Tower of Silence (9 page)

Robbie Glennon was practically speechless with gratification when Dr Irvine asked him if he could be available for Thursday afternoon’s talk by a writer of mystery novels.

‘I want the right warders in attendance,’ Dr Irvine said. ‘I don’t think there’s going to be any trouble, but there’ll be twelve of our people in one room–four of them men–and there’ll be a good-looking female talking to them, so we need to be watchful but not intrusively so.’

Robbie said at once that he understood. This was a bit of a departure for Moy, and it was important and serious. They did not want the likes of Flasher Logan upsetting people, not that the Flasher would be present, of course, but there might be others who would think it was funny to disconcert this Joanna Savile. He studied the list that Dr Irvine gave him, and said that it looked like a good
mix of people, hoping this did not sound like crawling to the boss.

‘I think it’ll work all right,’ said Dr Irvine. ‘I’d like to have included Pippa from Don Frost’s wing, but when I suggested it to her she scuttled into a corner and crouched there for hours, her hands over her head. It’s a pity; I think she might have got something out of it.’

Robbie thought so, as well. The odd, mostly silent Pippa was so clearly intelligent and interested in books, and if nothing else she might have enjoyed listening to the talk. But everybody knew that she never spoke, and she usually had to be coaxed even to come out of her own room. It was a sad case, said Dr Irvine, but they would keep trying to break through to her. He had it in mind to get Emily Frost to come in to talk to Pippa, he said; Don Frost had been asking around to see if there were any odd bits of voluntary work that Emily could do, and he thought they might kick off with this. If nothing else, Pippa would enjoy having someone as bright and young as Emily around, said Dr Irvine, and Robbie did not say that he would rather enjoy having Emily around himself, because Dr Irvine would hardly be thinking of Emily in quite the way that Robbie was thinking of her.

So he just said that yes, he would certainly be on duty for the talk, it would be an interesting exercise and he would like to be part of it, and no, it did not clash with an off-duty period at all.

Dr Irvine never knew who was supposed to be on duty at any given time, and so Robbie forbore to add that he was supposed to finish at midday on Thursday.
He had, in fact, been revving up to ask Emily out to the cinema in Stornforth that evening–he had just acquired a third-hand Volkswagen, which Em would probably like, although he would not mind if she wore her black leather motorbike gear for the date, because she looked an absolute knock-out in black leather, that Em.

Still, you had to get your priorities right, and in the light of Dr Irvine’s request Emily would have to be put on hold for a couple more days.

The talk was very interesting indeed. Robbie had half expected it to be a bit boring, but it was not boring at all. He made a mental note to get hold of one of Joanna Savile’s books.

There was a little quiz at the start–bits of music taped from TV commercials, and the group had to identify the product being advertised, and say why the music was appropriate. Robbie noticed almost at the outset that Ms Savile was keeping away from anything involving alcohol or sex. Probably Dr Irvine had warned her off.

The quiz was so interesting that Robbie wished he could have joined in. He recognised several of the pieces: there was the dreamy, string-plucking music for Hamlet cigars, of course–Robbie had always thought it was called
Air on a G String
, but it turned out to be just
Air in G
. Bach. Then there was one for cars, and then a spicy Italian-sounding piece, which even had Dr Irvine joining in and trying to guess. Spaghetti? Pasta sauce? It turned out to be pasta sauce.

And there was the famous 1990 World Cup
Nessun
Dorma
, with Pavarotti or someone sobbingly singing his heart out. When Joanna Savile said, ‘Now think about this one. Why do you suppose that was picked for a football event?’ several of them said, ‘Triumph.’ And a couple more said, ‘Celebration,’ and she nodded, pleased, and said, ‘Victory over the opponents, maybe? Or even, “We’re going to score twenty goals and win this match”?’ and three of the four men present and two of the women instantly said, ‘Yes!’ with enthusiasm, and punched the air in the classic gesture of triumph.

The next part was writing down images that music brought into your mind, which followed on very neatly from the fun of the competition. Robbie was not very knowledgeable about the kind of music that was played for this, but he recognised part of Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons
because it was the one Nigel Kennedy had put in the Top Ten, and he knew
The Hall of the Mountain King
, as well. It was a good choice, that one, because it made you think of hobbits and things: goblins and dwarfs marching through huge underground caverns and stuff like that.

It was clever, this getting them all to join in. If Ms Savile had simply talked to them for an hour or so, she would probably have lost them in the first five minutes; Robbie had seen that happen before with outside speakers. But it was going well, and Robbie was glad because Joanna Savile had clearly spent a lot of time preparing everything. He was glad for Dr Irvine, as well, because the afternoon had been a bit of an experiment, and it might easily have gone wrong. He wondered if Dr Irvine fancied Joanna Savile. She would not be Robbie’s cup of
tea, in fact she might be a bit of a ball-shriveller if you were not careful, but she might be very much Dr Irvine’s cup of tea. They said he liked them sharp and bright and successful. She had a nice voice to listen to as well.

Patrick was relieved that things were going so well.

‘There’s absolutely no guarantee of anything,’ he had said to Joanna beforehand. ‘As far as I can be sure they’re all pretty much genuine, although some of them might have their own agenda. But you should be prepared for anything from them. Oh, and don’t be fazed by questions about porn, will you?’

‘Not in the least.’ She had sounded amused and Patrick had been slightly annoyed, and then had wondered if he had been hoping the question might discomfit her. That was the trouble with working with people’s minds all day: you got into the habit of planting loaded questions in perfectly ordinary conversations, just to see what response you got.

He said, ‘We’ll see how they behave and respond, and then we’ll make the decision about a second session. Is that all right with you?’

‘I’m in your hands,’ said Joanna, and Patrick had smiled courteously at her. She was wearing a rather severe outfit today: a dark grey trouser suit with a white shirt, pinstriped in grey. She had probably picked it to look anonymous and sexless, but she did not look either of these things, because she probably never would look anonymous or sexless, even if she put on a sack. Patrick, seating himself at the back of Moy’s small lecture room to
listen and to intervene if things took a potentially difficult turn, wondered about her husband. Ideally, he should be either a complete wimp so that they would never clash, or a very strong character indeed so that he could master her. He could not in fact see Joanna married to either of those types.

He looked covertly around the room. The young, eager-faced Robbie Glennon was conscientiously on duty. He was a useful recruit to Moy, that one; Patrick had already had a word with Don Frost about the boy, because he would quite like to have Glennon permanently attached to the psychiatry wing–maybe even set up some extra training for him. Don had thought it a good idea; he had said that Robbie was keen and intelligent and more ambitious than most of the recruits you got these days. He believed Emily was going out with him somewhere or other at the weekend, said Don–a disco or a wine bar in Stornforth or something. It had made Patrick feel unexpectedly old to think of the nice Robbie Glennon and Don Frost’s pixie-faced daughter at a disco together. He wondered what colour Emily Frost’s hair would be for the occasion.

Most of the group were listening fairly seriously to Joanna and the music, and most of them were scribbling down ideas. The chairs were arranged in a semicircle because seating people in rows made it too easy for drugs or smuggled porn magazines to exchange hands. A couple of females at the far end were being a bit giggly, and appeared to be compiling their notes as a joint project, but that did not matter. Patrick wondered
if Joanna was getting the background she needed. Once or twice she interposed a question to one or another of the group, and listened intently to the answers.

Mary Maskelyne was seated quite near to Joanna. At first she had said no, she did not want to join in, she had had enough of being talked to and talked
at
in Broadacre. But then she had changed her mind, and laconically said OK, if they liked, she would come along to make up the numbers, making it sound as if she was conferring a favour. Patrick had instantly thought, Arrogant bitch! and then had been horrified at this swift, instinctive reaction, because although you could not actually like all the people you treated, you should manage a degree of tolerance.

And normally he did not care if these odd, driftwood creatures were arrogant, just as he did not care if they were aggressive or whining or even downright dangerous. Like the child-beaters and the paedophiles, most of whom were victims of beating or sexual abuse themselves.

But Maskelyne–no, call her Mary for God’s sake Patrick, let’s at least try to humanise her a bit!–had a curious effect on him. He sought for an analogy. Like pine needles sliding pricklingly under your bare skin on a hot afternoon in a forest. No, stronger than that. Into his mind slid an old proverb–Chaucer, was it? Or maybe it was one of the old Scottish legends his father had taught him. Beware of three things, ran the ancient saying: the tongue of the snake, the fletch of the archer, and the smile of the Saxon.

The smile of the Saxon…

Maskelyne had taken a seat at the end, nearest to the table, and Patrick watched her covertly, struck, as he had been from the outset, by the difference between the defiant fourteen-year-old of the file photographs from over thirty years ago, all blazing eyes and mutinous lips, and the quiet woman of today. She was dressed plainly and unobtrusively in a dark skirt and sweater, and her hair was cut quite short, and streaked with grey. Most of the time her eyes were downcast as if she was shy of meeting anyone’s direct regard, and when she spoke she did so softly and unemphatically, with not much trace of any accent, so that you would be hard put to know what part of the country she came from, and from what stratum of society. Put amongst the odd, sometimes-sinister, sometimes-pitiful inhabitants of Moy, she ought to have been unremarkable.

Except that no woman who had killed twice before her fifteenth birthday, and twice more in the next five years–both times while held in a high-security unit–could possibly be unremarkable.

The pine-needles-beneath-the-skin feeling increased.

But it was not until the talk was nearly over that Patrick realised what was disturbing him so much about Mary Maskelyne. It was quite simply that her absorption was not with what Joanna was saying: it was with Joanna herself.

Mary had not expected this writer woman, this Joanna Savile, to affect her so strongly. She had meant to listen
to the talk, and store away any snippets of information that might help her to set about writing the book that would take her back into the headlines.

(
Extraordinary account of Mary Maskelyne’s life
…the reviews would say.
Scalding glimpses of a monumental miscarriage of justice
…)

What she had not been prepared for was her own reaction to Joanna. The instant Joanna came into the room, Mary felt a shutter-flash of memory flicking upwards for a moment. Like lightning flaring and briefly illuminating a darkened landscape before blackness closed down once more. She had stared at Joanna and felt a sudden lurch of half panic, half excitement. Something to do with the way she looked? No, something to do with the queer sense of familiarity.
I’ve never seen you in my life, but I think I know you…From a dream, from a nightmare, from another life, or a different time…?

And then her mind said
Ingrid!
and the vagrant memory clicked into place. Ingrid. Joanna did not resemble Ingrid in looks–Ingrid had been much fairer and more squarely built, but there was something about the way Joanna entered the rather drab room–something about the way she looked round at everyone as if she was interested and eager to find out about them all–that brought Ingrid back, sharply and painfully.

Because Ingrid used to look at people with exactly that air of pleased expectancy. She used to tilt her head in the same way, as if she might be listening to them on a deeper level than ordinary hearing. It was the way she had looked at and listened to Mary in Broadacre, not so
much interested in what Mary had done in the past as in what she had become in the present.

Mary sat quietly in her chair in the half-circle, watching and listening to Joanna Savile. She had thought they were all safely buried, those old memories, those Ingrid-memories, but here they were pushing their way up to the surface, nearly thirty years on.

Broadacre was where Mary had been taken after the Young Offenders’ Hostel, and Broadacre had been the absolute pits. Christabel had whispered that they would have to find a way to get out of this place, or, if that was not possible, they would have to find a way to make it bearable. Mary had clung to this thought, just as she had clung to Christabel’s strength. There would be a way to make Broadacre, this place of clanging doors that shut inexorably at eight o’clock every night, bearable.

In the YOH you had to know whom not to offend, otherwise you might get beaten up in the lavatories, and you had to know the people who dealt in drugs so that you could avoid them and their sly offers of coke or heroin. Drugs were smuggled in from outside and people bought and sold them with furtive desperation, and there was a subtle hierarchy that you had to respect.