Chapter 42
Eve stood in line in the visitor centre at HMP Bullingdon, waiting with all the wives, mothers, girlfriends and children of the prisoners.
She couldn’t help but listen in on the conversations, which told her that these women had done this many times before, that the prison visit was as much a part of their weekly routine as the supermarket shop or the school run.
They had long ago accepted whatever it was the men in their life had done and were resigned to shouldering the burden of child-rearing, finding enough money for food and paying the bills until he got out again.
Many of the women seemed to know each other and Eve wondered if they could tell she was a rookie.
At half past one, the queue began to move.
When it was her turn, she walked through the detector and held her arms in the air while a female officer patted her down.
She then stood in her socks while her shoes were checked before she was finally able to collect her belongings from the trays on the belt in front of her and secure her bag in a locker.
She walked through a gate into a sectioned-off area where some of the other women were waiting.
Once a few of them were crammed in together, a prison officer joined them and pressed a button, which caused the big glass partition door to slide shut.
The officer took her keys from her belt and unlocked a gate to her left.
Everyone streamed out along a path, which crossed an outdoor section of well-tended grass and flower beds, and then into a building on the opposite side, where they waited once again while the officer unlocked a second gate and then a third, locking each one behind her before moving on to the next.
Finally, they walked up the stairs and along a corridor to the visitors’ hall, where Eve saw Joe seated at a table near to the door, wearing a yellow prison sweatshirt under a burgundy visits bib.
He looked thin and ashen, and her heart leaped as she walked towards him.
She sat down in front of him and reached for his hand.
He clasped hers tightly in his for a moment, squeezing it hard, then caught the eye of a prison guard and let go.
‘It’s good to see you,’ she said.
‘It’s good to see you too.’
‘How are you?’
He forced a weak smile. ‘So-so. You know.’
‘Are you on your own? In a cell, I mean?’
He nodded. ‘I’m on the VPU.’
‘Does that help?’
He hesitated and said, ‘Well, I’m banged up with the lowest of the low, but I’m not the lowest because I didn’t hurt a child, so it could be worse.’
She swallowed and bit her lip. ‘What happened?’ she whispered.
Joe gazed back at her, his shoulders stooped. He opened his mouth to speak and closed it again.
‘Joe, the prosecution witness you met with … was it Bella? Christy Nicholls’ daughter?’
He looked a little surprised but nodded.
‘Why, Joe? Why would you risk it?’
He shifted in his seat, then looked over his shoulders. ‘She contacted my mother, who gave me her phone number. She begged me to meet her.’
‘But—’
‘All those years ago, when she identified me … she said she wasn’t sure if she picked the right man.’
Eve stared at him in shock. ‘She said that?’
He nodded.
‘Will she help you?’
‘I don’t know. I hope so.’
Eve’s heart jumped. ‘And that’s why she wanted to talk to you?’
‘She wanted to hear about her mother. I said no, at first. I knew it would be taking a huge risk, but …’ He raised his eyes towards the prison officer standing guard.
‘But she isn’t sure it was me, Eve. All her life, she’s been having these nightmares about a stranger being in her house, on the stairs.
A man. She thinks it could have been a cop. ’
‘A cop?’ DI Carver flashed into Eve’s mind.
DI Jon Carver – or whoever he really was.
Was that why he was tailing Bella? Was that why he was talking to Eve’s boss, her family, telling everyone that Joe was a rapist and a killer?
Was this more than a police operation to keep tabs on someone believed to be dangerous?
Did ‘DI Carver’ have some kind of vested interest in having Joe locked up again?
‘But … this is just a dream, right?’ she asked. ‘Bella doesn’t have any solid evidence of any police officer being in her house that night, after her mother died?’
‘No,’ Joe admitted. ‘But I think she now believes it wasn’t me who killed her.’
‘So what’s she going to do about it?’
‘I asked her if she would speak to Sarah and she said she needed to think about it, and then I got arrested. So now I don’t know, and obviously I can’t speak to her.’
Eve thought for a moment. ‘OK. Well, Sarah probably won’t be able to speak to her either.’
‘Why not?’ Joe’s face fell.
‘It could look as though you were communicating with her through your lawyer. Sarah will have to be careful, but, look, why don’t I call her as soon as I leave here and we will work out the best thing to do?’
He nodded. ‘I trust you, Eve. Whatever you can do.’ He paused. ‘How did you know? That it was Bella I spoke to?’
‘I saw you together,’ Eve admitted. ‘I came to warn you …’ And then she told him about the argument with her daughter and sister, about the police going to talk to them and to her head of department at college, and about everything that had happened after that.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘For everything I’ve put you through.’
‘I’m not worried about that, Joe. That’s not why I’m telling you all this,’ she said, lowering her voice to a whisper. ‘But I think Bella was being followed after she left your house that night. I think there is someone within the force who is taking way too much of an interest in the two of you.’
Joe’s eyes met hers.
‘If you didn’t kill Christy, then someone else did. And I’m going to help Sarah find out who he is,’ she whispered. ‘And then we’re going to get you out of here.’
‘I don’t want you putting yourself in danger,’ he said.
‘I’ll be careful.’
‘God.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he murmured, flushing as he looked up again. ‘For getting you into all of this.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ She gave him an ironic smile. ‘It’s the most excitement I’ve had in ages.’
He smiled back weakly and put the tips of his fingers against hers.