Daisy in Chains(48)

‘Why me? Liz is his liaison officer.’

‘You know why you. You know the guy.’ Latimer turns and heads for the door. ‘Step it up, people. I am not losing this conviction.’

Across the room, Liz is wearing a small, tight smile. ‘Sir,’ she calls out. ‘When is she due to see him?’

‘Today. She’s probably with the bastard now.’





Chapter 39


MAGGIE IS MORE nervous this time. Her breathing is too fast, her mouth too dry, and her stomach is trying to churn contents it doesn’t have, because she hasn’t eaten in hours. This time, she sees him the second she steps into the visiting hall. He smiles. She doesn’t.

‘How are you?’ he says when there is nothing more substantial than a piece of re-formed wood between them.

‘I’m good. You?’ She sees the raised pores around his jawline that say he has shaved within the last hour. ‘Can I get you something?’ She glances back at the serving hatch, at the weak beverages and cheap confectionery. ‘Coffee? Something to eat?’

‘No, thank you. You’ve had a long trip – please . . .’ He gestures that she should sit down. He will take nothing from her, and his gallantry is flying in the face of prison visit convention. Every other inmate she has ever visited has been eager to stuff himself with cakes and chocolate.

She sits, checking the chair first. She isn’t wearing white this time, has chosen instead a masculine-cut trouser suit in navy blue. Today, blue hair aside, she looks like a lawyer and the thought helps her pull herself together.

‘You got my letter?’ she says. ‘And you agree to my condition? I assume you must, because the visiting order arrived so quickly.’

‘I agree,’ he sits slowly. ‘For five of our ten questions we can ask the other to elaborate or explain the answer.’

‘I wasn’t coming all this way to get ten one-word replies.’

‘Nor was I.’ He smiles again and, once more, she looks for the game behind the smile. ‘And I only came down one flight of stairs.’

‘So who’s going to start?’

His hands make a go-ahead gesture. ‘Ladies first.’

‘What happened to your sister?’ she says, and notes with satisfaction, and a small level of guilt, that she has surprised and hurt him. He was not expecting to talk about his sister.

‘She died,’ he says.

‘Explain.’

His face tightens, his eyes close briefly, but this is his game and he will play by the rules. ‘We were on a family holiday in Wales. Dad, Sophie and I booked a climbing day at an outdoor activity centre. Sophie and I were similar weights so we climbed together, Dad went with another bloke, but they were close by. We got to the top easily enough, it wasn’t a difficult climb, and then Sophie abseiled down first.’

He stops, takes a breath, swallows. ‘There shouldn’t have been any problem at all. Except she’d picked up the wrong rope. An easy mistake, it was very similar to hers, but it was twenty feet shorter.’

Maggie has no real experience of climbing. ‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning it didn’t reach the bottom of the pitch. And there was no knot in it. She went spinning off the end. I was at the top, watching.’

The image he’s conjured is vivid and horrible, but it is too late to apologize. ‘Did she fall far?’

‘Less than fifteen feet but she landed badly. She broke her neck.’

‘I’m sorry. Your poor parents.’

‘They’ve lost both their children. Dad has just about given up and Mum is . . . well, you’ve seen how Mum is. She was very different when we were kids.’ He gives himself a shake. ‘My turn. What made you change your mind and come visit me?’

Hesitation is against the rules. Hesitation allows time for invention. ‘I came as soon as you asked me to,’ she says.

His eyes narrow. ‘Explain.’

She smiles at the memory of the half-dozen, clearly fake letters that arrived before his. She’d known, the day she met his mother, that the grieving, unbalanced woman was their most likely author. ‘I’ve received lots of letters from inmates in prison,’ she says. ‘I can tell when they aren’t genuine. I knew you hadn’t written those early ones. They were decent fakes, I don’t imagine most people would have spotted the difference, but I did.’

Now the smile looks real. ‘So all I had to do was ask. Not a question, by the way.’

‘As you said yourself, I wanted to meet you. Thousands of women secretly want to meet you. The charismatic killer fascinates us. Don’t over-rely on its effect, though. Curiosity got me here first time. Then you appealed to my better nature. You’ll have to work hard for a third visit. Is it my turn again?’

He nods.

‘What do you miss most?’ she asks him.

His eyes fall. She is about to remind him of the immediacy rule when he answers. ‘My dog.’ He looks up and his eyes are a little brighter. ‘Just about everything else I can replicate to some extent. I still see my parents. I have company, of sorts. I can read. I can shut my eyes and go to all sorts of places in my head. I can dream that I’m climbing, running, flying my plane, but I will probably never see my dog again.’

‘Why is she called Daisy?’