‘MY MOTHER? MY real mother? Yes, I have some memories of her before she gave me up. When I was a child, growing up in St. John’s Wood in that great house, I used to think they were only dreams. But I had them again and again. A woman sitting, dressed in black, always black, in the corner of a wretched cold room, a tiny closet of a room with a solitary bed, watching me, smiling at me, even as she shivered. It was her. I am sure of it.
‘Do you know what else I would dream? That I was locked outside that little room whilst she took men inside. I used to have that dream a good deal, different faces, different men. I did not know what it meant; not at the time. What a fine widowhood, eh? You know, even now, I particularly recall the sound of the bolt being drawn.’
Langley looks away and smiles.
‘Or perhaps it is just my current situation that calls it to mind?’
Annabel Krout puts down her note-book and looks at Richard Langley through the wire mesh that separates them.
‘It is not too late to make your peace with God.’
Langley shakes his head, nodding at some movement in the distance. ‘I made my peace long ago. The warder is coming down the corridor. I think this must be your last visit. I know what day it is tomorrow.’
Annabel pauses, about to say something more, when Langley signals for her to keep silent.
‘No more. They will bury me in the yard with the others. I have already seen the spot – they show it to you on the way to the Bailey. Give Lucy my love; I rather fear for her, you know.’
‘Mr. Langley. Richard, please . . .’
‘I am in the same cell as my father was, do you know that? Put that in your article, Miss Krout. It seems quite apt, somehow, eh? I am sure you will find a publisher.’
Langley motions to the warder behind him. Before Annabel Krout can speak, he is taken back, through the iron-barred door, into the black corridor that leads to his cell.