Daisy in Chains(40)

He doesn’t. He waits until she’s at the table and then his eyes dart across her face, her hair, her body. On the tabletop is an origami shape.

‘Hi.’

His voice is deeper than she expects, as though prison life has roughened and toughened it. He is wearing blue jeans and an oversized blue sweatshirt.

‘Hello, Hamish. How are you?’

How cool, how calm her voice is. It doesn’t sound as though her hands, were she to lift them from her sides, would be shaking.

‘Please.’ He’s indicating the chair. She sits. He does too, and now they seem only inches apart. The origami shape is made from silvery-white paper but she doesn’t want to look at it. His shoulders are wide beneath the sweatshirt. He is a powerfully built man.

‘Can I get you something?’ she says. ‘Tea? Coffee? Something to eat?’ Even here, in this dreadful place, social norms prove strong.

‘No, thank you.’ He isn’t cuffed, although she’d half expected that he would be. There is a graze on his right hand.

‘Did you have a good journey?’ he asks her.

She’d driven through snow in the pre-dawn darkness, the Solent had been rough, the ferry cold and uncomfortable. ‘Yes, thank you,’ she says, and thinks how polite they are being, the murderer and the – what, exactly?

He smiles again, suddenly, as though overcome by a moment of joy and she sees that his incisors are longer than his other teeth. They spoil the perfect symmetry of his mouth. ‘Why is your hair that colour?’ he asks her.

The question she never answers truthfully has an oddly relaxing effect. And she has her answer prepared. ‘When I was thirteen, my school went to see a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Stratford on Avon. Titania had blue hair. I thought it was just beautiful, but of course there was no way my mother would agree to my dyeing my hair blue, so I had to wait.’

He says nothing, but holds eye contact and a faint smile plays on his face. He is interested in the blue hair story.

‘It didn’t seem quite the form with the legal profession when I was starting out. Goodness me, those people take themselves seriously, so I had to wait a bit longer. And then I had a stroke of luck.’

‘You became a maverick celebrity and they’re allowed to be quirky?’

‘I went prematurely grey. Not a lovely, snowy-white, sadly, but a rather coarse, iron grey. I had to change it. The blue moment had come.’

‘I can’t call you Titania.’

‘Maggie will do.’

‘Can I get straight to the point, Maggie?’

‘Please do.’

‘Do you believe me guilty?’

‘Yes.’

She sees a twitch around the eyes that might be annoyance. ‘Then why are you here?’ he asks her.

She looks down, at the origami shape on the table. ‘Is that for me?’ It is a fox, she sees now. An Arctic fox.

‘If you’d like it.’

She traces its outline gently with her index finger. ‘I’ll put it with the others you sent.’

His eyebrows lift but he doesn’t rise. Does she push it? Maybe not yet. Around them, she can sense people watching surreptitiously, straining to hear what she and Wolfe are saying to each other. Her voice, always low-pitched, falls even lower, forcing her to lean fractionally closer to him. ‘What is it you want from me?’ she asks.

‘Honestly?’ He leans back, and something treacherous inside her misses his closeness.

‘Of course.’ She doesn’t expect honesty. But she will know if she doesn’t get it.

‘I wanted to meet you.’

Actually, that does feel like honesty. ‘Why?’

His head lolls to one side. ‘Oh, come on. You wanted to meet me too.’

‘You killed four women. Why would any woman want to meet you?’

He takes in a deep breath and lets it out noisily. ‘It sometimes feels like every woman in Britain wants to meet me. God knows enough of them write to me.’ Then he sits up straighter, his face alive again, as though a sudden thought has struck him. ‘And it’s three women. You can’t count Zoe. She may not even be dead.’

‘I wanted to talk to you about Zoe in particular.’

His confidence falters. ‘I didn’t write that letter to her mother.’

‘I know. But her mother is suffering terribly. It can make no difference to you, and lots to her, if she can find and bury her daughter properly. I promised the police I’d ask you.’

He frowns. ‘Ask me what?’

‘To tell them where she is.’

The frank and honest smile is gone now. In its place is a smirk of pure cunning. ‘And what will they give me in return?’

‘They didn’t send me in here with an offer. You’d have to ask them.’

‘Will you pass on my terms?’ He is deadly serious. Her heartbeat, already in overdrive, picks up a notch.

‘If you want me to.’

‘I’ll show them where Zoe is, in return for two hours on a beach. With you.’

For a second, she doesn’t trust herself to speak. ‘You know the police will never agree to that. And you’re a murderer. Why would I want to spend any time with you?’

‘It will help Zoe’s mum, whom you pretend to care about. And it has to be fine. If it’s raining, we cancel and go another day. And it has to be just the two of us. The police and guards stay out of earshot.’