Always the same in these places, she thought. Remembering the shop in the village they’d lived in when she was a kid, almost indistinguishable from this, with the same truncated shelves scantily stocked with tinned goods and packets of instant mash and tea bags, all extravagantly marked up, because if you found yourself short so far from civilisation, well, that was your bad luck. She remembered how closely she’d been watched when she went in, the sense that they knew this little brown-skinned girl had come from the caravan site and consequently was not to be trusted. She’d watched other kids shoplift with impunity while the eyes of the owner stayed locked on her, suspicious of everything about her right down to the integrity of the coins she used to pay for her chocolate bars.
But she wasn’t that girl any more, she reminded herself. She was a detective sergeant in a silk blouse and tailored trousers and very smart brogues, who didn’t take shit from anyone.
She went to the fridge at the back of the store, grabbed a couple of bottles of water. Next to it a freezer hummed unsteadily, half full of ice cream and lollies. The sight of the rockets caused her to stop for a second, remembering a trip to the coast: the whole family stuffed into a borrowed car, eating one as her brothers wriggled and fought beside her, Paolo trying to keep Joe and Tom in line with pinches and small-fisted punches, her parents oblivious in the front, singing along to the radio like they’d forgotten they even had kids.
‘Right, I’ve told you,’ the shopkeeper shouted. ‘You’re not welcome in here.’
There was scuffling noise and swearing, the sound of cans scattering hard across the floor.
Ferreira rushed to the front of the store, saw him trying to hustle out an ungainly young guy with fluffy bleached-blond hair and wide holes punched in his earlobes. His hand was tight around the man’s skinny upper arm and the young guy, off-balance in a pair of bright green flip-flops, lunged for purchase and cleared a nearby shelf of boxed instant rice as he grabbed for some anchor and missed.
‘We only want to get some milk,’ he protested, twisting his arm free.
Livid red fingerprints sprang up on his freckled skin.
‘I told you this was a waste of time,’ the woman with him said sharply, drawing him away. She shot the shopkeeper a fiery look, then turned to Ferreira. ‘I hope you like giving your money to a fascist pig.’
The shopkeeper watched them go, hands on his hips in a defiant posture but Ferreira could see how shaken he was by the encounter, his mouth in a slack line and his cheeks spotted with colour.
‘Sorry about that,’ he said, eyeing the mess they’d made as he went back around the counter. ‘Protestors from the Fleet.’
‘Yeah, I think I saw them on the way in,’ she said, feeling his desperation to talk now and knowing he needed little prompting.
‘Most of them are no trouble,’ he told her. ‘Old women by and large, teacher types, you know what I mean? Come in for an iced tea and a bit of fruit, inoffensive lot. I’ve got no issue with them quietly going about their business. Peaceful protest … I might not agree with them but they’ve got every right to stand there with their signs if they think it’s helping.’ He jabbed a finger towards the door. ‘But those two …’
‘Not so inoffensive?’
‘I can’t prove it,’ he said, dropping his tone conspiratorially, leaning across the counter. ‘But someone’s been leafleting the village for months. Really nasty stuff. Going on about what the staff are up to in there. Must be lies, mustn’t it? You don’t get away with that in prisons. Not in this country. There are rules.’ He straightened again. ‘We all know one of that lot’s responsible, but smart money’s on them two. They’re bloody militants, you’ve only got to look at them.’
She murmured agreement, keeping him going so he’d be receptive when she asked about Ainsworth. ‘What are they saying’s going on there?’
‘Bullying and that.’ He nodded at her. ‘Worse.’
‘It happens in the best-run prisons,’ she told him.
‘Maybe it does,’ he conceded. ‘But nigh on half the staff live in the village. They’re good people and they’re having their reputations dragged through the dirt with out-and-out lies. Lucky we know better than to believe it, but what if we didn’t? That’s how lives get ruined.’
He frowned deeply, lost in a brief introspection.
‘Anyway … you’ll be able to judge the place for yourself soon enough, from what I hear.’ A satisfied smile lifted his face momentarily and he inclined his head towards the door. ‘Josh Ainsworth works there.’ The smile dropped off his face. ‘Worked. Sorry.’
Ferreira’s turn to nod.
‘You can always smell a copper, right?’
He tapped his nose. ‘Always.’
Strange thing to be proud of, she thought. A boast she’d only ever heard come out of the mouths of criminals before.
‘Was Ainsworth a guard?’
‘Doctor,’ the man said. ‘What a waste of a good brain.’
‘Who told you he was dead?’ Ferreira asked, reaching into her pocket for some change.
‘Old Mr Edwards, from next door. He’s right shook up.’
Not too shook up to come over here and spread the news though, Ferreira thought.
She handed him the money for the waters and a card in case he heard anything that she might be interested in.
When she went back out onto the street, she saw the couple who had been thrown out of the shop had started walking away, towards the edge of the village and the protest at Long Fleet’s gates they were going to rejoin. They’d stopped and were looking towards Joshua Ainsworth’s cottage, too far away for her to read their expressions, but something about the man’s hunched posture and the stiffness of woman’s back made her think they might know something interesting too.
