health-care facilities while they counted down the days to their release.
‘Is there a lifer unit here, then?’ asked Cooper.
‘No. The highest level is Category B.’
‘No convicted murderers serving their time?’
‘Not here. They’re shipped out of Brum.’
In fact, Fry knew that most of the Green’s population were unconvicted, prisoners on remand or awaiting trial. There were some convicted Category B and C men, and a few retained Cat Ds. But since society had become so celebrity-obsessed, the only thing many Brummies knew about Winson Green was that Ozzy Osbourne had served a couple of spells there in the 1960s, and during his stay had tattooed smiley faces on his knees to cheer himself up.
She told Cooper this while they were waiting.
‘Is that Sharon’s husband?’ he said.
‘Right. I supposed I should have known you’re not a Black Sabbath fan.’
Oh, and the prison had accommodated Fred West too, who’d hanged himself in his cell one New Year’s Day. You could consider him a celebrity of sorts, she supposed. Serial killers were the kind of people who had books written about them, after all. She supposed she ought to call him an ‘alleged’ serial killer, since he never came to trial. Unlike Ozzy Osbourne, West was one of the unconvicted.
Fry could see the bright red-brick walls of the prison, and the two blue pepper-pot towers either side of the main entrance on Winson Green Road. Somewhere beyond those walls was the cell where West had sat polishing his boots, waiting for his trial and planning how to end his life. Hated by every thug in the prison, and fearing that a life sentence would actually mean life in his case. She wondered if his ghost still haunted the prison. Or did a place like the Green not even need a ghost?
It was three o’clock on a Friday — visiting time at Winson Green. Family members would already have booked in at the visitor centre and had their identities checked, their photographs taken, their personal belongings stored away in a locker. Only loose change to be carried into the prison. And God help you if that dog got a sniff of drugs about your person.
If you wanted a taste of what life in jail was like, all you had to do was find someone on the inside to visit.
On Lodge Road, a cricket ground stood in front of the psychiatric hospital, almost in the shadow of the prison wall, with a children’s play area backing on to the canal. The play area was deserted now — the younger kids weren’t home from school, and the older ones hadn’t yet arrived to hang out for the night.
‘He definitely said he would meet you?’ said Fry.
‘Yes, I persuaded him,’ said Cooper. ‘Calm down, Diane.’
He was right, of course. She was starting to get edgy, and she couldn’t explain the reason for it. William Leeson has begun to take on a form in her mind, a shadowy figure that she believed she might have seen before, but only in the darkness, an indistinct outline lurking in the shadows of her memory.
‘He said he’d be at the Green, visiting a client,’ said Cooper.
‘But he’s going to meet me outside the prison when he’s finished.’
‘He shouldn’t have clients any more,’ said Fry.
‘I’ll ask him about that, if you like.’
Fry watched a narrow boat glide past on the canal, passing under Asylum Bridge to Winson Green Wharf. She looked back at the walls of the prison, traffic passing under the two towers.
Oh, Lord — was that the number 11 bus again? Was the thing haunting her? Of course, the number 11 was the legendary Outer Circle route, more than twenty-six miles long, taking over two hours to ride, delivering passengers undiscriminatingly to Cadbury World, Birmingham University, and Winson Green Prison. They said it was the longest route within one city anywhere in the country. The only bus route with its own website. A joke and an icon at the same time. People hated it, and loved it. But that was Brummies for you.
Fry had seen the number 11 at Perry Barr, at Aston, at Handsworth, and now at Winson Green. She remembered it from living in Bearwood, where the route diverged briefly into the Black Country. The one she was looking at now was the 11C, the clockwise service, heading for all the places she’d already been to. And there were bound to be two more behind it. Three buses always came along at once.
‘It’s nearly time,’ said Cooper. ‘What do you want to do?’
Fry opened the car door, suddenly anxious to be out of sight.
‘I’ll wait over there, by those trees. He won’t see me, but I’ll be able to hear what’s going on.’
Cooper looked at her quizzically, but said nothing.
She was hardly in position before a man walked down the road from the prison, paused at the entrance to the cricket ground and walked towards the car. She’d chosen a bad spot, because she could only see his back as he approached Cooper. He was a tall man, dressed in a dark suit, carrying a file case like a real professional. Cooper spoke clearly, so that his voice reached her.
‘Mr Leeson?’
‘Yes.’
‘Acting DS Cooper.’
‘I’d say it’s a pleasure, but I’m not sure whether it is, yet.’
‘So who were you visiting at the prison?’
‘A client. I can’t say any more than that.’
‘But you don’t have clients any more, Mr Leeson. You’re not practising, according to the Law Society.’
‘I don’t represent clients in court, so I’m not bound by the Law Society’s rules any more. I’m an independent legal advisor.’
‘Those are just words, aren’t they?’
Leeson laughed. ‘Words are my stock in trade, Detective Sergeant. It’s what the law is all about, the interpretation of words. You know that, I’m sure.’
Listening to the conversation, Fry decided she didn’t like his laugh. But perhaps she was already prejudiced against him.
‘First, I’m afraid,’ said Leeson, ‘I’ll have to ask to see your identification.’
Cooper produced his warrant card. Leeson spent a few moments looking at it. ‘Derbyshire Constabulary,’ he said.
‘What an honour. And to what do I owe this pleasure, Acting DS Cooper?’
Fry took a step away from the tree, making sure Cooper saw her.
‘I have a friend who’s anxious to talk to you,’ he said.
Leeson turned, and saw Fry walking across the ground towards him. Their eyes met for the first time. And Fry was disappointed.
Though he was probably no more than sixty, William Leeson was gaunt and pale. The jacket of his dark grey suit hung from his shoulders without making any other contact with his torso. His height and gaunt cheeks made Fry think of an undertaker, but the impression was spoiled by a mane of fair, wavy hair, thinning at the front but left to grow too long at the back. His bony fingers moved restlessly against the file case, as if reading a Braille inscription on the black leather.
And Leeson knew her. She could see it in his eyes, that moment of shock and recognition. And, best of all, she saw his expression turn to fear.
‘I’m sorry, but I’m not stopping for this,’ he said.
He turned quickly away, and almost broke into a trot, stumbling on the grass verge as he took the most direct route away from her. When he reached the road, he pulled out a phone and pressed it to his ear, gesturing with his free hand.
Fry stood next to Cooper, and they watched Leeson striding back towards the prison, without a single glance over his shoulder.
‘So,’ said Cooper. ‘That went well.’
Fry drove back into the city in response to a call from her sister. A short diversion took them through the Jewellery Quarter, where she glimpsed the crime-scene tape and the police vehicles still closing off the streets around Warstone Lane cemetery.
‘What was your friend’s name again?’ asked Cooper. ‘Kewley?’
