A Deadly Likeness, page 13
‘That’s really thoughtful.’ I was genuinely touched.
‘How is the throat?’
‘Still not great – so the toddy will help. Thanks.’
Jen was grinning at me over Ed’s shoulder, finding this highly amusing. ‘Well, I suppose I should get back to the office – things to do.’
I ignored her expression, which told me I was going to get interrogated the minute she had me alone.
‘Thought your company worked weekends,’ I said, once she’d gone.
‘Being the boss has its perks.’ He stretched his long legs out as he leaned against the Aga, watching me pour scalding water into the teapot. ‘Not treated yourself to an instant hot-water tap then?’
I pulled a face. ‘Certainly not. Haven’t even got an electric kettle.’ I stirred the pot. ‘There’s something about the ritual of brewing up that I like. Besides, it’s a sin to make tea in the cup – it tastes better from a teapot.’
‘If you say so.’ He took the cup from me. ‘Can’t say I’m an aficionado. Like any good Italian, I prefer coffee.’
‘I’m not a good Italian, then. Obviously more of a Yorkshire girl. Sorry, I should’ve asked what you preferred.’
‘This is fine. I’m a stickler for the blend of beans, so tea is OK otherwise.’
A warm silence wrapped itself around us, and for a moment, we just stood by the stove, drinking tea, listening to the wind outside.
‘What do you want to do about your car?’ he finally asked, breaking the intimate stillness.
‘I have to go to Wakefield. Would be helpful if you could drop me at the car park.’
*
‘You going into the police station while you’re there?’ Ed asked, trying to make it sound like casual small talk as we drove into Fordley.
‘No. Doubt I’ll be going in, for the foreseeable.’
That drew a glance. ‘Why not?’
‘I’m benched.’
‘While this nutter’s still out there? Got to be more you can add to their investigation, surely?’
I stared out of the window. The scenery had changed, from the crystalline winterscape of the countryside around the farm to city roads, crunchy with salt. Dirt-grey snow piled along the edges of the kerb, where the gritters had cleared the main arteries into town.
‘Callum doesn’t want me involved.’
My reflection in the glass looked tired. Long blonde hair escaping from the folds in my scarf. Dark-ringed brown eyes that looked back at me with a cynical weariness.
I risked a glance at Ed. He was frowning. ‘Warner rates you. Wouldn’t have thought she’d want you on the outside.’
‘If she needs me, she knows where I am.’
‘You’re not going to leave it? I mean, if I’m heavily invested in a problem, I’ll work it in my own time. Even if the client runs out of budget. Like an itch I can’t scratch. I think you’re the same.’
I turned in my seat to look at him. Shrewd jade eyes regarded me with a perceptiveness I hadn’t expected.
‘You don’t really know me.’
‘Know your reputation.’ He shrugged. ‘And now we’ve spent a little time together, I’m getting to see the person behind the myth.’
‘Hardly mythical.’
‘You’re impressive.’ He said it in a way that really had no edge. ‘Strength of character and intelligence – a compelling mix.’
‘Bet you say that to all the girls.’ I was making light of it, but his remarks suddenly and unaccountably meant a lot. ‘This isn’t an Agatha Christie novel and I’m not Miss Marple. If the investigation team aren’t sharing, I’m out in the cold. There’s only so much I can do on my own.’
‘You’re not on your own.’
‘No?’
He slowly shook his head. ‘I’m in the information business, remember?’
‘I’m talking about confidential data.’
‘The kind I like best.’
‘You’d jeopardise your relationship with the police if you did anything like that.’ I was choosing my words carefully.
‘I’m a gamekeeper these days, but poaching was always much more fun.’
‘Poaching?’
He turned his attention back to the road as the lights went to green. ‘How do you think I got into this business? As a teenager, I was a bloody good hacker. One of the best. Had a lot of harmless fun – until I broke into a server at the Ministry of Defence—’
‘You’re shitting me?’
He laughed. ‘I shit you not. My parents had a fit. Thought I was going to get thrown in jail.’
‘Obviously you didn’t?’
‘No, but it was a close-run thing. Only avoided it because the department in question wanted to know how I’d done it. I offered to help them design a firewall to keep people like me out.’
‘In exchange for them not throwing away the key?’
‘Something like that. Built a lucrative business, being paid by companies to test their cyber security – mostly by breaching it. Setting one to catch one.’ He shot me a look. ‘A bit like you.’
‘I’m not a serial killer.’ That sounded more defensive than was comfortable.
‘Thankfully not,’ he conceded. ‘But I’ve read the articles about you. They say your talent is being able to think like them. That you have a gift.’
‘More of a curse.’
‘You shouldn’t see it like that. I’m paid the big bucks because I think like a cyber crook. Being able to think like them, doesn’t make you one. If things had been different, I could easily have taken another path – the temptation was there.’
‘Do you see yourself as a “black hat” or a “white hat” these days?’ I asked, only half-joking.
‘Hmmm . . . grey hat, maybe.’
‘You’ve never regretted not going over to the dark side?’
‘I could ask you the same. On second thoughts, don’t answer that. It’d give me nightmares.’ He laughed. ‘Sometimes I do, if I’m honest. Would have had more fun and probably made a lot more money.’
‘Looks like you’re doing OK.’
‘Yeah, but could’ve had my private island by now.’
‘With the false lake that slides back to reveal your Bond villain’s lair?’
‘Absolutely. No white cat though. More of a dog man myself.’
‘Harvey would approve.’
‘He can join us on Mazzarelli Island.’
We were both laughing now.
‘Seriously though,’ he said, ‘I work in a shadowland like yours. There’s a sick bastard out there, killing innocent people, Jo. What you do can help stop him, and if you need access to information to help with that, you know where I am.’
‘Yeah, on your island . . . with my dog.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
Saturday Afternoon, Wakefield
Five Love Lane, Wakefield, could be a charming address. It could be, but it’s not. It’s the location of one of Britain’s most infamous prisons.
His Majesty’s Prison, Wakefield. Doesn’t sound too bad either. But, because of the above average population of high-risk sex offenders, terrorists and murderers held there, it’s known colloquially as the ‘Monster Mansion’.
In 1594, the former house of correction held both male and female prisoners. In the exercise yard was a mulberry tree, around which female prisoners would dance for daily exercise. Forever immortalised in the children’s nursery rhyme ‘Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush’.
Sadly, the eponymous bush died in 2019, but I was reliably informed that efforts were being made to regrow it. Though I doubted contemporary prisoners would feel like doing much dancing.
Today, Wakefield is a Category A all-male prison, housing some of the most violent and dangerous offenders in the British penal system. One of the UK’s elite ‘Supermax’ facilities, designated for those deemed an extreme threat to the public, police or national security and home to Jacob Malecki for the past eight years.
After driving around the slush-covered side streets of the city centre, I finally managed to find a parking space in the Wakefield Westgate train station. From there it was just a few hundred yards walk, beneath the railway bridge, to the prison.
There were the customary security procedures to go through. My passport and ID were scrutinised and the visiting order checked. The name on it drawing a curious glance and raised eyebrows from the officer behind the bulletproof screen in reception.
I faced the camera to have my image captured, then my thumbprint was required on the electronic fingerprint scanner.
A system of doors – worryingly reminiscent of airlocks, where one had to be locked behind me before another could open – led into a room where all my belongings were placed in a locker.
Nothing was allowed that could even remotely be used by a prisoner to fashion a weapon or a means of escape. No pens, keys, coins or even so much as a paperclip. There were airport style security scanners to walk through, shoes to be removed while I stood on a box, arms outstretched to be swept with an electronic wand. Then I was sniffed by a drugs dog, with an enthusiastically wagging tail.
Even though I’d gone through all of this before, it never ceased to cause a shiver. A cautionary reminder of the environment I was about to enter.
The well-practised security measures existed because behind these heavy metal doors were men who had committed the most appalling acts of terrorism, or had raped, tortured and murdered their way into a stay at the Monster Mansion.
The slightest slip in vigilance by the officers who managed them could result in brutal explosions of savagery by inmates on hair triggers, who could kick off at an often-imagined insult.
I passed through the security foyer under the scrutiny of prison governors, whose framed photographs adorned the walls, and into a small waiting room, with an old church bench against one wall, where I was told to wait until my escort arrived.
The hard seat was uncomfortable and I shifted my position, flexing the muscles in my left thigh, which had begun to ache.
There were colourful posters along the walls, put there in a failed attempt to brighten the place up. I read them, half-listening to the banter of officers on shift change, putting radios on charge and depositing their keys.
Eventually, a young prison officer stood in front of me – his feet planted slightly apart like a sailor on a tilting deck.
‘Doctor McCready? The governor has asked to see you before your visit. If you’d like to come with me?’
Unexpected.
I covered my surprise and followed him to a metal turnstile, which was unlocked as he pressed his thumb onto the glass scanner, then through another door that led outside into the yard.
The cold air hit my face like a slap, but was perversely welcome after the claustrophobic atmosphere inside. We walked across the yard, where secure prisoner-transport buses – known to inmates as ‘sweat boxes’ – would come through the huge gates to deliver new arrivals, or transferees from other prisons.
The train station, where I’d parked my car, was just on the other side of the perimeter wall. The sound of announcements coming from the platforms could be heard as we walked across the yard. The automated female voice, broadcasting the departures and arrivals in a very plummy, un-Yorkshire accent.
To those locked away inside, it must have been a perversely cruel reminder of freedom so tantalisingly close.
My escort nodded in the direction of the station.
‘Come here to get away from the sound of the missus, then get Sonia in my earhole all bloody day.’
‘Sonia?’
‘That’s what we call the voice – because she gets Sonia nerves.’ He laughed. ‘Get it?’
‘Hmm,’ I said, distracted by keeping a wary eye on the dog handlers across the yard.
Grim and forbidding as most of these institutions were, what always struck me about this place was the overt presence of the dogs. Land-sharks on leads, continually patrolling the perimeter. Straining to test the strength of their handlers, who looked only too prepared to release them, should the need arise.
The incessant barking overlaid the cacophony of metal doors clanging, keys rattling, radio chatter and the distant shouts of prisoners. The discordant sound of prison life, once heard, never forgotten.
My escort stopped at a white metal fence, looking up into the ever-seeing eye of the security camera mounted above the gate. He stated his name and collar number.
‘Escorting Dr Jo McCready to the governor’s office.’
He indicated for me to step forward and show my ID and state my name, after which a click announced the unlocking of the gate.
I looked up at the imposing facade of the main prison. Wide steps leading to large, old-fashioned polished wooden doors, complete with brass handles – a remnant of the original Victorian building, which looked more like an old town hall.
Our boots rang on the flight of grey stone steps that led to the governor’s offices. If only the stone could talk, what stories would it be able to tell of the feet that had climbed these same stairs over the centuries?
At the top, carpet replaced stone, in a dark-wood panelled corridor. The smell reminded me of museums I’d visited as a child with my parents, on rainy Sunday afternoons.
A heavy wooden door creaked open and a tall woman, in an elegant wool suit, greeted us.
‘Dr McCready.’ She extended a slim hand and shook mine. ‘I’m Emma, the governor’s secretary.’
My escort left us and I followed her into an office, dominated by a cream marble fireplace and a couple of black leather sofas. An ornate desk was set back with a huge window behind it that overlooked the main yard.
‘Can I get you a coffee?’
‘I prefer tea – if that’s OK?’
‘No problem.’ She smiled.
As the door closed softly behind her, I went to stand by the window and looked down over the grounds.
There was an energy in this place that crackled. Like the buzz from high-voltage cables. The hum of a dangerous current that had to be carefully monitored and contained.
Muted sounds drifted across from the main accommodation block. The hubbub of prisoners milling about in recreation; the raised voices of officers – all to the backing track of Sonia’s platform announcements and the rhythmic clatter of the trains.
I turned as the door opened and a tall, athletic-looking man breezed into the room, bringing with him a gust of cold air. He extended a hand as he came round the sofa.
‘Dr McCready.’ He sounded out of breath. ‘Good to meet you – my name’s Rob Harding. Sorry to keep you waiting. Won’t you take a seat?’ He indicated a leather sofa and sat on the one opposite.
‘I wasn’t expecting this meeting,’ I confessed.
‘No.’ Dark fringe flopped across his forehead and he swept it back with his hand. ‘In view of his status, VOs for Jacob Malecki usually pass across my desk.’
‘Do you meet all his visitors?’
‘Not ordinarily.’ He flicked an imaginary piece of lint from his trousers. ‘But I’m sure you can understand why your visit would raise some questions, particularly at the moment?’
He paused as the door opened and Emma came in carrying a tray, which she put on the coffee table and left. We went through the polite ritual of pouring tea, then he sat back.
‘Jacob Malecki is the most high-profile prisoner, in a population where infamy is the norm. He gets love letters – even proposals of marriage from men and women alike.’
‘After all these years?’
‘Admittedly not as much these days,’ he conceded. ‘Like any other kind of fame, unless it’s fed, it begins to wane. More newsworthy characters come along to steal the headlines and, I suppose, he slipped from public attention in recent years. Not in the prison system though. He holds rock-star status with some offenders in here.’
‘Only some?’
‘That same status makes him a target for others.’ His smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘It’s something we have to manage – for his own safety.’
‘And you think my visit might upset the equilibrium?’
‘One celebrity visiting another won’t go unnoticed in a place like this. Some of the inmates might resent the attention he’s getting. Men get stabbed in here for less.’
‘I’m hardly a celebrity, Governor . . .’
‘Please – call me Rob.’
‘I’m here at Malecki’s request.’
‘And you have no idea why that might be?’
‘None.’
‘Feelings on the outside are running high at the moment. There’s a protest march through Fordley later today.’
‘And you think Malecki sending me a VO for the same weekend isn’t a coincidence?’
‘Let’s just say, it’s my job to make sure that whatever he has in mind doesn’t translate to problems in my prison.’
‘Can we cut to the chase, and you tell me what this is really about?’
‘There’s a lot of scrutiny around his offences at the moment. We feel your meeting should be kept as low-key as possible.’
‘You could have prevented the visit.’
‘Unfortunately, that would have violated his human rights. They do have them . . . Even in here.’
He shifted slightly in his seat and I waited, knowing that whatever was coming next was the real reason I’d been invited for tea in the governor’s office.
‘We don’t allow the media access.’
And there it was.
‘You think I’m here for a story?’ My tone was incredulous.
‘The journalist who received the letter from the killer sent it to you first.’
‘And I shared it with the police.’
‘Journalists are going to extraordinary lengths to get to Jacob, or anyone here who has dealings with him—’
My legendary thin patience was being overstretched.
‘Let me stop you right there . . . Rob.’ I put my cup down like a full stop. ‘I’m a forensic psychologist, not a journalist.’
