Murder in the Museum

Chapter Twelve

The first thing that hit Jude when Sandy Fairbarns ushered her into the hall was the noise. Then the smoke. Children screamed and shrieked above the low rumble of conversation. There was a crèche area cordoned off in the corner, manned by a couple of inmate orderlies with red armbands, but few of the children were in there playing with the plastic toys. The very tiny ones sat on their mothers’ knees, but all the rest seemed to be rushing round the room making as much noise as they possibly could, while their parents tried to make meaningful contact between their fragmented lives.

The prisoners and their visitors sat in low easy chairs around low tables (low so that nothing could be passed unseen beneath them). Everyone seemed to have a cigarette in his or her mouth – in the case of the prisoners usually a roll-up. Individual plumes of smoke rose up to join the fug which blurred the metal girders of the pitched roof above. The smell of smoke was more powerful than that of male sweat. Jude knew she’d have to change all her clothes when she got home, hang them out in the garden for a long time, and have a bath to get rid of the tang of tobacco.

The weather outside made the space feel even stuffier. As a bass motif under the high-pitched chatter and shrieking, rain drummed on the building’s metal roof.

But the atmosphere inside was quite relaxed. A prison officer by the door was checking Visiting Orders and handbags in a desultory way. Recognizing Sandy, he waved the two of them through.

They looked around. Jude remembered Sandy’s words about the exhausted-looking wives and their finely toned menfolk, and she did see a few examples of that, but the overall impression was not as depressing as she had expected. Beneath the layer of children’s noise, there was quite a lot of laughter. People wandered back and forth to the canteen in the corner, returning with cups of tea, biscuits and chocolate bars. No doubt there were many personal crises being played out in the conversations in the room, but there was very little sign of them on the surface.

Intuitively, Sandy read Jude’s reaction. ‘Like a Sunday afternoon picnic, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘You’d notice a big difference in a closed prison.’

‘Yes, I’ve been in a few.’

Sandy did not follow this up with any enquiry, as most people – certainly Carole – would have done. Again Jude felt the relaxation of being with someone who truly respected her privacy.

‘There he is.’

Jude’s eyes followed the pointing finger. Mervyn Hunter sat alone, uneasily upright on an easy chair, away from the noisy clusters, as near to the wall as he could possibly be.

He sprang up nervously as soon as he saw the two women approaching him. He didn’t look much less nervous when he recognized who they were.

‘Have you really come to see me?’ he asked. His Northern voice was thin and tight, permanently stretched by emotion.

‘Yes,’ said Sandy. ‘Didn’t they tell you?’

‘Well, obviously they told me, because I’m here. But they didn’t tell who it was coming.’

Sandy sighed with exasperation. ‘The communications in this place are absolutely appalling.’

‘At least there is someone,’ said Mervyn Hunter. ‘Blokes in my hut thought I was doing a “moody visit”.’

This prompted a chuckle from Sandy, and Jude looked at her for elucidation.

‘A “moody visit” is a well-known prison scam. Men pretend they’ve got a visitor, so don’t go off on their afternoon’s work duty, but are sent back to their huts to smarten up. Then they stay there all afternoon. Just another way of skiving.’

‘Ah. Thank you.’

‘Look, Jude, I’ve got some stuff to sort out, so I’ll be off.’

‘You’re not leaving me alone with her?’ Mervyn Hunter’s reaction was instinctive, panicked, surprisingly fearful.

Sandy Fairbarns turned back. ‘Yes, I’ve got things to get on with. Jude has come to visit you.’

He slumped back into his chair, and leant his cheek against the wall, as if he wanted to burrow inside it, to disappear. Jude drew up another easy chair to sit in front of him, close enough to be heard, but no closer.

Amidst the raging noise of the hall, there was a long silence between them. Then, slowly, Mervyn Hunter moved his head round to take a quick look at her. When he saw she was looking at him, his gaze flickered away.

‘You don’t mind being alone with me, then?’

Jude shook her head and looked around the room. ‘Hardly alone, are we?’

‘No. You’re never alone in the nick. That’s part of the punishment.’

Again, in the general cacophony, they were a little pool of silence.

‘You don’t get a lot of visitors?’ asked Jude finally.

A twitch of a head-shake. He wouldn’t let his eyes meet hers. ‘No. My family didn’t want to keep in touch after . . . And then of course her family . . . Well, they wouldn’t have come to see me, anyway . . . And other people . . . no. But I manage,’ he concluded with an unsuccessful attempt at bravado.

Jude nodded, and let the stillness around them grow. She didn’t make the mistake of pursuing anything, picking up the hints from his words. If he wanted to tell her anything about his crime, he would do so in his own good time.

‘Reason I’m here,’ she said, ‘is because Sandy asked me to come.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘She thought you were down.’

‘I’m in the nick, aren’t I? Hardly going to be dancing round the room celebrating.’

‘No. Sandy was thinking you seemed able to talk to me in our sessions.’

‘Other blokes there then, aren’t there? Not just two of us.’ Once again he turned his cropped head to the wall, and closed his eyes as though in pain.

‘Mervyn, are you afraid of being alone with a woman?’

A long time elapsed before he replied. Rain drummed relentlessly on the roof. Then, without moving his head or opening his eyes, he said, ‘Wouldn’t be that surprising if I was, would it? Given my history?’

‘I don’t know your history,’ said Jude evenly.

‘You want me to tell you?’ he challenged.

‘That’s entirely up to you.’

He hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. ‘It’s in the papers, if you want to find out. Mervyn Hunter. Wetherby. 1991. You can find it if you’re interested.’

‘I might do that.’

He flashed her a quick look, checking whether he was being sent up, and seemed to relax a bit when he realized he wasn’t.

‘How’re things going up at Bracketts? I heard that was working out quite well for you.’

‘Yes, it was. Thought that might be a way forward. That kind of work. I like the house. I’ve got quite interested in history, read a lot since I’ve been in the nick. And up at Bracketts it’s like . . . well, history’s right there. They’ve got some books about the house in the library there, and sometimes in my lunch break they’d let me go in there and read the stuff. I liked that, learnt a lot.’

‘But the actual work you were doing . . .?’

‘Liked that too. Gardening. I like the gardens up at Bracketts. I used to be . . .’ His mood changed. ‘Wouldn’t imagine they’d want me back there now.’

‘After your confession?’

‘So you know about that. Bet the whole bloody world knows about that now.’

‘But of course you had nothing to do with the crime?’

‘No. As the police made clear to me . . . when they tore me off a strip for wasting their time . . .’ Strong emotion gripped him. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just when I saw the body . . . I feel all this guilt, and I thought maybe there was something else I could be guilty for, and . . .’ He ran out of words.

‘Why did the police let you go so quickly?’

‘Because what I said didn’t stand up. Even the most basic forensic examination had shown that the body was dead long before I was born. They said it was probably buried ninety years ago. Besides . . .’ His voice went very soft, hard to hear in the prevailing clangour ‘ . . . I couldn’t have been the murderer, because it was a man’s body.’

‘And you reckon you’re only a threat to women?’

He nodded, too overcome to speak.

‘That’s why you’re afraid to be alone with a woman?’

Another nod. Then he said bitterly, ‘Perfectly reasonable fear . . . considering what happened last time I was alone with a woman . . .’

‘You don’t seem to be frightened of me, Mervyn.’

‘No,’ he conceded. ‘But you haven’t bossed me around. You haven’t told me what to do . . . yet.’

‘Perhaps I never would.’

‘Oh, no.’ His voice was heavy with irony.

‘Not all women are the same,’ said Jude gently.

‘No, they don’t seem to be the same. They may start out all nice and relaxed. But there comes a point, with all of them, when they start demanding things of you. Expecting things of you. Wanting you to do things.’ He closed his eyes, as if in reactive pain to the strong tremor of emotion that ran through his body.

‘Have you seen a psychologist since you’ve been here at Austen?’ asked Jude.

‘Any number of them.’

‘And do they think you’re a danger to women?’

‘No. But what do they know? Every week you read another case. Some guy’s let out of the nick, every psychologist in the world says he’s no longer a public danger . . . first weekend out, he tops someone.’

‘And you’re afraid you might do the same?’

Another silent, frightened nod, then, after a time, he went on, ‘That’s why I was quite glad when they put me inside. Won’t be a danger any more, I thought. That’s one thing at least I won’t have to worry about. So I haven’t minded being inside. The violence, the bullying, I don’t like that, but at least I’m safe in here . . . and women are safe . . .’

It seemed incongruous to imagine this thin neurotic as a danger to an entire gender, but Jude said nothing and let him ramble on.

‘Most men in here – and in the other nicks before – they can’t wait to get out. All they think about, all they dream about. Me . . . that’s when the pressure’ll really start. When I get out. I won’t trust myself then. It’s less than a year now.’ He emitted a pained little laugh. ‘And I’ve behaved myself. If I’d been a bad prisoner, I’d have to serve my full sentence – might even get it extended. But I’ve been so good, I’ll be out after the minimum tariff. Twelve years, that’s all.’

‘Unless you start misbehaving now,’ Jude suggested light-heartedly, trying to ease the atmosphere.

‘Don’t think I haven’t thought of it! Thought of getting reconvicted for something else.’ He shot her a sharp look, then relaxed a little. ‘I’m here at Austen to “get used to the real world”. I don’t think I’m ever going to fit in the “real world”. It’s too dangerous.’

‘The real world’s too dangerous?’

‘The real world with me in it’s too dangerous.’

‘So you’re afraid that in the real world, when you come out of here, you’ll kill another woman?’

He nodded slowly. ‘Seems logical. That’s why I’m in here, after all. I’ll try not to, I won’t go looking for it. I’ll try never to be alone with a woman, but one day it’s going to happen, isn’t it? By accident. There’ll be me and some woman in a room, and . . .’ Savagely he choked back a sob. ‘It’ll be just like the last time.’

‘Not necessarily.’ Jude used her most healing voice, which had soothed many more troubled than Mervyn Hunter. ‘You’re still full of guilt, and you’re still full of fear. That doesn’t mean—’

But she’d lost him. Abruptly, he rose to his feet. ‘Thank you for coming. It’s very kind of you. But I’m afraid it won’t work. This is my problem. No one else can help me with it.’

And the thin figure in blue denim moved swiftly across the hall to the exit. Jude watched him go, all the way, out into the rain. She saw how carefully, how gently, he stepped around the hurtling children in his way.

And her imagination could not accommodate the idea that Mervyn Hunter would ever be a danger to anyone other than himself.