‘I know,’ says Ibrahim, touched.
‘But every session you drag me back in. How would you kill someone, Connie? Can you steal something from a cell, Connie? And now, do you know one of the South Coast’s biggest heroin dealers?’
‘It’s unorthodox, I will grant you that,’ says Ibrahim. ‘I’m sorry.’
Connie waves this away. ‘Doesn’t worry me – stops you being too sanctimonious. I just want you to take a look in the mirror once in a while. You come in here, asking a vulnerable patient about a lowlife criminal and that’s OK. I tell you a story of how I hit someone only once, instead of thirteen or fourteen times, and, I’ll be honest with you, Ibrahim, you didn’t look
‘I accept my flaws,’ says Ibrahim. ‘And if I wasn’t sufficiently impressed by your punching a young woman so hard she had to receive medical attention, then I apologize.’
‘Thank you,’ says Connie. ‘Yes, I know Luca Buttaci. Know who he is.’
‘And would you have a way of getting in contact with him?’
‘I would,’ says Connie. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘We have a lunch invitation for him,’ says Ibrahim.
‘I think he only eats what he kills,’ says Connie.
‘It’s a carvery on a Sunday,’ says Ibrahim. ‘It’s very good. You must come, if they ever release you. And if you promise not to kill Ron. Do you think I might get Luca Buttaci’s number?’
‘Remind me how this is therapy?’ says Connie. ‘You do remember I’m paying you?’
‘Therapy is always a dance,’ says Ibrahim. ‘We must move to the music.’
‘You are so full of it,’ says Connie. ‘It’s lucky I like you. I can’t give you his number, but I can pass on a message. His brother-in-law works here.’
‘In the Prison Service?’
‘I know, they seem so squeaky clean around here, don’t they?’
Ibrahim looks down at his notes. Time to change the subject.
‘Elizabeth wondered if you might have a view about the murder on Saturday?’
Connie breaks off a third finger of KitKat. Out of character – she normally eats two in the session and takes two back to her cell with her. It is Ibrahim’s job to notice things like this.
‘Who was murdered?’ Connie asks.
‘Dominic Holt,’ says Ibrahim. ‘One of the men you told us about. Are you enjoying that KitKat?’
‘Huh,’ says Connie. ‘Comes to us all, I suppose.’
There is a buzz on Ibrahim’s phone. It is common practice to confiscate the phones of all visitors to Darwell Prison, but if you mention Connie’s name they let you keep it. He checks his message. Donna.
‘You have another regular visitor?’ Ibrahim asks.
‘I’ve got a few,’ says Connie. ‘Sports masseur, tarot reader, Spanish tutor.’
‘Woman in her early forties,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Started appearing a few weeks ago?’
Connie shrugs. ‘There’s a florist who comes in from time to time. Cells can get very drab.’
‘I don’t think she’s a florist,’ says Ibrahim.
‘It’s a mystery, then,’ says Connie. ‘Now anything else you need from me, or can we get on with some actual therapy?’
‘You are telling me everything, Connie?’ Ibrahim asks. ‘Everything you know?’
‘You’re the expert,’ says Connie. ‘You tell me.’
Well, we found Kuldesh’s lock-up without a great deal of bother. Don’t get too excited though.
Elizabeth wanted to find it before our ‘summit’. She also wants to pay a visit to SIO Regan tomorrow, I don’t know why, but I shall look forward to finding out.
I say ‘we’ found it. Elizabeth had the bright idea of pretending to be Kuldesh’s widow and turning up at the Fairhaven Council offices.
She gave them the works. Grieving widow, lost the number of the lock-up. Full of family photos and mementos. It took a good five minutes or so, she was really getting into it. Every now and again the woman from Fairhaven Council – she was called Lesley – would nod sympathetically. Elizabeth finished with a flourish, throwing herself on the mercy of Lesley, and of Fairhaven Council, and of the gods themselves.
At which point Lesley nodded sympathetically for a final time, then told her they weren’t allowed to let her know where the lock-up was because of the Data Protection Act.
I had told Elizabeth that would be the case. All the way down in the minibus I’d said, You’re wasting your time, you won’t get anything out of the council. She said, Well, I got Russian nuclear secrets out of the KGB, I think I can probably handle Fairhaven Council. I knew she was wrong, however, and it was nice to see it proved. I even gave Elizabeth my ‘I told you so’ look, which always infuriates her.
So she then pulled my usual party trick of breaking down in tears. More convincing than usual, I’ll give her that, but I could have told her that was useless too. Lesley from Fairhaven Council remained unmoved. At one point she suggested that Elizabeth might like a glass of water, but that is as far as she would bend.
And so I stepped in.
