The Dead Ex(54)

‘My wife has found job in lampshade factory,’ her husband told me when I first visited their small terraced house with the baby in the pram, the little girl wandering in and out with a dummy, and a quiet adolescent boy who was their nephew. ‘But she does not understand the difference between round and square, or pink and blue. I am working away on building sites. I do not have time to help her.’

After that, I would cycle down to the other end of town every Wednesday to help Mrs Prasad master the complex and sometimes inexplicable mechanics of the English language. ‘The boss he promote me,’ my pupil told me a few months later. ‘It is thanks to you.’

She’d grasped my hand and insisted that I join them for dinner. I left with a warm feeling in my heart that I hadn’t had for a very long time.

Then, towards the end of my third year, shortly before finals, I arrived to give the usual Wednesday lesson only to find the nephew being dragged out of the front door in handcuffs by a pair of policemen.

Mrs Prasad was in floods of tears. ‘He is good boy. They have made mistake.’

It transpired that the nephew had been accused of stealing money from work. He was refused bail because he ‘might abscond’ and put behind bars until his case was tried. I knew very little about the prison system in those days, but it seemed most unfair to me that someone could be sent to jail until he or she was proved guilty.

‘Please,’ Mrs Prasad pleaded, a few days later. ‘Come with me to visit him. My husband is away. I am too scared to get train on my own.’

I had no idea what a prison would look like, but the red and grey Victorian building which rose forbiddingly before us gave me a feeling of unease and also – for some reason – excitement in my chest.

Mrs Prasad was shaking with fear as we followed the signs to the visitor centre. Naively, I’d presumed I could go in with her but was curtly told by an officer on the other side of the glass screen that I wasn’t ‘on the list’.

I promised to wait on a chair opposite while Mrs Prasad’s ID was checked and she was taken through a door, throwing a terrified ‘help me’ look over her shoulder.

Poor thing. If only I could go with her! But at the same time, I was riveted by the goings-on around me.

The other prison visitors, queuing up to get their IDs checked, weren’t what I’d expected. One had a really posh southern accent like the mother of one of my uni friends. The staff weren’t what I’d imagined either. That woman in prison uniform with the stylish layered haircut who’d gone past just now had been talking in a very articulate way about ‘inmate psychology’ to her colleague. Somehow I’d expected jail staff to be less educated.

Standing up to stretch my legs, I wandered over to the noticeboard.

‘LOOKING FOR AN EXCITING CAREER? WANT TO HELP OTHERS? NO TWO DAYS ARE THE SAME IN PRISON. YOU WILL NEVER BE BORED.’

A career in prison? How crazy was that? I was a history graduate – or shortly to be one. My tutors had predicted a 2:1, or maybe even a first. But at the same time, I had no idea what I was going to do with it. ‘How about teaching?’ Dad had suggested. Yet it just didn’t appeal.

I found myself walking over to the glass screen. ‘I’ve already told you,’ said the woman. ‘You can’t visit. You don’t have permission.’

‘Actually,’ I said, almost without meaning to, ‘I’d like a job application form.’

‘Is there anything else you want to tell me, Vicki?’ says my solicitor, standing up.

I gulp back a sob.

‘It can’t be easy,’ she says. ‘I’d be upset too in your situation.’

I know what she’s doing. Personalize. Identify. Make vulnerable. Then swoop. Who does this woman think she is? No doubt she’s led a charmed life.

‘How would you feel if the man you were married to suddenly disappeared?’ I demand. ‘What if you suspected that someone knew where he was?’

There’s a flicker of interest in my solicitor’s eyes. I’m getting somewhere.

‘And what if you then began to wonder if your ex-husband – whom you still care for even though he hurt you – might actually be dead and that you were responsible?’

She looks stunned, as though I’ve just slapped her.

‘Are you?’

‘I hope not. But my meds and the seizures. Sometimes I don’t remember stuff.’

Her eyes harden. ‘Or is that an excuse for lying like you did about the photograph showing you and David arguing?’

‘No. Like I said before, I was scared and embarrassed. However, there is one other thing I should have mentioned.’

She stays silent. I sense she’s losing confidence in me.

‘I told the police about David being a bit of a wheeler-dealer.’

‘So I gather.’

‘But I didn’t tell them I have proof that he might have been money laundering.’

Penny looks at me sharply. ‘What kind of proof?’

‘Several deeds, showing he bought houses for cash. Some were worth millions. As you know, it’s a recognized way of getting rid of money gained from illegal activity.’

‘Are you an expert on this?’

‘I know a bit.’

‘And would you like to tell me why you haven’t revealed this before?’