Michael could see the corner of the prison hospital wing from his window. If he leaned at an angle he could see an overflow pipe with a green algae stain spreading down the wall. His deceptively spacious, six square metre accommodation contained a bed for himself and a bed for his cellmate – he gave an involuntary shiver – two chairs, a table, two cupboards. It was… sufficient. He even had a number. He was a number. VN1692F was code for who he was, for who he had become.
He sat heavily on his bed. He had no idea there were so many minutes in the day. He’d just got back from recreation – he walked round three sides of the yard rather than go straight across the middle in order not to make himself too visible. The kangas checked him regularly and he wondered if they considered him a suicide risk; they had taken his shoelaces and belt as a matter of course, although it crossed his mind that they might be checking to see if Laroche had eaten him alive.
He wouldn’t though – kill himself – even if he could, because of his daughter, Delphine. If he sat very still and closed his eyes and listened out he could almost catch a glimpse of her. It was never so much as seeing her in motion; it was more like a collage of all the photographs he’d ever taken of her. The spritz of her unbrushed hair. Her sturdy little body. Her telegraphic smile. The grubby tide line round her neck – more than that, the particular, unmistakable texture of her skin. His arms felt empty of her. The one measly phone call they were allowed each week was nowhere near enough. Yesterday morning, he couldn’t recall the sound of her laugh and that made him sad for the rest of the day. On the whole, trying to picture her feature by feature (and failing sometimes) was easier than trying to picture how she would be managing at her grandmother’s, without him. It was also much, much easier than thinking about Charlotte. He drew a shaky breath. There was altogether too much time to think.
The door flung open and Laroche loped in. There was an etiquette, Michael was learning, which meant that you didn’t speak until the door had been closed and the key turned and withdrawn.
They waited.
“Woss up?” Laroche slung himself on his bed. His head was shaved so that you could see the scars on his scalp, even the stitch marks. He had red-rimmed eyes and pale lashes. “Wotch you looking at, you Rosbif ponce?”
Michael tried to overcome his automatic recoil. “Nothing, I wasn’t–” He had been staring at Laroche’s arm. “–looking.” His cellmate was skinny and his arms were thin, with corded, brutal muscle. Amongst the badly done tattoos and the faded striae of teenage cutting, he was trying to discern if there were needle marks. It was a way of rationalising his own absolute terror: working out just how scared he needed to be. “How was your meeting?” he asked, because sometimes – now – conversation felt safer than silence. “With your lawyer?”
Laroche hawked, then rolled the phlegm around his mouth, giving his jaw a workout. “S’alright.” He afforded him an idle, appraising glance, and swallowed. “You interested are you, then?”
Michael had an interest, for research purposes, for reconnaissance. Know thine enemy…
“Armed robbery, second offence, not looking good. Thass what he said. If you want to know.” He let his head fall to one side, the better to study Michael. “Not in your league, though. Not a wife killer, like you.”
~~~
He felt more secure in the cell, with only one of the lags to keep his eye on. On the way to the canteen Laroche remarked, as if resuming an earlier conversation, “– though you don’t look as though you could hurt even a tiny little fly. Wanna know something?”
Michael couldn’t get used to the white ceramic brightness of the hallways: floor to ceiling tiles that could be easily hosed of thrown food, or vomit, or blood. He couldn’t get used to the netting strung between the walkways to catch the jumpers, or the pushed, although he thought that Delphine might quite like a jump in them and tried to imagine her bounding and rebounding, joyously, to take his mind off – all of it.
“Chapot has opened a book on you. You didn’t know that, did you?”
“Chapot?” said Michael, looking behind him.
“Fifty euros says Joubert will get medieval with you by the end of the month. You didn’t know that, did you? Did you? Well, you know now.”
“Which one’s Chapot?”
Laroche shook his head. “You gotta man up, dude, that’s what you gotta do. Joubert fucking hates wife killers. Which is strange, when you think about it, because he’s in here on suspicion of killing his own.”
Michael hesitated. “What is… ‘get medieval’ – exactly?”
“Shit man, you don’t stand a chance.”
~~~
“Your father has been in touch. He wanted to be sure you had everything you needed,” said his lawyer.
Michael couldn’t help noticing that the view from meeting room three didn’t involve any part of the hospital wing. He let his eyes rest on the distant dome of the Paris Observatory. He’d wondered if the letter to his father had been a mistake as soon as he had written it. He felt some primal need to tell one of his own people, a kind of filial reflex – Dad! Dad! – that he regretted almost immediately.
“Monsieur Aylesford asked if it would be possible to see the statement you made to the police. I said I needed authorisation from you before I could release a copy. Michael–?”
“Sorry? I’m sorry. I was…” He glanced round as though he had only just realized his avocat was in the room with him. “Sorry?”
“Your statement. Your father was wondering if he could–” The avocat had a provincial look to her: beige mac folded over the back of her chair, tailored skirt, pastel, floral blouse. She was doing her job. She was trying to help him. She bit her lip. “OK,” she said, changing tack. He wondered if she found him difficult. He didn’t mean to be. “We need to talk about your plea. As your representative, I urge you strongly to reconsider. A guilty plea is not the solution here. We can make a case. If nothing else, you need to think about your little daughter.”
“OK, OK–” he interrupted. “My father can see my statement. That’s OK. But I won’t change my plea. End of.”
“You’ll get less than twenty years, but not much less. That’s what you’re looking at. You need to think about it very carefully.”
“I have thought about it…”
“It’s your decision. I can only advise you.”
Michael’s gaze was drawn back to the horizon. The woman began closing her laptop; he heard the slow electric sigh of it shutting down.
“Your father also asked if he might see Delphine – would you have any objections?”
“Objections?” The note of incredulity in his own voice silenced him.
When Charlotte had gone into labour, his father had turned up at the hospital.
“It’s a girl,” he breathed, “A baby girl.”
“That’s wonderful…”
“She weighs three point two kilograms and she’s got brown hair, a little quiff of it, and she’s doing fine…”
“How is Charlotte?”
Michael hesitated. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “She’s had a rough time of it.”
“I’ve bought her these. It’s all I could find. I didn’t want to come empty-handed. I’ll get her something proper tomorrow–”
Michael regarded the tired yellow carnations. He bowed his head. There was no way round it. “She doesn’t want to see you, Dad.”
“Oh.” His dad’s hand, holding the flowers, dropped to his side. “Well, of course, if she’s not up to it, I’ll pop back – tomorrow. I could come in the morning. I’ll pop back then…”
“She won’t see you. She doesn’t want to.”
For several seconds Colin stared at the floor, at the fake grain of the linoleum. “Right,” he said in the end.
“I could bring Delphine out to see you…”
“Delphine?”
“We’re calling her Delphine.” He hesitated. “If you like I could…”
His father stood there in the corridor, the rusting smell of staunched blood overlaid with disinfectant. He seemed heavy with questions he hardly knew how to frame. “Look,” he held out his hand to articulate what he was trying to say; the gesture seemed wretched.
Michael took a step back, glancing over his shoulder at the entrance to the ward.
“Can’t we–?”Colin broke off. He shoved the flowers at his son. “Actually, I wouldn’t want to disturb her – them, I mean. Give these to her for me, will you? Tell her I–”
Michael could feel the scarlet stain of hurt and disappointment burn his face.
“Better this way. You know. For the time being…”
The time being lasted nine long years, years in which neither of them could quite get over themselves. Colin had never met his granddaughter. Delphine had never seen her grandpa. Looking back was like staring down the wrong end of a telescope at two tiny figures moving awkwardly through their own, small tragedy, reduced in size to almost nothing now, to almost nothing.
“Well?” the lawyer repeated.
“No,” he said, finally “I don’t have any objections, if her grandmother agrees.”
The avocat rose to her feet and as she turned to put her coat on, she let slip her supplementary question. “Your father has asked if he may visit you. I need to know. He will have to be put on an approved list.”
Michael flinched. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m just not up to it,” he said.
The woman shrugged and rapped on the door for the warder. He waited until she had gone and the door had been closed behind her, until the key had been turned and withdrawn.
Then he buried his face in his hands.