criminals.
'At least you got a change of clothes.'
'I could do with new trainers,' he said.
'Ask your brief,' said Lloyd-Davies. 'He can have clothing sent in for you. Money, too.' She unlocked the door on the ground floor and took him along the secure corridor. It was deserted and the clicking of her heels echoed off the walls. 'How did he know you were here?' she asked. 'No one even knows who you are.'
'That's a very good question, Miss Lloyd-Davies. I was wondering that myself.'
'Maybe the guys who were arrested with you sent him.'
Macdonald smiled to himself. He doubted that Ted Verity would have sent him a solicitor. A hit-man maybe.
'You do that a lot,' said Lloyd-Davies, giving him a sideways look.
'Do what?'
'Smile.'
'It's my sunny personality, Miss Lloyd-Davies.'
'The way I hear it, you're on remand for armed robbery and facing charges of kidnapping and attempted murder.'
'I didn't shoot anyone,' said Macdonald. 'The forensic'll bear me out.'
'Even so, I don't see much to smile about.'
'Things have a way of working out for the best,' said Macdonald.
'You believe that?' she asked.
Macdonald grinned. 'No,' he said. He was a realist. He knew that, more often than not, things didn't work out for the best. Bad people did bad things to good people and got away with it. Good people got sick and died. Life wasn't fair, good didn't triumph over evil, and there was no such thing as the Tooth Fairy. 'No, I don't.'
'There's something about you that's not right,' said Lloyd-Davies.
'Yeah, well, if I was completely normal I wouldn't be in here, would I?'
'You don't seem bothered by it.'
'Yeah, well, still waters . . .'
'I've seen thousands of men pass through the remand wing, and they normally fall into two camps.'
'Gay and straight?'
She ignored his attempt at humour. They turned right. More CCTV cameras watched them. Again the corridor was deserted, stretching ahead for almost a hundred yards. Macdonald was bigger than the female officer by a good six inches and probably weighed fifty per cent more than she did. She had no weapons that he could see, and she wasn't wearing a radio. Yet she seemed confident that she could control him.
'Can I ask you a question, ma'am?'
'Fire away.'
'Aren't you concerned that I might turn violent?'
She smiled at him and raised an eyebrow. 'Is that supposed to worry me?'
'It's a serious question. I'm an armed robber, what's to stop me grabbing you and holding you hostage?'
Lloyd-Davies laughed. 'For what? A million quid and a helicopter?'
'The point is, they brought me in here with an armed escort and in handcuffs. Now there's just you and me walking down an empty corridor.'
Lloyd-Davies pointed out the nearest CCTV camera. 'We're watched all the time. If anything were to happen, there'd be a dozen guys in here kicking the shit out of you.'
'And if I had a knife?'
'You haven't. And if I was in any way unsure of my safety, we wouldn't be doing it like this. Is that what you wanted to hear? That I trust you?'
'I guess you get to become a good judge of character, working in here.'
'You've got to know that when you open the hatch in the morning you're not going to have hot water thrown in your face,' she said. 'Or worse. Now was that you changing the subject?'
'What do you mean?'
'I was about to tell you what was wrong about you when you got me on to the dangers of the job. Worried I was going to have an insight into your character that you don't want to hear?'
They reached a barred gate. Lloyd-Davies stood, key in hand, but made no move to unlock it.
'Fire away,' said Macdonald.
'Like I was saying, there's two sorts of guys on the remand wing. There's the new meat, men who've never been in trouble before. It hits them hard the first few days. They walk around in shock. Then there's the men who've been in the system before. Okay, they're not happy to be back behind bars, but they've got a confidence about themselves. The way they treat the officers, the way they react to the other inmates.'
'And?'
'Well, you've got the confidence, but not the experience. You had the confidence to get stuck into two hard nuts on the landing, but you didn't know to order your meals.'
Macdonald wondered how she knew about the fight, but guessed that little happened on the wing without the officers finding out.
'So, what do you think, ma'am?'
She looked at him quizzically, swinging her key chain. 'Either (a) boarding-school or (b) the army. You're not intimidated by institutions. Public-school boys and former soldiers always do well in prison.' She smiled. 'So, which is it?'
Macdonald grinned. 'That would be telling.'
'There's always C,' she said.
'And C would be?'
Lloyd-Davies put the key into the lock and opened the door. '
She let Macdonald through, then followed him and locked the door. She took him along another corridor to a central hallway. For the first time since leaving the remand wing they saw other prisoners escorted by guards.
Lloyd-Davies greeted another female prison officer and stopped to confirm a squash game, then took Macdonald up a flight of stairs. They entered a hallway in which there were four cubicles, each with windows on three sides. She took him to one. The door was unlocked. 'Wait in here,' she said.
Macdonald walked into the room. It was about eight feet square with a Formica-topped table and four plastic chairs with metal legs. Macdonald sat down and folded his arms. Lloyd-Davies closed the door.
Another officer appeared at the window to Macdonald's right. He was in his fifties, almost bald with wisps of grey hair. He looked at Macdonald, then moved away from the window. Macdonald sighed and settled back in his chair. There were no CCTV cameras in the room, and no obvious signs of listening devices. He recalled that conversations between prisoners and their legal advisers were supposed to be sacrosanct.
The door opened again and the grey-haired officer showed in a middle-aged man in a dark blue pinstripe suit carrying a shiny black leather briefcase. He indicated a bell by the door. 'Ring when you're finished,' he said gruffly.
The man thanked him and sat down opposite Macdonald. He swung the briefcase up onto the table and flicked open its two brass combination locks.
The officer closed the door.
Macdonald leaned forward. 'What the fuck is going on?' he said, his voice a harsh whisper.
'Don't you mean, 'What the fuck's going on, sir'?' said the man, adjusting his cuffs. He was wearing gold links in the shape of cricket bats. His hair was greying at the temples and it glistened under the overhead lights. Superintendent Sam Hargrove never spent less than forty pounds on a haircut and, whenever possible, visited an upmarket salon in Mayfair for his monthly trim.
'Why the fuck am I here?' said Macdonald.
'If you calm down, I'll tell you.'
Macdonald folded his arms again and leaned back. 'This had better be good.'
'There was a change of plan, after you went undercover.'
'And no one thought of telling me?'
