“I wouldn’t know, miss.” He spoke into the telephone.
“Miss Leigh’s here for Martin. There’s a note that she’s to see the Governor first. Yes. Will do.” He pointed with his pencil.
“Straight through the first set of gates and you’ll be met the other side.”
It was horribly reminiscent of being hauled before the headmistress at school, thought Roz, waiting nervously in the secretary’s office. She was trying to remember if she’d broken any rule. Bring nothing in and take nothing out. Don’t pass messages. But she had done that, of course, when she spoke to Crew about the will. The slimy little toad must have ratted on her!
“You can go in now,” the secretary told her.
The Governor gestured towards a chair.
“Sit down, Miss Leigh.”
Roz lowered herself into the easy chair, hoping she looked less guilty than she felt.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
“No.” She studied Roz for a moment or two, then seemed to reach a decision.
“There’s no point beating about the bush.
Olive has had her privileges suspended and we think you may be the indirect cause of the suspension. According to the logbook you didn’t come in last week, and I’m told Olive was very upset about it. Three days later she destroyed her cell and had to be sedated.” She saw Roz’s surprise.
“She’s been very volatile ever since and, under the circumstances, I am not happy about letting you back in. I think it’s something I need to discuss with the Home Office.”
God! Poor old Olive! Why on earth didn’t I have the sense to phone?
Roz folded her hands in her lap and collected her thoughts rapidly.
“If it was three days before she did anything, what makes you think it was because of my not turning up? Did she say it was?”
“No, but we’re stumped for any other explanation and I’m not prepared to risk your safety.”
Roz mulled this over for a moment or two.
“Let’s assume for a moment you’re right though I should emphasise that I don’t think you are then if I don’t show up again won’t that distress her even more?” She leaned forward.
“Either way it would be more sensible to let me talk to her. If it was to do with my nonappearance then I can reassure her and calm her down; if it wasn’t, then I see no reason why I should be punished with Home Office delays and wasted journeys when I haven’t contributed to Olive’s disturbance.”
The Governor gave a slight smile.
“You’re very confident.”
“I’ve no reason not to be.”
It was the Governor’s turn to reflect. She studied Roz in silence for some time.
“Let’s be clear,” she said finally, ‘about what sort of woman Olive really is.” She tapped her pencil on the desk.
“I told you when you first came here that there was no psychiatric evidence of psychopathy. That was true. It means that when Olive butchered her mother and sister she was completely sane. She knew exactly what she was doing, she understood the consequences of her act, and she was prepared to go ahead with it, despite those consequences.
It also means and this is peculiarly relevant to you that she cannot be cured because there is nothing to cure. Under similar circumstances unhappiness, low self-image, betrayal, in other words whatever triggers her anger she would do the same thing again with the same disregard for the consequences because, in simple terms, having weighed them up, she would consider the consequences worth the action.
I would add, and again this is peculiarly relevant to you, that the consequences are far less daunting to her now than they would have been six years ago. On the whole Olive enjoys being in prison. She has security, she has respect, and she has people to talk to. Outside, she would have none of them. And she knows it.”
It was like being up before her old headmistress. The confident voice of authority.
“So what you’re saying is that she would have no qualms about taking a swipe at me because an additional sentence would only mean a longer stay here? And she would welcome that?”
“In effect, yes.”
“You’re wrong,” said Roz bluntly.
“Not about her sanity. I agree with you, she’s as sane as you or I.
But you’re wrong about her being a danger to me. I’m writing a book about her and she wants that book written. If it is me she’s angry with, and I stress again that I don’t think it is, then her interpretation of my nonappearance last week may be that I’ve lost interest, and it would be very poor psychology to let her go on thinking it.” She composed her arguments.
“You have a notice at the gate, presumably all prisons do. It’s a dedaration of policy. If I remember right, it includes something about helping prison inmates to lead law-abiding lives both inside prison and outside. If that has any meaning at all, and isn’t simply a piece of decorative wallpaper to appease the reformers, then how can you justify provoking further punishable outbursts from Olive by denying her visits which the Home Office has already approved?” She fell silent, worried about saying too much.
However reasonable the woman might be, she could not afford to have her authority challenged. Few people
