‘Five minutes, Ryan, and I’ll be back to walk you out.’
Lisa, the prison officer who’ll be escorting me, taps on the open cell door, and I grin and nod. I’m almost ready – I’m just shoving the last of my belongings into a black holdall. My books, including those from the course I’ve just finished, my toiletries, a few clothes. There’s not much, but it feels strangely liberating to be leaving here with so little, to be given the opportunity to start afresh. A new career, a new life, a new me.
I can’t quite believe the events of the past few weeks. I can’t believe I’m minutes away from leaving this place, from walking away and never coming back. They did it. They really did it. In the end it was much, much worse for Heather than I feared it would be – she’s told me everything now, including the things Jack made her do. He nearly killed her, on that last day, and I will never be able to thank her enough. All of them. Heather and Nathan and Johnny and… I feel a twinge of sadness, even though I never met the woman. Felicity. Jack’s final victim.
I’ve already said my goodbyes to the friends I’ve made here. It was particularly hard taking my leave of Stacey. She sobbed as she hugged me, and I promised I’d be back to visit as soon as I could. She’s gone to the gym now; she told me she doesn’t want to be here when I walk out of ‘our gaff’, as she calls it, for the last time. As I close my bag, pushing with one hand on a trainer that’s protruding from the opening as I yank on the zip with the other, I smile as I remember some of our silliness in this grim little space. I’ll miss her, I really will. But I need to go now, because I have things I need to do. Urgent things.
The relief of my conviction being quashed is still overwhelming. Even I had doubts; there were moments when I was feeling very, very low, and even I wondered. I wondered if I might be capable of doing what they said I did, if there was something deeply wrong with me. And then, a few days ago, the relief was tempered with distress and fury when Heather finally told me something she’d been keeping from me for a little while now, aghast about it herself and fearful of my reaction.
Jack Shannon has been released on bail.
Heather told me the FLO assigned to the case came round to her flat looking very ill at ease, and tried to explain that it didn’t often happen when someone’s been charged with murder, but that now and again, in exceptional circumstances, bail is granted.
‘Exceptional frigging circumstances of having friends in high places,’ she spat into the phone when she told me. His legal team are, it seems, citing his daylight phobia, saying that as the prison he was being held on remand in after his initial Magistrate’s Court appearance didn’t seem to be able to accommodate his need to stay up all night and sleep all day, his being there was ‘too damaging for his mental health’, and there was a danger of him becoming too unwell to appear in court for his sentencing, unless he was allowed to return home until that date.
‘Apparently, if the court’s satisfied there’s no significant risk he’ll cause physical or mental injury to anyone, and he can meet various other conditions, off he goes, and so he did,’ Heather told me, the anger in her voice vibrating in my ear. ‘His passport’s been taken from him, he’s wearing a tag, and he’s got to stay at his home address, but seriously, I can’t believe this. He’s a murderer, and he can go out! I mean, only to the office to wrap things up there and to visit his solicitors, who I presume must be giving him night-time appointments, but still. Normally criminals who are tagged have a curfew and have to stay at home from 7pm to 7am, or something like that. They’ve reversed it for him. You couldn’t make it up. It’s a joke!’
We know now why Jack lives in the dark. In what I’m sure is an attempt to go for the sympathy vote, he told the police about a childhood trauma he experienced on a sunny day, and they passed the information on to us. We don’t know how to feel about that, but we’re still angry that he seems to be getting preferential treatment. Heather tried to put on a brave face, telling me it sucked but it won’t be for long, and that everyone’s pretty sure he’s going to get a long, long prison sentence – a life sentence, like the one I got. Only, I’m not so certain about that. He’ll milk it all in mitigation; his childhood, his phobia. He’ll use all his charm and all his wiles. Jack Shannon is smart, so smart, and that, combined with the people he knows, the contacts he has… I think he might get away with it, or at least some of it. And that can’t happen. It can’t.
‘Ready? Let’s get you out of here!’
Lisa’s back at my door, gesturing towards the corridor. I smile, and bend to pick up my bag, shrugging it onto my shoulder. I take one last slow look around the cell. Time to leave. Time to get back into the real world. Time to see Heather’s smiling face out there in the sunshine.
‘Ready,’ I say. ‘Prisoner number A6868RX is leaving the building.’