The prison library appeared to be completely deserted. Bailey stood there, looking around, wondering where the librarian had got to. She wasn’t sitting at her usual position at her desk by the door. She was probably off shelving books somewhere.
Bailey had been to the library a few times before. Inmates were allowed to visit it once a week and borrow up to six books. The selection of books wasn’t great, but the tranquil atmosphere made for a pleasant retreat from everyday prison existence.
She turned her head and jumped in surprise to see the librarian suddenly standing there right next to her. For someone so muscular and bulky, she was remarkably light on her feet.
Her name was Jacqui Sigmundsen and Bailey had learned from other inmates that she was a former biker serving an eighteen-year stretch for armed robbery and murder. Probably in her late forties, her thick arms were etched with tattoos of lightning bolts and daggers which were now starting to blur with age. She peered at Bailey over the top of a pair of half-moon spectacles which seemed incongruous with the rest of her look.
‘Gosh! I didn’t hear you at all,’ said Bailey.
‘On edge, are we?’ said Jacqui in her thick raspy smoker’s voice. ‘I guess everyone is these days, what with everything that’s been going on.’
‘I was wondering if you could help me out.’
At that point, seeing that she had a captive audience, Jacqui held up her hand to signal Bailey’s silence. She opened a small slim volume that she had been holding and began to read aloud from it:
‘Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.’
She closed the volume and raised one eyebrow archly at Bailey.
Bailey wasn’t quite sure how she should respond.
‘Er… that’s nice.’
‘Robert Lovelace. He was an English poet from the seventeenth century. “To Althea, from Prison” is the name of the poem. He wrote it in 1642 while he was imprisoned in London during the English Civil War. Do you understand what he’s saying?’
Bailey hadn’t been expecting an impromptu English examination and certainly not from the likes of Jacqui, but seeing as she needed Jacqui’s assistance today she gamely attempted to play along.
‘It sounds like he’s saying that because his mind is free the walls and the bars can’t imprison him.’
Jacqui nodded, impressed with Bailey’s analysis. ‘Exactly. The poem is a paradox. The imprisoned man is actually free. He’s free to think and dream of anything he wants to. And not only that, he believes that because he’s innocent the prison has actually been transformed into a hermitage – a haven – for him to concentrate on what’s important to him, like his love for the woman Althea to whom he’s dedicated the poem.’
‘Reframing,’ said Bailey. ‘It’s a psychological trick to help you make the best out of a bad situation, to look on the bright side.’
‘This poem has got me through many hard times over the eleven years that I’ve been in here and it’ll get me through many more. I actually know it off by heart. I always find it helps to read it when I’m down. And so should you.’
She offered the book to Bailey.
‘Thanks. But I’m not that into poetry, to be honest with you. I was actually looking for a book in your true crime section.’
Jacqui sighed, a little disappointed. ‘Well, that is the most popular bit of the library. Unsurprisingly. What book are you looking for?’
‘Any book that might have something about the Hairdresser.’
Jacqui nodded. She seemed to know what Bailey was talking about.
‘Follow me.’
Bailey followed her along the aisles to the true crime section.
Jacqui peered over the tops of her half-moon spectacles and scanned the spines of the titles on the shelves.
‘I’ve read almost every book in this library and…’ she reached past Bailey to pull out a small paperback, ‘…I think this should cover what you’re looking for.’ She handed it to Bailey.
It was a dog-eared paperback printed on cheap paper, its black cover embossed with a large silver title that read Cold Cases Vol. 3.
Bailey wasn’t a big reader, but even she could see that this was from the trashier and more salacious end of the true crime spectrum. She flicked through it, pausing briefly at the photo sections – black and white images of blood-spattered crime scenes, discarded murder weapons, body dump sites, smiling graduation photos of unsuspecting victims and the inevitable police mugshots of killers who seemed to carry a universal expression of mild indifference.
She leafed through to the section on the Hairdresser. She began to read to herself. This was exactly what she was looking for.
She glanced up to see that the librarian had disappeared as silently as she had appeared.