“You need a hand there?” he asks, getting out of his car, and he has to almost shout to be heard over the rain. Before he’s even finished the sentence he’s soaking wet, and so is she, only just her face and belly at this stage.
“Thank you,” she says, and she reaches up and takes his hand. Rather than him pulling her up, she almost pulls him back into the car, and he almost lets her since it’s drier in there. He strengthens his back, switches on the stomach muscles he’s slowly losing, and pulls. She stumbles forward and has to wrap her arms around him, and he almost topples, grabbing at the car door to stay balanced.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry about that,” she says, pulling away from him.
“You picked a hell of a day to visit somebody,” he says.
She laughs, a very sweet laugh that her husband or boyfriend must love hearing. “You think today is going to be any better than tomorrow?”
“Supposed to be sunny,” he says, “but maybe the snow they picked for last week might finally arrive.” He’s curious as to who she’s visiting. Maybe her boyfriend or husband is locked up out here. He doesn’t ask.
“Can you . . . I hate to ask, but would you please grab my handbag for me?”
“Sure,” he says. She steps aside and he reaches into the car and grabs her handbag off the passenger seat. “No umbrella?”
She shakes her head. “It’s only rain,” she says.
He closes the door for her. “Torrential rain,” he says, and there’s no point in hurrying now, he can’t get any wetter.
She smiles. “I like it. The rain is . . . I don’t know, romantic, I guess.” She breathes in deeply. “And that smell,” she says. “I love that smell.”
Schroder breathes in deeply. All he can smell is wet grass.
They walk up to the main doors together, the woman has her hand on her stomach the entire way, and he figures she should be keeping that hand much lower, ready to catch what is surely going to fall out of her at any second. He opens the door for her.
“You look familiar,” he says, but he can’t place her. It’s more he gets the feeling she looks like somebody he used to know. He looks at her red hair—it’s full and wavy and comes down to her shoulders and he imagines she spends a long time looking after it with hair moisturizers and shampoos. She’s wearing a light brown shade of eye shadow to match, and red lipstick too. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
“Ha, I get that a lot,” she says, and they’re inside now, out of the rain. “I used to be an actress,” she says, “before this happened,” she adds, patting her stomach.
“Oh really? I’ve just gotten into the TV industry myself.”
“You’re an actor?”
He shakes his head. “A consultant. What would I have seen you in?”
“Well, this is kind of embarrassing,” she says, “but nothing much. Just shampoo ads, mostly. And some hotel ads. Often you’ll see me behind the desk, or sitting by a pool, or in the shower. My career is really taking off,” she says, giving a grin. “Though with the baby you won’t see me again for a few years, unless it’s a diaper ad. Well, I hate to be rude, but nature calls,” she says, and she pauses next to a small corridor with a sign indicating that the toilets are only a few feet away. “You have children?” she asks.
“Two,” he says. Water is starting to puddle around his feet.
“This is my first,” she says. “I think he’s going to be a practical joker. I mean, at the moment he finds it funny to have me running off to the bathroom every ten minutes. Thanks for . . . for the lift,” she says, smiling.
“Anytime.”
He walks up to the counter, on the other side of which is a very large woman. There’s a piece of Plexiglas between them. It feels like being in a bank. Last time he came out to the prison was back in summer when Theodore Tate was being released, and then all he did was wait out in the parking lot. Tate was a buddy of his who used to be a cop, but who became a criminal. Then he became a private investigator. Then a criminal again. Then a cop. Then a victim. Tate has been a lot of things, and Schroder makes a mental note to go and visit him. It’s been a few days.
“I’m here for Joe Middleton,” he says, and he hands over his ID.
Her face tightens a little at the mention of Joe’s name, and so does his. Joe Middleton. For years that slimy bastard worked among them, cleaning their floors, empting their rubbish bins, the entire time using police resources to stay ahead of the investigation. Joe Middleton. Schroder got the credit for arresting him, but the entire thing was a fuck up. They should have gotten him sooner. Too many people died. He felt responsible. A lot of them did. And so they should—they let a killer walk among them.
“He’s five minutes away,” the woman says, and Schroder knows that no matter what this woman says, that’s the way it is. She doesn’t look like somebody you’d want to mess with. She looks like she could singlehandedly run the entire complex out here. “Take a seat,” she says, and points behind him. He knows the drill. He’s waited out here before—just never as a civilian. It’s different. He doesn’t like not having a badge.
He moves over to the seats. He’s the only one here. The pregnant woman is still in the bathroom, and he remembers what it was like with his own wife, and how in the end she refused to be more than thirty seconds away from a bathroom.
He sits down, his wet clothes pushing against him. The chair is a solid plastic one-piece with metal legs. There’s a table with magazines on it. Add some coughing people and a screaming baby and it would be just like a doctor’s office. He can hear drips of water coming off him and hitting the floor. The guard looks over at him and he feels guilty about the mess he’s making. He expects that any second now the Take a seat woman is going to throw him some paper towels, or throw him a mop, or throw him out.
Five minutes. And then he has to face the man he arrested a year ago.
The Christchurch Carver.
The man who made a fool of them all.
Chapter Five
This must be what it’s like to win the lottery. Or what it’s like to win the lottery and not even have bought a ticket. Both guards look sick. Adam looks like he wants to punch me. Glen looks like he could do with a hug. The news sinks in and I feel my Slow Joe game face taking shape. The world that shifted off its axis twelve months ago is righting itself. What was out of whack is now in whack. Nature correcting itself. The laws of physics correcting themselves. My Slow Joe smile feels great and seems to fit a lot better than it did earlier when I was with Barlow. It’s the big smile that shows all the teeth, and if I can’t get it under control it’s going to break my mouth in half. My scar hurts as it shifts around the smile, looking for a comfortable position and not finding one, but I don’t care about the pain. Not now. I’m going to be home again. I’m going to have the chance to carry on doing the thing I love to do. Get some new pet goldfish. Buy some nice sharp knives. Get a really cool briefcase.
Adam looks at Glen, and then he starts to laugh, the muscles in his neck straining out from his shirt, and when he starts to laugh then Glen laughs too. They stare at each other for two seconds, then both look at me. “That was fucking great,” Adam says, and he’s looking at me, but talking to his boyfriend. “You see his face?”
“I didn’t think it’d work,” Glen says. “I really didn’t. Oh man, you totally picked it.”