is without funds at the moment, I don’t know if you’re aware of her situation, if she spoke—”

“She won’t speak to me.”

“Hmm.” He wasn’t surprised at that.

“Have you spoken to her?”

“Yes. She’s as well as can be expected with you in here and Ella so…ill.”

Thomas smirked to himself. Moira’s main concern was never himself and Ella, he could see that now. Moira’s main concern was always Moira. And still he craved her attention. Even though she wouldn’t answer the phone or hung up when she realized it was him calling. Even though he knew she had no real excuse for abandoning him as she had. There were boys in the Segs for sex crimes whose families came once in a while. She wasn’t even that far away. He’d mapped it during a moment of longing for her.

“The care Ella needs is very expensive. She may be there for some time.”

“Who organized that?”

“I did.”

“Well, thank you—”

“I’m very angry with you, Thomas.” It was abrupt, but his voice was flat. “I’m angry with you for taking Jonathon with you to that house. You can understand that, can’t you?”

Thomas saw then that Squeak’s dad wasn’t angry with him. He was fucking furious with him. He was so angry he was sweating lightly. Tiny globes of perspiration prickled out of enlarged pores on his forehead. His forefinger began to tap out a jig on the table again. “You shouldn’t involve others in your personal problems, Thomas. It’s bad form.” He stopped speaking, grunted lightly at the back of his throat, stopping the things he mustn’t say from coming out. And took a deep breath. “But we’re here now. Who’s going to represent you?”

“When?”

“Who is your lawyer?”

“Why are you asking me that?”

The eyebrows rose slowly. “You need a good lawyer. One always needs a good lawyer. Do you have a family law firm?”

Thomas was sure they couldn’t afford them, even if they had. “I don’t think we do, anymore, no.”

“It’s expensive.”

“Probably.”

“Mother selling the house, yes?”

“I think so.”

“It will be on the market for months. The market’s very slow. Big houses, fewer buyers, harder to sell.”

“Yes.”

Mr. Hamilton-Gordon leaned in, very intimate, finger tiptapping the table near to Thomas’s bare arm. “Let’s talk outcomes,” he said seriously. “The difference for someone on this charge with a good lawyer, as compared with a lackadaisical one, is twelve years. Are you aware of that?”

“That much?” Thomas affected surprise and Mr. Hamilton-Gordon responded warmly: “Yes, twelve extra years in prison, without the possibility of parole. Instead of getting out at twenty-five you’d be leaving prison at thirty-six, if you don’t have a good lawyer.” Mr. Hamilton-Gordon sat back. He cleared his throat and made his play. “Thomas, I am going to get you a lawyer. And pay for Ella’s care. In return, I want you to do something for me. Yes?”

Thomas looked blank.

“Yes?” Prompt, prompt. Hamilton-Gordon looked at Thomas’s mouth, willing him to move his lips in the affirmative. Thomas didn’t say anything. Far away, through walls and doors, a trolley wheel squealed like a stuck pig.

“What?” asked Thomas.

“Because you are going to tell them that you’re responsible. That you took Jonathon there. That he stood by and tried to stop you. Do you understand? In return I will support Ella and your mother, maintain your family until you are able to do so yourself. You’re a bright young man by all accounts, and this is by no means the end of everything—you have a future, rest assured. Does that seem fair to you?”

“It does.” And it did, it really did. He’d taken Squeak there, so he was responsible in a way. It did seem fair, even if something about it bothered him. He couldn’t think what it was but it was a sharp annoyance, insistent, urgent as an angry cold sore.

“Well, Thomas, I’m very glad we’ve reached this accommodation, I think you’ll find, when you look back on these events later in life—”

He talked but Thomas was distracted by a tiny movement on his head: Mr. Hamilton-Gordon’s hair was moving.

A thick strand of silver was shifting on his crown, left, up, on its own, he was sitting perfectly still, talking in his low rumble about how much sense everything made to everyone and how everything would be fine and it would all be over soon.

The hair slowly rose to an upright position, like a car aerial, pointing at the ceiling. It looked so bizarre Thomas couldn’t hear what he was saying for watching it.

“…many men of substance, looking back on the misadventure of youth…”