Ken Follett - the Third Twin (1996)

The turnkey grinned. “If he’s so smart, how come he’s in here?”

They both laughed. Steve made a mental note not to tell cops, in the future, when he had second-guessed them. It was a failing of his: he had antagonized his schoolteachers the same way. Nobody liked a wise guy.

The cop called Spike was small and wiry, with gray hair and a little mustache. He had a perky air but there was a cold look in his eyes. He opened a steel door. “You coming through to the cells, Mish?” he said. “I got to ask you to check your weapon if so.”

“No, I’m finished with him for now,” she said. “He’ll be in a lineup later.” She turned and left.

“This way, boy,” the turnkey said to Steve.

He went through the door.

He was in the cell block. The walls and floor were the same muddy color. Steve thought the elevator had stopped at the second floor, but there were no windows, and he felt as if he were in a cavern deep underground and it would take him a long time to climb back to the surface.

In a little anteroom was a desk and a camera on a stand. Spike took a form from a pigeonhole. Reading it upside down, Steve saw it was headed

POLICE DEPARTMENT

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

PRISONER ACTIVITY REPORT FORM 92/12

The man took the cap off a ballpoint pen and began to fill out the form.

When it was done he pointed to a spot on the ground and said: “Stand right there.”

Steve stood in front of the camera. Spike pressed a button and there was a flash.

‘Turn sideways.”

There was another flash.

Next Spike took out a square card printed in pink ink and headed

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION,

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

WASHINGTON, DC 20537

Spike inked Steve’s fingers and thumbs on a pad then pressed them to squares on the card marked 1.R.THUMB, 2.R.INDEX, and so on. Steve noticed that Spike, though a small man, had big hands with prominent veins. As he did so, Spike said conversationally: “We have a new Central Booking Facility over at the city jail on Greenmount Avenue, and they have a computer that takes your prints without ink. It’s like a big photocopy machine: you just press your hands on the glass. But down here we’re still using the dirty old system.”

Steve realized he was beginning to feel ashamed, even though he had not committed a crime. It was partly the grim surroundings, but mainly the feeling of powerlessness. Ever since the cops burst out of the patrol car outside Jeannie’s house, he had been moved around like a piece of meat, with no control over himself. It brought a man’s self-esteem down fast.

When his fingerprints were done he was allowed to wash his hands.

“Permit me to show you to your suite,” Spike said jovially.

He led Steve down the corridor with cells to the left and right. Each cell was roughly square. On the side that gave on to the corridor there was no wall, just bars, so that every square inch of the cell was clearly visible from outside. Through the bars Steve could see that each cell had a metal bunk fixed to the wall and a stainless-steel toilet and washbasin. The walls and bunks were painted orange brown and covered with graffiti. The toilets had no lids. In three or four of the cells a man lay listlessly on the bunk, but most of them were empty. “Monday’s a quiet day here at the Lafayette Street Holiday Inn,” Spike joked.

Steve could not have laughed to save his life.

Spike stopped in front of an empty cell. Steve stared inside as the cop unlocked the door. There was no privacy. Steve realized that if he needed to use the toilet he would have to do it in full view of anyone, man or woman, who happened to be walking along the corridor. Somehow that was more humiliating than anything else.

Spike opened a gate in the bars and ushered Steve inside. The gate crashed shut and Spike locked it.

Steve sat on the bunk. “Jesus Christ almighty, what a place,” he said.

“You get used to it,” Spike said cheerfully, and he went away.

A minute later he came back carrying a Styrofoam package. “I got a dinner left,” he said. “Fried chicken. You want some?”

Steve looked at the package, then at the open toilet, and shook his head. “Thanks all the same,” he said. “I guess I’m not hungry.”

10

BERRINGTON ORDERED CHAMPAGNE.

Jeannie would have liked a good slug of Stolichnaya on the rocks, after the kind of day she had had, but drinking hard liquor was no way to impress an employer, and she decided to keep her desire to herself.

Champagne meant romance. On previous occasions when they had met socially he had been charming rather than amorous. Was he now going to make a pass at her? It made her uneasy. She had never met a man who could take rejection with good grace. And this man was her boss.

She did not tell him about Steve, either. She was on the point of doing so several times during their dinner, but something held her back. If, against all her expectations, Steve did turn out to be a criminal, her theory would start to look shaky. But she did not like to anticipate bad news. Before it was proved she would not foster doubts. And she felt sure it would all turn out to be an appalling mistake.

She had talked to Lisa. “They’ve arrested Brad Pitt!” she had said. Lisa was horrified to think that the man had spent the entire day at Nut House, her place of work, and that Jeannie had been on the point of taking him into her home. Jeannie had explained that she was sure Steve was not really the perpetrator. Later she realized she probably should not have made the call: it might be construed as interfering with a witness. Not that it would make any real difference. Lisa would look at a row of young white men, and either she would see the man who raped her or she would not. It was not the kind of thing she would make a mistake about.

Jeannie had also spoken to her mother. Patty had been there today, with her three sons, and Mom talked animatedly about how the boys had raced around the corridors of the home. Mercifully, she seemed to have forgotten that it was only yesterday she had moved into Bella Vista. She talked as if she had lived there for years and reproached Jeannie for not visiting more often. After the conversation Jeannie felt a little better about her mother.

“How was the sea bass?” Berrington said, interrupting her thoughts.

“Delicious. Very delicate.”

He smoothed his eyebrows with the tip of his right index finger. For some reason the gesture struck her as self-congratulatory. “Now I’m going to ask you a question, and you have to answer honestly.” He smiled, so that she would not take him too seriously.

“Okay.”

“Do you like dessert?”

“Yes. Do you take me for the kind of woman who would pretend about a thing like that?”

He shook his head. “I guess there’s not much you do pretend about.”

“Not enough, probably. I have been called tactless.”

“Your worst failing?”

“I could probably do better if I thought about it. What’s your worst failing?”

Berrington answered without hesitation. “Falling in love.”

“That’s a failing?”

“It is if you do it too often.”

“Or with more than one person at a time, I guess.”

“Maybe I should write to Lorraine Logan and ask her advice.”

Jeannie laughed, but she did not want the conversation to get onto Steven. “Who’s your favorite painter?” she said.

“See if you can guess.”

Berrington was a superpatriot, so he must be sentimental, she figured. “Norman Rockwell?”

“Certainly not!” He seemed genuinely horrified. “A vulgar illustrator! No, if I could afford to collect paintings I’d buy American Impressionists. John Henry Twachtman’s winter landscapes. I’d love to own The White Bridge. What about you?”