Ann Cleeves - The Sleeping and the Dead

She decided on a casserole for Arthur, something she could cook that night and heat up the next day. Chicken with tarragon, she thought. Then she could use some of the wine she had chilling in the fridge and she wouldn’t end up drinking the whole bottle. The supermarket was quiet. There were a couple of single men in suits carrying wire baskets of ready-cooked meals and designer lager, sad disorganized women like her who had nothing better to do at nine o’clock at night than shop. She looked out for Joe. She would never do it because Rosie would be mortified, but she wanted to say, ‘Look at my daughter. I mean really look at her. She’s a beauty and she fancies you like crazy. What are you doing, letting her go?’ She expected to bump into him at the checkout or filling shelves but he wasn’t there. She hoped it was his night off and he was at Laura’s party too.

The next day, Marty wasn’t waiting outside the library for her to unlock the door and he still hadn’t showed when the papers arrived. She tried to rouse Dave, the prison officer, but he was stretched out in the chair in the office and the rhythm of his snoring didn’t alter a beat even when she shook him. She phoned the wing.

‘Haven’t they told you?’

If they had, I’d not be ringing, she thought. She didn’t say it because she knew the wing officer and liked him. She didn’t have so many friends in the place that she could afford to offend him. But she came closer than she ever would have done when she was living with Jonathan. Perhaps living on her own with Rosie was making her assertive.

‘Where is he?’ She thought Marty might have been shipped out to an open prison before release. Sometimes it happened without warning.

‘He’s in hospital.’ The officer was from North Wales and spoke with a sibilant hiss which was mimicked by the inmates and other staff.

‘The sick bay?’ She was still thinking of it only as an administrative inconvenience. She ran through the library rota in her head, wondering if she could draft in another orderly, trying to think of a suitable candidate.’

‘No. The General.’

That brought her up short. ‘Serious then?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What’s wrong with him? He seemed fine yesterday.’

‘There was a fight. Nastier than most. We didn’t get to it in time.’ He paused. ‘Marty started it. They all say that. Some new lad was winding him up. He can kiss goodbye to his parole, if he lives that long.’

‘It’s that serious?’ What’s happening to the people I know? She thought. He can’t die. Not him too.

‘I’ve not heard how he is this morning. The Governor will know, I suppose, but you know what he’s like. He tells us nothing. It looked bad last night.’

‘It’s crazy,’ she cried. ‘Marty had so much to lose. I always guessed he had a temper, but he told me he’d learned to control it.’

‘Did anything happen yesterday to upset him?’

She thought immediately of Porteous, but what did that have to do with Marty? ‘I don’t think so.’

‘You two didn’t have a row?’

‘No. Why?’

‘He seemed wound up anyway. I had a bit of a run-in with him earlier in the evening. I mean, sometimes you could tell that he was getting tense, but he’d take a deep breath and walk away from it. But yesterday, before lights-out, he had a go at me.’ There was a silence at the end of the phone and she thought he’d finished, but he continued in a rush. ‘I’m afraid it was about you. He wanted me to give him your home phone number. He said it was urgent, vital that he talked to you. I told him if it was that urgent to give me a message and I’d pass it on. And anyway he’d see you today. He calmed down in the end, but like you said, usually he managed to hold it together, and last night he was way over the top. I couldn’t do it, Hannah. I couldn’t give an inmate your home number. Not even Marty.’

‘No,’ she said, meaning it. ‘Of course you couldn’t.’

During the day Hannah tried to find out more about Marty. He hadn’t had any close friends in the prison. He’d always worked on his own. But she thought someone might know what was behind the fight.

‘Who was the lad he went for?’

‘Don’t know, miss. He was new. Just out of reception.’

‘What did he do to wind Marty up?’

‘I didn’t see. Honest, miss. It all happened so fast.’

Apparently no one had seen. Or they weren’t telling. She thought they were scared, but perhaps she was deluding herself. Perhaps she didn’t want to believe Marty could have been such a fool.

At lunchtime she phoned the General Hospital, but the sister on ICU wasn’t giving much away either. She said Marty was ‘serious but stable’. And no, he wasn’t fit to receive visitors. She sounded disapproving. Perhaps the prison officer who would be sitting on the end of Marty’s bed was making a nuisance of himself. It wasn’t always the most house-trained member of staff they chose for escort duty.

Hannah wished she had the name and number of Marty’s girlfriend. Perhaps it would be possible to trace it through the bail hostel where she’d worked as a volunteer. But Hannah didn’t feel she had any emotional claim on Marty and she didn’t want to look as if she were interfering. In the end she shut the library early and went home. When Dave roused himself to complain she said it was a gesture of respect.

The incident with Marty had stopped her worrying about dinner. She was glad now that she’d invited Arthur. He might know what had happened. Despite his outsider status he always seemed to understand what was going on in the prison. She took pleasure now in the preparations, set the table carefully, polished glasses, opened wine. She was coming out of the shower when the phone rang. Usually she’d have let the answerphone take it, but she thought it might be about Marty. She’d asked his wing officer to let her know if there was any news.

‘Mrs Morton?’

‘Yes?’

‘Can I speak to Rosie?’

Because she was thinking about the prison it took her a moment to place the voice: Rosie’s friend Joe.

‘She’s not here,’ Hannah said. ‘She’s at work. Sorry.’

There was an awkward pause.

‘No,’ Joe said. ‘I’ve just been to the Prom. Frank said she’d called in sick.’

Hannah’s first response was irritation. It wasn’t the first time Rosie had phoned in sick if she felt like a day’s shopping or an expedition up the coast with her mates. Then she thought that Rosie would have told her what she was up to. Not just to cover in case Frank got in touch, but because she knew Hannah would be worried after what had happened to Mel.

‘Did you see her last night?’ she demanded.

‘No. I met her the day before with the policemen, but not yesterday. My parents were out. I had to look after my sister.’

‘You weren’t at Laura’s party then?’

‘Sorry?’

‘She was at a party last night and she stayed over. She phoned to tell me. Laura’s party.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘I don’t know anyone called Laura.’

‘She’s not one of your friends from school?’

‘No.’

Then she lost control of her body. She still had the towel wrapped round her but she started to shiver.

As if from a distance she heard Joe on the other end of the phone. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I don’t know everyone she does. She phoned you last night and Frank at lunchtime. She must be OK. I’ll call round and ring you back.’

She replaced the receiver and dressed quickly. The shivering didn’t stop. Feeling foolish for not having thought of it sooner, she dialled the number of Rosie’s mobile. She heard her daughter’s voice, delightfully normal, saying she couldn’t come to the phone right now, but she’d return the call as soon as she could. The doorbell rang.