It is on page five of The Times that I see it. An article. A QC has secured a famous chef his freedom after he was found guilty of murdering his sous chef. New evidence. Following a lengthy trial, the conviction was overturned.
Overturned. I scan for the QC’s name.
Harry Warren.
Could this be it? My new counsel? Could he help me? There is a photograph of him next to the article. I study it: black skin, wide smile, round stomach. Good-looking, once. A man of money and paid help.
Metal clatters to my right. I glance up. A bedpan has been knocked to the floor.
I return my eyes to The Times and look closer. The man looks familiar, yet how can that be? To the right of the page there is a short biography. It says he is married, two grown-up children: twins. His wife is a solicitor. They are both fifty-eight, both charitable figures. But all that to me is irrelevant, because, to arrange an appointment with him, what I really want is right there, at the bottom.
His office: Brior’s Gate Chambers.
Which means Mr Warren works here. In London.
Five days in the hospital wing and now I am out.
The guard links my arm like a crutch as I hobble to my cell. Inmates stare and whisper. No one comes near me, a leper, a marked woman, strange, weird. I hold my head up as much as I can as I shuffle forward, but inside I am lonely, sad, completely desolate.
I enter the cell to find that I have a new cellmate. Her name, the guard says, is Patricia. She is moving around the cell now as I sit on my bed and touch the Bible, the new hiding place for my notebook, tucked behind the cover. Thankfully, prison is not a place where people read scripture. There’s no room for God here.
‘Hello?’
This new person is standing before me. Her hair is shorn, fuzzy against her scalp like the blood-soaked fluff of a newborn chick.
‘Patricia O’Hanlon,’ she says, holding out a hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
I blink at her fingers.
‘Well, go on then. You’re supposed to take it.’
I shake her hand up and down five times, but my grip must have been too tight, because when I let go, she gives her arm a rub.
‘Jesus, you’ve got some muscles on you there.’
Curious, I study her arm in lieu of a reply. On her wrist there are two small tattoos. One is of a blackbird. The other is of the Virgin Mary. She is the only person I have seen with a virgin on their arm. Her body, when it moves, is lithe, like a piece of wire, and her head almost skims the ceiling. The last time I saw someone that tall they were playing basketball.
I bend forward to get a better look.
‘Whoa,’ she says, before taking a step back. ‘Getting a bit close there.’
‘Patricia,’ I say, stepping back. ‘It is the female form of Patrick. Patrick means “nobleman”.’
She pauses for a second then smiles. There is a gap where a tooth should be, her cheeks sit buoyant and bobbing on her face like two ripe red apples, and when I sniff her, a scent drifts out. It reminds me of soft towels, warm baths, talcum powder.
‘Your accent’s not English,’ she says. ‘Where you from?’
‘Salamanca. Spain. I am Dr Maria Martinez.’ A wave of exhaustion hits me. I rub my ribs.
‘I heard, by the way,’ she says.
I wince. ‘Heard what?’
‘S’all right. I know about that Croft woman. Word gets round.’ She runs a palm over her scalp.
I step straight back, a flicker of a memory in my head. ‘What do you know? What?’
‘Whoa! Calm down a little.’
I remember something now from the beating, something to do with accents and Father Reznik, but the memory is still smudged, unclear. I shake my head, try to nudge it out.
‘You okay?’
I gulp, focus. My breathing is heavy, my fists tight, cemented to my side. I sense Patricia moving slightly to the side, her head tilted. I make myself look at her and see that she is smiling, eyes crinkled, shoulders soft, hands loose. Will she hurt me, too? I look at her hands again. No fists.
‘So,’ she says, ‘you’re a handy woman to have around, Doc. Can I call you Doc?’
‘My name is Maria.’
‘I know. But would you mind if I call you Doc?’
I think about this. ‘It is okay.’
