place where elderly gentlemen entertained their lights-of-love in small private rooms decorated in high Edwardian kitsch? If so, what might the menu consist of?
She knocked and entered, and didn’t know whether to be pleased or disappointed when she was escorted into an airy dining room with very well spaced tables. Any residual suspicions were finally dissipated by the sight of a second man at the table she was led towards.
Childs said, ‘Dr Ozigbo, hope you don’t mind, I invited Simon Homewood along. Homewood, this is Alva Ozigbo that I was telling you about.’
‘Dr Ozigbo,’ said the newcomer, reaching out his hand. ‘Delighted to meet you.’
Not as delighted as me, she thought as they shook hands. This had to be the Simon Homewood, Director of Parkleigh Prison, whose liberal views on the treatment of prisoners, widely aired when appointed to the job six years earlier, had met with scornful laughter or enthusiastic applause, depending on which paper you read.
Or maybe, she deflated herself as she took her seat, maybe it was another Simon Homewood, the Childs family trouble-shooter, come to cast an assessing eye over this weird young woman bumbling old John had taken a fancy to.
One way to settle that.
‘How are things at Parkleigh, Mr Homewood?’ she enquired.
He smiled broadly and said, ‘Depends whether you’re looking in or out, I suppose.’
The contrast with Childs couldn’t have been stronger. There was nothing that you could call retiring or self-effacing about Homewood. In his late thirties with a square, determined face topped by a thatch of vigorous brown hair, he fixed her with an unblinking and very unmoist gaze as he talked to her. He asked her about her book, prompted her to expatiate on her ideas, outlined some of the problems he was experiencing in the management of long-term prisoners, and invited her opinion.
Am I being interviewed? she asked herself. Unlikely, because if she were, it could only be for one job. Ten days previously, the chief psychiatrist at Parkleigh Prison, Joe Ruskin, had died in a pileup on the M5. She’d had only a slight acquaintance with the man, so her distress at the news was correspondingly slight and soon displaced by the thought that, if this had happened four or five years later, she might well have applied to fill the vacancy. Parkleigh held many of the most fascinating criminals of the age. For someone with her areas of interest, it was a job to die for.
But at twenty-eight, she was far too young and inexperienced to be a candidate. And they’d want another man anyway. But she enjoyed the conversation, in which Childs took little part, simply sitting, watching, with a faintly proprietorial smile on his lips.
At the end of lunch she excused herself and made for the Ladies. Away from the two men, her absurdity in even considering the possibility seemed crystal clear.
‘Idiot,’ she told her reflection in the mirror.
As she returned to the table she saw the two men in deep conversation. It stopped as she sat down.
Then Homewood fixed her with that gaze which probably declared to everyone he spoke to, You are the most interesting person in the room, and as if enquiring where she was spending her holidays this year, he said, ‘So how would you like to work at Parkleigh, Dr Ozigbo?’
iii
Fortified with a large scotch and water accompanied by a bowl of bacon-flavoured crisps, Alva at last felt up to opening Hadda’s exercise book.
She went through the narrative three times, the first time swiftly, to get the feel of it; the second slowly, taking notes; the third intermittently, giving herself plenty of time for reflection and analysis.
She was as disappointed at the end of the third reading as she had been by the first.
The narrative had panache, it was presented with great clarity of detail and emphatic certainty of recollection, it rang true.
All of which meant only one thing: Wilfred Hadda was still in complete denial.
This was not going to be easy, but surely she’d never expected it would be?
She knew from both professional experience and wide study how hard it was to lead some men to the point where they could confront their own crimes. When child abuse was involved, the journey was understandably long and tortuous. At its end was a moment of such self-revulsion that the subconscious decided the cure was worse than the disease and performed gymnastics of Olympic standard to avoid it.
This was why the narrative rang so true. Hadda wasn’t trying to deceive her. He’d had years to convince himself he was telling the truth. Plus, of course, so far as the events described were concerned, she knew from her close reading of all the trial and associated media material, he never deviated from the known facts. Only the implied motivation had changed. He was a man of wealth and power, used to getting his own way, and while he clearly had a very sharp mind, he was a man whose physical responses were sometimes so urgent and immediate that reason lagged behind. It wasn’t outraged innocence that made him assault Medler but the challenge to his authority. And once he realized that, by doing this, he had provided the police with an excuse for keeping him in custody while they delved into his private business at their leisure, he had made a desperate bid to get within reach of the sources of wealth and influence he felt could protect him.
The important thing was that her relationship with Hadda had advanced to the point where he clearly wanted to get her on his side. She knew she had to proceed very carefully from here on in. To let him see how little credit she gave to his account would almost certainly inhibit him from writing any more. There was still much to be learned even from evasions and downright lies.
As she drove towards Parkleigh next morning, she found herself wondering as she did most mornings why she wasn’t feeling a lot happier at the prospect of going to work. Was it cause or effect that, when she met older, more experienced colleagues, particularly those who had been close to her predecessor, Joe Ruskin, she had to bite back words of explanation and apology? What had she to feel sorry for? She hadn’t been responsible for the lousy driving that killed him!
As for explanation, she still hadn’t explained things satisfactorily to herself. Had she been deliberately sought out or was she just lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time? After the euphoria of being offered the post died down, she’d asked Giles very casually who’d invited John Childs to the dinner. Not casually enough, it seemed. His barrister sensors had detected instantly the thought behind the question and he had teased her unmercifully about her alleged egotism in imagining she might have been headhunted. Next day he had renewed the attack when he rang to say that Childs had been the guest of the uxorious Mr Justice Toplady, whose cat-loving wife was always on the lookout for elderly bachelors to partner her unmarried sister.
‘Though that might be described as the triumph of hope over experience,’ he concluded.
‘That sounds rather sexist even for a dedicated male chauvinist like yourself,’ said Alva.
‘Why so? I refer not to the sister’s unattractiveness, although it is great, but Childs’ predilections.’
‘You mean he’s gay?’
‘Very likely, though in his case he seems to get his kicks out of moulding and mentoring personable young men, then sitting back to watch them
