what she would think of me now.
‘I can’t.’ And yet I kept butting up against these barriers, these lines I said I wouldn’t cross, only to be pushed over them. Life skewing wildly to the left.
He looked at me over the table for a long time. Then he stood up. ‘I’ll be in touch, Mrs Morris. If you change your mind, or you remember anything about Martha’s death, do let me know.’
I’d never been to a prison before.
I repeated that to myself with something like amazement. How lucky I’d been, to be able to say that. I was forty-three and I’d never been to a prison before. I looked around the waiting room at the other women – younger than me, I was sure, many of them, yet some were here with grandchildren. Waiting to see their sons, the children they’d birthed and raised who were now behind bars. I tried to imagine Benji here, in this room with flickering fluorescent lights, and vending machines that were sticky with fingerprints, and the sad box of toys in the corner. I couldn’t. Benji would never be anywhere like this – that was the point of all those piano lessons and bedtime stories and dentist visits. But then, I’d never have thought Jake would end up here either.
Karen’s text had come in shortly after I’d spoken to DC Devine. Payment for services rendered. He’ll see you, was all it said. She wasn’t going to make it easy for me, and why should she? I’d have to convince him myself.
At least it wasn’t an adult prison. I didn’t think it had sunk in what that meant, the difference in a few weeks’ accident of birth. Jake was in a glorified school, where they’d rap his knuckles and give him tough love. Not a grown-up jail with the rapists and thieves and killers. But maybe he would be, if convicted. He was over eighteen already, and I knew the boys in this place were at most twenty-one. He’d stabbed Mike in the liver. He almost killed him. It was planned, it was intended. The sentence for that would surely be long, unless I intervened.
The other women were on their feet, as if by some signal I couldn’t hear. I stood up too, painfully conscious of how much my shoes cost. As if they’d notice, or care. Oh God. I was sweating. My throat was dry. I felt trapped, even though when this was over I could leave. Jake couldn’t. We all shuffled into a line as the door opened, and a bored-looking female guard passed a wand over us. It was like the airport, only with less sense of urgency. I shuffled forward with my plastic bag clutched like a baby, having left my expensive handbag (£600) in a locker. The woman in front of me was wearing what looked like pyjama bottoms, printed over in puppies, and a sagging vest top showing her breasts, which hung down almost to her waist. Her hair was dyed with streaks of red and purple and she could have been any age. Thirty? Fifty? I was horrified by this place, and by my reaction to it even more. Her huge gold earrings set off the wand, and she was pulled to one side. I took her place, assuming I’d zip through as I always did at airports, and I actually jumped when the detector went off.
‘I don’t . . . sorry . . .’
The guard sighed, so disinterested she could hardly look at me, and patted me down. Under my arms. Round my breasts. Between my legs. It was humiliating, and I stood spread-eagled in my Toast dress (£160) and felt her rough hands roving over me, and I was horrified to find tears in my eyes. What would Karen say? She’d be disgusted with me. She must have been here so many times already, despite living miles away, despite having no car. There was no way she’d leave her boy in here alone. She’d done everything she could for him over the years – working for idiots, grinding her teeth and getting on with it, demanding the extra funding at his school and the tutors and the support. Fighting to keep him in his father’s life, even though no one but Karen knew it. I used to admire that. Before I knew I was the duped wife in it all.
I wasn’t going to think about Karen.
I was waved through, feeling shrivelled and fearful, like I’d done