Nel-M could tell that she was hesitant, guarded, so he kept the first few questions very general — type and regularity of contact — without homing in on either her son or e-mails.
‘And when was your last prison visit?’
‘Nine, ten months ago now?’
‘Any other contact since?’
‘Just one phone call, about six or seven weeks after that visit. And the rest has been my son, Joshua, sending e-mails.’
‘Regular e-mail contact?’
‘Well, I suppose you could say… twenty or more e-mails over the past year. But that’s stopped now too for a while.’
‘How long ago did that stop?’
‘Oh, a couple of months back, I suppose.’
‘Any particular reason for it stopping?’
By the pause and heavy intake of breath from the other end, Nel-M knew that he’d stepped too far.
‘Look… if this has got something to do with my husband’s lawyer calling the other day, trying to persuade me by coming at me from another direction — you’re wasting your time.’
‘Lawyer? I’m sorry, Mrs Durrant, you’ve lost me. We work completely independently — we don’t know anything about your husband’s lawyer visiting, nor indeed have any contact with him.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No need to be. But you’ve intrigued me now, Mrs Durrant: why was your husband’s lawyer visiting? And if you don’t mind me saying, you sound somewhat troubled by it.’
Nel-M felt a tingle of anticipation as he realized he was poised on a knife’s edge. She’d either open up or step back completely, in which case he’d get nothing and be left wondering.
But with another long breath, she started to relate Jac McElroy’s recent visit, falteringly at first, but gaining momentum with her rising indignation, while Nel-M made a couple of cryptic notes at his end, a slow smile creasing his face as the final pieces of the puzzle fell into place. He’d struck gold big time and couldn’t wait to get off the line to share his treasure with Roche.
‘Believe me, Mrs Durrant, you or your son don’t have to make any contact with your husband that you don’t want to,’ Nel-M assured. ‘And his lawyer has no right to try and persuade you to do so, regardless of the reasons.’
‘I… I suppose I shouldn’t be too hard on him.’ She mellowed as she became reflective. ‘He’s only doing his job, I suppose. I mean it’s not his fault that Larry’s suddenly decided he wants to throw in the towel.’
‘No, I suppose not. Except these lawyers don’t give much pause for thought on whether they should be too hard on us when they present their bills.’
Francine Durrant joined him in a brief chuckle before asking, ‘And who did you say you were again?’
‘Jim Whitman, Prisoners’ Liaison Committee. And I thank you kindly for your time today, Mrs Durrant. You’ve been most helpful.’
‘Are yo’ done there yet, Friggy?’
‘Just signing in now… aaaand we’re there. All systems live and running.’
‘Okay, man…
As uncomfortable as Joshua Durrant felt because of the neighbourhood and company he was in — and what he was about to do — he had to admit, they were going out of their way to make him feel at ease. Ellis Calpar and his crew treating him like royalty? It felt totally alien, reminded him he was on unfamiliar ground and so added to his anxiety — but even so he could easily get used to it.
The neighbourhood was on the bad side of St Claude close to the rail-yards, though the house itself looked decent enough and a good size. The computer was in the garage, but there was no car there, only a couple of mountain bikes and a ton of junk: TVs, stereos, ghetto-blasters, microwaves, car radios, cell-phones. There were at least two of each item, but with the predominance of car radios and cell-phones — more than a dozen in each case — Joshua caught on that it wasn’t because Friggy’s father was an electrical repair man. This was probably stolen gear.
Aside from Friggy, there were two others from Calpar’s regular crew; along with all the junk, about all the garage could take.
Friggy leant over and with a couple of taps got the e-mail box up for him.
Joshua sat staring at it for a second then, with a quick look over his shoulder, brought his hands up to the keyboard.
‘Step back everyone, give ‘im some space,’ Ellis ordered. ‘This is mean’ t’be private, remember.’
Joshua took a final deep breath to compose himself. This was one of those important moments, like exams or making sure he was nice to his mom’s new boyfriend, or when you got passed the basketball just before the hoop and the whole school was watching. It had to be the right tone and straight from the heart, but without giving away that he knew his father wanted to die. Only one chance to get it right.
Rodriguez hissed ‘Yessss!’ under his breath and went to make a clenched fist salute as the e-mail came through — but not too high in case Nielsen, the monitoring guard with his eyes fixed to his computer screen at the end of the room, paid him too much attention.
But his fist hardly got above chest height as he thought about its timing. Then he read it again and looked at the e-mail address.
‘Oh
Nielsen mumbled something indiscernible without hardly looking up and gave a begrudging nod.
It took Alaysha Reyner only eight minutes to get the e-mail from Joshua Durrant half right.
But from that point on it was slower going. Despite three more drafts and numerous small changes, it was still no more than seventy per cent there. One hundred per cent right was starting to look elusive.
She’d hopefully got the overall tone and phraseology right from Joshua’s last few e-mails, but then she reminded herself that there’d been a long gap from the last e-mail, and also Durrant was now that much closer to his execution date. After a brief explanation and apology for the lack of contact, it should without doubt be weightier and more emotional than the past e-mails. After all, this might be one of the last times Joshua Durrant would have contact with his father.
Alaysha dabbed at a stray tear as she became deeper immersed in the e-mail and what it represented.
Molly at her side was looking concerned. ‘Are you okay, Mommy?’
‘Yes, I’m okay, honey. I’m fine.’ She gave Molly a reassuring hug.
Though now, Alaysha started to worry that she might have overcooked it. Too much emotion, not enough… she continued juggling to try and get the balance right.
Jac found himself looking more and more at his watch as the afternoon progressed.
All of it happening out there in cyberspace between the city and Libreville prison, and now, having set it all in motion, the realization that he no longer had control over it. Everything hanging in the balance, Durrant’s life, Jac’s career too if it went wrong, and to make matters worse, he’d suddenly found himself facing a flurry of work to assist John Langfranc with a trial preparation.
Jac didn’t want to let Langfranc down, but he was finding it increasingly hard to focus as it approached four- thirty. Langfranc, understanding as ever, had only asked once, ‘How’s it going?’, but he couldn’t help noticing Langfranc’s look when he’d returned after disappearing without warning for twenty minutes to make his calls outside to set everything in motion.
The minutes dragged even more excruciatingly as four-thirty passed. Jac rubbed at his chest. Tension was knotted so tight there that it felt like indigestion.
He took a deep breath to try and ease it, pushed again to immerse himself in Langfranc’s case, if nothing else as a distraction; and at some stage he was partly successful, his note-making on a pad at last beginning to flow —
