He hung up, holding the flex away as he set the phone carefully back on its cradle. “A lawyer rang the work for you.”
“A lawyer?” She immediately thought of Burns and the child support. “What about?”
“Terry Hewitt. His lawyer. You’ve to ring back.”
She might have to arrange his funeral; maybe being his next of kin gave her the obligation. But the police wouldn’t be releasing the body until they got someone for it so it couldn’t be that. Terry might have left her a note. She hoped to fuck he hadn’t. It would mean she was his last thought and she found that unbearably intimate, definitive, as if he was carving himself into her life forever. She could refuse to read it. She could refuse to arrange his funeral, but the rest of the press would think she was a skank if she did that.
“Can I call the office from your phone?”
“No, they’ll know we’re together. The car phone makes a weird crackle when they pick it up.”
A red Vauxhall was cruising slowly towards them, checking carefully through the cars, looking for a space. Paddy and Sean slid down in their seats as it approached, checking out the driver. It was no one they knew. Finding a space near the compound fence, he parked, gathered his things, and when he stepped out they saw that he was wearing a prison officer’s uniform. He strolled past them, checking his wallet for something.
“Nah,” Paddy whispered at the dashboard. “A hack wouldn’t be here on his own.”
“The photographer might be in the car,” said Sean. “I’ll go and have a look.”
He waited until the prison officer was skirting the wall and climbed out of the warm car, blanching and staggering at the unexpected wind. Walking casually over to the Vauxhall, he glanced in at the cabin, shaking his head to himself when he found nothing there.
She saw a man carrying a plastic bag of shopping at the far end of the long gray wall, heading towards them. Shift change maybe.
Sean came back to the car but stopped outside, looking away from the prison, taking the air and stretching his legs, his hair flattened to his head by the wind.
The man with the shopping bag was cutting across the car park, coming towards them. A gray bomber jacket, too short at the cuffs, a sweatshirt with “Wrangler” written on it, a crease across the front where it had been folded in the packet, brand-new, and dark blue denims, creased across at the knee. It was a strange look, all new clothes, like a costume.
Paddy recognized the hair first. Black and wavy, a little long over the ears. And then his face: heavy black eyebrows, a broad nose, gray skin, features more square than she remembered them. His jaw was solid, muscular from the habit of being clenched tightly. What she didn’t recognize was his height and the width of his shoulders: he was six three at least and built like a dray horse.
It was Callum Ogilvy.
She leaned over and threw open the driver’s door, catching Sean on the thigh.
“It’s him, it’s him, it’s him.”
“All right,” he said, jumpy because she was. “Calm down.”
And he turned to meet his cousin.
II
Fifty-three steps so far, another eight to get to the side of the car, nine maybe. The distances between cars, sky and ground were too far, everything spaced out so much that there was nothing to cling to. In nine years he hadn’t been farther than twenty feet from a wall; even the exercise yard was narrow. The wind that had ruffled his hair when he was inside walls now skirled unkindly around his face, jagged, sharp. Here it was unbridled, unstoppable. He felt he might blow out to sea at the next gust, drown, salt water flooding his sorrowful lungs while people watched from the shore, happy to see him go. And who could blame them.
His toe hit a break in the concrete and he stopped, the plastic bag containing everything he owned slapping against his leg. Dizzy suddenly, he stood still, staring at the ground, calculating whether it would be less painful to move again or just wait here to die. The muscles on his arms and legs were so taut that he was twitching.
The mind can only hold one conscious thought at a time.
Fifty-three steps so far, fifty-four, fifty-five. He looked up and saw Sean at the side of the car, his cousin, his family. A woman was with him. He’d said there would be a woman with him. A friend of the family. Their family.
The woman had seen him now, he could tell by the way she moved in her seat, sitting up tall, straining to catch a glimpse when he lost them behind a car. She reached over and opened the driver’s door, talking to Sean, keeping her eyes on Callum.
Sean looked up.
Fifty-eight, fifty-nine. They stared straight at him. Not the way screws looked: screws saw you, looked away, and then looked back again, thinking about you and what a bad person you were, muttering to each other. Killed a baby. Quiet. Weirdo. But Sean and the woman looked straight at him, their expectations drawing him in like a tractor beam.
Sean turned to meet him, the vicious wind blowing his hair flat. He looked small outside the visitors’ room.
Sean’s face was open and his arms rose from his sides in greeting. He was smiling hard but his eyes were full of reservations.
Callum didn’t know what to do. He stood stiff while Sean put his arms around his shoulders and hugged him. He was smaller than Callum, not as wide. When Callum tried to respond he twitched a big nod, accidentally butting the side of Sean’s face. Touch. Sean’s arms were tight around him, his cheek brushed Callum’s briefly and the warmth stung his skin.
When Sean let go, Callum wanted to grab on to him, make him do it again, but the woman was beside him, hands rising, expecting a hug as well. A woman. Callum blushed at the thought that her tits might press into his chest like when he masturbated, that he might hold her low on her waist. Ashamed, he cast his eyes downwards and she saw what he was thinking. She extended a hand.
Nice to see you again.
He looked at her. Big arse on her and a coldness in her eyes like the nurse in the infirmary. He knew her, remembered a cold room a long time ago, before the dark night, ripped wallpaper hanging off walls, and feeling ashamed that everything in the house was dirty. Ashamed of his mother, drinking. Clean people sitting around, wondering when they could leave.
“You were at my dad’s funeral.”
“I was.” She looked kinder then. “And I met you in hospital, Callum, d’ye remember? Your wrists were bandaged.”
He didn’t want to remember that time. It was after the night in the grass, before the trial, and no one had ever talked to him about it. It was a time that belonged only to him, his footprints were alone through that. The grass from that time was up to his chest. When he went there in his head he felt it suck the breath from his lungs.
He found himself looking at the prison. It was OK now he was next to a car. The big gray wall blocked the view of the sea. For the first time he felt glad to be out of prison.
Let’s get in out of this wind.
Sean smiled up at him, hopeful, nervous. He held the door open for him, and dipped down to look at Callum after he got in.
I’m awful glad to see you out, pal. Come on, we’ll go home.
The car had a phone in it and room for his legs. He hadn’t been in a car for nine years, not since the dark night. It was always vans after that, prison vans, police vans. The last time he was in a car his feet hardly touched the floor.
The woman got into the front passenger seat, Sean in the driver’s. Sean started the engine and they rolled slowly out of the car park.
Callum was watching them, looking at the sides of their faces. Sean opened his mouth a couple of times
