Michael Fowler - Secret of the Dead

It was always the same at the end of an investigation.

24th December.

Stepping through the last security door into the visiting room of Wakefield Prison, Daniel Weaver unclenched his fists and stuck his hands into his jeans pockets. He paused for a second to check out the room, thinking that he’d never viewed it before from this angle.

The view was much better from this side, he decided.

Then he caught sight of the prisoner he had come to visit. He picked up his step again, passed a couple of tables where felons were engaged in conversations with their loved ones and then plonked himself down on a seat opposite the man.

He never took his eyes from him.

“It’s you,” Peter Blake-Hall said. “I wondered who the fucking smart-arse was who’d given my father’s name on the visiting sheet.”

“Nice little touch, don’t you think?” Daniel studied Peter’s face for a second and then said, “It’s about him I’m here.”

“What the fuck do you mean? What the bloody hell have you got to do with my father?”

“He died here you know, Peter.”

“Yes, I fucking do know he died here. Some cunt slit his throat.”

“But they never found out who’d done that, did they Peter?”

Daniel watched Peter’s expression change,

Daniel pushed himself up. “Well I won’t say it’s been nice visiting you. And before I go, I want to leave you with something. During my time here, all twenty-five years of it, I made a lot of friends, good friends, and each of them know how you stitched me up.” He let his last sentence trail off, and then added, “Oh, and before I go I just want you to know I only have to give the word and I’ll have the best Christmas present ever.”

The flash of panic in Peter Blake-Hall’s eyes brought a smile of satisfaction to Daniel’s face as he straightened his back and turned towards the exit.