The Killer Inside (4 page)

There was silence at the other end then the line went dead. She stared at the receiver. ‘Bastard’s hung up on me!’ she said aloud. She could phone back, of course. But no doubt DS Willis would say they’d been accidentally cut off. With a grunt, she replaced the receiver in its cradle. What was the point? If there was any detective work to be done here, she was going to have to do it herself.

By late afternoon Megan was back inside Balsall Gate prison. Her nose wrinkled as she walked along the narrow corridors. The usual body odour and smoke was tinged with a greasy, burnt smell, like overcooked sausages.

‘He’s in the library – you’ll have to wait in here while I get someone to fetch him.’ The man escorting her today was Ferret-face, one of the prison officers who had not doffed his cap when the body of Carl Kelly was removed from its cell. He had not introduced himself to her, but she had heard the man on the gate call him Al. He sat down in a chair on the other side of the waiting room, his thin lips set in what looked like a permanent sneer. He turned his face away as he hissed into his radio pager. When he had given out his instructions he continued to stare at the wall, seemingly unable to make eye contact.

The atmosphere in the small, bare room was as thick as the smell in the corridor outside. His hand was in his pocket and he was fiddling with some coins. The jangle of metal on metal was the only sound she could hear above the distant shouts of prisoners calling to each other through the windows of their cells. He seemed on edge. Was it because of her, she wondered? Was he unnerved by her presence in the prison? Did he have something to hide? And if so, what?

It was clear from the conversation she’d overheard at the gate that the prison officers hadn’t yet got wind of the fact that Carl Kelly died of strychnine poisoning. She could use this to her advantage. Find out just how much the guards
did
 
know about the narcotics trade in this place.

Ferret-face shifted in his chair, making its rubber legs squeak on the lino. She had to think of a way of getting him to talk. But loosening the tongue of a hard-faced prison officer of twenty-odd years’ service wasn’t going to be easy. She needed an angle. The jingling in his pocket intensified as she searched for the right words. She opened her mouth, then shut it again. No point in pussyfooting around, she thought. Go for the jugular.

‘You know,’ she said, shaking her head slowly for extra effect, ‘I can’t believe a waster like Carl Kelly managed to get hold of enough gear to top himself.’

No response. Not even a twitch of those tight lips. Too obvious, perhaps. She tried another tack. An audible sigh, then she said: ‘They really piss me off, his type.’

The chink-chink of the coins stopped. His eyes were still on the wall but she sensed that she now had his full attention. After a slight pause, she went on: ‘They’re in here for a couple of years, Premier league football on the telly, regular food – all paid for by the likes of you and me – then they’re back out to their BMWs and their Rolex watches…’ She tailed off, watching him intently, and saw one eyebrow lift half an inch. ‘I know I shouldn’t say it,’ she said, shaking her head again, ‘but as far as I can see it’s bloody good riddance when someone like Carl Kelly gets his comeuppance.’

She saw the lips part. Heard him draw in his breath.

‘I thought you lot were all bleeding heart liberal
Guardian
readers.’ He said it to the wall but she could see the faint trace of a smirk on his face.

‘Yeah, right,’ she said, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth. ‘How long do you think airy-fairy shit like that lasts when you’ve spent half your working life listening to the lies these bastards tell you?’

With a grunt he cleared his throat. ‘Tell that to the governor
and these do-gooding prison visitors, will you? Always on our bloody case, they are. “Respect the inmates and treat them well,” they say. “Be a role model for when they get out.” Bollocks to that, if you’ll pardon my French!’

She smiled to herself. It was beginning to work. Now she needed to move it up a gear. It was a risky strategy and she knew she was only going to get one chance. ‘What I can’t figure out,’ she said, ‘is how Kelly managed to get hold of enough heroin to overdose.’ She paused. He didn’t respond. ‘I know you can get small amounts easily enough, but how would he have got his hands on that kind of volume?’

She heard a noise that was a mixture of a cough and a snort. When he spoke his voice was low and gruff. ‘They don’t need much and they all have their crafty little ways’.

She dug her nails into the palms of her hands, willing him to go on. But he fell silent.

‘And what would those be?’ She held her breath.

‘Put it this way,’ he said, with a slow nod of his head, ‘Dealers aren’t the only ones who want to drive round in BMWs.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ She went hot in the face as the words came out. It sounded clumsy. She’d overplayed her hand.

He looked at her for the first and only time since they had entered the room. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing at all.’ The lips clamped shut.

In the few awkward seconds that followed she stared at the pock-marked lino at her feet, inwardly cursing herself for getting so close and blowing it. What was all that innuendo about? Did he know about the strychnine? Was that what he and his mate had been muttering about when Carl Kelly’s body was carried out of the cell? Had they been party to his death or turned a blind eye to someone else’s involvement in it?

The crackle of a radio pager made her look up. A disembodied voice announced that Dom Wilde was out of the library and waiting to see her. With his customary grunt, Ferret-face got to his feet and pointed to the door.

The lids of Dom Wilde’s soulful grey eyes were tinged red. She wondered if he’d been crying. Clearly she hadn’t quite worked him out. Up until the day Carl Kelly had died, she’d had him down as a man who was totally unflappable. When she had asked how he could be so calm in such a stressful environment, he had told her about his discovery of Buddhism. Apparently he spent the hours of confinement in meditation, having developed a technique for switching off his mind to the noises around him.

‘Are you okay, Dom?’ she asked, as she settled into the armchair opposite him.

‘A bit tired,’ he replied. His lips turned up slightly at the edges. It was a ghost of his usual grin. ‘It all kicked off again last night – didn’t get much sleep.’

‘What was the problem? Was it because of Carl?’

He nodded. ‘It always happens when there’s a death in here. Doesn’t make any difference if it’s a suicide or an overdose. It freaks people out, you know?’

‘I can imagine.’ She leaned forward in her chair, her eyes searching his. ‘Dom, I know this must be really hard for you, because Carl was a mate. It must be doubly hard because you were the one who helped him get off drugs in the first place.’ She hesitated, wondering if he was up to being questioned. ‘There’s something I need to ask you, though.’ His eyes met hers. The weariness in them was tempered with the warmth he’d always shown her in the past.

‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘It’s okay.’ He coughed and swallowed. ‘I’m okay. Really.’

‘Are you sure?’

He nodded.

‘Well,’ she began, ‘what you said before, about there being nobody on this earth who might have driven Carl to suicide – what if it wasn’t that?’

He blinked. ‘What are you saying?’

‘Did Carl have any enemies in here? Anyone who might have wanted him dead?’ She watched his face change. The brow furrowed and the eyes narrowed. It was a look of incomprehension.

‘You think he was murdered?’

‘It’s possible, yes,’ she nodded. ‘I’m going to tell you what the post-mortem revealed, but no one else in the prison knows yet, so you didn’t hear it from me, all right?’

‘Yes, okay…’ Her words seemed to have knocked him off balance. ‘What happened?’

When she told him about the strychnine his eyes widened. His look of disbelief changed to revulsion when she explained that agonising muscle spasms would have caused the fixed grin on Carl Kelly’s face.

‘Christ, if only I’d been there!’ He shook his head. ‘What a bloody awful way to die.’

‘There was nothing you could have done,’ she said gently. ‘It only takes a tiny amount of the stuff to kill someone. And the effect is irreversible.’

He sat for a moment, his head bowed, staring at his hands. She had never seen him looking so lost, so vulnerable. She felt an almost irresistible urge to put her hand on his shoulder. But she fought it. To touch a prisoner, to step over the professional boundary, was an absolute no-no. Never before had she felt like doing this. But she had never met a prisoner quite like him before.

Here was a man who had been locked up for thirteen years in the most appalling conditions and yet there was
some untainted, almost innocent quality about him. Two years ago, when she had first set eyes on him, her initial impression was of a powerful, muscular man who was not to be messed with. It had come as a surprise to learn that he was a counsellor – and a good one at that. But there had been a moment, just a week into her research here, when she had glimpsed what lay beneath the tough exterior. Fergus had been escorting her to the counselling room when a message had been relayed that Dom Wilde was with an inmate on the wing they were passing through. Fergus had taken her to the cell and lifted the viewing panel, allowing her to see what was going on inside.

A distraught man was slumped on a bunk with tears streaming down his face. As she watched, Dom reached out and took his hand. It was obvious from the manner in which he did it that this was the gesture of a man who was not afraid to be seen showing compassion.

Now here she was again, looking at him. His head was bent and his eyes closed. This time
he
was the one who needed compassion. She leaned closer, until there was only an inch or two between their heads.

Suddenly his eyes snapped open. ‘Why do you think it was murder? I mean, it could’ve just been a dodgy batch of brown…’

Her face flushed as she straightened up in her chair. ‘Yes… I…er…’ She felt as if he’d caught her doing something underhand. She blinked and took a breath. ‘I know that’s the obvious conclusion, but if it was a batch of the stuff you’d expect more deaths, wouldn’t you? If not in the prison itself, then in the wider community.’

He considered this. ‘Yes, I suppose you would. You’ve checked, then?’

‘I’ve talked to the police about it, yes. Not that they were very forthcoming.’

‘Tell me about it,’ he shook his head. ‘I’ve seen it time and time again. They don’t give a stuff about deaths in prison.’

‘Well, they certainly didn’t buy my theory about Carl,’ she said. ‘But the more I think about it, the less far-fetched it seems to be. The question is, who would want to kill him?’

‘No one I can think of. He hadn’t had any recent run-ins with anyone. Like I said, he was keeping his nose clean. Didn’t want to screw up his chances of getting a transfer to an open prison.’

‘What about that incident you were telling me about earlier? The attack on a prison officer in the laundry – was Carl involved in that?’

‘He was there, yeah,’ Dom nodded, ‘but he didn’t actually do anything.’

‘But he didn’t help the guy who was attacked? He walked out with the others?’

‘Well, yeah, but there were ten of them in there. Why pick on him for revenge? And anyway, it was ages ago – why wait till now?’

Megan shrugged. ‘Well, no. It doesn’t add up, does it? It’s just that if the screws are bringing drugs in for the prisoners and a screw wanted revenge on someone…’ Her eyebrows framed the question.

He shrugged back, but said nothing.

‘I was talking to one of them before I came to you,’ she said. ‘His name’s Al. He as good as told me he was bent.’

‘Megan…’ Dom tailed off with a sigh. ‘Please don’t ask me to name names. I can’t risk it, you know? I know I said I’d help you but that was before…’ He shook his head and lowered his eyes, as if he was ashamed of what he was about to say. ‘I might not always show it, but I’m desperate to get out of this dump. I’ve wasted so many years of my life and I don’t want to throw any more down the pan. I want to be able to walk in the fresh air, get a job and somewhere decent
to live. And I want to find my daughter.’ He pressed his lips tight, as if just saying the word caused him physical pain. ‘Do you know what I’m trying to say? It’s different now. Carl’s death has upped the ante. If I start dishing the dirt now I can see myself leaving this place in a pine box.’

‘Okay, Dom,’ she whispered. ‘I hear what you’re saying. But just tell me one thing, will you – and you don’t have to say anything – just nod or shake your head. Do you think Carl got that lethal dose of drugs from one of the prison officers in here?’

‘I can answer that,’ he nodded. ‘And I can tell you this: there are at least half a dozen screws bringing gear into this place on a regular basis. They want paying in cash from the outside. Carl didn’t have anyone on the outside to do that for him. Not any more. In the beginning, when I first met him, he had a pal – someone he used to deal for – who owed him a few favours and made sure he got supplies. But a couple of months after I got here he told me his pal had been shot in some turf war. Bit of a silver lining in that, ‘cos it helped him kick the habit, not having a regular supplier any more. Not sure he would’ve got himself clean if it hadn’t been for that.’

‘What about that girlfriend you told me about? Could she have been getting hold of drugs or money for him?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Why? Did he talk about her? Did he tell you why she’d decided to hook up with someone like him?’

He shook his head. ‘He didn’t tell me that much about her. I know she had big plans for when he got out, though.’ His face creased into frown lines. ‘I was chuffed for him and all that but it surprised me, because she hadn’t been coming to see him for very long. And she wasn’t the usual type you get writing to guys in prison, you know? They tend to be older and, well, sadder, if you get my meaning.’

‘But this girl was young and attractive, you say?’

‘She was, yes. But Carl was a good-looking guy as well. I guess they just clicked. And why would she have been so keen if she knew he was back on drugs? Why would she want to set up home with a smackhead?’

‘Hmm.’ Megan considered this for a moment. ‘What about that other thing you told me – about the guy he killed in a fight over drugs?’