Alex Gray: Pitch Black

Janis sighed, remembering. They had looked at her with suspicion as if she was some sort of threat. Not to them, but to herself. She had seen the exchanged glances, heard the concern in the nurse’s voice as she asked her, ‘Are you feeling suicidal? Do you feel you might hurt yourself?’ She wanted to say she was feeling just fine, thank you, never better, but as Janis lay there in the darkened cell, she knew that was a lie.

A rasping noise alerted her to the viewing hatch being lifted and she could imagine one eye pressed up against it, checking to see that she was all right. Holding her breath, Janis waited until the square flap was shut once more. They were watching her, waiting for her to make a mistake. But she wouldn’t do that, she couldn’t.

She’d endured the humiliation of being stripped and searched but the journey here had been the worst bit, Janis decided, remembering how she’d sat with knees bent in that dog box. At least they’d taken off the handcuffs once she was in the van, the bus, whatever it was. She couldn’t remember these details. And then there was that other girl travelling with her, talking all the time. Desperate for Janis to answer her back, the girl had rambled on about how the system worked. Janis had pretended to ignore her fellow prisoner, aware of the officer listening to the girl’s voice going on and on. But, as they’d been taken out from the prison transporter, she’d heard a whisper at her back, ‘ Dinna laugh or they’ll think ye’re on drugs. Dinna cry or they’ll think ye’re a psycho .’

The young girl’s words stayed with her now, like a mantra: dinna laugh, dinna cry …

‘Janis Faulkner? Not a lot from background reports, I’m afraid.’ The voice on the telephone sounded slightly apologetic. ‘No criminal record. Very little to go on if her lawyer is looking to plead temporary insanity. But we have been keeping her under observation.’

Detective Chief Inspector Lorimer shook his head. There was something about the woman that troubled him. A plain old fashioned admission of guilt tempered with a good enough reason for her actions was what he was really after, but this strange refusal to speak did smack of something deeper. Was it more than simple shock at seeing a person fall dead at her feet? It was as if she’d reneged on any kind of human communication, the mental health nurse had told him. Maybe she was genuinely unbalanced, but she had driven away, she had taken money out of an ATM as if there had been some calculation in her thoughts and actions. Her psychological assessments were expected later this week. Now, having obtained the necessary permission from the Procurator Fiscal, he was going to drive out to the prison in Stirling to see her once again.

Cornton Vale women’s prison had suffered badly at the hands of the press. A spate of suicides several years back had given the tabloids the opportunity to rubbish the institution and yet there had been several innovative and far-sighted changes over the years. But the institution itself continued to be a target for any adverse comments, with some liberal thinkers even suggesting that a women’s prison was not a requirement of any civilised society. They hadn’t seen the inmates, thought Lorimer. Many of them were in thrall to drugs, had been since late childhood, following a pattern that had become too well established within family circles. Half a century before they’d have been taught to knit at their mammy’s knee, now it was a different sort of needle that took their attention and for some of them the prison was the only place where they could actually come off drugs. The staff included some pretty special people as he knew from his visits; it took a strong heart to cope with the variety of humankind that came and went.

Set in a housing estate on the outskirts of Stirling, one could be forgiven for thinking that this HMI establishment was in fact a continuation of the rows of white, pebble-dashed terraces. Lorimer parked the Lexus and walked back towards the main entrance, ready for the necessary measures that always accompanied such visits.

Janis Faulkner was waiting for him in a little room adjacent to the reception.

‘Janis, this is Detective Chief Inspector Lorimer. He’s the senior investigating officer in your husband’s case.’ The female prison officer made the introductions, her voice gentle, reminding Lorimer of that tone reserved for the bereaved, the grieving, but Janis Faulkner did not look as if it was grief that troubled her. That tense face was closed against something else, Lorimer thought. The female officer sat in a corner, her duty to ensure that the prisoner remained safe from this policeman and his questions. Admittedly, it was pretty unusual for the senior investigating officer in a case to actually visit the prison, but Lorimer felt they saw him as an interloper. That was not how he wanted Janis Faulkner to see him, though why he was so bothered about her opinion he wasn’t entirely certain.

‘Janis?’ he began, bending his head to see beneath the woman’s fringe of fine, blonde hair. It reminded him of a child’s hair and he wanted to touch it, to sweep it from her brow and take that heart-shaped face in his hands and tell her that everything was all right. But years of experience made him resist such impulses, knowing that they came from sheer pity.

She sat staring at the floor, her hands clasped together, unmoving. If there was an expression on that pale face it was impossible to read.

‘Do you remember me?’ Lorimer tried again. ‘I was in Mull, waiting for the ferry as you arrived. Just coming home from my holidays … then we met in Glasgow …’ He tailed off. For an instant her head was raised and a pair of grey eyes regarded him as if from far away. There was a flicker of recognition then the merest nod of her head before she relapsed into her study of the linoleum. Lorimer looked at the prison officer who gave an exaggerated shrug as if to tell him he was wasting his time.

‘Hasn’t your lawyer told you things will be much easier if you write a confession? Pleading guilty when the case comes up for trial can affect the sentence dramatically. Especially for a first offender,’ he wheedled. But the woman made no response at all and Lorimer suppressed a sigh. He’d wondered about her state of mind on the day her husband was killed. She could have been pre-menstrual. There were plenty of cases where women had flipped under a rage of extreme hormones to attack their husbands. And some of them had been given fairly light sentences. Should he mention that yet? Probably not. But he might talk to the psychiatric doctor over in the medical wing. See what she thought.

Lorimer studied the woman in front of him. Her unexpressed misery seemed to fill the room. Could there be any possibility that she was in fact not guilty of this crime?

‘Maybe you can tell us who you think killed Nicko?’ he muttered, his voice barely reaching the officer. Janis Faulkner did not move but Lorimer felt her stiffen and for a few seconds he waited.

‘Janis?’ His voice was gentle, the tone reserved for calming a wild creature that had started from the undergrowth and stood caught between fear and flight. Only there was no flight for this young thing, he thought, unless she had already escaped to some distant place deep within her self. ‘Janis? I’d really like to help you,’ Lorimer said softly, but he sensed that she had left the room already, only her physical presence remained, and that he was speaking to himself.

‘If you change your mind,’ he told her, slipping his card across the dark wooden table that divided them. ‘I can always listen.’

‘We can’t keep the media at bay for ever,’ Ron Clark insisted. ‘There’s going to be a lot of speculation now they know that it’s his wife. Why not simply hold a press conference now and get it over with?’