as I know,’ Cassie said. ‘And with the prison having its own crèche it makes it easier for female prisoners with babies and young children to have them on site with them.’
A frown wrinkled his forehead. ‘You mean there are some women who have children in prison with them while they serve their sentence?’
Cassie kept her eyes on his even though she could feel her face heating. ‘Yes…but only until the child is three years old. After that they are usually fostered out until the mother’s sentence comes to an end.’
‘But is prison really the best place for an infant or toddler?’ he asked, still with a frown in place.
‘The best place for any small child is with its mother,’ Cassie said. ‘The child hasn’t done anything wrong. Why should it be separated from its mother at such a young and vulnerable age?’
‘Is that what happened to the little boy who drew me that picture?’
Cassie lowered her eyes and reached for her water glass again. ‘I told you I’m not familiar with every child’s circumstances, but, yes, it could well be that he has been taken away from his mother and that he had nowhere else to go. Relatives are not always well placed to take on someone else’s child, especially a child whose mother is serving time in prison.’
A small silence fell into the space between them. Cassie could hear it ringing in her ears, her heart thudding so loudly she could feel the blood tingling in her fingertips where she was holding on to her glass. She forced herself to relax, making her shoulders soften from their stiffly held position, taking a moment to concentrate on breathing evenly and deeply to establish some semblance of calm.
‘I am uncomfortable with the notion of an infant under three being housed along with violent criminals,’ he said. ‘The same arrangement would not for a moment be considered in a male prison.’
‘Yes, that is true, but there are very good reasons for that,’ Cassie said. ‘For one, almost ninety per cent of female prisoners are jailed for non-violent crimes. They are far more commonly in for drug abuse or drug-related offences to feed their habit. They are very often the victims of childhood abuse and fall into the no-win cycle of drugs to help them cope with the devastation of their lives. Also, people now recognise the important bonding that goes on with an infant and its mother.’
‘You grew close to some of those women?’ he asked, appearing genuinely interested.
‘It is hard not to in such a confined place,’ Cassie said, thinking of the lifelong friends she had made, including Angelica. ‘The loss of dignity hits hard, not to mention the loss of freedom. Counting the days off the calendar can be a very lonely task unless you have someone to talk to.’
‘Will you be able to move on from this?’ he asked softly.
‘I would like to think so,’ she said with a small measure of carefully nurtured confidence. ‘Once my parole is up I want to leave Aristo and start afresh.’
‘What will you do?’
‘I am a bit limited given my criminal record,’ Cassie said. ‘Not many employers want an ex-prisoner on their books. But I would like to study. I wasted my time at school so the thought of doing my leaving certificate again is tempting. After that, who knows? As long as it brings in enough money to put food on the table for us…I mean, for me, I’ll be happy.’
‘I heard your father did not leave you well provided for.’
Cassie gave him a twisted look. ‘No, funny that, don’t you think? He left everything he owned to some distant cousins twice removed. He must have known I was going to push him down the stairs that night.’
‘What happened, Cassie?’ he asked again, looking at her intently.
Cassie dropped her gaze from his. ‘We argued,’ she said in a flat emotionless tone. ‘I hardly remember what we argued about now—it all seems so muddled and foggy in my head. He was shouting at me, I was shouting back at him and then…’ She closed her eyes tight, mentally skipping over that distressing scene until she felt she had control again. She reopened her eyes and carried on as if discussing the weekend weather. ‘Suddenly he was lying at the foot of the staircase with a head wound.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I panicked,’ she said, frowning as she forced herself to remember what had happened next. ‘I tried to get him to stand up. I thought he was putting it on just to scare me but he…’ she swallowed ‘…he didn’t…he didn’t wake up…’
‘So the police came and arrested you?’
She shook her head. ‘Not at first. They treated it as an accidental death, but a few weeks later one of the neighbours came forward and testified to hearing us arguing that night. Apparently that was enough to set the ball rolling. Within a few hours I was handcuffed and dragged off to give a statement. I pleaded guilty to manslaughter early the following day.’ Because I didn’t have the strength to fight after being hounded and questioned for hours by the police and no one would believe me if I told them the truth in any case, Cassie added silently. The interview room had been full of her father’s cronies. What chance had she had to clear her name?
‘It must have been terrifying for you,’ Sebastian said, his voice sounding as if it had been dragged over something rough. ‘You were only eighteen years old.’
‘It is over now,’ she said. ‘I have many regrets over how things were handled, but the police were only doing their job. My father was a high-profile man. People wanted their scapegoat and I was it.’
‘What are you saying, Cassie? That you were forced into confessing to a crime you did not commit?’ he asked with a heavy frown.
Here’s your chance, Cassie thought. Tell him what it was like. Tell him everything. She even got as far as opening her mouth but the words wouldn’t come out. If she told him about her father she would have to tell him about Sam. What if Sebastian and his family decided she was not a good enough mother for a royal prince? Sam had already been wrenched out of her arms when he was little more than a baby; he would be devastated to have it happen again, even though he was close to school age. If he was taken away from her a second time her devastation would be complete. The only reason she had survived the hell of the last six years had been because of her love for her little boy. To have come this far and lose him at the last hurdle was unthinkable.
‘Cassie?’
‘No,’ she said, addressing his left shoulder rather than his all-seeing gaze. ‘No, of course I wasn’t forced. I understood what was going on and agreed to accept the lesser charge of manslaughter.’
‘Did you have good legal representation?’ he asked.
Cassie thought of the sleazy lawyer she had been assigned. During each of the long drawn-out weeks of the trial he had looked at her as if she had been sitting there naked, his snakelike eyes sliding all over her, reminding her so much of that last altercation with her father she would have agreed to a charge of murder if it had meant she could be free of the lawyer’s loathsome presence all the sooner.
‘I had a lawyer,’ she said tonelessly. ‘We didn’t exactly hit it off, but beggars can’t be choosers, right?’
Sebastian felt another knifelike twist of guilt assail him
