“She fell through the ice on a frozen lake.”
“In London?”
There is a pause, before Ruiz asks the obvious question. “What makes you think she was in London?”
Aiden hesitates, preparing to lie.
“Had you heard from her?” I ask.
“No.”
“Why then?”
There is another long silence. Ruiz speaks first. “Let me give you some free advice, Aiden, since you’ve still got six months to go. Most of the cons in here are uneducated, violent, washed-up drug addicts and habitual criminals. They know how to work the system… to survive. But you, Aiden, you’re a fish. You’re too young and pretty for a place like this. I bet the wolves have been sniffing around, waiting to introduce you to a little prison romance.”
“No fucking way, man.”
Something drops with a loud bang on the far side of the room and Aiden spins around as though shot. After a beat of silence, conversations begin again. Aiden tries to shrug it off but he’s less sure of himself.
“Shower-time must be a nightmare,” says Ruiz. “What do you do? If you fight them they punish you. You get shanked in the breakfast queue or lighter fuel thrown on your bed while you’re sleeping. Are you getting much sleep, Aiden? I wouldn’t be. I’d keep my back to every wall.”
Aiden’s eyes are wide.
“Or maybe you’ve found yourself a benefactor, someone who looks after you. What do you give him in return? Are you bending over for someone, Aiden? Or maybe you’re muling drugs or lining up other fish?”
“You got it all wrong.”
“I wonder what your mates are going to think when they hear you’re somebody’s prison bitch.”
“No way, man! I’m nobody’s bitch.”
“That sort of rumor is hard to shake. Girls won’t treat you the same way. They’ll want you to take an Aids test just to look at them.”
Aiden’s eyes are filming over. “This is bullshit!”
“I’m not telling you anything you don’t know,” says Ruiz. “Maybe it doesn’t matter what your mates think. So what if they tell stories about you behind your back-about how some hare-lipped, flat-nosed con found you alone in the shower and uttered sweet nothings in your ear.”
“That didn’t fucking happen.”
“I believe you, truly I do.” Ruiz looks at me. “I don’t know how these rumors start.”
The silence lasts a dozen heartbeats.
“She sent me a letter,” says Aiden.
“Who?” I ask.
“Tash.”
“When?”
“A few months after she went missing.” He squints at something on the ceiling. “She said she and Piper were in London. They were living in a squat and she was working for some guy who ran a place in Soho.”
I look at Ruiz.
“Why did she write to you?”
“She said she was sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“What do you fucking think?”
“Do you still have the letter?”
“Oh, yeah, I put it in my scrapbook with my pressed flowers and needlework.”
Aiden thinks that’s funny. He wants an audience.
“Did you write back?”
“Why would I write to her? She put me in here. She put Callum Loach in a wheelchair. If it weren’t for that little prick-tease, none of this would have happened.”
I can see Ruiz’s shoulders flexing beneath his shirt. It isn’t so much Aiden’s whining that he dislikes, but his cocky self-importance and how he wants to blame his own immeasurable stupidity on a schoolgirl because the alternative requires too much self-analysis and accountability.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone about the letter?” I ask
“Why should I? Nobody did me any favors.”
Taking a photograph from my jacket pocket, I place it on the table between his elbows. The image is from the post-mortem. Natasha’s thin body laid out on the stainless steel bench, swollen and exposed, her eyes blank. Aiden is staring at me, unwilling to look. Slowly he lowers his gaze. Hesitates. Recovers.
“She’s not so pretty now,” he says, turning his face away from the photograph.
“You still think she got what was coming to her?” asks Ruiz.
Aiden smiles ruefully, showing all the compassion of a shark loose in a colony of seals.
“Been going to church while I been in here. Learned a few things. It’s like the Bible says: ‘Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’ Man, woman, same difference. She got what she deserved.”
As we leave the prison, Ruiz takes a boiled sweet from his tin and sucks it hard as though wanting to get a bad taste from his mouth.
“You know how most people in prison deserve to be there.”
“Yeah.”
“Some deserve it more than others.”
28
Late afternoon I drive across Oxford in mist that can’t decide if it wants to be rain, or perhaps it’s the other way around. The streets are crowded with cars and tourist coaches. The schools are closing, holidays starting, last-minute Christmas shoppers buying last-minute gifts. At the colleges, parents are arriving to fetch their offspring home from university. Trunks are hefted down narrow stairways and loaded into car boots.
It makes me remember my own university days. I had expected a four-year slumber party full of sex, alcohol and soft drugs. Instead, I fell in love with a string of unattainable girls, who thought I was great fun to have around, but not very shaggable. They seemed to prefer rugby players or boys called Rupert whose parents had country estates. Normally all I could offer was my undying love and a bottle of warm Lambrusco Bianco.
Victoria Naparstek comes to mind, her shy eyes and over-wide mouth. I remember seeing the same gratitude in her eyes that I felt was in mine; an appreciation that she was there and that I hadn’t completely embarrassed myself.
Parking outside the sports center, I push through the double doors and hear the echo of basketballs rattling backboards. At the front counter, a woman is wearing a tracksuit on her thin frame and twenty years of sun damage around her eyes. I ask for Callum Loach.
She points through another set of doors. “He’ll be inside with the Ayatollah.”
“Sorry?”
“Theo. That’s his old man.”
There are three basketball courts side by side, but only one is being used. Theo Loach is pacing the edge of the court. Yelling instructions, he ducks and weaves as though he’s shadowboxing or playing the game from the bleachers. A Para tattoo on his right forearm has faded into a blue stain.
“Hey, Cal, watch for the quick break. That’s it… cover him.”
I’ve never seen a wheelchair game of basketball. The speed surprises me. With a flick of forearms, competitors are hurtling up and down the court.
I recognize Callum from his photograph. He’s sitting in a lightweight chair with wheels that are canted inwards and give the impression they’re collapsing into his lap.
Theo yells, “Good block! See who’s open. That’s it. Go… go!”
Nursing the ball on his lap, Callum pushes twice on the wheels and dribbles, leading a charge of pumping arms and blurring wheels.
“All the way!” shouts Theo.
Callum shoots and lands the basket, colliding with an opposing player and toppling sideways. The chair seems to roll 360 degrees and he flips it up again, laughing and high-fiving his teammates.
Theo rubs his hands together as if keeping them warm. Then he looks up.
“Can I help you?”
“I was hoping to speak to Callum.”
“Game’s almost over.”
I take a seat on a bench and rest my jacket over one thigh. Theo is no longer paying as much attention to the action. Periodically, he glances my way until curiosity gets the better of him.
“I’m Cal’s father. What’s this about?”
“You’ve heard the news about Natasha McBain?”
“Sure.”
“I’m assisting the police in the investigation.”
“What’s that got to do with Cal?”
I delay answering. The silence fills with a referee’s whistle, a foul and a free throw. Theo’s face is as round as a pie tin under a baseball cap. He takes a seat next to me, his knees creaking.