enough to know this was her reverse psychology way of trying to cheer him up. Sure, what have you to do only lie around reading all your books all day, she’d tease him, though they both knew that was about as far from the truth as you could get. And would you just look at this place, she’d gesture around her, it’s like a three-star hotel. You sleep in a room with its own telly, where the quilt covers match the curtains and you get three hot meals served up to you a day and what’s more, you even get paid an allowance by the gobshite government for doing the time in here.
None of this was strictly true, but if it helped his mam get by imagining that he was living like a guest in the Holiday Inn, then it suited Jake to let her continue on in the fantasy.
Then just as she was leaving at the end of each visit, she’d reluctantly pull her good coat and woolly hat back on, the ones she always saved for Sunday Mass. It was a small, insignificant thing, but one that always seemed to stab right at the bottom of Jake’s heart. That his mother alone, out of everyone he knew and had ever known, had put herself out so much, that she’d even got herself all dressed up just to spend thirty short minutes with him.
Aside from her though, only solicitors had special visitors’ privileges. If you’d a trial or an appeal coming up, your solicitor could arrange to see you at any time and the wardens had no choice but to let them. Not that this had ever once happened to Jake. His trial was nearly two years ago and even then he’d been on the free legal aid, which meant he got a well-intentioned but utterly inexperienced law graduate who looked about fifteen and who almost gave himself an anxiety stroke at the very sight of a judge and jury, then got red-eyed and trembly the minute the verdict was announced. To the extent that Jake felt so sorry for the poor kid, he ended up consoling him while in handcuffs waiting to be taken off to the Cloverhill Detention Centre, the first place they sent you before a bed could be found for you in prison proper.
Would have been comical, if it hadn’t been so tragic.
So that sunny spring day not long after Easter, when Jake got a message to say there was someone to see him and that he was to head to the visitors’ room immediately, he was completely at a loss. He was certain no lawyer would be coming out all this way to see him.
Jake knew the screw that lead him down to security well, name of Cagney, a likeable fella once you stayed on his right side. Had four small kids and worked all the overtime he could get, so he was well known in here.
‘Any idea who this is?’ Jake asked him, as he was searched and patted down, then put through a security X-ray device on his way out of Block C.
Cagney shrugged.
‘Could be your parole officer?’
But Jake knew that was unlikely; for starters, his parole hearing wasn’t coming up till the end of the month, way too early for someone to be talking to him about it now. Guys from parole didn’t operate like that; they kept you sweating right up till the very last minute. Made you think you hadn’t a snowball’s chance of getting out, keep you on your toes, extract the very last drop of good behaviour out of you.
‘Because you know,’ Cagney went on in that chatty, likeable way he had, ‘and on the QT, of course, you’ve every chance of getting out of here early. If every prisoner behaved as well as you have, I can tell you, it would make my job a helluva lot easier. Between ourselves, I’ll certainly be giving you a glowing report when the time comes and that’s a promise.’
The prospect of early parole hadn’t occurred to Jake, good news rarely did. It was far safer to assume the worst in here, spared you the dull agony of disappointment when things didn’t go your way. Which in his life, was most of the time.
But when he finally cleared security and got to the visitors’ room, he saw no one he recognised and certainly no one that looked like they were from the parole board either.
He walked up and down the narrow passageway on the inmates’ side and checked the far side of each metal grille a couple of times … Not a soul that could possibly be there to see him.
And just as he was about to give up and head back, a voice suddenly stopped him in his tracks.
A woman’s voice, clipped, clear and direct.
‘Excuse me, are you by any chance Jake Keane?’
It certainly wasn’t anyone from the parole board. Instead he found a youngish woman, early thirties at a guess, whippet thin and pale as a ghost, which only made her coal-black eyes stand out even more. Fine, dark brown hair neatly tied back, wearing a smart black suit, black briefcase, black everything. Attractive, even if she did look like she hadn’t slept in about the last three years. But if she put on half a stone and got a bit of sunshine, Jake thought, she’d be something to look at: pretty, even. A solicitor, Jake guessed. She definitely had that official, formal, tense look about her that lawyers visiting here always had. Like she’d just come to say her piece, get the hell out of here then quickly head back to the comforting warmth of the law library as soon as possible.
Jake sighed deeply, knowing the type all too well. Knowing right well that this would make an interesting anecdote for her to tell her other lawyer cronies in Doheny and Nesbitts or whatever trendy watering hole the legal set hung out in these days. ‘Girlies, you won’t beeeeelieeeeeeeve where I had to go to see a client today!’ he could imagine this one shrieking to her other well-heeled professional pals. As if dispatching guys to rot out here was just a distasteful part of their job description, best treated as a joke in a pub. Unaware of the reality, what life in here was really like for her more unfortunate ‘clients’. Made his blood boil to even think about it, and not for the first time, he wished he could force every lawyer he’d ever had the misfortune to come across to spend just one single night in here. See how they liked it then.
But if there was one thing that doing time taught you, it was the value of silence. So Jake said nothing, just sat down opposite the grille from her and waited for this woman to talk, to explain the extraordinary reason for her being here.
‘Good morning,’ she began, clearing her throat. ‘Emm … Apologies for disturbing you, but I just wondered if I might have a moment of your time?’
‘Well, in case you hadn’t noticed,’ Jake smiled wryly through the grille at her, ‘I’ve got all the time in the world. I’m kind of what you might call a captive audience.’
Then he shoved his fair hair out of his face, folded his arms and sat back prepared to listen, taking her in from head to toe. A real hard nut, was his first outside guess about her. He could tell by the way she sat ramrod straight in front of him, like she was about to chair a meeting any second. Jake tended to classify people as either being tough or soft, and they certainly didn’t look any tougher than this one.
Then he noticed her thin, bony fingers drumming off the narrow ledge in front of her and thought no, hard is the wrong word, she just has something on her mind, that’s all: she’s here on a clear mission. So he decided to make it easy for her.
‘Look,’ he told her, more gently, ‘I’ve no idea who you are, but if you’re from Legal Aid, then you’ve had a wasted journey. I’m up for parole in a few weeks …’
‘I’m not a lawyer. My name’s Eloise Elliot,’ she explained crisply and for some reason the name rang a bell with Jake.
‘Eloise Elliot,’ he repeated, racking his brains to remember where he had heard it before.
‘Senior Editor at the Daily Post.’
And
