The hole was situated above ground. The chambers for solitary were on the same level as the general population. Yet the cells were isolated and the level of silence inside the sector was striking. Haunting for some. Difficult to bear for many. Air was piped in so gently it could not be detected; panicked prisoners often believed they were suffocating. The light was cold, sharp, and could be disorienting over endless hours. Émile Cinq-Mars was admitted to a skinny side room. The door locked behind him. Protocol demanded that he keep a buzzer in hand if he needed help or rescue. He wouldn’t. He put the thing in a pocket.
‘The outfit suits you,’ he said to the woman rising from her bunk. A grey jumpsuit. A prisoner in solitary loses the privilege to wear her own clothes.
‘Think of me as Cinderella after midnight,’ she remarked. ‘I’ll think of you as my wicked stepmother.’
‘Wrong again.’
The two came together in the center of the small room and embraced.
The hug lasted before they split apart.
Then they both sat on the steel bed with the skimpy mattress.
‘You’ve come way up in the world, I see,’ Cinq-Mars mused.
‘You should talk. You’re still slumming.’
‘Can you take this?’
‘You mean the décor? No problem. Sixteen hours more. I can sleep the time away. But, you know, this interruption is welcome.’
‘How’re you doing, Quinn?’ Not a casual question. He meant to probe into her state of affairs, her life lately. They hadn’t seen each other for some time.
Quinn Tanner had started out as a thief dedicated to a life of crime when, twenty years earlier, their paths crossed. She’d been seventeen at the time; Cinq-Mars, thirty. He could not arrest her back then as an adult for burglary and would have lost control of her case booking her as a juvenile. He played it by ear. Eventually, he rescued her from the mob; Quinn saved his life, also. Either or both might have been killed in a skirmish. Each pulled the other through.
She quit her criminal escapades after that close call, grew up, tried school for a while, then traveled, then worked, then did more schooling. A number of career possibilities were open to her, though none had the flare and attraction that robbery had held for her. She finally conceded to her penchant for raw adventure – of the type she pursued as a thief, and of the type introduced to her by Cinq-Mars when he was battling the mob. Intervening on her behalf, Cinq-Mars helped her to join the Montreal Police Service.
She was entering the Joliette Institution for Women under her old guise, as a chronic thief, when really Cinq-Mars had conscripted her with the acquiescence of the warden and the Montreal Police Service to be his eyes and ears on the inside. With the death of a guard the night before, the duty was abruptly more complex and dangerous than first thought. He was visiting her in solitary to consult but also to let her know how the matter had changed.
‘You’re pulling my leg,’ she said, stunned by the news.
‘Hardly.’
‘A guard’s dead, too?’
They sat silently under the solemnity of that news. Cinq-Mars suggested, ‘We can call it off.’
‘Sure. Send me back to traffic patrol.’
‘Is that where you’ve been keeping? Traffic?’
‘A bigger punishment than solitary, let me tell you.’
‘Official punishment?’
‘I might’ve, you know, pissed someone off, like royally. I’m not much of an underling it turns out.’
Cinq-Mars laughed. So did she.
Quinn Tanner arrived at Joliette with only the warden knowing the story. She purposefully contrived to tick off the guard on duty to draw her stint in solitary. Her way to both make her mark within the community and to initiate private and secret contact with Émile Cinq-Mars.
‘Wits’ end, boss. This is like Disneyland compared to traffic. Thrilled to get the call, not only because it was you. My boss was sure pissed. I liked that, too.’
He filled her in on his conversations. He had no conclusions to proffer except that Abigail was under scrutiny by a variety of forces: money talks, and she was sitting on a chatty Fort Knox. ‘Trust no one on anything but especially not on that. Biker or cop, warden or inmate, money warps light. I swear, money is like a planet weighing down the time-space continuum.’
He seemed strangely angry to her. Unlike him to be that way. ‘I know it’s your thing, Émile, but how about you spare me the cosmological analogies.’
‘Why do you think I brought you in here? Precisely so I could bend your ear with a few cosmological analogies.’
She put her dukes up to feign boxing him. They were both enjoying the other’s company.
‘I have a new girlfriend,’ he confided. ‘I think.’
‘Émile! About effing time! Oh God, don’t tell me she’s an inmate.’
‘Worse. She’s an American who’s nineteen years younger.’
‘Than me?’
‘No, stupid, than me.’
‘Which still makes her younger than me. Whoa, Émile, what are you doing?’
‘I don’t know. Not sure I have much choice. What about you, romance-wise? Last time we talked, it was another break-up.’
‘You’re hoping I’m off your list? I’m off your list. He’s a prosecutor who might be heading for private practice soon.’
‘A handsome devil?’
‘He’s so effing hot. Our children, if that happens – I’m running out of time – will be so freaking gorgeous, Émile, it’s insane. So, how do I get to live long enough to have kids?’
An ex-thief, Quinn was also the daughter of a reformed safe-cracker. She’d mingled with the nefarious and tangled with evil. She wouldn’t have to fake it too much within the prison population, although she’d be judged constantly and everyone would be suspicious. She and Émile concocted a history where she’d been a model prisoner briefly in Alberta, where no one in her group had ever resided, and before that she’d been clever enough to stay out of jail. So – an experienced crook, but with no hard time as a convict. That should cover her tracks. As well, her evident intelligence might draw Abigail towards her.
‘Abigail and a First Nations woman, Rozlynn, are close pals,’ Cinq-Mars let her know. ‘Try to get along with Rozlynn. Age-wise, you’re between the older and younger ones, maybe you can get along with both.’
‘Or neither. Should I pick a fight? For appearances?’
‘With care. Nothing to suggest in that regard. I’m going hard on everyone very soon to see who’s breakable. What I don’t get to observe is how they recover once they return to their bunks and hang out with the other inmates again. Keep an eye peeled on that. Who talks to who when they’re pissed off? Who retreats? Each of them has gone off the handle in their lives. That could happen again, so take care.’
‘Great. You’ll crank up violent personalities and leave me to be their punching-bag. I like this gig, Émile.’
‘I knew you would. Really, you can thank me later.’
‘Yeah. If there is a later.’
They laughed lightly, but each knew the situation was dicey and possibly dire.