‘You need to do things your way,’ I say softly, ‘because then things won’t go wrong.’
He glares. ‘So?’
‘It’s OK. I understand.’
He stares at me as if willing me to look away. If I do, he will think I’ve just said this to make him confide in me.
But something’s still niggling.
‘If the boiler was faulty, why didn’t you find out the next time you turned it on?’
‘I’d been arrested by then, hadn’t I?’
Stupid me.
‘And the people who moved in after you? Didn’t they realize the water was boiling?’
He shrugs. ‘They re-kitted the bathroom – boiler and all, apparently. You would, wouldn’t you, if someone had died there?’
‘So when did you realize there may have been a manufacturing problem?’
‘A few weeks ago, someone sent me these figures in the post, along with a single word – “boiler”.’
‘Who sent them?’
‘I don’t know. But I’m not bad at figures. I did my research in the prison library and reckoned this was the answer.’ His eyes shine. ‘They’ve got to believe me this time. I’m not the one who’s responsible for Sarah’s death.’ His voice shakes as he looks at me.
I consider this. Anonymous tip-offs, we were told in law school, were sometimes given to both lawyers and criminals. Usually by people who had a grudge against someone else or who wanted to push a particular issue. Is it feasible that someone in the boiler industry wants justice?
I stand up.
‘Where are you going?’ His plea is almost childlike; vulnerable. It reminds me of the Italian child with her thick black curls and eyebrows that belong, surely, to a teenager rather than a nine-year-old.
‘I need to find a brief. A barrister who will take on our case.’
A slow smile breaks out over Joe Thomas’s face. ‘So you think we have one, do you?’
I have my hand on the handle. A prison officer is waiting outside, staring through the glass pane set in the middle of the door. His narrowing eyes indicate extreme disapproval at my plan to relieve the prison of one more inmate.
‘We might,’ I say cautiously, ‘providing what you’re saying checks out. But no more games. We need to work on this together. Promise?’
Promise, said Daniel, towards the end.
Promise? I said to Carla, when I asked her not to steal again.
‘Promise,’ Joe Thomas now says.
We go out of the room. The officer looks at his watch. ‘Can you sign yourself out,’ he says curtly. ‘I need to be somewhere else.’
I find myself walking down the corridor towards the office, side by side with my client.
We pass a large man in an orange tracksuit. ‘Still on for this afternoon?’ he says to Joe.
‘Three p.m. on the dot,’ he says. ‘In the community lounge. Looking forward to it.’ Then Joe turns to me. ‘Table football.’
When I first came here, the officer had described Joe as arrogant, but that exchange had sounded quite friendly. It gives me the courage to bring up something that’s been worrying me.
‘How did you know on my first visit that I’d just got married?’
He shrugs. ‘I always read The Times every day from cover to cover. I have a photographic memory, Lily. Macdonald is an army name. It comes up every now and then.’
Even though I’d first introduced myself to Joe (according to my boss’s instructions) as Lily Macdonald, I feel the urgent need to put some distance between us here. Tell him to refer to me from now on as Mrs Macdonald in a bid to stop him getting personal. Despite the thoughts that are coming into my head.
Luckily, unlike sugar, Sellotape, crisps and sharp implements, I can hide them all.
I have to.
10 Carla
THEEF .
They had spelled it wrong. Carla knew that because she had skipped ahead to the ‘T’s in the Children’s Dictionary.
If she screamed loud enough, Carla told herself, Charlie would be made whole again. Just like Jesus was, even after they’d put the nails in. The priest had told them about it at Mass last Easter. (She and Mamma didn’t go to church very often, although Mamma prayed all the time. Mamma said there were some things that even God couldn’t understand.)
THEEF .
If she continued to scream, those horrid red letters would disappear and Charlie’s poor ripped body would suddenly become whole like our blessed Lord’s. That missing black eye would be back where it belonged, and he would wink at her. Did you think I would leave you? he would say.
And then she’d hold him to her and his soft green fur would make her feel good again.
But the screaming wasn’t working. Not like it did in the flat when she wanted something and Mamma would give in because the walls were thin or because the man with the shiny car was coming round any minute.
‘What on earth is going on?’
A tall, thin, wiry woman marched into the classroom. Carla didn’t like this teacher. She had a habit of pulling off her spectacles and looking at you as if she knew – really knew – what you were thinking. ‘Is that what you’re crying about?’ The teacher – who had a thin bony nose – pointed to Charlie’s remains. ‘This old thing?’
Carla’s gulps spilled out over each other. ‘It’s not an old thing. It’s Charlie. My caterpillar. Someone’s stabbed him. Look.’
‘Stabbed? What a melodramatic word!’ The glasses were coming off. They stared at her from the teacher’s hand. Two pairs of glass eyes made of blue metal.
‘Now stop crying.’
‘Charlie. CHARLIE!’
Too late. The horrible teacher had yanked him out of her hands and walked away. Then the school bell sounded and a tide of children poured into the classroom, including a girl who’d been friendly with Kevin, the boy who used to own Charlie.
‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ Carla hissed, waving the felt-tip note in front of her.
The girl looked at it briefly. ‘Thief,’ she said loudly. ‘That’s what you are. We know what you did.’
‘Thief, thief,’ said someone else.
Then they were all doing it. ‘Thief, thief. Carla Spagoletti is a thief!’
The chanting made her head scream inside.
‘What’s all that noise?’ The bony-nosed teacher was back.
‘What have you done with my Charlie?’ sobbed Carla.
‘If you’re talking about that broken old pencil case, it’s in the dustbins outside. I’m sure your mother will buy you another. Now behave yourself, young lady, or I will give you detention.’
Charlie wasn’t really dead. Instead, he was mixed up with eggshells and Brussels sprout peelings and teabags. Carla had to dig deep into the bin to find him, and by the time she did, her uniform was stained and smelly.
‘Don’t worry,’ she whispered. ‘It will be all right.’ Then carefully, very carefully, she held him in her arms while waiting around the corner for Mamma. (If she’d stayed at the school gates, someone would have wanted to know what she was doing there.)
It didn’t matter that Charlie wasn’t speaking. She only had to wait for three days and then he would be all right again. It would be the same for all of them. The priest had said so.
But now, the more she shifted from one foot to another, the more Carla began to wonder if she and Mamma had missed each other. All the other children had gone home. Even the teachers.
The sky was dark. It would nearly be winter in the valley at home. The cold months there, Mamma often said wistfully, were wonderful! There was always a fire with loved ones sitting round it. Their sing-songs and their arms warmed you up, sent fire through your belly. Not like here where the greedy electric meter gobbled up coins.