Crack Down by Val McDermid
Author:Val McDermid [McDermid, Val]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780007327546
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 1994-08-31T23:00:00+00:00
It was nearly twenty to nine when I abandoned the Peugeot on a double yellow line a couple of streets away from the sprawling court complex round Crown Square. I was cutting it fine, since visiting ended at nine. I’d covered my back by phoning ahead en route from Sheffield, telling the duty inspector I’d been delayed by a puncture but that I would definitely be there within visiting hours. Looking on the bright side, I’d only have been allowed fifteen minutes anyway. I kicked off the tart’s shoes and pulled on the pair of Reeboks I always keep in the car, yanked off the hair band and shook my wavy auburn hair free. I grabbed the plastic bag I’d packed in Richard’s bungalow, then I jogged round to the back of the Magistrates’ Court building.
I slowed down as I entered the covered walkway that cuts into the ground floor of the building, and into the range of the video cameras. I didn’t want to look like I was storming the building. I pressed the door intercom buzzer. ‘Can I help you?’ asked a voice with more static than a taxi radio.
‘I’m here to visit a prisoner. Richard Barclay. I’m his girlfriend,’ I said.
‘Go through the double doors to the lift and press the button for the seventh floor,’ the voice told me as the door buzzed and the lock was released.
The lift door opened on a different world from the spiffy smartness of the courts. No wood panelling or cool marble floors here. The paintwork was chipped and dirty, the floors pocked with cigarette burns, the walls adorned only with anti-crime posters to intimidate the visitors. I was signed in by a cheerful police officer who ushered me into a tiny cubicle, with two low stools bolted to the floor. The cubicle was divided in half by a metal-topped counter beneath a thick perspex screen. On each side of the counter, there was a telephone handset. I stared through the screen. The other side was identical, except that there was no handle on the inside of the door. I could get up and go any time I wanted, but the prisoner didn’t even have that amount of control. I glanced at my watch. It was just after quarter to.
The door opened and Richard walked in, giving a depressing little wave. He sat down, and I found myself noticing all the things I had come to take for granted. The smooth, fluidity of his movements. The way his smile starts on the left side of his mouth before becoming symmetrically cute. I blinked hard and nailed a smile on. His mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear a thing. I picked up the phone, waving at him to do the same thing. ‘I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,’ I heard through the earpiece. It wasn’t an accusation. His voice sounded strange, disembodied but immediate, not like a normal phone conversation.
‘Sorry, but it was your fault I’m so late. I was out there on the mean streets working for you,’ I said with a ghost of our usual sparring.
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