Cages by David Mark (reading fiction TXT) 📗

‘I’m told that Prison Officer Declan Windsor is in intensive care, Mr Orton,’ she says, still chatty in her manner. ‘I’ve got it on pretty good authority that one inmate went for another and that you stepped in to restrain him. A mini riot followed and Mr Windsor was set upon.’

‘A mini riot? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude but who told you this … in fact, where did you get my number from?’

She ignores the question. ‘It all sounds a horrible experience, Mr Orton. A line or two from yourself to explain how it all felt and then I can leave you in peace.’

‘Whom precisely are you writing this for?’ he asks, still sounding rather foppish. ‘I mean, my days as a rising star are long gone and your Daily Mail readers really won’t give a hoot if some prisoners have had a scrap, even if it is at HMP Holderness. I mean, none of this is news—’

‘I think you’ll find that’s not entirely the case, Mr Orton,’ says Ruth, with a grating note of jolliness in her voice. ‘I’m given to understand that a certain sex offender from the Vulnerable Prisoner wing was allowed access to the class and that he was the intended recipient of the violence. I also understand that he suffered a severe injury by perpetrators as yet unknown. I’m further given to understand that the VP in question was interviewed by two detectives from Humberside Police in connection with a search for human remains currently taking place in a field in North Lincolnshire. You can see why I thought this call was worth making.’

Rufus feels the rain run down his face. Becomes aware of how cold he is. In the space of a few minutes he has gone from dogged investigator to the subject of an unacceptable invasion of his privacy. He feels himself growing angry, even as he tries to put the scrambled fragments of information together. He’d been calling about the piece she wrote on Louisa Defreitas and her murdered father. She had been ringing him in connection with the situation at the prison. Could it be a colossal coincidence or the result of two people pulling the same tangled thread from different directions?

‘I’d love to be of help,’ says Rufus, keeping his tone steady. ‘Obviously I’m in a bit of an unusual situation. Really, the incident you’re asking about was no worse than you’d see in a rugger match. I was barely involved. As to who hurt Mr Cox, I’m in the dark. It was all rather frantic, you see, and—’

‘It was Griffin Cox, then?’ asks Ruth, smoothly. ‘Excellent, thanks. And I’m told it was a stab wound? He was taken to hospital and then returned to the medical wing, is that correct?’

Rufus tries to wrestle the conversation into different waters. ‘I actually checked your name online before I rang back,’ he says, impressed with the lie. ‘You’ve written about a case I have an interest in, as it happens. Walter Defreitas? Killed in Carlisle, years back?’

There’s a brief silence at the other end of the line. ‘Defreitas? Yeah, I wrote what felt like the same story dozens of times when I was still at the News and Star. One of those weird ones that you sense the cops feel pessimistic about from the very start. What’s your interest?’

Rufus pushes his damp hair back from his face. Wishes he’d brought the whisky out with him.

‘Oh, it’s a book I was considering pitching,’ he says, breezily. ‘Trying to get a character right. Young girl, loses her father, tries to make sense of it all but can’t reconcile the daddy she remembers with the truth she discovers. I don’t know if it will come to anything but I like moments of synergy. I saw the piece you wrote for one of the gossip magazines. Louisa’s story.’

‘Oh right,’ says Ruth, enthusiastically. ‘Aye, she owes me a few quid for doing the job of a journalist and PR department in one! Made her sound OK, didn’t I? Wasn’t easy. Creative writing? Jesus, try making Louisa Defreitas sound like anything other than a nightmare.’

‘Oh really?’ asks Rufus, smoothly. ‘She came across as rather sweet. I was thinking of perhaps asking her if we should chat. She could be the clay I bake this particular character from …’

Ruth sucks her teeth as if she has burned herself. ‘Oh no, save yourself. Honestly, she’s not the goody-two-shoes I painted her to be. I’d chatted with her and her mum a few times over the years, just whenever it was a slow news day and I got one of my tame coppers to say they’d found new evidence or were following up interesting leads, that sort of stuff. They were always out for what they could get. To be fair, Walter did leave them in a right pickle but they were better off without him. Reading between the lines, the coppers were never going to bust a gut to catch whoever did him in. He was bad all the way through, and that’s a quote I’d have loved to have used. When I went freelance and I went through a rough patch I called Louisa up to see if she fancied doing a piece about the anniversary of his death or whatever we could rustle up, and she mentioned her mum’s illness in passing, so we cooked up the piece. Fresh angle, and all that. Features editor at the mag took it off me. 50/50 split for Louisa and me. She wasn’t even grateful …’ She drifts off, as if remembering, then comes back with a little laugh. ‘Wow, talk about losing the thread. How did we get onto the Defreitas family?’

‘The art of conversation comes from letting it flow,’ says Rufus, a smile in his voice. ‘Writing dialogue is one of the hardest parts of being a storyteller. You should come to one of my classes